A visitor from another world arrived in an English village early one summer's day.Unusually, there were no people or animals to be seen, but, leaning against the wall of a house, there was a bicycle.Not being familiar with such an object, the visitor took a good look at it, before continuing by a circuitous route through the village.Coming eventually to the church, he was surprised to see, against the wall, the machine that he had seen earlier.He wondered how it had got there, so he looked at it carefully again.He could see how the wheels went round, and how the direction of movement was controlled by the handlebars.He also saw that it was downhill from the curate's house to the church.From these observations, he was satisfied that he understood how it was that the machine had moved from the house to church. 

There is, particularly in America, a continuing debate about evolution: does modern science provide all the answers?We have much to learn from science, and further scientific advances will teach us a great deal more about how evolution works and about how the world works in other ways too.However, just as the visitor in this fable understood the mechanics of the bicycle but failed to see that it would not have got to the church unless the curate had ridden it there and had had a reason for getting there, perhaps there is more to evolution than just the mechanics. To understand the driving force and the purpose behind it we need to look deeper.
 

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