Design

 

By proof of God I mean the sheer weight of circumstantial evidence that can be deduced from creation.

The picture above shows one of the most impressive motors in terms of structure and performance the world has ever known. And yet it looks primitive and simple. A sausage shaped body with a couple of long tails moving through a liquid environment at a rate of body lengths per minute as yet to be equalled by anything produced through modern technology. How deceptive an appearance of simplicity can be: in this case a microbe: a bacteria. It was of course as evolutionary theory demands incredibly simple and came into being roughly 3.5 billion years ago. Without this as yet unsubstantiated assumption Darwinism collapses, but for now we must accept it as the only alternative to a designer. But as nature abhors a vacuum and modern science abhors a god lets stick to the script, lay aside our commonsense and take a look at the first motors to appear on earth.

Bacteria have the three types of motor illustrated in the video below. We start with the flagellar motor of Escherichia coli: a common form of bacteria.

 

ATP synthase is a molecular complex which supplies the energy needs of all life. It captures chemical energy obtained from the breakdown of food molecules and releases it to fuel other cellular processes. It had to be in existence prior to the first life because there is an initial problem that life has to overcome. No source of energy, no life. 

 

I am a child in matters of science so perhaps you could answer this childlike question. If the above motors are accurately described, and were intrinsic to the wellbeing of the most primitive living organisms which arose from the primeval slime of the early Earth,  then how come that modern science cannot get close to replicating their advanced nanotechnology? And believe me science has been trying for quite some while. If you watch the video at the bottom of this article you will hear a scientist who passionately looks forward to that day when we catch up and utilise a technology we know works. If it didn’t work we would not know because we would not yet exist. Because we along with microbes share the internal technology essential for life. In fact we share the microbes as well, no microbes no you or I. It is amazing when we come to realise the co-ordination required for any of this to happen. In bacteria you have Dna, a membrane which fulfils many functions and without doubt the finest engine on planet Earth. And this brief inventory misses out many things far too complex for me to follow or understand. 

After about two billion years of evolution, if you believe it, which I do not; the kind of cells emerged which led to mammal and finally human life. After a further billion or two years a kind of ape supposedly evolved into the tool making species Homo Sapiens, examples of our early efforts shown below. 

 

Its a good start but it contrasts starkly with bacterial life. Humans have intelligence and over time have evolved, ( the correct word in this context ), incredible technologies. But here is a conundrum; bacteria, which are without intelligence had vastly superior technology to us from the first spark of life. Why are they so gifted? Why does one species have to work for its advancement while the other unconsciously bathes in its superior technological status. Maybe the creator of both saw something we have missed. Perhaps we were intended to develop by thought processes and ambition, and then to seek out the meaning of life. To look at the stars in wonder and pursue that wonder through the scientific method. It should be acknowledged that science was largely birthed in this kind of questioning environment. The pioneers of the scientific method in the West were mostly bible believing Christians. They had a template into which they could pursue ideas because they believed the earth and the cosmos had a rational genesis. Born in a creative and rational mind vastly superior to our own. Hence it is unsurprising that men of this mindset, who expected rationality to govern creation discovered the laws that underpin both physics and chemistry. They found that mathematical equations of beautiful simplicity and ingenuity ruled over all things physical, from the atomic domain upwards. The quantum world of atomic particles is admittedly a strange exception. The fact that these discoveries have been made is perhaps a hint to us that we really are fearfully and wonderfully made by a Creator or a Designer, and that we are meant to know and understand just how special we are.

The crude denial of that possibility explains the mindset of those who choose for themselves the evolutionary microbe to ape to human route. Self abnegation of a religious type perhaps, chosen in order to escape the horror of being a Creator’s creation. And even worse responsible for our actions before a maker and teacher who both cares for and loves us, and who in addition desires and expects us to search for the one who put it all into existence. 

So, after that small diversion let’s continue by underlining the disparity between our first efforts at tools, weapons, ornaments etc and those of nature by examining the graphic below. The engines of bacteria are complex, having both gears and clutches.

