"Surprise effect" was a term used by information-theory pioneer Claude Shannon to indicate the presence of information. In a string of symbols, it's not surprising to find randomness or patterns produced by natural law. It is surprising, though, to find a message. The SETI program, for example, looks for just such an information-bearing surprise in radio waves reaching earth.

Evolution has many steep obstacles to overcome. Many are the stupendous design characteristics and environmental balances that can scarcely be understood by today's scientists, let alone mimicked. Yet evolution must work alone with random mutations (usually harmful and therefore discarded) and unthinking natural selection, which cannot see the future or do anything novel on its own.

It wouldn't make much sense to brag about knowing the diameter of a steering wheel to five decimal places on a car headed the wrong way with an engine about to blow, would it? Neither is it sensible to talk of "precision cosmology" in a day when major upheavals are being seriously considered by astronomers.