INTELLIGENTLY DESIGNED LEAGUES

This week STIG interviews controversial Scientician, Brian MacNice, on his theory that a system of intelligent design, rather than one of natural selection, should operate in the eircom League.

By John Craddock

STIG: "Thank you for agreeing to the interview, Brian, we know how difficult you can be to get hold of sometimes. To start, why don’t you give us an overview of your theory?"

Brian MacN: "Thank you, the basis of my argument is that the eircom League is too complex a system to expect the forces of natural selection to result in the optimum combination of teams in each division. Let me put it this way, there are over 600,000 different ways of choosing 12 premier division teams out of a possible 22. Yet the league has been in existence for less than 100 seasons. Any schoolboy could tell you that the probability of the league just happening upon the best combination by chance is vanishingly small. Basically what I’m saying is that choosing the position of teams by some type of random process has failed the league and should be replaced with something better. An intelligent designer choosing teams will not be held back by statistical niceties and can achieve in one move what could take the current system a million years."

STIG: "Your critics say that your model, portraying the current system as one of random selection, is invalid. They claim that the process of promotion and relegation already ensures that the best teams compete in the premier."

Brian: "An irreducibly complex system is one where each constituent part is dependant on all the others to function. For example, take the human eye. It has mechanisms to admit different amounts of light, correct for chromatic and spherical aberration and focus for different distances. To suggest that these independent features happened to be floating around with no purpose when they randomly happened upon each other to form a functioning eye is the stuff of science fiction. For this reason it is widely held that an irreducibly complex system cannot evolve naturally. Similarly, expecting the league teams to just happen to combine into two useful divisions is, quite frankly, absurd in the extreme. When small teams are allowed to play alongside bigger ones you end up with ridiculous results, like when Cork recently failed to beat UCD, despite the fact that Cork fans think infinitely more of themselves than they do UCD fans. The Cork public doesn’t pay good money to see their team draw. This result and ones like it hold the league back."

STIG: "But does the league form an irreducibly complex system? Surely each club is not dependant on all the others to function and if a club is as big as it claims to be it would naturally rise into the top division?"

Brian: "Let me put it this way, say you were walking in a field and happened to find a watch. Would you assume that at some stage, someone had manufactured the watch or would you imagine that cosmic forces had drawn together the component parts into a functioning timepiece, and even set it to the correct time? You would, of course, assume the former. Now apply that logic in reverse. Say you wanted a watch, would you actively go out and get one from a watch manufacturer or would you wait for cosmic forces to deliver you one? You would go out and buy one because even though the laws of physics say most things are possible, the probability of a watch appearing into your hand is vanishingly small.

You see, in this analogy, the league is the watch. We could wait around for a hundred years and Galway might still not get promoted. I say, why wait? We know what we want, let’s go and get it!"

STIG: "Thank you, Brian, for an enlightening interview. Finally, have you any more studies on the league planned?"

Brian: "Thank you, STIG, for the opportunity. Since you ask, I’m working on a scheme to extend my intelligent design theories from the macro league level to the micro level of individual games. There has been some promise already this season, when you look at the amount of interference in the league table by the league’s masters. Expunging results and docking points is a step in the right direction, I’d like to see a situation where the result of every match is decided by committee, to make sure that incorrect results, like Cork drawing at home, become a thing of the past. In time I hope that we could even intelligently manage individual plays and moves within a game. I think we’re still a long way behind out competitors on this front. When you look at the success of other sports entertainment products, like the WWE, you see the potential that such a high level of choreography can have."

This article originally appeared in print in STIG Volume 6, Issue 7.