We know now that in order for the universe to be life permitting, it's initial conditions and constants have to be fine-tuned to an incomprehensible precision. [examples:] According, we can formulate the following argument for design:
1. The fine-tuning of the universe for sentient life is due to either natural law , chance, or intelligent design.
2. It could not have been due to natural law or chance.
3. Therefore, the fine-tuning of the universe for sentient life is due to intelligent design.
by Michael Denton
First published in:
Creation 21(4):14–15
September–November 1999
Dr Michael Denton, M.D., Ph.D. is a molecular biologist at the University of Otago, New Zealand. He is not a Biblical creationist. However, his book Evolution: A Theory in Crisis has exposed thousands to the overwhelming scientific problems of Darwinian belief. Though he now describes himself as an ‘evolutionist’, he is more open-minded than most. He thinks that the design of living things probably implies creative intelligence. He has always been, and still is, adamant that Darwinism ‘does not give a credible and comprehensive explanation of how the pattern of life on Earth emerged’.
Dr Denton agrees that natural (as well as artificial) selection is capable of generating some change in living things. But he says it is ‘completely incapable of accounting for the broad picture, the complex adaptations required by the tree of life’.
The two most serious objections he has are as follows:
- First, the nature of mutation (accidental changes in the genetic material of living things). He says that the ‘essential bedrock of Darwinism’ is the belief that ‘all the organisms which have existed throughout history were generated by the accumulation of entirely undirected mutations’. In his professional opinion, ‘that is an entirely unsubstantiated belief for which there is not the slightest evidence whatsoever’.
The second problem he sees is that there is ‘a huge number of highly complex systems in nature which cannot be plausibly accounted for in terms of a gradual build-up of small random mutations’. Indeed, he says, ‘in many cases there does not exist in the biological literature even an attempt to explain how these things have come about’.
A classic example, he says, is the lung of the bird, which is ‘unique in being a circulatory lung rather than a bellows lung' [see box]. I think it doesn’t require a great deal of profound knowledge of biology to see that for an organ which is so central to the physiology of any higher organism, its drastic modification in that way by a series of small events is almost inconceivable. This is something we can’t throw under the carpet again because, basically, as Darwin said, if any organ can be shown to be incapable of being achieved gradually in little steps, his theory would be totally overthrown.
‘The fact is that, in common-sense terms, if you have no ax to grind, there are a vast number of such cases in nature.’ Michael Denton, a recognized academic in his field, says that the claim that Darwinian gradualism ‘can generate the sorts of complex systems we see throughout the biosphere is not only unsubstantiated, but in many cases it is actually beyond the realm of common sense that such things would ever happen’.
As a bird breathes, air moves into its rear air sacs
- (1). These then expel the air into the lung
(2). and the air flows through the lung into the front air sacs
(3). The air is expelled by the front air sacs as the bird breathes out.
The lung does not expand and contract as does a reptile’s or mammal’s. The blood which picks up oxygen from the lung flows in the opposite direction to the air so that blood with the lowest oxygen (blue in the diagram always means lower oxygen, red means high oxygen) is exposed to air with the lowest oxygen. The blood with the highest oxygen is exposed to air with an even higher oxygen concentration. This ensures that, in every region of the circulation, the concentration of oxygen in the air is more than that of the blood with which it is in contact. This maximizes the efficiency of oxygen transfer from the air to the blood. This is known as counter-current exchange. Such very efficient lungs help birds to handle the energy demands of flight, especially at high
altitudes. 1
The reptile lung, like ours, has an in-out bellows-like arrangement and does not have the counter-current circulation system. For a reptile lung to change into a bird lung by small steps, while remaining functional throughout
and providing a greater advantage at each step, defies imagination, according to Dr Michael Denton, an open-minded evolutionist.
The quotations in this article were extracted (with permission) from a video interview available on cassette (NTSC) from Access Research Network, PO Box 38069, Colorado Springs CO 80937-8069, USA. It was then re-checked with Dr Denton to ensure it fairly represented his current views.
NOTE
1. Actually, bats do very well with the ‘bellows’ type of lung. This makes the selectionist argument for the origin of birds’ lungs (i.e. that they ‘needed’ them) even more difficult to sustain.
by Prof. Werner Gitt
We think that we have done very well with human technology, packing information very densely on to computer hard drives, chips and CD-ROM disks. However, these all store information on the surface, whereas DNA stores it in three dimensions. It is by far the densest information storage mechanism known in the universe.
Let’s look at the amount of information that could be contained in a pinhead volume of DNA. If all this information were written into paperback books, it would make a pile of such books 500 times higher than from here to the moon! The design of such an incredible system of information storage indicates a vastly intelligent Designer.
In addition, there is the information itself, which is stored on DNA, and transmitted from generation to generation of living things. There are no laws of science that support the idea that life, with all its information, could have come from non-living chemicals. On the contrary, we know from the laws of science, particularly in my own area of expertise, that messages (such as those that we find in all living things) always point back to an intelligent message sender. When we look at living things in the light of DNA, Genesis creation makes real sense of the scientific evidence.
[First published in: Creation 20(1):6 December 1997–February 1998]
Molecular Evidence“
Because of enormous advances in biochemistry, it has become possible to compare not just the visible features of organisms, but also their molecules."[Darwin on Trial, Phillip E. Johnson, pg. 92-101]
Molecular mechanisms are irreducibly complex. What this means is simply that they are made up of many parts that interact in complex ways, and that all the parts need to work together. Any single part has no useful function unless all the other parts are also present. There is no pathway of unctional intermediate stages by which a Darwinian process could build such a system step by step. The example of a tornado tearing through a wrecking yard and assembling a working Boing 747 --- is not even a possible “Alice in Wonderland” concept here for the Darwinists..< ol> 1) Life consists not just of matter (chemicals), but of matter and information (DNA).
2) Information (DNA) is not reducible to matter, but a different kind of “stuff” altogether. A theory of life thus has to explain not just the origin of matter, but also the independent origin of the information.
3) Complex, specified information of this kind found in a book or a biological cell cannot be produced either by chance or at the direction of physical and chemical laws. [Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds, Phillip E. Johnson, pg 75, 77]
So, then, how is it possible that the information (DNA) arrived “by random chance” at the precise time it was needed to produce life?
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Following the instructions of the Scriptures, members of Christ’s body assemble as congregations for worship, encouragement, and Bible study. The congregation in your community welcomes you to investigate the Bible with us. With a spirit of brotherly love we would seek to reconcile any differences by following the Bible ONLY. We recognize the Bible as God’s inspired word, the ONLY reliable standard of faith and practice. We desire the unity for which Christ prayed and which the Bible emphasizes in the expression, “one Lord, one faith, one baptism.” Together we seek to maintain “the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”
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