Glasgow Border Force Raid Was London Show of Force

The abortive detention of two undocumented Indian men in Glasgow on 13 May has got me thinking. I am not by any means by a conspiracist but there are certain aspects of the attempted raid from which one can only draw disturbing conclusions.

The timing of the Home Office raid, supported by police Scotland, alone is questionable. Usually such raids are carried out early in the morning, when few people are about, and to catch the suspects by surprise. The Glasgow raid took place late morning, with plenty of people about, which is precisely why the people of Pollokshields were able to respond so quickly and so effectively.

Kenmure Street, Pollokshields, falls in the political ward of Glasgow Southside, which just happens to be the constituency of the First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon MSP. It also took place while Members of the Scottish Parliament were being sworn in to form the new session of the parliament, just days after the SNP gained the highest number of votes ever cast in a Scottish Parliamentary Election.

Then there is the absolute crassness of attempting to detain two Muslim men on the day chosen, 13 May 2021. The end of the Muslim festival of Ramadan, and the day of Eid Al-Fitr; the holiest day in the Muslim calendar. Detaining the two men in a police van prevented them from joining in prayer on Eid Al-Fitr, which effectively contravened their human rights to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion.

All in all, this appears to have been a deliberately-contrived show of force by the UK government agency Border Contol, to prove to those "troublesome Jocks" who is in charge, to humiliate the First Minister, and one which was potentially racist and anti-Islamic.

And it was one which backfired spectacularly, but should not have deserved to do so, for the simple fact it should never have been attempted in that way, on that day of all days. I am an atheist, but I am an atheist who has an enormous respect for the right to freedom of religion for others. And I realise that if I want freedom from religion, then I must equally stand up for freedom of religion. This was one of such instances where I have no choice but to take a stand for the rights of Muslims.

I am not for one moment suggesting that Priti Patel, the UK Home Secretary, and a woman of Hindu Indian-Ugandan immigrant background, deliberately chose the day of Eid Al-Fitr to carry out this raid, but I would say that if she knew it was going to happen on that day, then she should have known better, and should have advised the Border Force officers not to act on that day. If she did not know it was going to take place on Eid Al-Fitr, then that equally calls her competence to hold the post she does into question. At the least, Border Force should have been a great deal more sensitive to the significance or the day, and that they were not does indeed suggest some degree of prejudice.

I do not blame the people of Glasgow for being outraged. They should be, just as all living in Scotland should be. In fact, as a Scot I could not be more proud of the way they rallied around their neighbours, just as Glasgow has always done. It won't, but this was an incident which should go down in the history books of Glasgow as a city, and Scotland as a whole. In it's own way it was every bit as big as the Red Clyde incidents of the early 20th century, and the way a proud city stood up to the brute force of a bullying London government to protect and support their own.

I have nothing but praise for Police Scotland, who were used as a tool by a government which Scotland never voted for, and ordered, possibly against their wishes, to go into Kenmure Street in force. But that the officer in charge ordered the men released and the police to stand down in the interests of public safety was the sensible thing to do. And I have absolutely no doubt that did not go down well with the Border Force agents, or their Westminster bosses.

But most of all the events of Thursday, 13 May 2021, was a supreme example of the power of nonviolent mass protest. By just sitting in the street, and getting under the van holding the two men, the people of Glasgow took a stance against force which required no violence, and which gave the authorities no choice but to buckle.

If Westminster thought that this would bolster unionist feeling in Scotland, they were absolutely mistaken. Their bully-boy tactics had exactly the opposite effect, and openly displayed to Scotland, the UK, Europe, and the world, just how far a London government is willing to go, how Scotland will not put up with it, and underlined just one more reason why Scotland needs to be independent.

There have been a few people commenting about "illegal immigrants" and accusing the Scottish Government of wanting to throw the doors open. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Firstly, the term "illegal immigrant" is a complete misnomer. It is not an offence to enter the UK undocumented, and if it were, then those detained would be treated as criminals. They would be arrested, charged, and tried by a jury of their peers. That simply does not happen. Instead, undocumented people in the UK are detained, processed and assessed by Border Force, and unless they can provide proof of refugee status, they are deported. At no point do charges or trials come into it. It is only where a deportee re-enters the UK undocumented that it becomes an offence. The important point here as many have stated, including the Scottish Justice Secretary Humza Yusaf, "no person is illegal".

Secondly, the position of the Scottish Government in condemning the raid does not say that they want to "throw the doors open". Rather, it is that immigration into Scotland should be a matter for the Scottish Government. Not least because Scotland has a separate law system, and separate police, to England. No-one is saying for one moment that we cannot discuss immigration, nor prevent entry of those who may be undesirable. Rather that Scotland should be solely responsible for who comes into the country, and the only way to possibly achieve that is for Scotland to become fully independent.

Doing The Right Thing

London is not cowed ~ neither should we be

On Wednesday, 23 March 2017, the Scottish Parliament was debating whether to seek a second referendum on independence, with the vote due to take place at 5.30pm that day.  At approximately 2:40pm the same day, the driver of a car in London deliberately mounted the pavement on Westminster Bridge, mowing down pedestrians, before crashing through railings guarding the Houses of Parliament.  He then jumped out of the car, stabbed an unarmed police officer, and ran towards a Parliament cafe before being shot by undercover armed police officers.

Two pedestrians and the police officer, Police Constable Keith Palmer, died of their injuries.  The attacker later died of gunshot wounds.  40 others were injured.

As news of the attack reached Edinburgh, the decision was taken to suspend business in the Scottish Parliament for the day.  It had been decided earlier that the debate would continue, however Presiding Officer Ken Macintosh took the decision to suspend the sitting, stating "The fact that our sister parliament has had a serious incident is affecting this particular debate."

SNP Brexit Minister Mike Russell MSP stated "Any attacks on a parliament are an attack on all democracies.  It looks very serious indeed, so it's the right thing to do and I think people would have expected it to happen."

Whilst this was the prevailing view in Holyrood, there were a few MSPs thought that the debate should have continued and that suspending parliament was giving in to terrorism.  There have also been some individuals saying as much on social media, and even some callously suggesting that what happens in Westminster was of no consequence.

Mike Russell hit the nail on the head; it was the right thing to do.

Whilst we Scots Nats wish to sever our ties with Westminster, no-one can deny that it is a democratic parliament.  As such any attack upon Westminster is an attack upon democracy and an attack upon decent-minded people across the UK, and around the world.

