Science of Discworld III Read Online Free PDF Page B

telescope was. Somethirty pages of anatomical description reinforce the contention that the eye must have been designed for the purpose of seeing. And the eye is just one example: consider a bird, a fish, a silkworm, or a spider. Now, finally, Paley states explicitly what all his readers knew was coming from page one:
    Were there no example in the world of contrivance except that of the eye, it would be alone sufficient to support the conclusion which we draw from it, as to the necessity of an intelligent Creator.
    There we have it, in a nutshell. Living creatures are so intricate, and function so effectively, and fit together so perfectly, that they can have arisen only by design. But design implies a designer. Ergo: God exists, and it was He who created Earth’s magnificent panoply of life. What more is there to say? The proof is complete.
    1 So called because it starts from the phenomenon of design and deduces the existence of a cosmic designer.
    2 According to Isaac Asimov, the most practical and dramatic victory of science over religion occurred in the seventeenth century, when churches began to put up lightning conductors.
    3 It is old enough to use the elongated s’s parodied in Di ſ cworld as ſ s. We have re ſ i ſ ted temptation except in this footnote. Though ‘manife ſ tation of de ſ ign’ does have a bit of a cachet.

THREE
THEOLOGY OF SPECIES
    I T WAS THREE HOURS LATER …
    The senior wizards trod carefully in the High Energy Magic Building, partly because it wasn’t their natural habitat, but also because most of the students who frequented it used the floor as a filing cabinet and, distressingly, as a larder. Pizza is quite hard to remove from a sole, especially the cheese.
    In the background – always in the background in the High Energy Magic Building – was Hex, the university’s thinking engine.
    Occasionally, bits of it, or possibly ‘him’, moved. Ponder Stibbons had long ago given up trying to understand how Hex worked. Possibly Hex was the only entity in the university who understood how Hex worked.
    Somewhere inside Hex magic happened. Spells were reduced, not to their component candles and wands and chants, but to what they meant . It happened too fast to see, and perhaps too fast to understand. All that Ponder was certain about was that life was intimately involved. When Hex was thinking deeply there was a noticeable hum from the beehives along the back wall, where slots gave them access to the outside world, and everything completely ceased to work if the ant colony was removed from its big glass maze in the heart of the machine.
    Ponder had set up his magic lantern for a presentation. He liked making presentations. For a brief moment in the chaos of the universe, a presentation made everything sound as if it was organised.
    ‘Hex has run the history of Roundworld against the last copy,’ he announced, as the last wizard sat down. ‘He has found significant changes beginning in what was known as the nineteenth century. Slide, please, Rincewind.’ There was some muffled grumbling behind the magic lantern and a picture of a plump and elderly lady appeared on the screen. ‘This lady is Queen Victoria, ruler of the Empire of the British.’
    ‘Why is she upside down?’ said the Dean.
    ‘It could be because with a globe there is technically no right way up,’ said Ponder. ‘But I’m hazarding that it got put in wrong. Next slide, please. With care.’ Grumble, click. ‘Ah, yes, this is a steam engine. The reign of Victoria was notable for great developments in science and engineering. It was a very exciting time. Except … next slide, please.’ Grumble, click.
    ‘Wrong slide, that man!’ said Ridcully. ‘It’s just blank.’
    ‘Aha, no, sir,’ said Ponder, gleefully. ‘That is a dynamic way of showing you that the period I just described turns out not, in fact, to have happened. It should have, but it didn’t. On this version of the Globe, the Empire of the British did