 

The story so far. Nature in its most primitive state sponsors the arrival of microscopic creatures. These exist without a brain to initiate an idea or a sense of purpose. And yet they exist with ease, search for and find food and replicate on cue without a thought about how or why. They would in our world define the word ignoramus: the ultimate dunces. They flourish without a thought and obey whatever it is that prompts them. Whether they live or die is an irrelevance, and yet they seem to do everything they are capable of doing as if they cared. They somehow create out of whatever scraps of material were available to them motorised machines of astounding utility. Their engines are so sophisticated they have, as shown above, gears and clutches. This is creature operating a nano machine a millionth the size of a grain of sand that can rotate five times faster than a Formula One engine (18,000 rpm ) and can change direction faster than a mosquito beats it wings. A vibrio bacteria can stop and reverse its top speed 100,000 revs per minute engine in a quarter turn and then continue at it top speed in another direction. That is some special kind of clutch and gearing system. The motors in the bacterium speak of design while their lack of nervous system set them up as a brain dead unit. What we have is a strange twinset: a supremely fine tuned engine and a mindless host. But if that were the case how would they navigate towards their food supplies. These contradictions are not natural bedfellows. This is supposed to be simple stuff. Who or what gave the dumb bacteria its extraordinary motors and the capacity to live an active and meaningful life. If the organism itself has little to no clue, or self-awareness, or method of equipping itself then how did it get its hardware: the rotary motor, and software: DNA? By chance? 

We can look at ourselves and ask these and many other questions, but most of us it seems choose to avoid them. Such questions are for philosophers and theologians, not your average Joe. But why not let the fool dream his dreams and search the dark areas while seeking that single immutable beauty: the truth.  Questions do arise. Why should the lowest life forms on earth with an IQ of absolute zero be equipped with the finest possible motility systems? The only answer I can think of is that they have them because they need them. Who meets the need once the need is realised? The lesser usually looks to the greater for answers. But even that is ruled out, the bacteria spawned by evolutionary processes is not looking for a motor. And the motor cannot have come first because it is embedded in a membrane. It does not know it needs one and even if it did it would have to wait for beneficial mutations in perfect sequence and beyond counting before it could even hope. But even hope is not an option because there is no sense of direction or purpose permitted in evolutionary scenarios. So who or what supplied the needs? It must have been far thinking even at the microbial level to have anticipated all the roles that microbes are required to fill. Please read any scholarly article on this subject, there are many available on the internet. Microbes are vital to all life, they support everything you can think of from the Eco-system onwards. They are ubiquitous throughout nature. Without them there would be no life nor you and I. 

So who or what did it?

 

“Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose.”

Quote from The Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins

That is a statement presented by Richard Dawkins and if you took it at face value you may conclude he thinks biology is designed for a purpose. He does not! For him biology is a semi guided fluke, a happenstance, a single chance in a multi quadrillion of other chances that all failed. He denies any designed process or any kind of designer. But he does have a contender of sorts: more about that later.

To me the above quote is a counter factual, counter intuitive statement. It makes no sense. Why? Because we live our lives on the presumption that what we perceive has the appearance of design has been designed, and in making that assumption we are hardly ever wrong. I cannot think of any occasion when I have felt confused on this issue. Dawkins would argue I am in a constant state of confusion. I think a blade of grass is designed. Dawkins would deny it, despite its genetic code which defined its shape, colour, width, length. When it comes to nature he says some very odd things. He is like a revolver that spontaneously backfires. He has said of willow seeds falling in their thousands onto the banks of the canal passing his house that they are like floppy discs. The quote below is from his book The Blind Watchmaker. 

“It is raining DNA outside. On the bank of the Oxford canal at the bottom of my garden is a large willow tree, and it is pumping downy seeds into the air. … [spreading] DNA whose coded characters spell out specific instructions for building willow trees that will shed a new generation of downy seeds. … It is raining instructions out there; it’s raining programs; it’s raining tree-growing, fluff-spreading, algorithms. That is not a metaphor, it is the plain truth. It couldn’t be any plainer if it were raining floppy discs.”