Okay, I don't see Westminster as the mother of parliaments - and if it is, it's just a bloody shame they never found out who the father was.  But it is a semblance of democracy, and in a world where the vast majority of countries do not have democracy, that makes it all the more important.  Let us also not forget that when we talk of Westminster, we talk of those who serve there.  That includes 59 Scottish constituency MPs, 56 of whom represent the SNP - Alex Salmond was the first MP to speak to LBC Radio about the attack shortly after it happened.  There are also MPs of Scottish birth or background who represent English constituencies, Scots lords, Scots civil servants and other workers in the Palace of Westminster, Scots police officers who have taken up careers in the Metropolitan Police, and of course the enormous number of Scots who live in London.

Even the most ardent Scots Nat who wanted business to continue in Holyrood cannot deny that what happens in Westminster, London, or England as a whole, affects us all.  Many of us have friends in England, many indeed have family.

Not that the fact that there were Scots caught up in the attack should be the only driving factor.  There were many nationalities and ethnicities caught up in the attack.  A group of French schoolchildren were on Westminster Bridge, three of whom were injured.  Of the two dead pedestrians, one was a Spanish school teacher and mother of two, Aysha Frade.  The other was 53-year-old American Kurt Cochran, in London to celebrate his 25th wedding anniversary.  His wife is in hospital in a critical condition.  London truly is a metropolitan city where many cultures meet, visit, and live, and that is why an attack upon London is indeed an attack upon the world.

Putting it all together then, it was only fitting that the Scottish Parliament should be suspended.  It was indeed "the right thing to do", to show solidarity with and respect to the peoples of London and of the world caught up in this atrocious act.

The First Minister later stated "My thoughts, as I'm sure the thoughts of everybody in Scotland tonight, are with people caught up in this dreadful event.  My condolences in particular go to those who've lost loved ones.  My thoughts are with those who've sustained injuries and we all feel a sense of solidarity with the people of London tonight."

As ever, Nicola Sturgeon speaks with the values which so many of us in Scotland, and across the world, share.

But doing the right thing goes further than showing respect and compassion for victims of terror attacks.  It is about respecting others.  Even as the story was breaking, social media was ablaze with accusations of Islamist attacks, fingers being pointed at the Islamic faith, and even some seeing it as an opportunity to blame immigration and refugees.  Notice there how it very quickly went from blaming one particular interpretation of a religion, to blaming that religion, to blaming individuals.  I saw one comment on Facebook stating "This will soon come to every street in Europe."  Yeah.  I'm really scared that a Muslim is going to crash a car through my garden fence and try to stab me.

Yes, we now know was Muslim who had previously been investigated by MI5, but was currently not under investigation.  We also know that eight people have been arrested.  It is also now reported that Islamic State are claiming responsibility for the attack.  And of course, the bigots are jumping on this immediately.  Only  a few points here; we also know that the assailant was British-born, arrest does not equal complicity in a country where you are innocent until proven guilty, and IS now have their backs so firmly against the wall, and are on the brink of being wiped out, that they are obviously going to claim responsibility for any and all attacks.

If we take every news report of IS claiming responsibility for every 'terror' attack, then we play right into the hands of the terrorists.  But exactly the same happens when we pay any attention to the extreme right screaming about Muslim "immigrants" and "refugees" (even if they happen to be British-born - the bigots never make any distinction between the three).  They too are trying to stir up fear and hatred of Muslims, and when they do so, they are the very ones who are abetting terrorism.  Are they not attempting to strike terror into people and is that not the very definition of terrorism?  Saying things like it will be on every street in Europe merely abets the terrorists.  Refusing to be bullied by extremists, whether they be Islamists, the far-right, or of any stripe is the right thing to do.

The moment we fear and hate Muslims, or any other group within society, the terrorists have won.  Certainly, we can question and criticise Islam.  It is worthy of criticism - are as all religious faiths and cultures.  But when we listen to the hyperbole of hateful minds, then we do both the extreme right and the terrorists a favour.  I happen to extremely dislike a young man who works in his parent's shop near me.  I don't dislike him because he is a Muslim, but rather because he's a cheeky, arrogant git who needs a bloody good slap.  His mum and dad by comparison are lovely people whom I have tons of respect for.  I often wonder how their son turned out to be such a prick.  Probably because he's so westernised.

It is a symbol of any civilised society that we respect all races, cultures, ethnicities, and faiths - even if we disagree strongly with them.  And trust me, as an atheist, I have severe reservations about Islam, just as I have of all faiths.  Tolerance and respect are what make us decent human beings.  When the paramedics arrived on the scene at Westminster, one crew tried to save the life of PC Palmer ~ and the other crew tried to revive the attacker.  Why?  Because they are civilised; because it is the right thing to do.

As I write this, just over 24 hours after the attack, there are also some people trying to make political capital out of this attack, and some frankly disgusting internet trolls making sick comments about the attack, about Muslims, and even some wishing it had been an attack upon Nicola Sturgeon.  Rise above it.  This is not a time for anyone to play politics, nor is it a joke, nor a time to react to brain-dead knuckledraggers.  Let the Daily Express try to claim on SNP MSP groaned when parliament was suspended. Let the trolls make their sick comments. Leave the loopy conspiracists to claim it was a "False Flag" attack. But if we react to any of that, then we are giving them exactly what they want.

Walk away from it, in the knowledge that you are better than that, and you will not sully your respect for those maimed and killed in an atrocious act by rising to their bait.

But most of all walk away from it ~ because it is the right thing to do.

Ban the Bum

Land of the. . . ???

Trumpeters answers questioned.

On Friday, 27 January 2017, US President (I baulk to call him that) Donald Trump signed an Executive Order banning travel visas from seven mostly-Islamic countries, which came into effect at 4:42pm Eastern Time the same day. I am sure it was purely coincidental but in a supreme irony 27 January was also Holocaust Memorial Day.

The Executive Order indefinitely bans Syrian refugees from the USA, suspends all refugee admissions for 120 days, and blocks entry for 90 days to travellers from the seven named countries.

The seven affected countries are;

Iran

Iraq

Libya

Somalia

Sudan

Syria

Yemen

The immediate effect of the ban caused chaos with flights and arrivals at airports in the USA. There were reports of hundreds of travellers arriving in the USA being detained in airports, while many about to travel to the USA from abroad were refused to fly, or even taken off planes before take-off. To add to the confusion, this included students, visitors and green-card-holding legal permanent United States residents from the seven countries. Some who had entered the USA were indeed refused entry and sent back to where they came from. Two Iraqis who had worked as interpreters for the US military were held in JFK airport, and as they were not legally on US soil, were refused access to legal representation.

