=idsf1

Intelligent Design, Sci_Fi parody, doc 1   

----------------------------------------------------------------


SCHMENDRIK ASSOCIATES OFFERS OUR APOLOGIES:


   "Intelligent design holds that some aspects of nature are so
complex that they must have been the work of an unnamed crator
rather than the result of random natural selection, as argued by
Charles Darwin in his 1859 theory of evolution."

       (Reuters dispatch to the IHT ca. 21 Dec '05)

----------------------
                                                   

"Oh yes, the Planet Earth was designed by Schmendrik Labs at a
secret base somewhere it the Alpha Centauri system, but they
prefer to remain anonymous -- I suppose because there are really
far too many bugs in it, pardon the pun."

"Then you would say it was an only moderately intelligent design?"

"I would prefer not to be quoted on that."



I never asked for a job in press relations.  Particularly with the
Galactic Investigation coming up.   We should never have
out_sourced.  I don't know where Schmendrik Labs gets some of
their junior scientists.  It's one of those "Don't ask Don't tell"
situations.

It seemed like such a simple Business Plan that you could almost
make the mistake of supposing it brilliant.  And some of us did.

I remember the day that Humbert -- if that really was her name --
walked into my office.  As I recall, my Receptionist had gone to
see her mother -- or so she said -- and had not yet gotten out of
hyperspace.   So we had a Temp that day, from one of the --
'developing planets' as they say.  And that's how Ms. Humbert got
through.

She was altogether too "quick and slick".  And I am altogether too
slow and rusty.  After a few megamillenia, the old "grey matter",
as they call it now on Earth, just isn't what it used to be.
And I'm too long out of Systems Analysis too.

So it sounded as if it might work, and I didn't ask the right
questions in time.      

So there she was making her presentation, while I was trying
inconspicuously to fumble for the Inter_Galactic analogue of what
you would call an Alka_Seltzer:

"We're running an infinite_variation gene_pool , practically
infinite time_span for random variation; quality_control ensured
by Merwin's Axiom -- 'Survival of the Fittest'. Guaranteed best
possible end_products in every product_line.  And all nicely
stacked in a merit_rated hierarchy."

"And I suppose you have already located a suitable platform?", I
asked, with what I hoped was sufficiently polite disdain.

"We have, and amazingly convenient -- scarcely a light_year away."

"And what is the present state of this miraculous discovery."

"Just about ready to go.  We just have to let it cool off for a
few Megs.  But our sensors have already confirmed that the soup is
rich in potential amino's.  We'll have to go carbon_based of
course.  And you don't owe us a single MegaCred until we produce a
viable intelligent species."

"Intelligent design of an intelligent species, Eh?"

"Yes, Your Eminence.  We may be a young firm, but we think big and
work fast."
                                        

I hate it when they call me 'Your Eminence'.  The young ones
especially.  Most 'days' -- as they call our Eons in that book
'Genesis' which Schmedrik Labs just sent me, with their first
Invoice --  I don't feel any more eminent that a collapsing Red
Giant.   And you don't even want to know about my home situation. 
I practically sleep in the office nowadays.  So as I say,
Shmendrik Labs got me at a bad time, and that's why we're in the
mess we are.

I am trying to put this account down in language which most of you
will understand, using a conceptual system which most of you can
comprehend.  In fact, I am not precisely the addle_pated
grey_haired senior bureaucrat you may imagine.  I look more like
something sent back by one of your Hubble telescopes.  But
"appearances are deceiving" as they say.
                
[ Editor's Note:  Here there is aparrently a gap in the narration,
as downloaded from the megachip retrieved from UFO 2703--17--G 
(Classified X1 ). ]                                  

---------------------------------

So much for Field Visits.  My Supervisor swears by them, but I
don't think she's been out of her own Galaxy since the Big Bang,
pardon my language.                           

I had obviously walked in, pardon my archaicism,  on Schmendrik
Labs at a bad time.  Some of the hot_shots on Galactic Staff had
been after them to replicate their research in advance of the
Investigation, just to prove they hadn't faked it, and to prove
that they hadn'5fobbed us off with a planet of Sims.  As if a
planet of Sims would not have been a heck of lot more respectable.
And acceptable too if you don't look too close.