It seems reasonable to ask what are floppy discs, even as metaphors doing in a nature that is undesigned? Here is a definition of a floppy disc…a type of storage media capable of storing electronic data, very much like a computer file. Dawkins also says of willow trees that they are raining Dna in the form of seeds. Dna is a complex molecule that contains all of the information necessary to build and maintain an organism. Both Dna and floppy discs fulfil similar functions. The only difference is that Dna is light years in advance not just of floppy discs but of all man made data storage devices. And yet Dna is undesigned: the product of Dawkins blind watchmaker.  The far less efficient of the two, floppy discs were the result of human ingenuity. An idea, something entirely new, an invention, prototypes, fine tuning and concentrated human teamwork over years. If you reread the quote above you will notice Dawkins adds algorithms and programmes and specific instructions to describe the willow seed. He even goes so far as to say this is not a metaphor. But if it is not a metaphor, then what the heck is it? Every example he uses implies intelligence and design concepts. Dna is so good it can be artificially modified by researchers to create biological novelties. Examine each one of the non metaphors Dawkins uses to describe the information bearing willow seeds, and note they are without exception based on human design concepts.

An algorithm is a process or set of rules to be followed in calculations or other problem-solving operations, especially by a computer. Every part of it is designed.

A programme is defined as a group of related projects managed in a coordinated way. Every part of a programme is designed.

Instructions are detailed information about how something should be done or operated. Instructions are designed.

Dawkins cannot give an analogy for Dna in any other terms than that of design.

Below is the ultimate example of his confusion and desperation. He introduces a novel anthropic being: a human like figure created from imagination as the agent of change. Dawkins might just as well have used the other well known cop-out: Mother Nature. She would not exist either if nature was so not chock a block with apparently designed features. 

“In the case of living machinery, the ‘designer’ is unconscious natural selection, the blind watchmaker.”

Above is a graphic example of “complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose.”

That absurd comment is along with innumerable others is applied to the above graphic. An illustration of by far the most ingenious piece of engineering nanotechnology ever seen. They are in your body and mine in their countless trillions. Ubiquitous throughout nature this is molecular machinery without which life on earth could never exist. It represents nature’s way of producing energy. If we could reproduce it then our desire for an efficient, clean energy solution to our needs would be solved.

Dawkins advances the idea that the living machinery, by which he means the above, some of the most complex systems on earth like Dna, protein motors, cells etc. are in one category and undesigned; while far less complex man made machines are in another, designed. He accepts the inferior technology is designed while denying that explanation for what are greatly superior systems. For these he proposes his blind watchmaker. Just about the most useless fiction it is possible to construct. And having created this blind, unconscious force of nature who cannot plan and has no purpose, Dawkins then assumes it capable of overwhelmingly impressing us with its illusion of design and planning. Listen to him.  

“Natural selection is the blind watchmaker, blind because it does not see ahead, does not plan consequences, has no purpose in view. Yet the living results of natural selection overwhelmingly impress us with the illusion of design and planning.”

“Natural selection, the blind, unconscious, automatic process which Darwin discovered, and which we now know is the explanation for the existence and apparently purposeful form of all life, has no purpose in mind. It has no mind and no mind’s eye. It does not plan for the future. It has no vision, no foresight, no sight at all. If it can be said to play the role of watchmaker in nature, it is the blind watchmaker”

A question: is this blind watchmaker even possible? If not then the argument collapses and along with it goes natural selection. By instinct we doubt that a blind human, even if he had once been a watchmaker could continue to make watches once his sight was gone. But Dawkins is in a much worse position. His watchmaker has in his own words. no mind and no mind’s eye, he does not plan for the future, has no vision, no foresight, no sight at all. In other words the blind watchmaker of Dawkins imagination would not even recall what had been achieved. Would not even know when the building process stopped. It would be like me writing a sentence without any concept of a finishing point: a full stop, question or exclamation mark. This pathetic invention of Dawkins has no plan, therefore it cannot conceive an idea or know that it is wrong or when it is going wrong, or why or how correct it. The reason, it has no idea what it is doing or why. It does not even have the instinct to bring together the component parts, or to put them into a systematic order or to conceive a future purpose or function. His watchmaker is not just blind he is also clueless. 