On Saturday a Federal Judge in Brooklyn blocked part of the order, ruling that refugees and others being held at airports across the United States should not be sent back to their home countries. Three other Federal Judges in Massachusetts, Virginia and Washington soon followed suit, and the Massachusetts judge ruled that authorities could not detain travellers. The Department of Homeland Security agreed to comply with these rulings. On Sunday Reince Priebus, the White House chief of staff, said that Green Card holders would not be prevented from returning to the USA “going forward”, but also added that border agents had “discretionary authority” to stop and detain any travellers – including US citizens - to additional questioning and scrutiny, should they have been to any of the seven countries mentioned in the executive order.

The ban led to huge protests in the USA and around the world. Here in the UK a petition to cancel the announced state visit of Donald Trump attracted in excess of 1 million signatures. Largely seen as an anti-Islamic move, the Trump administration has claimed it is not. It is not, but more of that later.

So, what is the rationale behind the ban, and just why has Trump implemented it?

The ban is to prevent international terrorism and keep US citizens safe.

The logic from this is that the countries affected present a terrorist threat to the USA. In fact, there has never been one terrorist attack in the USA from any citizen of Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, or Yemen.

Compare this to the nineteen Al Qaeda terrorists who perpetuated the worst terrorist attack in history on 9 September 2001, in the USA, with the immediate loss of 2996 lives, and the subsequent deaths of over 1000 due to effects from the attacks. Of the nineteen attackers, 15 came from Saudi Arabia, two from United Arab Emirates, one from Lebanon, and one from Egypt. Saudi Arabia, UAE, Lebanon, and Egypt are not at all affected by the ban and anyone on passports from these countries may travel freely to – and even claim asylum in – the USA.

Likewise nobody would deny that the greatest terrorist threat today comes from the brutal Islamic State (IS) group. The current hotbed of IS recruitment is Tunisia, which likewise is excluded from the executive order. As are other countries which recruit Islamist terrorism, such as Pakistan, Afghanistan, Turkey, and Algeria.

But intelligence and experience show these countries are most likely to produce terrorists.

And where else have there been terrorist attacks in recent years? Ooh, let's try the UK, France, Germany, Spain, Netherlands, Turkey, and almost a daily occurrence in Israel. In the majority of cases, the terrorist attacks have come not from immigrants or asylum seekers, but rather from nationals of those countries. So based on that argument, all these countries should be included as a danger to US security – including Blighty.

Ah, but those attackers were the children of immigrants or asylum seekers.

In some cases they were, in some they were registered citizens of the countries they attacked. And indeed, with regard to the USA, there is one particular case which defeats this argument. Richard Reid, aka the Shoe Bomber, is a white, culturally Christian, English man, who converted to Islam, became radicalised, and attempted to ignite explosives packed into his shoes on a flight to Paris to Miami. Yet I still don't see either the UK – or France – on that list.

Omar Mateen was a home-grown US Islamist terrorist who shot dead 49 people in the Pulse nightclub in Florida, before being shot dead. His parents emigrated from Afghanistan, which is not on the list. It is also worth pointing out that Omar Mateen was a very disturbed young man, who was a regular customer of the Pulse nightclub, and his killing of 49 mostly Latinx people had much more to do with his own deeply closeted homosexuality than any religious convictions.

Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik carried out a mass shooting at the Inland Regional Centre in San Bernardino, California, on 2 December 2015, killing 22 and injuring 14. They fled in an SUV and were later both shot dead in a police shootout. Farook was a Chicago-born US citizen and the son of immigrants from Pakistan. Malik was born near Islamabad, Pakistan, had lived most of her life in Saudi Arabia, but was a lawful permanent resident of the USA. Neither Pakistan nor Saudi Arabia are among the banned countries.

Brothers Tamer and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who carried out the 2013 Boston Marathon Bombings, killing three and injuring 16 others, were naturalised US citizens, born in the Kalmyk Republic (part of the Russian Federation) and Kyrgyzstan respectively, both are half-Chechen but identify as Chechen. Kyrgyzstan is not on the list of banned countries - and neither is Russia, for reasons best known to Donald Trump.

The Executive Order was instituted on powers already there, instituted when President Obama banned Iraqis from entering the USA in 2011.

Except that President Barack Obama never instituted any such ban against entire nationalities in 2011. In fact, there never was any outright ban – merely a bureaucratic mess.

Here is exactly what happened. Two Iraqi refugees in the Bowling Green, Kentucky were arrested in May 2011 on charges of Federal Terrorism charges. Informants had told the FBI that one of the men, Waad Ramadan Alwan, had previous to fleeing to the USA, constructed improvised roadside bombs in Iraq. Alwan was fingerprinted, and his prints matched those on part of a cellphone which had been used to detonate one such bomb in 2005. The other refugee, Mohanad Shareef Hammadi, was convicted of providing material to Al Qaeda, possession and export of Stinger missiles, and making a false statement on an asylum application.

The arrests led to demands in Congress to re-examine the records of Iraqis settled in the USA, and the Obama administration pledged to do so. This entailed going through the records of some 58,000 Iraqis already settled in the USA, while more stringent background checks were imposed on new applicants. The USA was still involved in the Iraq War at the time, and with them looking to pull out at the earliest opportunity, there was a rush of such applications from a great number of Iraqis.

The result of re-examining visa applications, some Iraqis already settled having to re-apply, some still in Iraq having to re-apply, while all the time new applications were pouring in - under new, more thorough rules - led to a logjam which the State Department's National Visa Center struggled to cope with. In September 2011, Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine), asked Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano if a hold had been placed on Iraqi visa applications. Napolitano replied;

"with respect to the 56, 57,000 who were resettled pursuant to the original resettlement program, they have all been revetted against all of the DHS databases, all of the NCTC (National Counter Terrorism Center) databases and the Department of Defense’s biometric databases and so that work has now been done and focused... ...Now I don’t know if that equates to a hold, as you say, but I can say that having done the already resettled population moving forward, they will all be reviewed against those kinds of databases.”

So, there never was a hold on visa applications for six months, only a bureaucratic jam caused by exceptional circumstances. And it was one Republican senator who asked if there was a hold, but the reply given was ambiguous, and does not confirm a hold.

Former Obama administration official Jon Finer stated in Foreign Policy;

“While the flow of Iraqi refugees slowed significantly during the Obama administration’s review, refugees continued to be admitted to the United States during that time, and there was not a single month in which no Iraqis arrived here. In other words, while there were delays in processing, there was no outright ban.”

