The Grand IllusionBy BRENT SILBY

Learning Advisor in PhilosophyUnlimited (UPT)Christchurch, New ZealandMagic fascinates us. Good magicians take us on journeys of wonder andmystery, convincing us that the impossible

can

happen. We find it easy to goalong for the ride, temporarily suspending our skepticism and allowing themagician to create worlds of fantasy right before our eyes. Some people leavethe show convinced that the magic is real and that somehow the magician hasaccess to mystical powers that are off-limits to the rest of us mere mortals.Carefully crafted magic is designed to make people feel this way. It’s part of the illusion. Of course, most people leave the show knowing that the magicianhas created and performed these illusions with the intention of making usbelieve that magic is real. And in a way, this knowledge is part of the fun.Simply accepting that magic is real has a limited entertainment value. It is farmore interesting to contemplate the fact that these illusions look

as if

magicexists when we

know

that it doesn’t. And many of us go a step further. It is notenough to know that these are tricks—we want to know

how

the tricks work.What mechanisms are hidden behind the scenes? How are the illusionsperpetrated? Could I perform the same tricks? Of course, the magician issworn to secrecy and will never divulge the intricacies of his illusions. This isfair enough. After all, there would be no magic if every magician revealed theirsecrets. Some people are happy to put the question to rest right there. Forthese people, not knowing how the magic works helps maintain a little mysteryin their otherwise mundane, mechanical lives. But for others, this isunsatisfactory. We have a drive; an urge; an insatiable desire to find out how

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the illusions work, and when we figure one out we feel a sense of relievedsatisfaction. Our human curiosity compels us to figure things out. Ultimatelywe are not content living in a world of magic. We need to know how it allworks.Until relatively recently the question of life on Earth was stuck firmly in therealm of magic and mystery. Before the time of Charles Darwin, peoplebelieved that God had created the world and that we humans were somehowspecial—separate from the natural world. People believed that humans, havingbeen created in God’s image, were more closely related to God than to theanimal kingdom. We are, after-all, intelligent, and we can reason in Godlikeways, which is something that animals cannot do. No-one had ever seriouslyconsidered the proposition that we are related to animals and most peoplebelieved that the world had only existed for around 7000 years—a comfortabletime-scale that fits in with biblical references. Now, this explanation relies onthe existence of God, the grand magician who, through the use of hissupernatural powers, created the world and all the wonderful diversity of lifewe see today. This belief persists in some circles and has been labeled

Intelligent Design

, though more traditionally the belief is known as

Creationism

. Unfortunately, there is a problem with the creationist picture of the world. The problem is that it attempts to explain the sophistication andcomplexity we see in the world by referring to something more sophisticatedand complex. Ultimately this is unsatisfactory because it simply shifts theproblem to another level and leaves unanswered questions about the nature of God. Take God out of the picture and the magic falls to pieces.What we need is another way to look at the question of life on Earth—a way toexplain the sophistication and complexity of life without appealing to morecomplex entities. Fortunately, Charles Darwin was able to provide just such analternative. He developed an explanation for how complexity can arise througha basic, unintelligent process. This was a revolution. Darwin’s remarkableinsight was the realization that the complexity and variation of life on Earth

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can be explained by a gradual process of modification and descent. Essentially,evolution by natural selection explains the existence of complex forms of lifeby breaking the problem into an easy to understand step-by-step mechanism.The illusion of Intelligent Design worked in the past partly because we only hadaccess to a very small snapshot of time. We had no way to look back intoEarth’s deep history, so we assumed that everything that currently exists wascreated at the beginning of time. Furthermore, the illusion convinced us thatthe beginning of time was around 7000 years ago. Now, one way to reveal thesecret of magic is to peak behind the curtain and take a sneaky look backstage. Thanks to the geological discovery of deep-time, we have now had aglimpse behind the scenes. We have found evidence of massive geologicalchange, along with an immense fossil record demonstrating the existence of aplethora of species that had long ago become extinct. The astronomicaldiscovery of cosmic background radiation, and Charles Darwin’s discovery of Evolution has revealed more of the magic, allowing us to look beneath thestage and directly into the magician’s hidden box of tricks, truly exposing thetruth behind the magic of life. We now have a vastly different world-view tothat of our ancestors. We know that the universe is around 13 billion years oldand that Earth first formed around 4.5 billion years ago. We have reason tobelieve that life originated on Earth approximately 3.5 billion years ago, andthat Homo-sapiens (modern humans) first appeared around 100,000 yearsago. We understand that humans are biologically very similar to other animals,and that the only real difference between us and the rest of life on Earth is ourcomplex mind.It is difficult to fully appreciate the time-scale involved in the evolution of life.Our lives revolve around timeframes of days and months—perhaps a few years—and we have knowledge of recorded history which dates back a couple of thousand years. A million years is very difficult to conceptualize. One way toform an impression of the timeframe involved in evolution is to represent thehistory of life visually. Think of a city that is 350 kilometers away from where

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