The Explanation for Everything Read Online Free PDF Page B

Andy said, neither frustrated nor hurried. “Fine.”
    â€œThere’s your way,” she said, “where everything is accidental, where the fact that the earth tilts on an axis, the fact that it has a moon to control the tides, the fact that it is just the exact distance from the sun to keep us warm without boiling us alive—and even more than that, the fact that we’re here, the fact that we love each other and protect each other, is all an accident of timing and chemicals.”
    â€œThat’s my way?”
    â€œYes,” Melissa said. “That is your way, because that is the way of Darwin, which says that we are no more important, no more intentional, than the dust on your desk. We might as well be like your caged mice for all the agency we have in the grand scheme of things.”
    â€œAll right,” Andy said, neither aggravated nor impatient.
    â€œBut here’s your other option. A world in which life has purpose,” Melissa said. “God put us here for a reason, and that reason is out in the world for us to discover. There’s a reason we can see stars in the sky. There’s a reason we can dig into the crust of the earth and find out what came before us. There’s a reason we were given the kinds of brains that would further your . . . scientific inquiry. There’s a reason for life. There’s a design behind it.”
    Andy did not look at the clock. “I see what you’re saying, Melissa, but that’s not a binary I’m comfortable with.”
    â€œYour world is the world of coincidence, of meaninglessness. You choose the world that would have us as specks of dust, as mice in a cage. Is that the kind of world you want to live in, Professor Waite?”
    Andy took a breath.
    â€œProfessor?”
    He hated these rushes of memory, these forces that sucked him in like dark matter at the least convenient times, shattering him. But there he was, out of the shabby lab in the basement of Scientific Hall and instead in Miami, the apartment in Miami, four lushly carpeted and heavily air-conditioned rooms. It was night, and Lou, hugely pregnant with Belle, was lying down next to Rachel in her big-girl bed. Reading Richard Scarry’s Best Word Book Ever. Giggling together. Louisa’s belly rising up and down.
    Specks of dust, dust to dust. Andy blinked his eyes, hard. He came back to where he was.
    â€œProfessor?” Melissa tried again. “Is that what you want?”
    â€œIt’s not,” Andy said. “But I’ve realized over the years that what I want doesn’t really matter either way.”
    â€œBut that’s not true,” Melissa said. “You get to decide what you want and you get to decide what really matters.”
    The chill from the air-conditioning had made the hair on his arms stand up. For a moment, he lost his head. “Melissa, if you can come up with a reading list I approve of, I’ll do your independent study.”
    â€œI can do that,” she said, cheerfully. “That’s no problem.”
    â€œBut you should know I’m going to include some scientists I believe in. Henry Rosenblum, you heard of him?”
    â€œYou want me to read Henry Rosenblum?”
    â€œLots of him,” Andy said. “Dawkins too. Those are my conditions.”
    Why he was bothering with conditions at all he wasn’t entirely sure, but if he was going to jump through hoops for her, then he would make her do the same for him.
    Melissa sighed. “Do you think there’s anyone else in the bio department who will take my project on?”
    â€œI’d be shocked,” Andy said. “In fact, I’d be shocked if there was anyone else in the department who would ever let you finish a sentence about intelligent design.” She fingered her cross. “So are you willing?”
    â€œI guess I have no choice,” Melissa said.
    â€œNot if you’re serious about this