https://apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=12&article=5492
Atheists' Design Admissions
A
theistic
philosopher Paul Ricci summed up the Teleological Argument for the
Existence of God well when he said, “[I]t’s true that everything
designed has a designer…. ‘Everything designed has a designer’ is an
analytically true statement.”1 There are an infinite number
of design examples that present themselves to us when we study the
natural realm—a problem for Ricci and his atheistic colleagues, to be
sure. We have documented dozens of such examples in the past (see the
various “Design” topics in the “Existence of God” category on our Web
site), but consider the following points in addition to those examples
of design. It is one thing for theists to provide positive evidences for
the existence of design in the Universe, but it makes the job much
simpler for theists when naturalists themselves admit evidences for design. Here are five areas of science where scientists openly acknowledge design in nature.
#1: “We Need to Figure Out Who Wrote the Laws of Science.”
Famous atheist, theoretical physicist, and cosmologist of Cambridge
University, Stephen Hawking, clearly highly reveres the laws of science.
In 2011, he hosted a show on Discovery Channel titled, “Curiosity: Did God Create the Universe?” In that show, he said,
[T]he Universe is a machine governed by principles or laws—laws that
can be understood by the human mind. I believe that the discovery of
these laws has been humankind’s greatest achievement…. But what’s really
important is that these physical laws, as well as being unchangeable, are universal.
They apply not just to the flight of the ball, but to the motion of a
planet and everything else in the Universe. Unlike laws made by humans,
the laws of nature cannot ever be broken. That’s why they are so powerful.2
Hawking, in obvious awe, acknowledges that the laws of nature exist,
are unbreakable (i.e., without exception), and apply to the entire
Universe—not just to the Earth. But that admission by the evolutionary
community presents a major problem for atheism. Humanist Martin Gardner
said,
Imagine that physicists finally discover all the basic waves and their
particles, and all the basic laws, and unite everything in one
equation. We can then ask, “Why that equation?” It is fashionable now to
conjecture that the big bang was caused by a random quantum fluctuation
in a vacuum devoid of space and time. But of course such a vacuum is a
far cry from nothing. There had to be quantum laws to fluctuate. And why are there quantum laws?...There
is no escape from the superultimate questions: Why is there something
rather than nothing, and why is the something structured the way it is?3
Even if Big Bang cosmology were correct (and it is not), you still can’t have a law without a law writer.
In “Curiosity: Did God Create the Universe?” Hawking boldly claimed
that everything in the Universe can be accounted for through science
without the need of God. This is untrue, as we have discussed elsewhere,4
but notice that Hawking does not even believe that assertion himself.
He said, “Did God create the quantum laws that allowed the Big Bang to
occur? In a nutshell, did we need a god to set it all up so that the Big
Bang could bang?”5 He provided no answer to that crucial
question—not even an attempt. And he is not alone. No atheist can
provide a reasonable answer to that question.
The eminent atheistic, theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and
astrobiologist of Arizona State University, Paul Davies, noted Hawking’s
sidestep of that question in the “round table discussion” on the Discovery Channel following “Curiosity,” titled, “The Creation Question: a Curiosity Conversation.” Concerning Hawking, Davies said,
In the show, Stephen Hawking gets very, very close to saying, “Well,
where did the laws of physics come from? That’s where we might find some
sort of God.” And then he backs away and doesn’t return to the
subject…. You need to know where those laws come from. That’s where the mystery lies—the laws.6
Writing in New Scientist, Davies asked, “How did stupid atoms spontaneously write their own software...?”7 In a more extensive discourse on the subject in The New York Times, Davies said,
[W]here do these laws come from? And why do they have the form that they do?
