Abstract
Regarding the roundtable discussion on Nature's Destiny by Michael Denton (Winter 1999), I take issue with Dembski's comment: "If one focuses on 'law,'. . . meaning the actual natural regularities, the designer inevitably fades away into a brute natural process. . . . It is hard to see how Denton's argument can avoid a similar fate." I would like to show how to avoid that "similar fate." With an argument of fine-tuning of the very laws of nature, design is in the laws. The designer will not lose his job as long as the laws themselves are identifiable as designed. Even if the laws of physics were sufficient explanations of the origin of life and the rest of biology, the designer still reigns. Why? Because he started it. If a marionette gets longer strings, he gains no more autonomy from his master. There are only two places to cut God out of the story. The first is at the beginning: if no explanation for the laws of nature is satisfactory (i.e., they arose by chance), then design is not inferred and a designer is unnecessary. The second place is to say there are other strings-either other laws of nature or the initial conditions. Of course, the fine-tuning argument currently includes all known laws of nature and known initial conditions...