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FACTORY  3'?m2f Evolution and automation

AMY -- (enters wearing white lab coat or blue smock) ...and this 
is the last stop on the tour of our new factory. This is the 
shipping department, where the finished product is packed and 
loaded onto the trucks. (points to audience rear wall)

LIZ -- (follows) Wait a minute. This is where we started the 
tour.

AMY -- Yes.

LIZ -- And when we started, you called this the receiving 
department, not the shipping department.

AMY -- That's right. One of the indicators of a good factory 
design is to utilize one space for multiple purposes.

LIZ -- I see.

AMY -- We found that by clever scheduling, we could unload the 
raw material from a truck and then immediately load that same 
truck with finished products. It not only saves floor space in 
the factory, it also saves mileage for the trucks.

LIZ -- Very clever. This whole factory is loaded with clever 
designs. It must have taken you forever to design it.

AMY -- Actually, with all the automation in this factory, there 
is no way we could have designed it without state-of-the-art 
computers. (points to exit) Right this way. I'll show you to your 
car.

LIZ -- Wait a minute. You asked me over here to show me why
evolution is wrong. When are we going to talk about evolution?

AMY -- We just did.

LIZ -- You lost me.

AMY -- As complex and well engineered as this factory is, it is 
less complex than the simplest one-celled organism. 

LIZ -- No way.

AMY -- Yes, indeed. An amoeba or paramecium has the microscopic 
equivalent of a shipping and receiving department, a warehouse, 
a sub-assembly department, a final assembly department, a 
scheduling department, and a conveyor system to move raw 
materials and products from one process to another. In addition, 
these one-celled animals are cleverly designed to use single 
spaces for multiple purposes, just like we do.

LIZ -- No kidding.

AMY -- No kidding. Even with state-of-the-art automation, this 
factory requires 200 people to read the meters and do the 
maintenance and repairs. But even computer-aided designs have 
yet to come up with a way to manufacture a product without any 
people at all. The simplest living cells, even plant cells, have 
completely automated all these processes.

LIZ -- That's unbelieveable.

AMY -- Yet, these one-celled animals are even more complex than 
that. Let's suppose through a miracle of engineering we could 
make this plant completely automatic, even do its own repairs, 
load and unload the trucks, everything.

LIZ -- Okay.

AMY -- In order to be as complex and well-designed as the 
simplest cell of a living petunia plant, this factory would have 
to be capable of building new, completely automated factories 
without slowing down the production of its usual products.

LIZ -- New factories?! That's ridiculous! There's no way on 
earth a factory could build another factory, let alone do it 
while in full production!

AMY -- Yet, that's exactly what plant cells do all the time. 
When you believe in evolution, you're saying that all of THIS 
(motions broadly) clever, intricate design and more could be 
produced without an intelligent designer. Do you still believe 
in evolution?

LIZ -- (exits briskly) I'll get back to you on that.

AMY -- (exits opposite) I can't wait.

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