When I was a student, the laws of physics were regarded as completely
off limits. The job of the scientist, we were told, is to discover the
laws and apply them, not inquire into their provenance. The laws were
treated as “given”—imprinted on the universe like a maker’s mark
at the moment of cosmic birth—and fixed forevermore.... Over the years I
have often asked my physicist colleagues why the laws of physics are
what they are. The answers vary from “that’s not a scientific question”
to “nobody knows.” The favorite reply is, “There is no
reason they are what they are—they just are.” The idea that the laws
exist reasonlessly is deeply anti-rational. After all,
the very essence of a scientific explanation of some phenomenon is that
the world is ordered logically and that there are reasons things are as
they are. If one traces these reasons all the way down to the bedrock of
reality—the laws of physics—only to find that reason then deserts us, it makes a mockery of science. Can the mighty edifice of physical order we perceive in the world about us ultimately be rooted in reasonless absurdity? If so, then nature is a fiendishly clever bit of trickery: meaninglessness and absurdity somehow masquerading as ingenious order and rationality.... Clearly, then, both religion and science are founded on faith—namely,
on belief in the existence of something outside the universe, like an
unexplained God or an unexplained set of physical laws.8
In conclusion, Davies highlighted the fact that naturalists have a blind
faith when assuming that the laws of science could create themselves
free from an “external agency”: “[U]ntil science comes up with a
testable theory of the laws of the universe, its claim to be free of
faith is manifestly bogus.”9 Bottom line: there must be a
rational origin of the laws of science. In 2016, Davies reiterated, “The
ballyhoo about a universe popping out of the vacuum is a complete red herring. It just dodges the real issue, which is the prior existence of the laws of physics.”10
In an article titled “Taking Science on Faith,” Davies responded to the
assertion that the existence of a multiverse could account for the
origin of the laws of science, saying,
The multiverse theory is increasingly popular, but it doesn’t so much explain the laws of physics as dodge the whole issue.
There has to be a physical mechanism to make all those universes and
bestow bylaws on them. This process will require its own laws, or
meta-laws. Where do they come from? The problem has simply been shifted up a level from the laws of the universe to the meta-laws of the multiverse.11
Astrophysicist and science writer for New Scientist, Marcus Chown, wrote:
If the universe owes its origins to quantum theory, then quantum
theory must have existed before the universe. So the next question is
surely: where did the laws of quantum theory come from?
“We do not know,” admits [cosmologist Alex—JM] Vilenkin. “I consider
that an entirely different question.” When it comes to the beginning of
the universe, in many ways we’re still at the beginning.12
University of Oxford physicist David Deutsch said, “Even if the answer
to why there is something rather than nothing were because of how
quantum field theory works, the question would become why are the laws
of quantum field theory as they are.”13 Cosmologist and Professor of Physics at California Institute of Technology Sean Carroll, writing in Scientific American,
discussed the question of the origin of the Second Law of
Thermodynamics: “[E]xplaining why low-entropy states evolve into
high-entropy states [i.e., the Second Law of Thermodynamics—JM] is
different from explaining why entropy is increasing in our universe....
[T]he real challenge is not to explain why the entropy of the universe
will be higher tomorrow than it is today but to explain why the entropy was lower yesterday and even lower the day before that.”14 In other words, why is there such a thing as a law of nature, like the “Second Law of Thermodynamics”?
Theoretical physicist, faculty member at the Perimeter Institute for
Theoretical Physics, and adjunct Professor of Physics at the University
of Waterloo, Lee Smolin, admitted, “Cosmology has new questions to
answer. Not just what are the laws, but why are these laws the laws?”15 In a 2014 interview with Scientific American, cosmologist George F.R. Ellis of the University of Cape Town, co-author with Stephen Hawking of the book The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time, gave a stinging response to theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss of Arizona State University, who argues in his book, A Universe from Nothing,
that physics has ultimately answered the question of why there is
something rather than nothing. Among other criticisms, Ellis said,
And above all Krauss does not address why the laws of physics exist,
why they have the form they have, or in what kind of manifestation they
existed before the universe existed (which he must believe if he
believes they brought the universe into existence). Who or what dreamt up symmetry principles, Lagrangians, specific symmetry groups, gauge theories, and so on? He does not begin to answer these questions.16
Quantum physicist Michael Brooks agreed with Ellis in his criticisms of Krauss’ book. Writing in New Scientist,
he said, “[T]he laws of physics can’t be conjured from nothing....
Krauss contends that the multiverse makes the question of what
determined our laws of nature ‘less significant.’ Truthfully, it just puts the question beyond science [i.e., beyond the natural—JM]—for now, at least.”17
In his book, The Grand Design, Hawking tried to submit a way
that the Universe could have created itself from nothing without God and
still be in keeping with the laws of nature—an impossible concept, to
be sure. He said, “Because there is a law like gravity, the universe can
and will create itself from nothing.”18 Of course, even if
such were possible, he does not explain where the law of gravity came
from. Professor of mathematics and Fellow in Mathematics and the
Philosophy of Science at Oxford University John Lennox concurred. He
took Hawking to task over his assertion that the laws of physics alone
can explain the existence of the Universe, saying,
Hawking’s argument appears to me even more illogical when he says the
existence of gravity means the creation of the universe was inevitable. But how did gravity exist in the first place? Who put it there? And what was the creative force behind its birth? Similarly,
when Hawking argues, in support of his theory of spontaneous creation,
that it was only necessary for “the blue touch paper” to be lit to “set
the universe going,” the question must be: where did this blue touch
paper come from? And who lit it, if not God?19
Simply put, a more rational statement from Hawking would have been,
“Because there is a law like gravity, the Universe must have been
created by God.” Bottom line: the existence of the laws of science is
evidence of a Designer—even atheists tacitly admit it.
