Fiction
The concept of life having been designed or manipulated is a staple of science fiction. Aspects of Intelligent Design are explored in:
- Calculating God by Robert J. Sawyer. 2000. ISBN 0-312-86713-1 A science fiction novel in which an intelligent designer is manipulating reality solely for the benefit of human-kind and three other sentient species residing in our galaxy.
- 2001: A Space Odyssey; in the movie, human evolution is accelerated and guided by an unspecified force, assumed by many to be aliens. In the novel based on the film, human evolution is accelerated and guided by aliens.
- In the Doctor Who episode Image of the Fendahl, evolution on Earth was guided by an alien, to allow it to feed on humans.
- The novel Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus prominently features an intelligently (but imperfectly) designed creature, whose faults stem from the inherent flaws of its creator, Victor Frankenstein.
- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy reveals that the Earth was built by the Magratheans who were commissioned by mice and designed by the computer Deep Thought to find the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything.
- In the movie Mission to Mars, highly evolved aliens accelerated and guided human evolution.
- Rama Revealed by Arthur C. Clarke and Gentry Lee; in this final novel of a series, it is revealed that the (mostly offstage) Ramans create universes and test their inhabitants in an attempt to maximise the quantity of consciousness within them.
- According to the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode The Chase, Star Trek aliens all look similar because life was seeded on different planets by highly evolved aliens.
- In the Well World series, by Jack L. Chalker, aliens known as Markovians evolved and grew to the point where their computers, by means of a universal mathematics, were able to create/produce/do anything they wanted. Bored with being virtual gods, they decided their race had been flawed in some manner. So they designed a new universe and Markovian volunteers chose to become all of the new races therein, including humans, to see if perhaps another race could attain the perfection they believed existed but which they themselves failed to achieve.
- Roddy M. Bullock (2006). The Cave Painting: A Parable of Science. Access Research Network. ISBN 1-931796-27-0. http://www.arn.org/arnproducts/php/book_show_item.php?id=105.
- Dean Koontz (2009). Breathless. New York: Bantam Publishing. ISBN 978-0-553-80715-8. References the mathematical calculation of the improbability of life.
Read more about this topic: List Of Works On Intelligent Design
Famous quotes containing the word fiction:
“Coincidence is a pimp and a cardsharper in ordinary fiction but a marvelous artist in the patterns of facts recollected by a non-ordinary memorist.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)
“The purpose of a work of fiction is to appeal to the lingering after-effects in the reader’s mind as differing from, say, the purpose of oratory or philosophy which respectively leave people in a fighting or thoughtful mood.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)
“Americans will listen, but they do not care to read. War and Peace must wait for the leisure of retirement, which never really comes: meanwhile it helps to furnish the living room. Blockbusting fiction is bought as furniture. Unread, it maintains its value. Read, it looks like money wasted. Cunningly, Americans know that books contain a person, and they want the person, not the book.”
—Anthony Burgess (b. 1917)