On the Evolutionary Road to Damascus

On the Evolutionary Road to Damascus - 1

My original blog at Nature Network is due to disappear fairly soon, so I thought I would bring back one or two old posts. This week I am re-visiting a brief series of posts on evolution and the alternatives from 2008:

I quite often get emails and letters from readers of my books, and recently was contacted by someone who I shall call Sandy (because that's his name). He had one or two questions about my book on quantum entanglement - The God Effect which I was pleased to answer.

At the end of our short discussion, because of the 'God' word in the title he asked me about my religious beliefs and went on to offer me a book exploring the arguments for intelligent design. In the end, he very generously sent me two books and a DVD.

What I'd like to do in this short series of blog entries is explore whether reading these books and watching the DVD has any effect on my attitude to evolution and intelligent design. If my mind is changed, I want to share the experience, and ask for words of wisdom from those who know more about these matters than me. If my mind isn't changed, that too shall go on record.

To set the scene, I am someone whose opinion can be swayed by argument - for example, I've voted for all three major parties in the UK in my time. Religiously, I'm neither an atheist nor a fundamentalist believer in any of the religions. Scientifically I am currently of the opinion that evolution is sufficient to explain what we see out there without resorting to intelligent design. So here we go. Fasten your seatbelts.

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