Eric P Scwartz, who was Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration in 2011, told the Washington Post;

“President Obama never imposed a six-month ban on Iraqi processing. For several months in 2011, there was a lower level of Iraqi resettlement, as the government implemented certain security enhancements. Indeed, as we identified new and valuable opportunities to enhance screening, we did so. Nobody should object to a continual effort to identify legitimate enhancements, but it is disreputable to use that as a pretext to effectively shut down a program that is overwhelmingly safe and has enabled the United States to exercise world leadership. In any event, there was never a point during that period in which Iraqi resettlement was stopped, or banned.”

Notice that both men, in separate journals, have stated the resettlement of Iraqis did indeed continue during the six month delay in processing visas. Now, either both of them are lying – or Trump's administration are lying. I know which I am going with.

But even had there been a ban, notice that the Obama administration targeted individual visa applicants. They never, not for one moment, ever placed entire nationalities, or all citizens of chosen countries, regardless of background, under suspicion of terrorism.

And even had there been call to do so, it would be because the USA was still involved in war in Iraq, which would indeed be grounds to trigger a suspension of travel into the USA from hostile countries. The USA is not at war with any of the countries on the list, and the Trump administration therefore has no legitimate nor justifiable trigger.

The ban is temporary – only for 90 days.

Try reading the Executive Order. Syrian refugees have been banned indefinitely, that ban being lifted is cognisant on the President himself. The US refugee program in it's entirety – not just among the targeted countries but affecting anyone from all around the world – has been suspended for 120 days. The 90 days applies only to the seven named countries.

There is no guarantee however that the 90 day limit may not be extended, or the 120 day ban on all entries, or that more countries may not be included in the ban.

Trump has also reduced the number of refugees to be allowed into the USA in 2017 by more than half; down from 110,000 to 50,000.

This is not a Muslim ban.

Screenprint from Trump's campaign website

No, it's not, I agree. It does not ban all Muslim-majority countries, and there are some Islamic countries which Donald Trump actually has business dealings with. Not least of which is Saudi Arabia – where most of the 9/11 Al Qaeda terrorists came from, and where there are 'charities' within the Wahhabi Muslim sect, which are nothing more than fronts for funding Islamic State terrorism.

So, does this mean that The Donald is this kind wee soul, with no religious prejudices, who embraces peoples of all the world's religions? Hmm. Let's see what he actually said in his presidential campaign.

This is a statement taken from Trump's presidential campaign website, donaldjtrump.com, which is actually titled “Donald J. Trump Statement on Preventing Muslim Immigration”:

“(New York, NY) December 7th, 2015, -- Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on.”

On exactly the same page, Trump himself is quoted as saying;

“Without looking at the various polling data, it is obvious to anybody the hatred is beyond comprehension. Where this hatred comes from and why we will have to determine. Until we are able to determine and understand this problem and the dangerous threat it poses, our country cannot be the victims of horrendous attacks by people that believe only in Jihad, and have no sense of reason or respect for human life.”

Notice he even said “Without looking at the various polling data” - so he was willing to actually ignore the facts. Well nothing new there. But there we see that Trump's own website specifically called for a “shutdown of Muslims entering the United States”.

That specifically targeted an entire religion. Therefore, while the ban is not a Muslim ban per se, it was and remains based upon and deeply-steeped in the populist anti-Islamic rhetoric which US citizens have been fed by right-wing politicians and their media mouthpieces ever since 9/11.

So did he have a change of heart and open his arms to Muslims? Nope, Trump simply could not have issued an Executive Order to ban all Muslims from entering the USA, because to do so would have contravened the First Amendment of the US Constitution;

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

Had Trump instituted his Executive Order banning travel visas based solely on the Muslim religion, he would have effectively have established a law prohibiting the right of Muslim refugees to enter and to continue to follow their faith. To do so would have been unconstitutional, and he would have been out of the White House so fast that his feet wouldn't have touched the ground.

So instead he went for countries with Muslim-majority populations, and this has created it's own problems. Due to the ban, Christians seeking asylum from the named countries have been refused entry to the USA, in some cases sent back to their country of origin, or stopped from getting on flights in the first place.

The persecution of Christians in Islamic countries is an all too often ignored 'hidden' shame in many Islamic countries, where they are subjected to many atrocities, including being lashed, having limbs cut off, eyes gouged out, beheaded, hanged, or burnt alive. Among some of the worst countries guilty of carrying out atrocities against Christians include Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen – the seven countries upon which Trump has placed a blanket ban on entry on all citizens. Oh, the irony that many 'good Christians' voted Trump in, and he has now just condemned many Middle-Eastern Christians to the tender mercies of the fundamentalist Islamist authorities in their countries of origin.

And of course, it is not just Christians this affects. Followers of other faiths are equally persecuted in these countries, as are atheists, and even those Muslims brave enough to speak out or write about the wrongs those in charge are doing in the name of Islam. By issuing a blanket ban on visas, Trump has condemned them all, and now that some may have tried to leave, the authorities in their home countries will know just who they are, and the outlook for all these 'dissenters' and 'infidels' looks very bleak indeed.

Nor will this ban stop anything to stop Islamist terrorism. We have seen in living memory just how much ill-treatment by the west has actually driven terrorism in the Middle-East, which has spread to Muslims in the west. By instituting a ban, Donald Trump, far from defeating IS, has just handed them one of the best recruiting tools they could ever have wished for. It will not be lost on those who indoctrinate young minds with fear and hatred of the west, particularly the USA – the 'Great Satan' as the Islamists call it – just how it has 'shunned' the Muslim people, and by extension, has insulted the Islamic faith and it's prophet. And once those minds are groomed and indoctrinated, there sadly can only be one inevitable outcome of that; more Islamist terrorist attacks, not less.

And as we have seen from Orlando, Boston, and San Bernardino, that need not come from outwith the USA, certainly not from the banned countries, but in the case of Saudi Arabia, is much more likely from a country which is a close US ally, and one which Donald Trump happens to have a lot of business dealings with.

Neither does this ban do anything to stop the incidents of domestic terrorism which take place within the USA, often carried out far-right extremists who profess to be Christian. Trump's election victory saw a sudden surge in racist and religiously-bigoted hate crimes. The FBI reported that in 2015 hate crimes against Muslims surged to 67% - the highest since the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Jews remained the highest proportion for hate crimes at 53%, and there were 1,053 hate crimes regarding sexual orientation, 19 percent of which were committed against gay men. Where hate crime attacks result in fatalities, they are rarely reported as terrorism in the USA, but generally referred to as “lone wolf” attacks carried out by some sad loner – only when the “lone wolf” nutter happens to be Muslim does it suddenly become a 'terrorist attack'. Meanwhile, hate groups such as the Ku Klux Klan and the Aryan Nations continue to exist, enjoying the liberty the USA affords them, as “Christian” organisations.