#2: “We Need to Know Who Created Life.”
In Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, well-known British
evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, Oxford University’s Professor
for Public Understanding of Science from 1995 to 2008, said concerning
the possibility of intelligent design:
It could be that at some earlier time, somewhere in the Universe, a
civilization evolved by, probably, some kind of Darwinian means, to a
very, very high level of technology, and designed a form of life that
they seeded onto, perhaps, this planet. Now that is a possibility, and
an intriguing possibility. And I suppose it’s possible that you might
find evidence for that, if you look at the details of our chemistry, molecular biology, you might find a signature of some kind of designer. And that designer could well be a higher intelligence from elsewhere in the Universe.20
So, according to Dawkins, when we look at our chemistry—our molecular
biology—(1) there could be evidence of design there, and (2) that design
would imply the existence of a designer—a direct admission of the
validity of the Teleological Argument. Granted, Dawkins does not
directly endorse God as that Designer. Instead, he irrationally
postulates the existence of aliens.
Ultimately, since there is no evidence for the existence of aliens,
there can hardly be any evidence for their establishing life on Earth.
Such an idea can hardly be in keeping with the evolutionist’s own
beliefs about the importance of direct observation and experiment in
science. Such a theory does nothing but tacitly admit (1) the truth of
the Law of Biogenesis—in nature, life comes only from life (in this
case, aliens); and (2) the necessity of a creator/designer in the
equation.
However, notice: since aliens are beings of nature, they too must be
governed by the laws of nature. Recall Hawking’s claim: the laws of
physics “are universal. They apply not just to the flight of the ball, but to the motion of a planet and everything else in the Universe.”21
Evolutionary physicist Victor Stenger submitted his belief that the
“basic laws” of science “hold true in the most distant observed galaxy
and in the cosmic microwave background, implying that these laws have
been valid for over thirteen billion years.”22 In the
interview with Stein, Dawkins went on to say concerning the supposed
alien creators, “But that higher intelligence would, itself, had to have
come about by some ultimately explicable process. It couldn’t have just jumped into existence spontaneously.”23
So, the alien creators, according to Dawkins, have been strapped with
the laws of nature as well. Thus, the problem of abiogenesis is merely
shifted to the alien’s abode, where the question of the origin of life
must still be answered.
Bottom line: life is evidence of design, and by implication, an intelligent designer. Writing in New Scientist,
Dawkins admitted, “The more statistically improbable a thing is, the
less we can believe that it just happened by blind chance. Superficially
the obvious alternative to chance is an intelligent Designer.”24 Sadly, the atheist simply cannot bring himself to accept the clear cut, “obvious alternative” that is staring him in the face.
#3: “We Have to Figure Out a Way to Explain All of This Design in Nature.”
George Ellis and Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Johns Hopkins University, Joseph Silk, wrote in 2014 in Nature: “This year, debates in physics circles took a worrying turn. Faced with difficulties in applying fundamental theories to the observed Universe, some researchers called for a change in how theoretical physics is done.”25
Ironically, the “difficulties” theoretical physicists have encountered
have become considerable enough that going beyond nature is necessary.
According to cosmologist Bernard Carr of Queen Mary University in
London, a supernatural option of some sort is demanded. He warned
cosmologists to accept the inevitable implications of the evidence: “If
you don’t want God, you’d better have a multiverse.”26 The
multiverse has, therefore, been latched onto by many naturalists to try
to explain away the “difficulties” facing physicists without resorting
to God, even though, among other issues with it, there is absolutely no
evidence for its existence.27 Lee Smolin said, “We had to invent the multiverse,”28 and according to Lawson Parker, writing in National Geographic, it was from our “imagination.”29
The use of our imagination to determine where we came from certainly
sounds like today’s “science” is moving ever further into the realm of
fiction.
Regardless, notice that according to many physicists, something beyond
the current definition of science is needed to explain certain
things—i.e., the existence of the unobservable, supernatural realm is
demanded by the evidence. Recall how Davies put it: “Clearly, then, both
religion and science are founded on faith—namely, on belief in the existence of something outside the universe, like an unexplained God or an unexplained set of physical laws, maybe even a huge ensemble of unseen universes, too.”30
Besides the existence of the laws of physics, what kind of
“difficulties” are physicists encountering that are forcing them to
conclude that something outside of the Universe exists, and therefore,
that they need to “invent” the multiverse to avoid God? Many have
articulated well the problem. Read on to see a great lesson by
naturalists on the need for a supernatural Designer for the Universe.
