THE DESIGN ARGUMENT pt.1 - “BIOLOGICAL DESIGN”
1. “All design impies a designer”
a. Common experience
2. “The universe exhibits great design”
a. Biological design
b. Mathematical fine-tuning/design
3. “Therefore, the universe has a Great Designer, GOD”
Are the In this first part of the investigation of the the Design Argument, we want to ask the question
"Do we discover factual examples, evidence,
proof of true biological design in the world?"
As we consider some amazing examples of complex biological design, keep in mind the definition of a "machine as given by the atheist thinker and Nobel Laureate, Jacque Monod:
“A machine is purposeful combination of matter, that uses energy from it’s environment to perform work.”
Why might this be important as we examine the issue of biological design? Because machines do not arise by chance, as even atheists know and will admit. Therefore, if we do happen to discover any life forms or living systems that exhibit the characteristics of a machine (as noted above) the design hypothesis will be proven to be true.
Here is a fine and well known modern example of complex design in living systems, the cell. For a detailed look into this area of microbiology, I would highly recommend Prof. Michael Behe's book entitle "Darwin's Black Box".
The “Simple” CELL - a marvel of nano-technological engineering:
Complex Cellular Systems we’ve discovered inside the Cell:
· Quality Control Production Systems
· Chicken and Egg Systems (AàB; BàA)
· Assembly lines for production of micro-machines
· Information Storage and Retrieval systems
· Optimized systems of production for maximal overall efficiency
· Molecular machines that copy information, build other machines and structures, disassemble machines, transport fuel where it needs to go, take in materials from the outside of the cell, excrete materials that are useless…..can even makes a full sized copy of the entire nano factory!!
"The complexity of the simplest known type of cell is so great that it is impossible to accept that such an object could have been thrown together suddenly by some kind of freakish, vastly improbable, event. Such an occurrence would be indistinguishable from a miracle. To grasp the reality of life as it has been revealed by molecular biology, we must magnify a cell a thousand million times until it is twenty kilometers in diameter and resembles a giant airship large enough to cover a great city like London or New York. What we would then see would be an object of unparalleled complexity and adaptive design. On the surface of the cell we would see millions of openings, like the port holes of a vast space ship, opening and closing to allow a continual stream of materials to flow in and out. If we were to enter one of these openings we would find ourselves in a world of supreme technology and bewildering complexity. Molecular biology has shown that even the simplest of all living systems on the earth today, bacterial cells, are exceedingly complex objects. Although the tiniest bacterial cells are incredibly small, weighing less than 10-12 gms, each is in effect a veritable micro-miniaturized factory containing thousands of exquisitely designed pieces of intricate molecular machinery, made up altogether of one hundred thousand million atoms, far more complicated than any machine built by man and absolutely without parallel in the nonliving world."
— Michael Denton
— Michael Denton
Since this is an extremely powerful and persuasive argument for God's existence, especially to a scientifically minded audience in the 21st century, we will be continuing to develop it further in our next few posts on Intelligent Faith 315 . Comment on it and let me know if you find it persuasive......
- Pastor J.
No comments:
Post a Comment