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by Steve Risner

In last week's installment, we looked at the obvious nature of design when it comes to living things or life in general. You would think a person was crazy or on drugs if they told you your smart phone was the result of random, undirected processes that involved no planning or forethought. Your smart phone is actually quite dumb when compared to the workings going on in every cell of your body, let alone the immense coordination of all the systems that make up your totality. To suggest all that came about through mindless, uncoordinated processes is ridiculous. We exposed some of the statements evolutionists have made where they either accidentally call living things designed or where they marvel at how complicated the “programming” of a living thing is and still want to call it a wonderful accident of nature. Let's look at some more things that have been stated on this topic of design:

Voltaire was no friend to Christianity, himself being a deist. But he interestingly said, “We are intelligent beings: intelligent beings cannot have been formed by a crude, blind, insensible being: there is certainly some difference between the ideas of Newton and the dung of a mule. Newton's intelligence, therefore, came from another intelligence.” It's nice he mentioned Newton, even though he and Newton would have disagreed on quite a lot, especially in regards to Christianity. Newton is regarded by many to be the greatest mind science has ever known. He lived long before the IQ test was a thing, but many believe his intelligence was at least as great if not greater than Einstein's. Voltaire, who was not a Bible-believing Christian at all, saw the absurdity in believing that human beings were nothing but the result of “blind, insensible” natural processes. A Designer is required, simply put.

Many argue that Intelligent Design (ID) cannot be scientific because it stands on the Bible or some other sacred text as its foundation. It's true, for me anyway, that the Bible is the absolute authority on matters. When the matter is origins, it undoubtedly should be the final authority for a Christian. But the fact is that design in living things is so obvious, that it IS scientific simply because it's observation nearly goes without saying. This statement by Michael Behe, PhD puts it very well: “The conclusion of intelligent design flows naturally from the data itself—not from sacred books or sectarian beliefs. Inferring that biochemical systems were designed by an intelligent agent is a humdrum process that requires no new principles of logic or science. It comes simply from the hard work that biochemistry has done over the past forty years, combined with consideration of the way in which we reach conclusions of design every day.” A remarkable thing can be found reading the above Wikipedia link. The school Dr. Behe teaches at says this: “While we respect Prof. Behe's right to express his views, they are his alone and are in no way endorsed by the department. It is our collective position that intelligent design has no basis in science, has not been tested experimentally, and should not be regarded as scientific.”

This demonstrates the terror that ID strikes in evolutionists. They cannot tolerate a rival idea. As such, they will sling mud at any idea contrary to Darwinism and will even attempt to reduce it to being unscientific simply on the merit that it is at odds with evolutionism. This isn't science at all. This is consensus and is anti-science. I've written on this as well in the past, but it cannot be stressed too much or too frequently. The insecurity of evolutionists is striking and they don't even seem to care that their primary weapon against dissension is shunning or public ridicule. There are many examples of this, including the above mentioned statement by Lehigh University. Dr. Behe's statement is spot on. Design isn't something we arrive at simply because the Bible says so, although we certainly do come to that conclusion based on the Bible. Design in life is an obvious observation that nearly anyone of nearly any age can realize.

William Dembski states the simple nature of the issue: “The fundamental claim of intelligent design is straightforward and easily intelligible: namely, there are natural systems that cannot be adequately explained in terms of undirected natural forces and that exhibit features which in any other circumstance we would attribute to intelligence.” The idea that nature (never mind where nature came from) accidentally built a wide variety of extremely ingenious designs in the living world, including multiple super computers and sensors without any idea what it was doing goes beyond logic and reason. All scientific experiments on the origin of life have come up empty handed in providing a viable way for life to arise from non-life. Even if they did stumble onto a method by which they built a living thing in a test tube, they would be proving ID is required and in no way would be able to support that such a thing happened accidentally in eons passed. DNA is a wonder in and of itself and is so complex we cannot begin to rival its sophistication and scale.

Last week I mentioned the bacterial flagellum and how it, as “simple” is it may be, has some 40 different parts that would need to be accidentally made at the same time and in the proper sequence for the thing to work. This is also the case for the clotting cascade. Have you ever wondered about your blood's ability to clot? It's actually pretty fascinating and absolutely necessary for life. If we didn't have this ability, we'd all be dead. But if our blood clotted randomly all the time, we'd also all be dead. The balance is essential and how something with over 20 different sequential components to it randomly and accidentally just popped into existence is a thing of fairy tales. If it works “too well” we die from stroke or some other form of blockage. If it doesn't work well enough, the smallest cut can easily result in us bleeding out. It has to work correctly and had to since the dawn of the first organisms with a circulatory system.

This same idea is true for an endless number of different things in the living world. You may hear perfectly arranged stories as to what may have happened for these amazing anatomical and physiological things to exist, but no evidence exists for such stories. I guess there's no evidence beyond the fact that these things do exist—the bacterial flagellum exists, the clotting cascade happens, etc. The evolutionist, because he or she has already determined that evolution has happened, will say some such made up story as to the origins of a structure or function must be correct. In fact, quite often it will be presented to us as though they watched it happen and are are reporting on what they saw. Their arguments quite often boil down to, “I'm here. We're all here.” And they'll end it up with, “Therefore, evolution.” They'll arrange things in groups or lineages or trees or whatever and act as though they've presented discovered facts when, in truth, they've only discovered that they can arrange things in groups or lineages or trees and nothing more. They've agreed before looking at any evidence that evolutionism is a fact, which will result in them interpreting all the evidence to support their origins myth or claim any evidence they cannot incorporate into their myth as unscientific.

We've touched a little on irreducible complexity and specified complexity in these two posts without getting into a great deal of detail. These ideas are clear and easily seen in nature. Irreducible complexity is the idea that something, when it is broken down into its simplest form, is still marvelously complex and could not have arisen by random, undirected, uncoordinated processes—like the flagellum or clotting cascade. Specified complexity is a little tougher to tackle, but the idea is explained by Dembski this way: “Life is both complex and specified. The basic intuition here is straightforward. A single letter of the alphabet is specified without being complex (i.e., it conforms to an independently given pattern but is simple). A long sequence of random letters is complex without being specified (i.e., it requires a complicated instruction-set to characterize but conforms to no independently given pattern). A Shakespearean sonnet is both complex and specified.” While we can find lots of shouting down of such ideas, the merit of the arguments against such things is void of much intellect at all. Again, when something counters the evolutionism world, it is mocked and berated and called unscientific. Interestingly, Behe responds to such attacks with, “It might be tempting to imagine that irreducible complexity simply requires multiple simultaneous mutations - that evolution might be far chancier than we thought, but still possible. Such an appeal to brute luck can never be refuted... Luck is metaphysical speculation; scientific explanations invoke causes.” There is nothing scientific about Darwinism beyond the observation that there is biodiversity—a variety of living things on earth. Mutations happen. Organisms that survive pass on their genes more frequently. None of these ideas is unique to evolutionism. None of this leads to evolution from a single common ancestor unless you're already committed to such an idea before viewing the evidence.

Before the attack of “quote mining” is used here against these writings, let me be clear here on what a “quote mine” is and is not. A “quote mine” is taking something out of context for the purpose of making it appear the one making the statement meant something completely different than their intent. A “quote mine” is not taking a quote and exposing the person's inconsistency within their own philosophy. No ideas were presented here that were intended to mislead anyone into believing any of these evolutionists quoted were supporting ID. They seem to by their statements, but we know they do not. Thanks for reading and please leave a comment.

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