To the lady who, earlier today at Moe's, said, "That didn't come from an explosion," allow me to first restate what you said, and then respond.
First, I share your awe at the intricacies of the human body and your amazement at how well everything works together. I too am floored by the complexity, beauty, and design of many multi-cellular systems. It still evokes wonder from me to think how this amount of biological complexity came about. That said, and maybe I will not be fair in this summation but, here's what it sounds like you're saying: a) the big bang is a proposed explanation for biological complexity, b) as such, it is insufficient, and/or c) god is a more reasonable/likely explanation.
Some questioning on my part may have clarified what you meant but, having been in this circle before I knew this conversation was unwelcome, which is my first point. If you don't want to have the conversation, don't start it. I'm partly to blame really. If it were more apparent that I am not a member of the echo-chamber, maybe this utterance would have been more couched.
The next thing that strikes me about this statement is the fact that it is a straw-man. A humbler person may have instead asked, "Who is it that says that complex biological systems are the result of an explosion," and/or, "What do they mean and, why would they say that?". It is these proxy questions I want to turn to first because I think it will help. To the first, not really anyone. What's known as the big bang theory, in short, is a scientific answer to the question, what was the universe like when it was only a fraction of a fraction of a second old, and the subsequent minutes and hours and so on. A reminder, the big bang theory is not an attempt to explain where the universe came from. The underlined is not a logical or meaningful thing to try and explain. As for the science behind the big bang I'll have to leave that for another post, this is already getting longer than I intended, but, as one can see, the big bang theory is not a direct explanation of biological complexity.
So what does best account for biological complexity? By your statement I would gather that you are incredulous that anything we understand with science could come close to providing a satisfactory explanation. The irony is that the explanation that seems to work for you is, "god did it." Look, we have mapped the human genome. We know beyond a reasonable doubt the kinship between ourselves and chimps, ourselves and fish, and even ourselves and fungi. We can trace our family tree all the way back to single-celled organisms. We know beyond a reasonable doubt what the mechanisms of speciation are. I recommend talkorigins.org as a good starting place. How did life form from non-life? That's an interesting question that has nothing at all to do with the big bang theory.
Lastly, if god is supposed to be some better explanation, what explains the complexity of god? Surely complexity like that can't just happen without some guiding hand or force. Attempting to explain away complexity by introducing something more complex just gets you into an infinite regression of impossibly more complex things. It is therefore useless as an explanation.
Yours truly,
E
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My take-away from all this, let ridiculousness solicit laughter (then refer them to your blog). :p
