Jim Hopkins: It's all here - life, the universe and everything

It may very well be the silly season but there's no evidence of that on the Correspondence Page. Forsaking frivolity, its earnest contributors continue to submit a series of serious arguments, blithely indifferent to the sunburnt preoccupations of the world at large.

Out of step these scribes may be but they're probably also the only folk reading the paper right now so it seems sensible to gather this owlish group around the metaphorical campfire and further consider matters of great moment.

Or, more precisely, moments of great matter. And there can be no moment of greater matter (in every sense) than the one which is exercising many Correspondents' pens, that being the creation of the universe.

By all accounts, this was a pretty spectacular affair. Certainly, the eyewitness reports are generally positive, with assessments ranging from "totally cosmic" and "you had to be there" to "bigger than the Rugby World Cup" and "nearly as good as King Kong".

High praise indeed, but the question remains; "To whom does the praise belong?"

There are two schools of thought on this - the Intelligent Design Theory and the Big Bang Theory. (Actually, there is a third, the Intelligent Bang Theory, but it's all about cold fusion and the synaptic resonance of sub-atomic particles so we won't trouble your pretty little heads with that sort of nonsense.) Put simply, the two theories go like this. According to the Intelligent Designers, God created everything whereas, according to the Big Bangers, nothing created everything.

Which you believe is a matter of individual choice, although it's worth noting that one of these theories is regarded as superstitious mumbo-jumbo and the other is not.

If you've just come in from the beach and haven't been following the arguments closely, you might assume that the Big Bang Theory is the mumbo-jumbo one. "Nothing can't create everything," you might say. "That's impossible."

Ahh, but, you see, that ignores the Latency Principle which holds that nothing is everything turned inside out.

So that takes care of that.

Presumably, it was arguments like that which persuaded a US court to ban the teaching of Intelligent Design in schools, although the fact the case even got to court casts considerable doubt on the validity of the theory.

After all, no Intelligent Designer would design a universe with judges in it. That stands to reason. More to the point, no Intelligent Designer would contemplate a world with humans in charge. He, she or it would have chosen something sensible, like trees.

Trees don't go around attacking other trees. They don't destroy other forests or occupy their territory. True, they do occasionally fall on people but since the Law of Averages suggests that at least 43 per cent of those fallen upon are either lawyers, counsellors or ne'er-do-wells, this is no bad thing.

And the larger point remains; trees don't commit random acts of unprovoked aggression. Nor do plants in general. They are a remarkably benign group who would do justice to any solar system.

There is actually only one recorded instance of plants engaging in stemmed conflict and that was the War of The Roses, which may very well have been a tragic misunderstanding.

Some scholars believe the whole unhappy shemozzle was inadvertently triggered when one bunch of roses understandably said to another, "We don't want to be near your pricks."

Unfortunately, a sudden stampede of aphids on an adjacent rhododendron rendered inaudible the all important last letter of the pronoun and what the listening roses heard was, "We don't want to be near you pricks", and she was all on.

Nevertheless, it would be wrong to dismiss the argument for plant power on the basis of one unhappy fracas. Because it remains true that the world would be a much better place if turnips ate us and not the other way round.

Especially since we're so badly designed anyway. Mention ageing, for instance, and two comedic symptoms spring to mind; dentures and haemorrhoids.

Except there's nothing funny about watching your gums shrink and your teeth fall out while, down below, your haemorrhoids keep growing big and shiny.

An Intelligent Designer would surely have reversed the process, thus ensuring - as the years slowly passed - it was your haemorrhoids that shrank and fell out while your teeth got bigger and shinier by the day.

Equally, imagine the benefits for the young in particular if our relationship with alcohol had been intelligently designed so that the more you drank the more sober and sensible you became. The advantages are manifest and obvious.

Such a reconfiguration would make the imminent chaos of New Year's Eve an absolute doddle. Why any Intelligent Designer didn't arrange things in this fashion remains a mystery.

Speaking of mysteries, should you desire further elucidation regarding the nature of the creation of the universe (or perhaps just the proposed trees in Queen Street - which definitely weren't intelligently designed) you may wish briefly to prise yourself away from the orgiastic lovefest you're currently enjoying and spend a few thoughtful minutes consulting the many very improving Letters to the Editor that can be found just to the left of this celestial contribution.