I recently saw a TV commercial from Black & Decker. They have a new iron that doubles as a handheld steamer. Pretty cool concept. But this is not a review post. I hate ironing. The point of this post is not to discuss the product, but the commercial.

In the commercial, the tagline for the new “variable steam” iron is “evolution of the iron”. In addition to using this phrase, the voice on the commercial uses the term “redesigned”. This caught my attention. Did the iron evolve or was it designed?  This may be just semantics with this silly example, but when we are talking about the origins of the universe, it is a different story.

I think this question is representative of many real life assertions that we encounter everyday. In discussions concerning the universe, these two ideas – evolution and design – are contradictory. As Ben Stein proved so adeptly in his documentary “Expelled”, Intelligent Design and Evolution are, in fact, sworn enemies. Yet I will often hear proponents of evolution slip up and use terms like “designed”, “designer”, “engineered”, etc.

My theory? These “slip ups” are just the manifestation of what we were made to understand: to have a design, you must have a designer.

What about you? Have you ever heard someone use these two ideas in a self-defeating way? Please comment.