THE HEAVENS — Addressing thousands of years of inquiries into the meaning of life and the existence of a higher power, God revealed on Monday that this universe is the control group in a long-term field experiment testing how well humans fare sans Divine Intervention.

“It’s been captivating to observe the pace of humanity’s progress without help from above,” God said in His press release. “With the invention of historical records and thus inter-generational memory, we anticipated an end to class warfare, racial bigotry, religious intolerance, and senseless violence centuries ago. Yet all of the species’s learning appears to be latent. Fascinating!”

An upcoming report (God et al. 2016) containing the specifics of the experiment states that given the data’s very small p-value, there is strong evidence to reject the null hypothesis that there is no correlation between the love of our Heavenly Father and a better world. Indeed, in his comments, God revealed to the stunned whole of humanity that the introduction of a cure to cancer was “really making a splash” in Universe B, and that divine population controls have assured prosperity and abundance for all.

“To those who believe everything happens for a reason,” He said, “wrong universe. Did you actually think God had anything to do with a world where Destiny’s Child breaks up?”