Nonfiction | September 01, 1988
Looking For God's Footprints
James Gleick
This story is not currently available online.
Sure, it’s easy to make fun. Our planet flies through space more smoothly than any airplane, covered with water yet never spilling a drop, so it must have had a Designer. Our eyes display too complex an architecture to be reached by random mutations, so they must have had a Biological Engineer. Our atmosphere contains just enough oxygen, just enough carbon to support life, so it must have had an Environmental Consultant. New York City offers a brilliantly conceived breeding ground for cockroaches; surely, therefore, we can deduce the existence of a cockroach diety. The so called argument from design–from design, that is, to the existence of God, had barely been thought up before it was being satirized, and you can’t always tell the serious versions from the parodies.
If you are a student, faculty member, or staff member at an institution whose library subscribes to Project Muse, you can read this piece and the full archives of the Missouri Review for free. Check this list to see if your library is a Project Muse subscriber.
Want to read more?
Subscribe TodaySEE THE ISSUE
SUGGESTED CONTENT
Nonfiction
Jan 08 2024
Breathe!
Breathe! Marina Hatsopoulos When my husband Walter and I arrived in the Intensive Care Unit, our twenty-five-year-old daughter Zoe was lying, eyes closed, under a nest of tangled… read more
Features
Jan 08 2024
The Shinty Ball
The Shinty Ball Adam Boggon The first person I saw in a psychiatric outpatient clinic had a shinty ball in his hand. His GP believed he was paranoid, perhaps psychotic.… read more
Nonfiction
Dec 18 2023
Accident
Accident Gregory Martin It had rained all day, warm for January in Montana. It was dark now, the temperature dropping, the road turning to black ice. I was driving to… read more