By Fazale Rana – July 24, 2019

I have always felt at home on college and university campuses. Perhaps this is one reason I enjoy speaking at university venues. I also love any chance I get to interact with college students. They have inquisitive minds and they won’t hesitate to challenge ideas.

Skeptical Challenge

A few years ago I was invited to present a case for a Creator, using evidence from biochemistry, at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. During the Q&A session, a skeptical student challenged my claims, insisting that intelligent design/creationism isn’t science. In leveling this charge, he was advocating scientism—the view that science is the only way to discover truth; in fact, science equates to truth. Thus, if something isn’t scientific, then it can’t be true. On this basis he rejected my claims.

You might be surprised by my response. I agreed with my questioner.

My case for a Creator based on the design of biochemical systems is not science. It is a philosophical and theological argument informed by scientific discovery. In other words, scientific discoveries have metaphysical implications. And, by identifying and articulating those implications, I built a case for God’s existence and role in the origin and design of life.

Having said this, I do think that design detection is legitimately part of the fabric of science. We can use scientific methodologies to detect the work of intelligent agency. That is, we can develop rigorous scientific evidence for intelligent design. I also think we can ascribe attributes to the intelligent designer from scientific evidence at hand.

In defense of this view, I (and others who are part of the Intelligent Design Movement, or IDM) have pointed out that there are branches of science that function as intelligent design programs, such as research in archaeology and the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). We stand to learn much from these disciplines about the science of design detection. (For a detailed discussion, see the Resources section.)

SETI and Intelligent Design

Recently, I raised this point in a conversation with another skeptic. He challenged me on that point, noting that Seth Shostak, an astronomer from the SETI Institute, wrote a piece for Space.com repudiating the connection between intelligent design (ID) and SETI, arguing that they don’t equate.

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Figure: Seth Shostak. Image credit: Wikipedia

According to Shostak,

“They [intelligent design proponents] point to SETI and say, ‘upon receiving a complex radio signal from space, SETI researchers will claim it as proof that intelligent life resides in the neighborhood of a distant star. Thus, isn’t their search completely analogous to our own line of reasoning—a clear case of complexity implying intelligence and deliberate design?’ And SETI, they would note, enjoys widespread scientific acceptance.”¹

Shostak goes on to say, “If we as SETI researchers admit this is so, it sounds as if we’re guilty of promoting a logical double standard. If the ID folks aren’t allowed to claim intelligent design when pointing to DNA, how can we hope to claim intelligent design on the basis of a complex radio signal?”²

In an attempt to distinguish the SETI Institute from the IDM, Shostak asserts that ID proponents make their case for intelligent design based on the complexity of biological and biochemical systems. But this is not what the SETI Institute does. According to Shostak, “The signals actually sought by today’s SETI searches are not complex, as the ID advocates assume. We’re not looking for intricately coded messages, mathematical series, or even the aliens’ version of ‘I Love Lucy.’”

Instead of employing complexity as an indicator of intelligent agency, SETI looks for signals that display the property of artificiality. What they mean by artificiality is that specifically, SETI is looking for a simple signal of narrow-band electromagnetic radiation that forms an endless sinusoidal pattern. According to SETI investigators, this type of signal does not occur naturally. Shostak also points out that the context of the signal is important. If the signal comes from a location in space that couldn’t conceivably harbor life, then SETI researchers would be less likely to conclude that it comes from an intelligent civilization. On the other hand, if the signal comes from a planetary system that appears life-friendly, this signal would be heralded as a successful detection event.

Artificiality and Intelligent Design

I agree with Shostak. Artificiality, not complexity, is the best indicator of intelligent design. And, it is also important to rule out natural process explanations. I can’t speak for all creationists and ID proponents, but the methodology I use to detect design in biological systems is precisely the same one the SETI Institute employs.

In my book The Cell’s Design, I propose the use of an ID pattern to detect design. Toward this end, I point out that objects, devices, and systems designed by human beings—intelligent designers—are characterized by certain properties that are distinct from objects and systems generated by natural processes. To put it in Shostak’s terms, human designs display artificiality. And we can use the ID pattern as a way to define what artificiality should look like.

Here are three ways I adopt this approach:

In The Cell’s Design, I follow after natural theologian William Paley’s work. Paley described designs created by human beings as contrivances in which the concept of artificiality was embedded. I explain examples of such artificiality in biochemical systems.
In Origins of Life (a work I coauthored with astronomer Hugh Ross) and Creating Life in the Lab, I point out that natural processes don’t seem to be able to account for the origin of life and, hence, the origin of biochemical systems.
Finally, in Creating Life in the Lab, I show that attempts to create protocells starting with simple molecules and attempts to recapitulate the different stages in the origin-of-life pathway depend upon intelligent agency. This dependence further reinforces the artificiality displayed by biochemical systems.