According to Tim Folger, writing in Discover magazine, “The idea that the universe was made just for us—known as the anthropic principle—debuted in 1973.”31 Since then, the mountain of evidence supporting the principle has drastically grown in elevation. Consider, for example:
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In a 2011 article, under the heading “Seven Questionable Arguments”
for the multiverse, Ellis discussed argument number four: “A remarkable
fact about our universe is that physical constants have just the right
values needed to allow for complex structures, including living things….
I agree that the multiverse is a possible valid explanation for [fine
tuning examples—JM]…; arguably, it is the only scientifically based
option we have right now. But we have no hope of testing it
observationally.”32 [Notice that the multiverse is “the only
scientifically based option,” and yet “we have no hope of testing it
observationally.” Doesn’t that make it not a “scientifically based option”?]
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By 2014, Ellis and Silk went even further:
The multiverse is motivated by a puzzle: why fundamental constants of
nature, such as the fine-structure constant that characterizes the
strength of electromagnetic interactions between particles and the
cosmological constant associated with the acceleration of the expansion
of the Universe, have values that lie in the small range that allows
life to exist…. Some physicists consider that the multiverse has no
challenger as an explanation of many otherwise bizarre coincidences. The
low value of the cosmological constant—known to be 120 factors of 10
smaller than the value predicted by quantum field theory—is difficult to
explain, for instance.33
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John Rennie, the editor for Scientific American, noted, “The
basic laws of physics work equally well forward or backward in time, yet
we perceive time to move in one direction only—toward the future. Why?”34
Carroll, along the same lines, noted that “[i]f the observable universe
were all that existed, it would be nearly impossible to account for the
arrow of time in a natural way.”35
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According to Smolin,
Everything we know suggests that the universe is unusual.
It is flatter, smoother, larger and emptier than a “typical” universe
predicted by the known laws of physics. If we reached into a hat filled
with pieces of paper, each with the specifications of a possible
universe written on it, it is exceedingly unlikely that we would get a
universe anything like ours in one pick—or even a billion. The challenge that cosmologists face is to make sense of this specialness.
One approach to this question is inflation—the hypothesis that the
early universe went through a phase of exponentially fast expansion. At
first, inflation seemed to do the trick. A simple version of the idea
gave correct predictions for the spectrum of fluctuations in the cosmic
microwave background. But a closer look shows that we have just moved the problem further back in time. To make inflation happen at all requires us to fine-tune the initial conditions of the universe.36
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Folger quotes Linde in Discover magazine:
“We have a lot of really, really strange coincidences,
and all of these coincidences are such that they make life possible,”
Linde says. Physicists don’t like coincidences. They like even less the
notion that life is somehow central to the universe, and yet recent
discoveries are forcing them to confront that very idea…. Call it a
fluke, a mystery, a miracle. Or call it the biggest problem in physics. Short of invoking a benevolent creator,
many physicists see only one possible explanation: Our universe may be
but one of perhaps infinitely many universes in an inconceivably vast
multiverse…. Advocates argue that, like it or not, the multiverse may
well be the only viable non-religious explanation for what is often called the “fine-tuning problem”—the baffling observation that the laws of the universe seem custom-tailored to favor the emergence of life….
[Andrei Linde:] “And if we double the mass of the electron, life as we
know it will disappear. If we change the strength of the interaction
between protons and electrons, life will disappear. Why are there three
space dimensions and one time dimension? If we had four space dimensions
and one time dimension, then planetary systems would be unstable and
our version of life would be impossible. If we had two space dimensions
and one time dimension, we would not exist,” he says…. [I]f there is no
multiverse, where does that leave physicists? “If there is only one
universe,” Carr says, “you might have to have a fine-tuner. If you don’t
want God, you’d better have a multiverse.”37
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Stuart Clark and Richard Webb, writing in New Scientist, said,
We can’t explain the numbers that rule the universe…the
different strengths of weak, strong and electromagnetic forces, for
example, or the masses of the particles it introduces…. Were any of them
to have even marginally different values, the universe would look very
different. The Higgs boson’s mass, for example, is just about the
smallest it can be without the universe’s matter becoming unstable. Similar “fine-tuning” problems bedevil cosmology…. Why is the carbon atom structured so precisely as to allow enough carbon for life to exist in the universe?38
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Greene, commenting on Professor of Theoretical Physics at Stanford
University Leonard Susskind’s thinking about the multiverse, said,
Susskind was suggesting that string theory augments this grand
cosmological unfolding by adorning each of the universes in the
multiverse with a different shape for the extra dimensions. With or
without string theory, the multiverse is a highly controversial schema,
and deservedly so. It not only recasts the landscape of reality, but shifts the scientific goal posts. Questions once deemed profoundly puzzling—why
do nature’s numbers, from particle masses to force strengths to the
energy suffusing space, have the particular values they do?—would be answered with a shrug…. Most physicists, string theorists among them, agree that the multiverse is an option of last resort…. Looking back, I’m gratified at how far we’ve come but disappointed that a connection to experiment continues to elude us.39
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Mary-Jane Rubenstein, writing in New Scientist, said,
Here’s the dilemma: if the universe began with a quantum particle
blipping into existence, inflating godlessly into space-time and a whole
zoo of materials, then why is it so well suited for life?
