No, this isn’t about religion. It is about ways of thinking. The main argument for intelligent design is that organisms are too complicated to have developed through a series of random mutations followed by natural selection: the world is too “perfect” to have developed by evolution, it needed a designer; i.e God.
Now what does that have to do with our stay in Denmark?


Sitting around after dinner with some Danish friends the comment was made, “To have a good society you must have taxes.” This is clearly true of course. There is a certain minimum level of government functions that must be done, defense, legal system, etc. that require funding hence taxes. However, in the context that the statement was made, much more was implied.
The idea is that to have a good society one must have very high taxes. Denmark, for example, provides universal “free” health care, “free” education, and a vast menu of social support services (generous unemployment insurance, paid year-long maternity leave, government support of sports clubs, etc.) with correspondingly high taxes. Of course when the government pays for these things, it also plans them. It decides who gets them, how much they get, and what is covered. Government plans and determines many other things as well. Whether or not any or all of these are good ideas is not the issue here. Strong arguments can be made for all of them. The point is that the concept of letting the free market, i.e., evolution, determine those outcomes is considered not only unjust but untenable, not even to be considered. Society requires designers.
What I find interesting about this is that these two concepts, evolution within the environment and evolution within a society are frequently (I suspect even usually) not held by the same individuals. Those who believe that society should be planned virtually all believe in evolution. Most of those who believe in intelligent design don’t believe in a big government planned society.
There are some of us who believe that evolution works in both arenas and that “intelligent design” will always lead to less adaptability, efficiency, prosperity and happiness in the long run.
Yet…
Philosophical discussions aside, Denmark is a wonderful place. Everyone I came into contact with was friendly and polite. It is amazingly clean. The houses are small and well cared for. Pedestrians never stand in the bike paths. The unemployment rate is low and incomes are high. Whatever they are doing, it works for them.