So anyhow they were having a hard time doing it again.  Maybe they
just got lucky the first time.  Maybe the survivors weren't the
'Fittest', as Schmendrik Labs says in their motto -- "Survival of
Fittest through Intelligent Design" -- but were just a species
that found an unoccupied niche first, got in, and locked the door.

Their Liason Man was there, and while he was trying his best to
maintain a professional demeanour, he was obviously worried.


"How's it going in Lab, boys?" 


"Damnit sir, we got all the way up to Armadillos, but now we can't
get them to cross the road without getting hit by SUV's.  Looks to
us like mamallian species were a fluke, and that GM is going to be
the dominant species."


"Well, keep trying, boys.  I don't want to have to tell the
President that it may be necessary to move the White House to
Detroit."


------------------------  

[ The narrative resumes after enough apparent gap: ]

An Advance Guard of Investigators were already there, and they
were making trouble.  Not heavy_duty trouble, just poking around
the edges.  But they were only Junior Investigators, trying to
make the most of what little authority they had.

"Excuse me, can you tell me what THIS organ is doing in THAT
species?"

"What's your problem -- Sir.  Every organ has a function. 
'Intelligent design ensured by Survival of the Fittest', that's
our Motto.  Sir."

"'Survival of the fittest through intelligent design', eh? Looks
to me more like 'Intelligent design through survival of the
fittest'.  I suspect you guys just threw the whole gene pool in a
single pot, sat back, waited until it was just about done, and
declared that whatever came out was 'the best of all possible
worlds.'."

The Invetigator had failed his Prelims on Classical Extra_Galactic
Literature, and never quite got over it.  Quality Control was not
his chosen profession.

"One sentinent ecolog in the whole galaxy and you clowns have to
blow it.  Hallaj the lot of you."


But he was tenancious, as only a being of limited intellect can --
and for that matter must -- be.  With a prefunctory apology for
his imprecation, he returned to the attack:


"THIS organ.  There."

"Oh Cripes.  Harry you were supposed to have taken the verriform
appendix out 3 Megs ago.  That's left over from Prototype A5, by
the Cosmic Calf."

"I didn't take it out?"

"You didn't take it out, Harry." 

"Well tidy it up, gentlemen."

"I'll put some of my team on it right away Sir, but it takes a few
Megs to run a mutant strain."

"Then don't bother; by that time they may have found a use for it. 
As a spare lunch pail maybe, I don't know.  That's your problem. 
But tell me, what happened to its tail?"

"He doesn't need a tail any more Sir, they came down from the
trees."

"The way their traffic jams are developing, he may need it sooner
than you think.  I wish you guys would check with
Long_Range__Planning before you go cutting out viable genetic
lines.  And would it be too much to ask for a bit more
intelligence in inelligent deign.  Well, what else to you have to
show us."

----------------------------------------------------------------

Those are all the recollections I can baear to put on paper -
whatever paper is --today.  

The tale must be told --as the drunken monk said when The Cow Who
Jumped Over the Moon landed on top of the Carillion -- (someone
from S_Labs stole that line from anold Library, whatever a
Libraryis,andgaveit to me folr free, he assured me it was urbane &
witty).


But I find it too humiliating to think of this Eon.
I'll take too Astropins and call you in the davning of next Yurga.

I had of course intended to submit this Report to Schmendrik
Associates in advance of publicaton, to afford them an opportuity
for critical comment if not rebuttal.  But when I stopped by their
Labratory Complext to drop off the Preliminary Draft -- in such a
sensitive matter, involving a major flap if not minor scandal, one
must hand_carry such things -- I found the gate chained shut, with
only a small cardboard sign -- 

I use of course 
LCD symbolic analogs ('Lowest_Common_Denominator' or
'Ligthwarp__Concavovex__Diffusion', as various spceies of you
say); in fact it was more like a small supernova with modified
Qwertzuiop Affect, but that's a bit difficult to describe -- 

-- on which someone had hatily scrawled, 'DDeus Abscondit'.

So I find myself left with no choice but to publish these
preliminary conclustions on the GalacticNet , and let it be
downloaded by he who can.  I'm done with this matter.  I intend at
long last to retire into the smallest black hole I can afford.  

Even my wife -- you have surely seen at least her radio_waves, and
so you may understand what I mean -- can't be more aggravation
than Schmedrik Associates, in whose honor, if any, I hereby
publish this apologiae, if not quite apology.

=================================================================

sa, Campra, 31 Dec '05 -- 6th night of Chanuakah

================================================================