Whenever a move against any racial religious group occurs, it can reverberate outwith the country it comes from. The Sunday after the Executive Order was instituted, a gunman open fired during evening prayers at the Quebec Islamic Cultural Centre, just across the border in Quebec City, Canada. The shooting suspect, now in custody, is 27-year-old Alexandre Bissonnette, a white French Canadian, whom it appears holds extreme-right, pro-Christian, anti-Islamic views, and who admires Donald Trump and French National Front leader, Marine LePen. Bissonnette was identified by the leader of a local immigration rights groups, François Deschamps, as a far-right internet troll, known to make anti-immigrant and hostile comments on the group's online page.

Pants - on - FIRE!

With absolutely no proof, the media immediately tried to make out it was an Islamist attack, Fox News - darling press outlet of the darling American right - claimed that witnesses had heard the gunman shout "Allahu akbar!" (God is great), and without a shred of evidence, went on to claim in a Tweet that the shooter was of Moroccan origin. As I write this, that Tweet has not yet been taken down.  And of course, while it was thought the attack was of Muslim origin, it was called a terrorist attack. Now the suspect has been identified as a "Christian", anti-Islamic, white supremacist, the media are portraying him as a "lone wolf" and sad nutter. Kudos therefore to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who told it like it is; "We condemn this terrorist attack on Muslims in a center of worship and refuge."

While the media was busy pouring out their anti-Islamic bile, the Trump administration was very quick to attempt to make political capital out of the atrocity. Without being cognisant of the full facts, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said of the Quebec attack;

"It’s a terrible reminder of why we must remain vigilant and why the President is taking steps to be proactive rather than reactive when it comes to our nation’s safety and security,"

What? Mr Spicer - and Mr Trump? Will you now impose a ban on extreme-right Christians crossing the border from Canada into the USA?

Or will you just continue to deliberately target Muslims? To abandon Muslims and others to the very regimes you claim to be against? To continue to give Islamic State a propaganda tool for further radicalisation? And to continue to stir up hatred against all Muslims, the vast majority of whom are in fact far more likely to be the victims of intolerance and violence, rather than the perpetrators of it?  

Will you in fact continue to openly flout international human rights legislation, as well as common decency?

You already have blood on your hands, Mister Trump, and your shameful actions shall cause much more to be shed.  The only person who needs to be banned is you.

NOT Designed for Life

Former dense forest, Tunguska, Siberia

Part 4:  Forever and ever?

In the three previous articles in this series criticising the teleological / Intelligent Design (ID) argument, I have looked at the way the universe and the Earth came about, the rise of mankind, and common dangers in life we live with every day, which makes the survival of each of us extremely tenuous. In this concluding article I shall look explain how our entire species, and even all life on Earth, and how eventually it shall disappear completely.

Space is fraught with dangers. Asteroids and comets fly freely about space, but are attracted by the gravitational pull of other bodies in the cosmos. Some fragments of these break off and become meteoroids. As they are drawn in to planets, they become meteorites. Our own Moon, almost certainly the result of a planet-sized body colliding with the Earth, is testimony to the destructive potential of debris flying about in space. Also, the evidence of craters on the moon and on other planets shows just how common it is for meteorites to collide with other bodies in space. Our very survival relies upon gravity, but it is the gravitational pull of planets which pulls asteroids into them. This is precisely what happened to a comet fragment, Shoemaker-Levy 9 (SL9) was pulled into Jupiter's gravity in 1994. SL9 impacted Jupiter with a force of 6 million megatons, which sent a cloud 3000km above the planet's atmosphere. Even an object that size would be enough to wipe out our species, and consider that SL9 was but a fragment. Earth is somewhat fortunate in having Jupiter and the other gas giants in the outer solar system, as their huge gravitational pull makes them our first line in defence against asteroids and comets. On the other hand, the pull they and the sun have actually brings these objects into the solar system, and makes a strike on Earth not only all the more likely, but inevitable.

When one looks at the way meteors have hit the Moon and other planets, they may be tempted to think just why that doesn't happen on Earth. And the simple answer is, it does – every day and all the time. Most spacebourne rocks are in fact quite small and burn up harmlessly in the atmosphere, losing most of their mass in doing so. When we see them at night, we call them 'shooting stars'. If you've ever found small, burnt, metallic-like 'stones', those are in fact meteorites, and if you ever handle one, consider that you are in fact holding an extremely ancient piece of the universe, created billions of years ago, which travelled billions of miles across space before being drawn in by Earth's gravity and burning up in our atmosphere.

The doubter may scoff at this, that if such things burn up in our atmosphere, then they can scoff all they want. For if small objects can hit Earth, it logically follows that larger ones can do so. Which of course they do; some of them much larger than others, and which can have devastating consequences.

On the morning of 30 June 1908, there was a massive explosion above the Stony Tunguska River in Siberia. The shockwave of the blast knocked people off their feet, and shattered windows for hundreds of kilometres around. Reindeer in the area were scorched to a crisp. Over 80 million trees over an area of 2,150 square kilometres (830 sq mi) were flattened, while those at 'Ground Zero' were scorched through. The shockwave was recorded by seismographs all over Europe and Asia, including in Edinburgh, Scotland, over 3500 miles away, as the equivalent of an earthquake measuring over 5 on the Richter Scale. Edinburgh was also one of a great many places across the northern hemisphere where the sky was seen to glow as bright as daylight all night long for several nights afterwards. The explosion was initially estimated to be 30 megatons, although this has more recently been downgraded to 10 to 15 megatons.

“The fire came by,” said Reindeer herdsman Ilya Popovich, “and destroyed the forest, the reindeer, and the storehouses. Afterwards, when the Tungus went in search of the herd, they found only charred reindeer carcasses.” Another eyewitness, S Semenov, stated;

“At breakfast time I was sitting by the house at Vanavara Trading Post [65 kilometres/40 miles south of the explosion], facing north. [..] I suddenly saw that directly to the north, over Onkoul's Tunguska Road, the sky split in two and fire appeared high and wide over the forest [as Semenov showed, about 50 degrees up—expedition note]. The split in the sky grew larger, and the entire northern side was covered with fire. At that moment I became so hot that I couldn't bear it, as if my shirt was on fire; from the northern side, where the fire was, came strong heat. I wanted to tear off my shirt and throw it down, but then the sky shut closed, and a strong thump sounded, and I was thrown a few metres. I lost my senses for a moment, but then my wife ran out and led me to the house. After that such noise came, as if rocks were falling or cannons were firing, the earth shook, and when I was on the ground, I pressed my head down, fearing rocks would smash it. When the sky opened up, hot wind raced between the houses, like from cannons, which left traces in the ground like pathways, and it damaged some crops. Later we saw that many windows were shattered, and in the barn a part of the iron lock snapped.”