Remember this, in his mind Darwin’s natural selection and Dawkins’s blind watchmaker are one and the same. How can this highly intelligent man believe what he professes to believe? He knows what is designed without even thinking about it. He walks on a beach and sees a long sharply cut line in the sand. He may smile and think about the child who made it while running erratically across the beach trailing a toy spade. The design inference is all around us and he knows it. He knows that the willow tree and its scattering of seeds is proof of something. That is why he introduced algorithms, instructions and programmes. He knows computer like systems are operating in the seed and therefore fulfil the expectations of a designed product. His faith compels him to admit they demonstrate the “appearance” of design. He writes like a man lost in a maze. 

Take a look at the video below and realise all of this is programmed. The plant which Dawkins believes is undesigned follows instructions, and algorithms; problem solving operations usually associated with computers. This information according to Dawkins is planted into floppy disc like technology found in plant life. Even if the desired  outcome, that the willow tree and its seeds have evolved, Dawkins still remains stuck on the horns of a dilemma. From inferences drawn from his own comments, the process causing the undesigned plant to grow all point to design. His choice of language drives us  towards that being the only logical solution. Dawkins virtually admits it simply by using the terms he does. And why does he use these terms? Because they are the only ones applicable. Dawkins hates the God argument in favour of design and yet his version of the truth, that Dna just evolved before life was even able to replicate itself is much more difficult to believe. The abject failure of Dawkins to substantiate his argument leaves the door open to another explanation. Open your bible and you will find the Designer right at the very beginning.

 

 

 

 

Much of this website is concerned with questions: Logical or Illogical, God or no God, Creator or no Creator, Design or no Design. Normal or Abnormal, Natural or Unnatural, Good or Bad, Wise or Unwise, Progressive or Regressive, True or False, Possible or Impossible and so on, and on…

Logical thinking is to think on the basis of knowledge, what we know, and certainties, what we can prove. A Lego brick is a designed object and as soon as you look at it you realise by its structure that it is intended to be linked to other pieces similarly designed. If it is bought new from a toy shop you will get it in a box, and inside a selection of Lego parts wrapped in a clear plastic packet. On opening this you discover an instruction leaflet telling you how to put the pieces together, to make the object illustrated on the box: the truck and trailer. The instructions are the key to building the object accurately, leaving no spare pieces over.

From all that information you deduce not only that every part has been  designed, but designed for a purpose. It is on display to entice a prospective customer, provide an income for the Lego corporation and pleasure to the child who receives it. We all understand these principles very well; most of us have at some time in our lives been involved at every level of this process. We apply parts of this logic in one way or another most days of our lives, even if it is as mundane as going to Costa or Starbucks to have a sit down and a cup of coffee. You can take any point in this process and work logically to prove that thought and design and purpose are always apparent. Even the young child is aware that the truck was intended to be played with. He or she might get this wrong and think a power drill was made for the same purpose, but would be correct in thinking it exists to fulfil a purpose. This intuition is increased when the instruction leaflet which makes sense of the many apparently random pieces is opened. We now know for sure that these will combine to make a three dimensional truck and trailer identical to the illustration on the box. All of that should convince even the greatest of sceptics that it was designed. Obvious?  In the case of the Lego yes, but not necessarily so in all cases. Most people in the Western World have been taught to make an illogical exception to this universal rule. To think that you and I, who also came with a specified instruction code called DNA, somehow arose from a process of purposeless chance, guided by nothing more that a hit or miss process called natural selection. For all these reasons to argue that design was not a vital component of everything that exists is counter intuitive. It is difficult in nature to find a single thing which is pointless or without function.

Below is a brilliantly conceived counter argument to designed by God or gods, from Carl Sagan. It is so well done that I can both applaud it and reject it with complete peace of mind. Nonsense in the face of evidence does not become sense just because it is well wrapped, clever and beautifully delivered by an expert. It sounds good while it skims over the surface of what is known about God, science, design, morality, consciousness and nature.

There is one comment of Sagan which I totally agree with: “We have a talent for deceiving ourselves.”

There is a truth that even Sagan might have admitted. Not one of us has a greater need to deceive ourself than an atheist who has taken an intellectual punt on their being no Designer or Creator of the Universe, the Earth and You and I.