Various Opinions on Intelligent Design

The following evening is Film Club night at RIAUS. The VeloDrone and Le Bon David are going. Professor Freud joins them at the bar. They buy drinks. They sit down.

The film is A Flock of Dodos, made by marine biologist Randy Olsen, examining Intelligent Design. Randy Olsen has interviewed scientists and creationists and even his own mother, whose name is Muffy Moose. Everyone in the film is presented as equally quirky.

In the end Randy Olsen sides with the scientists against the supporters of Intelligent Design. You know this, not just because he says so, but because at the end of the film he shows unreleased material in which the Intelligent Designers say things that make them look careless or wrong.

That was mean, observes The Velodrone. That bit at the end. It can hardly be called unreleased material.

Oh who cares! says Le Bon David. I'm all for for the scientists, not the believers in God.

If God did not exist, says The Velodrone, we would need to invent him.

Very good, laughs Professor Freud. Though I've heard it before.

It's mine, says The VeloDrone. I said it first. But of course, I said it in French.

It sounds even better in French, says Le Bon David. Si Dieu n'existait pas, il faudrait l'inventer.

Mmmhmm, says Freud. That's strong stuff.

Not really, says The VeloDrone. When I first said it,  I was replying to some atheists. It was meant as a mild rebuke.

Good heavens! says Freud. A mild rebuke. I see you like having it both ways.

Ahem, says The Velodrone. As you wish.

And what is your opinion of the Flock of Dodos, Professor Freud? asks Le Bon David.

Freud considers a moment.

Rich pickings for a psychoanalyst, he says.

Those Intelligent Designers, you mean? says Le Bon David.

No, says Freud, I was thinking particularly of 'Randy', and his mother 'Muffy Moose'.