Russia at the time was in turmoil at the time in the aftermath of the first revolution of 1905. Other little matters such as the First World War, the Bolshevik Revolution, and the Russian Civil War held, coupled with the remoteness of the blast site, meant that it was not until 1921 that the first expedition reached the area. Russian mineralogist Leonid Kulik, based on eyewitness testimony, was persuaded that the event must have been a meteor impact. He finally convinced Soviet authorities to back a more in-depth expedition in 1927. When he reached the impact area, looking down on “ground zero” from a ridge, Kulik got the surprise of his life; there were the remnants of trees standing upright, scorched through, and further out trees were flattened out in a fan-like pattern – but no sign of the impact crater he expected to find, and which by all accounts, should have been there.

The absence of a crater at Tunguska drove science, and the general public, crazy. And for over a hundred years after the event, all sort of hypotheses which were put forward, along with the more-crazy speculation of the deluded and conspiracy theorists. Many believers in UFOs and extraterrestrial aliens postulated, and even downright maintained, that a nuclear-powered alien spacecraft had overheated and exploded. Note to anyone believing such nonsense – whatever the rights and wrongs of nuclear power, it is quite simply an impossibility for a nuclear reactor to explode like a nuclear bomb. After the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as well as various atmospheric atomic bomb tests, it was noted how trees at Ground Zero were charred through, whilst those further out were flattened in a fan-like pattern. This, along with the charring of the reindeer, eyewitness reports of clothes being burned off (actually very similar to an eyewitness report in John Hershey's Hiroshima) and reports of local people, known for their good health and longevity suddenly developing illnesses and dying early, led many others to postulate that the event may have been something causing a nuclear explosion, perhaps a pocket of antimatter entering Earth atmosphere and exploding upon contact with matter. Others claimed a nuclear weapon sent back through time from the future.

Thankfully, serious science never listened to all this daftness, and finally in 2013, Russian and American scientist found meteorite fragments in peat bogs in the impact area. This debris shows high proportions of iridium, also found in the remnants of the Chixculub Impactor, the meteor which wiped out the dinosaurs. The leading hypothesis therefore is that an asteroid entered Earth atmosphere, and exploded above the Stony Tunguska River, thereby leading to the enormous blast and catastrophic results.

Had the Tunguska meteor exploded above a densely populated area such as a major city, then it would have killed millions of people. And neither was it a one-off nor a rare event. Tunguska was indeed the largest recorded meteor event in recorded history, but there have been similar air burst meteors – bolides - in history. What is now believed to be such an event occurred in the Qìngyáng district of the then-Chinese province of Shaanxi, in which contemporary reports recorded widespread destruction and hundreds of deaths. The most recent happened right here in Scotland, on 29 February 2016, when a bolide burst with a bright flash seen from the Shetland Isles to the north of England, followed by a loud blast, 90 seconds later. Thankfully, this event was a small one, but had it been the size of the Tunguska event and had occurred in the Scottish Central Belt (roughly Edinburgh, Glasgow and surrounding areas) then it could have killed hundreds, thousands, or even millions.

Bolide explosion caught on cameras, Scotland, 29 February 2016:

The last airburst bolide to cause any injury was that which burst above the Chelyabinsk Oblast, Siberia, Russia, on 15 February 2013. The yield of the atmospheric impact was around 500 kilotons, or 20 to 30 times more powerful than the atomic bomb exploded above Hiroshima. Over 1500 people had to be treated for injuries, and the resultant blast damaged 7200 buildings in six cities around the region. Yet it could have been much worse. In 1957 there was an explosion at an underground nuclear waste repository in the Chelyabinsk region, which blew the top of the repository, and the resultant fallout leaving it as one of the most radioactive regions on Earth, which is still being cleaned up. Had the meteor burst near above, or impacted the earth in that region, then apart from immediate blast deaths, the irradiated debris thrown up could well have led to millions of cancer deaths across Eurasia.

Consider that most meteorites do indeed explode in mid-air and Earth has been extremely fortunate in not having had a ground-impacting event, such as the Chixculub Impactor, for many years, and most happened millions of years ago. This however does not mean we are safe, not by any mark. The most recent confirmed meteor impact crater is that of Nördlinger Ries, Bavaria, Germany, where an object with a diameter of about 1.5 kilometres (4,900 ft) impacted Earth around 14.5 million years ago with the force of resulting explosion had the power of 1.8 million Hiroshima bombs, an energy of roughly 2.4×10²¹ joules. Another unconfirmed crater however has been postulated as a possible impactor from as recently as c.1400. This is the Mahuika crater off the coast of New Zealand, which measures 20 ± 2 km (12.4 ± 1.2 mi) wide and over 153 meters (502 ft) deep. Reported by Dallas Abbott of Columbia University, and named by her after the Maori god of fire, the claim is disputed, but Maori legend tells of a huge explosion followed by a vast tsunami. This is important, for as devastating as a meteor strike on ground, such as happened at Meteor Crater, Arizona, if a large meteor ever hits one of our oceans – which cover two thirds of the globe – the subsequent tsunamis alone would have the potential to wipe out entire countries, killing billions. Do not forget that as I mentioned in a previous article, the vast majority of human beings live on or near to coastlines.

So, why does this happen? Well, the answer lies within our own solar system. Most come from the Asteroid Belt; an area of spacebourne rocks lying between Earth and Mars (and perhaps the remnants of a former planet), which range in size from nearly 1000-kilometres across to microscopic dust particles. As these rocks are free-floating, collisions between them can cause them to be dislodged, as can heat from the sun dislodge 'smaller' rocks (still big enough to devastate regions of Earth) by warming them more on one side, causing a gradual push, which sends them spinning. This can build up over millions of years, giving asteroids significant speed. After that, solar and Earth gravity does all the rest of the work. Some asteroids hitting the Moon or Mars can and do send shards flying off, which are captured by Earth's gravity and pulled into us.

