Douglas Adams' book and cult radio show The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (now made into a film) discusses the Babel fish, a marvellous creature that, when inserted into the ear canal, allows the wearer to understand any language in the Universe. Pan-galactic philosophers find the Babel fish so expertly designed for its task as universal interpreter that it can, in a bizarre twist of logic, be used to prove the non-existence of God.

The argument runs like this.

"I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith, I am nothing."

"Aha!" says Man, "The Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own argument, you don't. QED."

"Oh dear, I hadn't thought of that," says God, and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.

All right, this is a bit silly. But the point it illustrates is not trivial. And it can be argued that followers of 'intelligent design' fall prey to the same flaw in logic.

Intelligent design is the idea that humanity and the world are so intricate that there must be a creator behind it all. Some proponents of the idea wish to see this concept treated as a proper theory, having it peer reviewed and accepted by the scientific community. The intention is to establish the existence of a creator, declaring along the way that unguided natural selection is not a credible process.

But they have failed to grasp the futility of this exercise. It is a tenet of any faith that the adherent should believe in the precepts on offer, without asking for evidence. Proof denies faith, says God, and without faith, I am nothing. And the old guy is right.

Liberal hypocrites

It is hard for scientists to complain about the intelligent-design movement: creationists respond that scientists have a vested interest in keeping up evolution and squashing any other explanation of how the world works. And to some extent they'd be right.

For several decades, scientists have been associated with the general, left-leaning liberal consensus that embraces atheism and political correctness; it is a stance that many religious people (and non-religious people too) find rather hypocritical. It seems that it is in vogue to be open-minded, but only if this tolerance is restricted to the narrow world view laid down by the self-styled intelligentsia.

Indeed many scientists raised in this milieu are shocked that any other world view is possible. So perhaps it is no surprise that some of the scientists who find solace and meaning in religion tend to keep quiet. Belief in God may put you in an unfavoured camp. Tenure may be at stake.

Conspiracy theorists

However, some creationists go overboard and treat science as a kind of conspiracy: scientists are maintaining a united front against religion because they are afraid of the 'truth' that only the creationists know. This stems from the same fondness for conspiracy that finds fertile ground in the backwoods of the United States. No, it wasn't a lone gunman in the book repository, it was a bunch of pinko aliens from Area 51 fuelled by the global Jewish hegemony, they might say.

We're used to thinking of conspiracy theorists as pallid geeks with tin foil inside their hats, but there is no law to say they shouldn't be educated, wear suits and give university lectures.

It is here that scientists with faith should be able to score some points, because this group can argue that science is not at odds with religion, and that there is no conspiracy. This group is also best placed to point out that intelligent design is not even a theory... at least not in the scientific sense of the word. It is instead a pseudoscientific idea that, like all conspiracy theories, cherry-picks the evidence it needs.

Many religious people find that evolution explains the living world quite happily all on its own: to posit God as a hidden extra is very nice, but it is quite unnecessary. It violates the scientific principle known as Ockham's razor, which recommends parsimony in the number of things you postulate to explain the world. If you're not going to abide by that, you may as well believe in aliens from Area 51. So whatever intelligent design is, it isn't scientific.

The best medicine

What we really need is a cadre of religious scientists who can both stand up for their beliefs, and realize that they don't need intelligent design to stick their faith and work together.

These brave scientists should be prepared to expose intelligent design for the nonsense it is. They should be prepared to show that it is a shameless perversion of sincere religious faith, the faith that demands no proof. But most of all, they should be able to laugh at religion.

Having a sense of humour almost guarantees a sense of perspective, without which one risks being blinded by faith. For myself, I can claim to be a religious person who views Monty Python's Life of Brian as comedy rather than blasphemy.

Laughter is the enemy of pomposity, cant, dogma and lies, as it is a friend of truth, honesty and any intellectual discourse that aims to explain new things. Laughter is the enemy of extremism, be it found in political correctness or religion.

Umberto Eco picks up on this idea in his medieval mystery The Name Of The Rose, in which monks die after coming into contact with a poisoned book that contains Aristotelian comedies. In the end the monastery library is burned to the ground, the perpetrator claiming that his aim was to maintain the bastion of religion against the corrosion of humour.

It is notable that God, even if non-existent, has the last laugh, at least in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. After demolishing God, Man proves that black equals white and gets run over on a striped pedestrian crossing. Such is the power of a good proof.