Where have we come from, and who wants to know?

The debate over how exactly our world, our universe has been created will perhaps be one that can never be resolved. It isn’t that the solution is difficult to locate; on the contrary, it simply requires the application of a rational mind, one that isn’t prejudiced against any possibility. Unfortunately, in our present circumstances, both the scientific fraternity and the theological communities are incapable of appreciating the possibility that anyone other than themselves has an amount of truth in their beliefs.
The theory of evolution, as proposed by Charles Darwin, is the cornerstone of the belief system of the scientific world. And to a rational mind, it seems pretty true to reality. When the habits and behavior of man can undergo subtle, yet significant, changes, simply by moving to a different cultural zone, who is deny the possibility that the physical structures of beings could also be affected by the characteristics of their extraneous environment? And yet, there is too much probability involved in this entire process, too much mathematics, something that unnerves the common mind.
Biologists refer to this as the unique event hypothesis. While physicists and chemists tend to believe in intelligent extraterrestrial life, biologists tend not to. Many biologists feel the development of intelligent life on Earth required so many peculiar steps that it represents a unique event in the universe that may never have occurred elsewhere. How can one define the birth of intelligent life on Earth as a unique event?
Well, it barely arose on the Earth. The Earth is 4.5 billion years old, and single-celled life appeared 3.9 billion years ago – almost immediately, geologically speaking. But life remained single-celled for the next three billion years. Then in the Cambrian period, around six hundred million years ago, there was an explosion of sophisticated life forms. Within a hundred million years, the ocean was full of fish. Then the land became populated. Then the air. But nobody knows why the explosion occurred in the first place.
Even after the Cambrian, the chain of events leading to man appears to be so special, so chancy, that biologists worry it might never have happened. Just consider the fact that if the dinosaurs hadn’t been wiped out sixty-five million years ago – by a comet or whatever, reptiles might still be the dominant form on Earth, and mammals would never have had a chance to take over. No mammals, no primates; no primates, no apes; no apes, no man. There are a lot of random factors in evolution, a lot of luck.
However, just because something involves a hell lot of probability or even mathematics doesn’t mean that it is necessarily wrong, or even delusional. Evolution is something that seems logical, and it is so, in many respects. And still, it doesn’t explain why things are the way they are, why humans are the predominant species, and not, say, tigers.
These gaps are what allow intelligent design or the concept of a Creator to have some following. After all, why rely on probability when you can attribute these events to some mystical being, far beyond your realm of vision and perception, who somehow controls all that you see? But intelligent design falters when confronted with the evidence that there is a past, a past that extends beyond the man of today. This past doesn’t start with the time since when the Neanderthal roamed the plains of Europe. It goes far beyond that. Trying to explain the presence of fossils as a ploy to delude man into believing that he is simply a cog in the larger scheme of things is not only far-fetched; it’s absurd. If the Creator wants to delude us, He would hide greater things than bones of reptiles and apes.
By now, you would have realized that I have no definite stand on how this world was created. Frankly I don’t give a damn whether I am part of a huge tour de œil (I hope that’s the proper expression) or the culmination of a long drawn process of change. My antecedents are of no relevance to me; there are more important things to worry about. What say?

(quoted liberally from Michael Crichton's book 'Sphere')