Collectively, all three books present a comprehensive case for a Creator’s role in the origin and fundamental design of life, with each component of the overall case for design resting on the artificiality of biochemical systems. So, even though the SETI Institute may want to distance themselves from the IDM, SETI is an intelligent design program. And intelligent design is, indeed, part of the construct of science.

In other words, scientists from a creation model perspective can make a rigorous scientific case for the role of intelligent agency in the origin and design of biochemical systems, and even assign attributes to the designer. At that point, we can then draw metaphysical conclusions about who that designer might be.

Resources

“Can Science Detect the Creator’s Fingerprints in Nature?” by Fazale Rana (article)
“Can Intelligent Design Be Part of the Construct of Science?” by Fazale Rana (article)
“Can Science Identify the Intelligent Designer?” by Fazale Rana (article)

Endnotes

Seth Shostak, “SETI and Intelligent Design,” Space.com (December 1, 2005), https://www.space.com/1826-seti-intelligent-design.html.
Shostak, “SETI and Intelligent Design.”

Reprinted with permission by the author

Original article at:
https://reasons.org/explore/blogs/the-cells-design

evolutionsflawedapproach

BY FAZALE RANA – AUGUST 8, 2018

One of the things I find most troubling about the evolutionary paradigm is the view it fosters about the nature of biological systems—including human beings.

Evolution’s mechanisms, it is said, generate biological innovations by co-opting existing designs and cobbling them together to create new ones. As a result, many people in the scientific community regard biological systems as fundamentally flawed.

As biologist Ken Miller explains in an article for Technology Review:

“Evolution . . . does not produce perfection. The fact that every intermediate stage in the development of an organ must confer a selective advantage means that the simplest and most elegant design for an organ cannot always be produced by evolution. In fact, the hallmark of evolution is the modification of pre-existing structures. An evolved organism, in short, should show the tell-tale signs of this modification.^1″

So, instead of regarding humans as “fearfully and wonderfully made” (as Scripture teaches), the evolutionary paradigm denigrates human beings, as a logical entailment of its mechanisms. It renders human beings as nothing more than creatures that have been cobbled together by evolutionary mechanisms.

Adding to this concern is the impact that the evolutionary paradigm has on scientific advance. Because many in the scientific community view biological systems as fundamentally flawed, they are predisposed to conclude—oftentimes, prematurely—that biological systems lack function or purpose when initial investigations into these systems fail to uncover any obvious rationale for why these systems are the way they are. And, once these investigators conclude that a biological system is flawed, the motivation to continue studying the system dissipates. Why try to understand a flawed design? Why focus attention on biological systems that lack function? Why invest research dollars studying systems that serve no purpose?

I would contend that viewing biological systems as the Creator’s handiwork provides a superior framework for promoting scientific advance, particularly when the rationale for the structure and function of a particular biological system is not apparent. If biological systems have been created, then there must be good reasons why these systems are structured and function the way they do. And this expectation drives further study of seemingly nonfunctional, purposeless systems with the full anticipation that their functional roles will eventually be uncovered.

Recent history validates the creation model approach. During the course of the last couple of decades, the scientific community has made discovery after discovery demonstrating (1) function for biological systems long thought to be useless evolutionary vestiges, or (2) an ingenious rationale for the architecture and operation of systems long regarded as flawed designs. (For examples, see the articles listed in the Resources section.)

These discoveries were made not because of the evolutionary paradigm but in spite of it.

So often, creationists and intelligent design proponents are accused of standing in the way of scientific advance. Skeptics of creation claim that if we conclude that God created biological systems, then science grinds to a halt. If God made it, then why continue to investigate the system in question?

But, I would assert that the opposite is true. The evolutionary paradigm stultifies science by viewing biological systems as flawed and vestigial. Yet, for the biological systems discussed in the articles listed in the Resources section, the view spawned by the evolutionary paradigm delayed important advances that could have been leveraged for biomedical purposes sooner, alleviating a lot of pain and suffering.

Because a creation model perspective regards designs in nature as part of God’s handiwork, it provides the motivation to keep pressing forward, seeking a rationale for systems that seemingly lack purpose. In the handful of instances in which the scientific community has adopted this mindset, it has been rewarded, paving the way for new scientific insight that leads to biomedical breakthroughs.

Resources