For medieval philosophers, the purported perfection of the universe was
the key to proving the existence of God. The universe is so fit for
intelligent life that it must be the product of a powerful, benevolent external deity.
Or, as popular theology might put it today: all this can’t be an
accident. Modern physics has also wrestled with this “fine-tuning
problem,” and supplies its own answer. If only one universe exists, then
it is strange to find it so hospitable to life, when nearly any other
value for the gravitational or cosmological constants would have
produced nothing at all. But if there is a “multiverse” of many
universes, all with different constants, the problem vanishes: we’re
here because we happen to be in one of the universes that works. No
miracles, no plan, no creator.40
Notice: Physicists cannot help but acknowledge the truth of the
Teleological Argument for the existence of God. The Universe seems to
have been perfectly designed—with detailed fine-tuning—just for us.
Design demands a designer. Resorting to belief in the multiverse is a
concession by naturalists that we have been right all along: there
exists an “unseen realm.” But rather than concede God, naturalists
invent the evidence-less, imaginary multiverse. Ironically, all the
while the multiverse is itself a supernatural option—albeit, one without
any rules concerning how we should behave, making it attractive to
many.
#4: “We Need to Mimic All of the Design We See in Nature.”
One area of scientific study where scientists are admitting, many times
unconsciously but forcefully, the presence of design in the Universe,
is in the field of biomimetics, or biomimcry—as well as the related
field known as bio-inspired design. Biomimicry is an attempt to engineer
something—design something—using the natural world as the blue print.
Engineers are becoming more and more aware of the fact that the world
around us is already filled with fully functional, superior designs in
comparison to what the engineering community has been able to develop to
date.
The Web page for George Washington University’s Center for Biomimetics
and Bioinspired Engineering admits: “[D]espite our seeming prowess in
these component technologies, we find it hard to outperform Nature in
this arena; Nature’s solutions are smarter, more energy-efficient,
agile, adaptable, fault-tolerant, environmentally friendly and
multifunctional. Thus, there is much that we as engineers can learn from
Nature as we develop the next generation machines and technologies.”41
It would be difficult to better summarize the decisive evidence for
design that is clearly evident to professional designers (engineers)
when they look at the natural realm. This same mindset about nature’s
design, however, is becoming widespread in the engineering community.
Consequently, biomimicry is becoming a major engineering pursuit. The
field of biomimicry is growing by leaps and bounds, with research
centers being established all over the world, with their express purpose
being to mimic the design of nature.
Some engineers are going even further. Realizing that nature’s designs
are so impressive that many times we simply cannot mimic them, they are
attempting instead to control nature to use it as they wish, rather than
mimic it.42 Animals, for instance, possess amazing
detection, tracking, and maneuvering capabilities which are far beyond
the knowledge of today’s engineering minds, and likely will be for many
decades, if not forever. An insect neurobiologist, John Hildebrand from
the University of Arizona in Tucson, admitted: “There’s a long history
of trying to develop microrobots that could be sent out as autonomous
devices, but I think many engineers have realised [sic] that they can’t
improve on Mother Nature.”43 Of course, “Mother Nature” is
not capable of designing anything, since “she” is mindless—but notice
that the desire to personify nature and give it design abilities is
telling. While mindless nature has no ability to design anything, the
Chief Engineer, the God of the Bible, on the other hand, can be counted
on to have the best possible engineering designs. Who, after all, could
out-design the Grand Designer? In spite of the deterioration of the
world and the entrance of disease and mutations into the created order,
after several millennia, His designs still stand out as the
best—unsurpassed by human wisdom.
