Intelligent design and popular culture: Sherlock Holmes on design

Friend Alan Yoshioka, otherwise The Sheepcat, sends me this item which he titles, “Sherlock Holmes on design”. In the words of The Spirit’s Sword, "Here, in the first forty seconds of the clip, Holmes deduces the existence of God from the existence of flowers, the speech delivered in beautiful tones by Brett. "



According to Sword,

The speech in the original story is rather longer. In the original Holmes explains that there are many aspects of the flowers which are necessary in the first case for their survival, however their beauty is an "extra" not necessary for the immediate survival of the flowers, and is therefore a gift from a divine and loving providence, which not only gives us enough, but an abundance and more.

It is an argument for design that, I confess, I have never clearly understood. Perhaps I have spent too much time in survivable ugliness. Maybe when I retire ...

Find out why there is an intelligent design controversy: