The convention hall had a capacity of 2000, and it was packed. Such was the popularity of the guest speaker of the day. There was an air of high expectation all around. The great Mr. Arten was coming here, and he was going to deliver a talk on the origin of life. It was bound to be interesting, as he had been working on this subject fruitfully for several years.

The buzz in the hall suddenly died. The great person had arrived. The audience rose to give him a standing ovation. He bowed and took his seat with great dignity.

First, there were a few speeches by the organizers about the guest speaker, his life and work, his extraordinary contribution to science, in

The audience fidgeted and murmured, waiting for all these speeches to end and for the great scientist and philosopher to take up the microphone.

Finally, the moment arrived. With ponderous steps, Mr. Arten mounted the podium. He cast a grave glance at the packed hall. A hush fell over the audience.

And then he began speaking. His voice was sonorous, his delivery clear. He exuded an air of supreme self-confidence.

He spoke thus:

"Ladies and gentlemen, without beating about the bush, let me say straight out that I am here to prove the creationists wrong.

"Let us go about it logically.

"What are the arguments that the creationists put forward? The primary one concerns the chain of cause and effect—the argument that the existence of a thing points to the existence of its maker.

"Why should this reasoning be true? I agree that we have yet to discover any causeless effect, but does it mean that it does not exist, never did exist, and will never exist in the future? As you can see, this line of argument leads us into a labyrinth of philosophical concepts, without making us reach any conclusive result. Finally, all we can concede is that this view of the creationists is nothing more than a mere hypothesis, in which case, I present a counter-hypothesis.

"The counter-hypothesis is that causality does break down at some level of existence, and at that point, a thing can come into existence spontaneously, and there is no need of postulating a maker at this point.

"The second argument that the creationists put forward is this: strange objects, pictures and signs have been unearthed which point to the existence, at some time in the very remote past, of the Maker. They believe that at one time, much before our existence, the Maker lived on Earth. He created us in order to serve him. But later, something befell the Maker and he vanished from the earth, leaving only vague traces.

"Now, this is an interesting argument. I see that my esteemed opponent Mr Defore is in the audience. I am sure he can provide you with more details about these so-called signs of the Maker. However, it was to these very signs that I had applied myself for the past decade. The essence of my research has been gathered in a book called The Maker Myth, which is now undergoing publication. I urge you all to read this book when it comes out. I promise you that you will find it interesting and stimulating. In this book, I have taken the alleged signs of the Maker and have postulated possible rational causes for each and every one of them, proving that these signs do not necessarily point to the Maker.

"So then, if there is no Maker, how did we come into existence? This is the question that I am going to answer now. Listen carefully to the following scenario and see how rational, how intellectually satisfying it is.

"In the beginning there was a timeless singularity. This singularity exploded in a big bang and gave birth to two things, matter and energy. The existence of matter and energy resulted in the simultaneous existence of time. The world progressed. Order resulted from chaos. The matter, influenced by energy, formed various elements, substances, planets, suns, and so on. One of the planets thus formed was Earth.

"On Earth, several random combinations of elements took place and several substances were formed. One of these substances was also the substance of our bodies. This substance, when formed, had no coherent shape. Then, with the passing of eons and the continuation of random combinations, once again order resulted from chaos and some of the substances arranged itself into an orderly shape—the shape of our bodies. The substance was, of course, lifeless. It probably lay lifeless for several more eons, until one day, a bolt of lightning hit it. Electricity coursed through it, and this electricity did strange things to it. It gave sentience and motion to the substance.

"That was the first being, the father of us all. Once he became alive, he took control of what so far had been a random process. He began gathering and giving shape to the substances. He discovered how to create electricity and he also discovered other power sources. With these power sources, he gave life to the images he had assembled. In short, he created more beings like himself, who then helped him to create still more, till the world was populated by our likes.

"That is my hypothesis about our origin. Tell me honestly. Isn't it a beauty? And where does the so-called Maker come into it?
"In conclusion, ladies and gentlemen." Mr. Arten said, "I would like to state that I firmly believe that we robots came into being by ourselves as I have described, and the myth of Man, the Maker, is just that—a myth."