Do not miss the implication of practicing biomimicry and autonomous
biological control. They are a tacit concession by the scientific
community that nature exhibits design! Engineers are the designers of
the scientific community. When we engage in biomimicry, we are, whether
consciously or not, endorsing the concept that there is design in
nature. It would be totally senseless to try to design something useful
by mimicking something that was random and chaotic. For the highly
educated, brilliant designers of the scientific community to copy
nature, proves that nature must be much more than the product of random
chance and accidents.44
#5: “Evolutionary Design”?
A casual perusal of nearly any article by atheistic scientists when
they are discussing the complexity of various species reveals that even
they cannot help but intuitively acknowledge a designer. Such writings
are riddled with the term “design,” apparently without the naturalistic
writers following out the implications of that term. Phrases like, “This
feature of the salamander is designed to do this,” are
common place. Is it not true that the moment one acknowledges the
existence of design, he is admitting the existence of a designer at some
point—just as acknowledging a poem implies the existence of a poet? We
simply cannot escape the evidence for design in nature and the reasoning
ability that God has put within us that presses us to acknowledge His
existence and ensure that those who wish to find Him will (Acts
17:26-28).
Some atheists have apparently noticed the tendency of naturalists to
use such terminology. So, rather than try to rectify atheistic
terminology, they embrace it and simply try to redefine the word
“design.” Kenneth Miller is an evolutionary biologist at Brown
University and co-author of the popular Prentice Hall high school
Biology textbook that is used extensively in the United States. In his
2008 book, Only a Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America’s Soul,
he admits that structural and molecular biologists, as they study the
natural order, routinely mention the presence of design in their
explorations. He, himself, admits that the human body shows evidence of
design, pointing out examples like the design of the ball and socket
joints of the human hips and shoulders and the “s” curve of the human
spine that allows us to walk upright. In spite of such admissions, he
irrationally claims such admissions should not be considered to be
self-defeating for naturalists. According to Miller, the evidence for
design in nature should be embraced. In an article published by Brown
University, he said, “There is, indeed, a design to life—an evolutionary
design.”45 Merriam-Webster defines an oxymoron as “a combination of contradictory or incongruous words (such as cruel kindness).”46 Another example: “evolutionary design.”
If there is a painting, there must have been a painter. If there is a
fingerprint, there must have been a finger that made it. If there is a
building, there must have been a builder. If there is an engine, there
must have been an engineer. If there is a creation of some sort, there
must have been a creator of it. And if there is design, there must have
been a…. If a person completes that sentence with any other word besides
“designer,” is he not being the epitome of irrational? While we
understand Miller’s dilemma as a naturalist and his desire to find a way
to dismiss the incessant, forceful admissions of design by his highly
credentialed colleagues, he must attempt to do so through some other
avenue besides merely attempting to redefine the word “design” in such a
way that it does not require intent and purpose—a mind.
The silliness of irrationally postulating that the clearly designed
Universe could have designed itself through evolution has not been lost
to many in the engineering community. Typically, in the first semester
of engineering school, an introductory course presents broad concepts
about engineering. Students may learn the basic differences in the
engineering fields (e.g., civil, electrical, mechanical, chemical,
structural, etc.). They may spend some time considering ethical dilemmas
that engineers have often faced in their careers. First-year students
also usually give consideration to the design process. Even in its basic
form, the design process proves to be very complex, even before
considering the specialized scientific knowledge required to design a
given item.
Many steps are necessary in order to get a product to the public.
Consider one introductory engineering textbook’s template for the design
process47:
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Problem symptom or expression; definition of product need; marketing information
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Problem definition, including statement of desired outcome
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Conceptual design and evaluation; feasibility study
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Design analysis; codes/standards review; physical and analytical models
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Synthesis of alternative solutions (back to design analysis for iterations)
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Decision (selection of one alternative)
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Prototype production; testing and evaluation (back to design analysis for more iterations)
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Production drawings; instruction manuals
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Material specification; process and equipment selection; safety review
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Pilot production
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Production
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Inspection and quality assurance
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Packaging; marketing and sales literature
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Product
The design process is unquestionably lengthy, technical, complex, and
calculated. To claim that an efficient design could be developed without
a designer is insulting to the engineering community. Where there is
design—complexity, purpose, planning, intent—there is a designer.
Conclusion
Truly, the Universe is replete with evidences of design. So much so,
that even atheists cannot help but concede that truth. It is noteworthy
that leading naturalists are unwilling to suggest that the laws of
nature could create themselves naturally.
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Physicists know there must be a supernatural origin for those laws.