Similarly, the way our sun and the solar system act within the Milky Way Galaxy (stop thinking about chocolate) presents it's own dangers. Our sun does not merely travel around galactic central point in an outward spiral arm. As it does so, it traverses in and out of the area of the arm – think of it very much like that of an old-fashioned carousel horse, going up and down as it goes round. Every 30 million years or so, the sun and the solar system traverse through the centre of the spiral arm, and approximately every 30 million years, there has been a mass extinction event on Earth. The solar system is surrounded by the Oort Cloud; a vast cloud of icy objects floating in space. As our solar system travels through the “danger zone”, the gravity of nearby stars pull at this cloud, which as it rebounds, sends objects hurtling inward towards the sun. We call these objects comets, and one of them, missing the outer gas giants, then skimming around the sun, slingshot by it's gravity, is what impacted at Chixculub, 65 million years ago, wiping out the dinosaurs as the dominant species.

These events are extremely important to this narrative, for they present enormous problems for the ID proponent. For if our own solar system has within it's own machinations processes which threaten our very existence, then if the ID proponent were correct, we see that our solar system, and by extension the universe itself, contain serious 'design faults'. So much for the perfectly-designed universe. Again, think of the carousel horse, think of a kid on that horse – and think of part of the overhead machinery coming loose due to a design fault and falling on top of her. Like the badly-designed carousel, if our universe is designed, then it is a shit design which the pisspoor designer ought to be held culpable for.

And worse still, if a big one did hit, there's not hellish much we can do about it. There have been various hypotheses of what could be done, but until we are in that position, we are powerless, and even then, there may be nothing we actually can do. Neither Bruce Willis and a bunch of misfit riggers, nor anyone else would be going up there to plant a thermonuclear weapon on it to blow a comet or asteroid apart, and doing so may actually make matters worse, as Earth would be hit by several objects in various places, instead of just one in one place. Placing a sail or motor to redirect the object's course may not work. Mankind may not even have sufficient time to act once the danger became imminent. That's if it even became imminent – the Chelyabinsk and Scottish meteorites came without warning. Similarly an object big enough to wipe out most life on the face of the planet, perhaps all life, could literally come out of nowhere. Or by the time it got close enough for us to send anything to meet it, it may then be too close to Earth to take any effective action. And as it first burned the oxygen out of the air and out of our very lungs, we would not even have time to put our heads between our legs and kiss our asses goodbye. Neither am I overplaying this. As I said, a mass extinction occurs approximately every 30 million years, due to a space impact. We are now well overdue having a large object hitting us, and have been lucky so far. That luck cannot last forever; it is not a matter of 'if' but 'when'.

Much less likely, yet not outwith the bounds of possibility, are black holes. In a term coined in 1967 by John Wheeler of Princeton University, Einstein's Theory of Relativity predicted “black holes” are the remnants of dead stars which have collapsed in on themselves, leaving an extremely tiny yet incredibly dense core whose enormous gravitational pull sucks all matter in it's path into it which then cannot escape, not even light, hence “black hole”. More technically known as singularities, black holes were purely hypothetical and only confirmed as recently as February 2016, when the Hubble Telescope observed gravitational waves – waves in space-time also hypothetical until recently – from two black holes merging together. Black holes lie everywhere in the universe, and not only even in our own Milky Way Galaxy, but indeed, the galaxy is here in the first place because all matter in it, including our solar system, our sun, our Earth, us, as strange as it may seem are all gradually being sucked into a supermassive black hole, billions of times bigger than the sun, which lies at the centre of the galaxy. It is possible that all galaxies are formed by such supermassive black holes drawing in matter around them.

So, whilst it is extremely unlikely, what would happen if a black hole entered our solar system? Well first it would tear into the Oort Cloud, sending a huge number of comets shooting towards the sun. At this point, it would not even be detectable, apart from slight gravitational lensing on distant stars as seen by powerful telescopes. It would not be until the black hole reached the gas giant planets of the outer solar system that it would become noticeable, and by that time it would be too late. In much the same way that we cannot see a tornado, but the matter which the vortex sucks in, as the black hole swallowed Pluto, Neptune, Uranus, Saturn, and Jupiter, it would form an “accretion disk” of matter around it's tiny centre. Without the gas giants of course, the inner solar system would be at the mercy of any flying space debris which had managed to avoid it's pull. But by the time the black hole reached Jupiter, it would already been all over for mankind, and all life on Earth anyway. With the massive gravitational pull causing earthquakes and supervolcanoes, the likes of which Earth has not seen since its earliest days. And indeed, as Mars was swallowed up, our planet would already be reduced to a superhot ball of magma, as it was in its days of being a protoplanet, and all life would have been wiped out – not even the cockroaches could survive this one. Then our planet itself would be torn apart and sucked into the black hole, then Venus, then Mercury, then old Sol himself, before the ever-hungry monster continued across the galaxy, sucking in anything and everything in it's path.

That is but one possibility. Another is that once in the solar system, the black hole would be attracted to the two largest bodies, Jupiter and the sun. As above, the loss of Jupiter would remove our first line of defence against meteorites and bolides, then as it started to suck matter from the sun, a massive galactic 'tug-of-war' would ensue, which the sun would lose, being drawn closer to the Earth, destroying all life, and eventually either our own sun or the black hole swallowing first Mercury, then Venus, then our own planet.

Of course, this is all hypothetical and the chances are extremely slim, having been calculated at around one in a trillion. However, that one chance does not mean never, the chance still exists; it's highly unlikely that most of us will get hit by lightning – but it still happens to some. There may be as many as 100 million black holes in our galaxy alone, and we have no idea where the overwhelming majority of them have. So while the chances are extremely slim, they are by no means impossible. Of course, the naysayer may disregard this because the chances are so slim, but that misses the point, which is that again, if the universe is designed, then that design is not merely slipshod, but downright dangerous. For such a 'perfect' universe to include things which are capable of not just wiping out all life, but entire solar systems, would be nothing short of gross negligence on the part of the designer and creator.

But then, we need not worry about the long-term future of planet Earth and humanity, for if there is one thing this planet does not have, it's a long-term future.

One of the favourite – and most mistaken – claims of ID proponents is that how 'perfectly' our planet is distanced from the sun, and how 'perfectly' our moon is distanced from the Earth. They are fond of saying that a little closer to the sun and we would burn up, a little further away, and we would freeze. I have heard and read this claimed from “a few miles” to even “a few inches”, and it's complete bullshit – well, almost.

