"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.

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.

In their quest to disprove design in the universe, scientists have produced evermore speculative models of cosmology. Big Bang cosmology, for example, relies heavily on a process called inflation, an ad hoc speculation that remains highly controversial 26 years after it was first proposed.