Similarly, more and more leading scientists are acknowledging that the existence of life is no accident either.
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Biologists know there must be an intelligence behind it.
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Engineers are so awed by the clear-cut evidences for
design on the Earth that they have developed entire centers devoted to
biomimicry—effectively plagiarizing the work of God when they fail to
give Him due credit as the Chief Engineer.
-
Cosmologists gush with incredulity when they see the perfection of the created order as well, knowing that the “fine-tuning”48 that is evident in the Universe seems to have resulted in it being “custom tailored”49 for humans.
But how can there be “fine-tuning” if no One exists to tune in the
first place? How can the Universe be “custom tailored,” and yet there be
no Tailor? If one is to be rational—drawing appropriate conclusions
from the evidence—he must recognize that there are implications to
realizing that the Universe is finely tuned and tailor made. The design
in the Universe demands the existence of a Universal Designer.
Endnotes
1 Paul Ricci (1986), Fundamentals of Critical Thinking (Lexington, MA: Ginn Press), p. 190.
2 “Curiosity: Did God Create the Universe?” (2011), Discovery Channel, August 7, emp. added.
3 Martin Gardner (2000), Did Adam and Eve Have Navels? (New York: W.W. Norton), p. 303, emp. added.
4 Jeff Miller (2011), “A Review of Discovery Channel’s ‘Curiosity: Did God Create the Universe?’” Reason & Revelation, 31[10]:98-107, /apPubPage.aspx?pub=1&issue=1004&article=1687.
5 “Curiosity…,” emp. added.
6 “The Creation Question: A Curiosity Conversation” (2011), Discovery Channel, August 7, emp. added.
7 Paul Davies (1999), “Life Force,” New Scientist On-line, 163[2204]:26-30, September 18.
8 Paul Davies (2007), “Taking Science on Faith,” The New York Times, November 24, emp. added, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/24/opinion/24davies.html?_r=0.
9 Ibid.
10 As quoted in Richard Webb (2016), “Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing?” New Scientist, 231[3089]:32, emp. added.
11 Davies, 2007.
12 Marcus Chown (2012), “In the Beginning,” New Scientist, 216[2893]:35, December 1.
13 As quoted in Webb, p. 32.
14 Sean M. Carroll (2008), “The Cosmic Origins of Time’s Arrow,” Scientific American, 298[6]:50, June, emp. added.
15 Lee Smolin (2015), “You Think There’s a Multiverse? Get Real,” New Scientist, 225[3004]:24, January 17.
16 As quoted in John Horgan (2014), “Physicist George Ellis Knocks Physicists for Knocking Philosophy, Falsification, Free Will,” Scientific American Blog Network, July 22, emp. added, http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/physicist-george-ellis-knocks-physicists-for-knocking-philosophy-falsification-free-will/.
17 Michael Brooks (2012), “The Paradox of Nothing,” New Scientist, 213[2847]:46, January 11, emp. added.
18 Stephen Hawking (2010), The Grand Design (New York: Bantam Books), p. 180.
19 John Lennox (2010), “As A Scientist I’m Certain Stephen Hawking is Wrong. You Can’t Explain the Universe Without God,” Daily Mail Online, emp. added, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1308599/Stephen-Hawking-wrong-You-explain-universe-God.html.
20 Ben Stein and Kevin Miller (2008), Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed (Premise Media), emp. added.
21 “Curiosity…,” emp. added.
22 Victor J. Stenger (2007), God: The Failed Hypothesis (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books), p. 115.
23 Stein and Miller, emp. added.
24 Richard Dawkins (1982), “The Necessity of Darwinism,” New Scientist, 94:130, April 15, emp. added.
25 George Ellis and Joe Silk (2014), “Defend the Integrity of Physics,” Nature, 516[7531]:321, December, emp. added.
26 As quoted in Tim Folger (2008), “Science’s Alternative to an Intelligent Creator: the Multiverse Theory,” DiscoverMagazine.com, November 10, http://discovermagazine.com/2008/dec/10-sciences-alternative-to-an-intelligent-creator.
27 Jeff Miller (2017), “7 Reasons the Multiverse Is Not a Valid Alternative to God [Part I],” Reason & Revelation, 37[4]:38-47, http://apologeticspress.org/pub_rar/37_4/1704w.pdf.