It is true that the Earth lies in a “Goldilocks Zone” which has led to the rise of life. Indeed, if our planet were closer to the sun, then the planet would be too hot for life – as we know it, just like Venus. If Earth were further away, then likewise life as we know it could not exist in the cold, just like Mars. However, our Goldilocks Zone, or Circumstellar Habitable Zone (CHZ) is extremely wide, and due to gravitational pulls and our elliptical – not round – orbit around the sun, we do draw closer to and move further from it, not by “a few miles”, unless you are counting thousands as “a few”. Add to this that Earth is not alone in the CHZ of the solar system, but Venus and Mars are indeed included in it, due to one element – water. Venus and Mars, like Earth, have atmospheres and water, which of course is essential for life to exist in the first place.

Is any of this important or relevant to this article? Yep, sure is, for one day Mars may become mankind's lifeboat. Our sun formed about 4.6 billion years ago, and is roughly halfway through it's lifetime. In around 4.4 billion years, the sun will start to expand towards it's red dwarf phase (Lister, Cat, Rimmer, and Kryten will be 6 billion light years away). As the sun begins to expand, we can kiss goodbye our CHZ, and like Goldilocks, our species, along with any other species we take, will have to run for it, or stay and die. Then Mars may become a temporary home, but even then, as the sun keeps expanding, one of Jupiter's moons, perhaps Europa (if the aliens allow us to attempt any landings there) or Titan, would be our next target. Eventually, if mankind is to survive at all in the deep, deep future, then relying upon our own ingenuity to move out of the solar system – the 'local neighbourhood' – altogether. As the sun expands even more, it will indeed consume every planet, every object, in the solar system. Eventually the sun itself would expand beyond it's own capabilities, and it's light will go out forever.

If our species has managed to survive this, then our distant descendants will be far, far from this tiny, blue-green rock we call home, which will have long since have disappeared. They will more than likely have evolved to adapt to their new environments, on another planet, in another solar system, elsewhere in the galaxy. We have after all already evolved as we populated new environments across the planet, so adapting to another planet would be an inevitability. But even that may not be a permanent home, as the star it surrounds will expand just like our sun. And of course, the entire galaxy, continually being sucked into the supermassive black hole at its centre, will eventually disappear altogether.

But even then, no matter how far mankind evolves and how far out into the universe they go, although it make take billions and billions of years, our distant descendants will merely be postponing the inevitable, the annihilation of our species, as the universe itself comes to an end. One hypothesis of this is “heat death” of the universe; that as it continually expands, it will reach a state of no thermodynamic free energy, and therefore can no longer sustain processes that consume energy, including computation and life. This idea came from the ideas of William Thomson (no relation – sadly), First Baron Kelvin, who in the 1850s took the theory of heat as mechanical energy loss in nature (as embodied in the first two laws of thermodynamics) and extrapolated it to larger processes on a universal scale.

Even before this happens, as black holes continue with no way of abating them, there is every possibility that all will remain of space will be black holes, which may very well collide with each other, becoming increasingly dense as they swallow everything up, including the very universe itself.

Or then there is the “big rip” hypothesis. It was once thought that as the universe expanded, it must decelerate, which would allow for the universe to expand so far, and then contract. In 2011 however, it was discovered that far from slowing, the expansion of the universe is in fact accelerating. For this to happen, then there must be some kind of material or field within the universe which is exerting a negative pressure, or repulsive gravity. This is called dark energy. Dark energy is everywhere in the universe and is so powerful that it has been observed to retard and even prevent the growth of superclusters of galaxies. The 'big rip' hypothesis is that as dark energy increases, it will be able to overcome all, including gravitation. Thus entire galaxy superclusters will be ripped apart, perhaps even black holes destroyed, leaving nothing of space but a cold, empty vacuum.

So, for a “perfectly designed universe”, it not only is full of things which threaten all life on a daily basis, but has within that design the very things that will cause major parts of it to break down, and may well include factors which will one day cause it to stop working altogether. It seems our designer has slapped a best before date on the “perfectly designed” universe, and like a dodgy car manufacturer, has included built-in obsolescence into the design.

In the past four articles in this series I have taken the reader of a journey from the birth of the universe, some 13.82 billion years ago, through the formation of the solar system, 4.6 billion years ago, the rise of life some 3.8 billion years ago, the evolutionary journey which against all odds led to mankind rising a mere 200,000 years ago, up to the present day, and have looked into the future fate of our planet, our solar system, our galaxy and the universe itself. I have shown any idea of the universe, the galaxy, solar system, Earth, life and mankind being created by an intelligent designer to be clearly preposterous. Yes, I have mocked, and I make absolutely no apologies for that. When the misinformed, the deluded, the frauds and the charlatans put forward preposterous ideas which have no evidence to back them up, and which cannot stand up to even the slightest scrutiny, even by a layman like me, and try to present that as fact, then they roundly deserve to be mocked. And if you think I can mock, I invite anyone to go and read or watch the claims of ID proponents, and just how much they mock serious peer-reviewed science, those who spread that science, and how they try to downright bully others, including schools, into accepting their nonsensical and baseless claims in the name of science.

This Earth, our home was never “perfectly designed” for life, nor was our solar system, our galaxy, or the universe. Nor were we “perfectly designed” for life on Earth. The simple fact is that due to the dangers of life on Earth, due to the limitations of our bodies, Homo Sapiens Sapiens evolved and adapted for life on this planet, just as every other species, be they animal or plant, has thus evolved. That is the very essence of evolution; adaptation to a given environment. “Survival of the fittest” does not mean the strongest, but which species is best suited to an environment. That's why you don't find many human beings living in the oceans, or fish in dry areas. And of course this means that we are indeed not 'top species', just best suited to the environments we choose to live in. There is no 'top species', and contrary to what some creationists and ID proponents try to claim, no-one seriously interested in evolution would ever claim any such thing. I know the idea of humanity being 'just another animal' must really stick in the craw of some creationists and ID proponents, for after all, it is they who claim that, according to their Bronze Age campfire stories of goat herders campfire tales, mankind was given “dominion” over all the species on the Earth. It is actually creationists and ID proponents who see humanity as a “master race”, while those of us who have an active interest in evolution realise that there is no such thing.

Intelligent Design, creationism and the teleological argument are sometimes referred to as pseudoscience. I would not even grace them with that title, for pseudoscience is based on mistaken notions of science. They have no such basis and are really nothing better than a fairy story – and not even a very good one at that.

Well, I for one like fairy stories, but there comes a time when one has to realise that the garden (our Earth) is beautiful and fascinating enough, without going looking for fairies at the bottom of it.