Total truth--three strong arguments for design

In another section of her book Total Truth, Nancy Pearcey gets down to basics in regard to first principles. There are not really many viable options. Either the universe is a closed system of cause and effect, or it is an open system, the product of a personal agent. She notes that everything that follows comes out of that fundamental choice.

Once we understand these two basic categories and their implications, then it becomes far easier to analyze worldviews. If we can show that a non-personal starting point fails to account for the world, we can eliminate a vast variety of philosophical systems that fall within that category -- materialism, determinism, behaviorism, Marxism, utilitarianism, and evolution.

To argue for an open system, in which there is a personal agent involved, Pearcey introduces intelligent design. The heart of design theory is the claim that design can be empirically detected. We do this all the time when we distinguish between products of nature and the products of intelligence. We see ripples on beach sand, but we know it's simply a product of wind and waves. If we see on that same beach a sand castle with walls, turrets and a moat, we intuitively recognize this is a different kind of order that's been imposed upon the sand.

The process of detecting design is thoroughly empirical in many scientific areas. Astronomers do this when they search for extraterrestrial intelligence. They distinguish between radio signals that are encoded messages and ones that are simply natural phenomena. Archaeologists distinguish between chip marks on a stone representing tool design and marks that display simple weathering patterns. Insurance companies take steps when they must decide if the fire was a case of arson (design) or just an accident.

Biologists who believe in evolution say living things only appear to be designed. Proponents of evolution must show that this obvious design is not real but is instead a deceptive illusion produced by natural selection.

Pearcey says there are three main areas where new evidence for design is being uncovered. The first is the world of the cell (biochemistry). There is an almost unbelievable complexity encountered in the tiny space of the living cell. Darwin and others of his time believed the living cell was extremely simple, but now we know it is a world of high-tech like modern machinery but far more complex than anything devised by mere humans. Francis Crick, investigator of DNA, says the cell is an incredible complex factory. Each cell has an automated rapid transit system to whiz cargo around from one area to the other. She brings up the famous example of the bacterial flagellum, which acts like a propeller. It requires dozens of precisely tailored, intricately interacting parts, which could not emerge by any gradual process as evolution would require. Instead, the coordinated parts must somehow appear on the scene all at the same time.

The second area that shows design, according to Pearcey, is the origin of the universe (cosmology). Lately astronomers have been uncovering evidence that the cosmos itself is exquisitely fine-tuned to support life. For example, the force of gravity has to be exactly right to create a universe capable of life. What makes this so puzzling is that there is no physical cause explaining why these values are so finely tuned to support life. One astronomer, Heinz Oberhummer, says, "I am not a religious person, but I could say this universe is designed very well for the existence of life. The basic forces in the universe are tailor-made for the production of... carbon-based life." The Nobel Prize-winner Arno Penzias has a good take on this: "Astronomy leads us to a unique event, a universe which was created out of nothing, one with a very delicate balance needed to provide exactly the conditions required to permit life, and one which has an underlying (one might say supernatural) plan. The best data we have are exactly what I would have predicted, had I nothing to go on but the five books of Moses, the Psalms, the Bible as a whole." Famous astronomer Fred Hoyle added to this insight when he said," A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests a super-intellect has monkeyed with the physics." The design inference, according to Pearcy, is the simplest, most direct reading of the evidence.

Finally, the author says the structure of DNA shows marks of design (biological information). There is a very close analogy between DNA and a written language. The DNA molecule is built up of four chemical bases that function as chemical letters which combine in various sequences to spell out the message used to create proteins. The discovery of this chemical code means we can now apply the categories of information theory to DNA. Richard Dawkins says that this code is truly digital, in exactly the same way computer codes are. So, the question is simple -- how do we get highly specified, complex biological information? When you see a message, a language, you immediately conclude that it is not the product of natural causes. The sequencing of DNA is not random (tossing dice) nor regular like laws of nature (mix salt into water; it will dissolve). Instead, it exhibits specified complexity, the hallmark of design.

So, Pearcey has laid out three important areas evolutionists have to deal with. So far, they appear to be losing ground to those who see intelligence at the heart of our universe.