28 Smolin, p. 25.
29 Lawson Parker (2014), “Cosmic Questions,” National Geographic, 225[4], April, center tearout.
30 Davies, 2007, emp. added.
31 Folger, emp. added.
32 George F.R. Ellis (2011), “Does the Multiverse Really Exist?” Scientific American, 305[2]:42.
33 Ellis and Silk, p. 322.
34 John Rennie, Editor’s Note in Sean M. Carroll (2008), “The Cosmic Origins of Time’s Arrow,” Scientific American, 298[6]:48, June.
35 Carroll, p. 57.
36 Smolin, p. 24, emp. added.
37 Folger, emp. added.
38 Stuart Clark and Richard Webb (2016), “Six Principles/Six Problems/Six Solutions,” New Scientist, 231[3092]:33, emp. added.
39 Brian Greene (2015), “Why String Theory Still Offers Hope We Can Unify Physics,” Smithsonian Magazine, January, http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/string-theory-about-unravel-180953637/?no-ist, emp. added.
40 Mary-Jane Rubenstein (2015), “God vs. the Multiverse,” New Scientist, 228[3052/3053]:64, December 19/26, emp. added.
41 “Center for Biomimetics and Bioinspired Engineering: COBRE” (2012), George Washington University, emp. added, http://cobre.seas.gwu.edu/.
42 Jeff Miller (2011), “Autonomous Control of Creation,” Reason & Revelation, 31[12]:129-131.
43 J. Marshall (2008), “The Cyborg Animal Spies Hatching in the Lab,” New Scientist, 2646:41, March 6.
44 For specific examples of biomimicry and bio-inspired engineering, see http://apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=12&topic=66.
45 As quoted in: Brown University (2008), “There is ‘Design’ in Nature, Biologist Argues,” ScienceDaily, http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/02/080217143838.htm.
46 “Oxymoron” (2017), Merriam-Webster On-line, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/oxymoron/.
47 Introduction to Engineering at Auburn University: Manufacturing—Industrial and Systems Engineering (2004), (Boston, MA: Pearson Custom Publishing), pp. 10, 32.
48 Folger; Clark and Webb, p. 33; Rubenstein, p. 64.
49 Folger.
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Suggested Resources |
In
1934, using mathematical calculations, French entomologist August
Magnan concluded that bee flight was aerodynamically impossible. The
haphazard flapping of their wings simply should not enable bees to fly.
The mystery that has perplexed scientists ever since (due to inadequate
understanding of aerodynamic theory) is now believed to have been
clarified. Using high-speed digital cameras and a giant robotic model of
a bee wing, bioengineers at the California Institute of Technology and
the University of Nevada at Las Vegas have been studying honeybee flight
in an effort to determine how bees fly (Altshuler, et al., 2005). They
discovered that bees operate with the same basic aerodynamic principles
that facilitate flight capability in other flying creatures, including
velocity, wing stroke amplitude, stroke reversals, wingbeat frequency,
and wing length. They simply utilize these principles in different
proportions and combinations.
Engineers
regularly work with control systems. Autonomous control is a step
beyond remote control. Remote control applications allow manual issuing
of commands through some sort of transmission device (i.e., a remote
controller) that controls something else (e.g., a robot or television)
located some distance away from the controller. Autonomous control, on
the other hand, uses a computer program to issue the commands. The
computer becomes the controller, instead of a human being. It is common
knowledge in the engineering community that autonomous control is a
subject that is of particular interest today. From autonomous control of
ground vehicles (Naranjo, et al., 2006), to autonomous missile guidance
systems (Lin, et al., 2004) and aerial vehicles (Oosterom and Babuska,
2006), to autonomous aquatic vehicles (Loebis, et al., 2004) and
satellites (Cheng, et al., 2009), and even to autonomous farming
equipment (Omid, et al., 2010), notable success is being made in this
area of technology.
Since
canines can traverse a variety of terrains more efficiently than
humans, and possess a natural array of “sensors” used to detect and
locate items of interest that robots are not readily equipped with, many
aspects that pose problems to unmanned ground vehicles are inherently
removed with the canine. Canines can execute the low-level decision
making that is necessary for rerouting their local path to avoid
obstacles or unfavorable terrain. We proved with notable success that
canines can be tracked using GPS, inertial sensors, and magnetometers
(Miller and Bevly, 2007; Miller and Bevly, 2009a; Miller and Bevly,
2009b), as well as be autonomously guided along desired paths to distant
end points (Miller, 2010; Britt, 2009). More important, this system was
designed without having to develop the technology that would be
required for a complete robotic solution. Instead, a pre-designed
creature, already developed by the Chief Engineer, was utilized. In the
interest of not plagiarizing Him, I happily reference His
incomprehensible work, although, unfortunately I cannot speak for all of
my doctoral colleagues.
