Three important contributions in major scientific publications over the past three years supporting Intelligent Design indicate it is growing in support. The four general areas where ID is forging ahead are : (1) scientific advancements and peer-reviewed papers, (2) failed attempts by critics to suppress ID, (3) ID’s performance in high-level debates against top critics, and (4) a growing community of ID-friendly graduate students and scientists.
In 2018, a paper was published in BIO-Complexity by computer scientist Winston Ewert. He applied the concept of “common design” to produce a “dependency graph” model of organismal relationships based upon the principle that software designers frequently re-use the same coding modules in different programs. Ewert tested his model by comparing the distribution of gene families in nine diverse organisms to a treelike pattern predicted by Neo-Darwinism versus a dependency graph distribution used by computer programmers. His preliminary analysis showed that a common design-based “dependency graph” fit the genetic data 103000 times better than a Darwinian evolutionary tree!
In 2019, a paper on human origins published in BIO-Complexity. This paper used population genetics to refute those who cite evolutionary models to claim that human genetic diversity indicates we could not have originated from an initial couple.
In 2020 a major article came out in the Journal of Theoretical Biologywhich supported “intelligent design” by name, noting that “ID aims to adhere to the same standards of rational investigation as other scientific and philosophical enterprises, and it is subject to the same methods of evaluation and critique.” The authors predicted that we will “establish fine-tuning as a sustainable and fully testable scientific hypothesis, and ultimately a Design Science.”
Dr David Wood explains the significance of this action by Google, Apple and Amazon. The enormity of the censorship taking place in our time is almost beyond comprehension. Imagine, Twitter cancelled the President of the USA’s account, ruling that he was inciting his followers to violence. The power that is now in the hands of the so called elite is frightening. The digital revolution has so changed the world in such a short period of time and yet what is unfolding in the world has not taken God by surprise, it is all prophesied in His book, the Bible. The Prince of this World, Satan is at war with God and one of his greatest deceptions has been to use evolution to convince scientists that the impossible is possible, the world could have made itself from nothing. As a result the Bible is a book of myths and fables.
The discovery of DNA and the fact it is made up of complex information, letters and words that control all the functions and machinery in the cells has made Darwin’s simplistic explanation for the origin of life implausible. The complexity of the information and machinery in the cells is making it harder and harder for scientists to reject intelligent design as the only possible explanation for this complex world, the laws that govern it, and the fine tuning necessary for life on planet Earth. Moreover, it gives greater depth to the Words of the Bible: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” John 1:1
There’s no better tribute to the power of ideas than a changed mind. Erik Strandness is a physician in Spokane, WA, practicing neonatal medicine. He watched a new exchange between biochemist Michael Behe and computational biologist Joshua Swamidass on the excellent and always thoughtful series Unbelievable? with Justin Brierley. He writes to differ with Swamidass and to describe his own change of ideas, from theistic evolution to intelligent design.
Joshua Swamidass is a biologist and Christian who is strongly critical of ID. He engages with Behe on the Kitzmiller-Dover case and the ID proponent’s most recent book ‘Darwin Devolves’ which critiques evolutionary theory.
The timing and circumstances of Erik Strandness intellectual evolution aren’t totally clear from the article. It preceded the Behe/Swamidass discussion. But his account is a valuable read nevertheless. As Dr. Strandness points out, Professor Swamidass doesn’t call himself a theistic evolutionist, but “he seems to share its favorable stance towards evolution and its opposition to intelligent design.”
God in a Box
Strandness reflects on his Lutheran upbringing. He “always had a place for God in my life, but that was exactly my problem: I had a place for God in my life….Part of the reason I compartmentalized my faith was because I was a science guy and science told me I was just an evolved chemical.” The compartmentalization, characteristic of theistic evolution, was unsatisfying to him. “While Swamidass’ goal is admirably to harmonize Christianity and science, I feel like all he has really done is say it’s OK to live with the tension.”
The theme of disappointment with a theistic evolutionary approach runs throughout his essay:
Interestingly, many theistic evolutionists don’t find God under the microscope but do in the courtroom. It appears they are more convinced of God’s existence by the moral argument than the scientific argument.
I’m glad that they find assurance for their faith in this minimalist approach, but it leaves a huge chasm between an awe-inspiring Big Bang and the appearance of morality and consciousness in human beings. A gap which they fill with a rather bland series of naturally selected mutations.
They give God credit for the big-ticket items, but don’t want to bother Him with the mundane task of speciation. Sadly, they reduce the book of nature to a Rorschach ink blot that offers us a vague psychological rendering of God’s subconscious rather than fine biological literature that reveals the sharpness of His mind.
Common Ground with Intelligent Design
On the other hand, Strandness, as a physician, finds common ground with Professor Behe and his arguments for the irreducible complexity of certain biological structures. Swamidass in the discussion on Brierley’s show says he believes “God was involved in the rise of humans but I don’t actually see any biochemical evidence of God’s design there.” Dr. Strandness does see that evidence, however.
I have to respectfully disagree with him because I treat my patients based on an irreducibly complex physiological template that I didn’t create, but which I dismiss at my own peril. I’m able to successfully practice medicine because my patients are fearfully and wonderfully made, not because they were naturally selected to survive.
Interestingly, a whole field of science called biomimetics has emerged that takes the superior design of irreducibly complex biological machines and tries to replicate them at the macro level. It appears that rather than dismissing design, science is beginning to imitate it as the sincerest form of divine flattery.
Swamidass made the case that biological machines are not machines in the traditional sense. However, I think he would get some push back from the biomimeticists who know that nature has given them a template for a better mousetrap, which, if successfully replicated, will inspire the world to beat a path to their door.
Strandness concludes:
Richard Dawkins famously said that Charles Darwin made it possible for him to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist, but I found that [intelligent design] made it possible for me to be an intellectually fulfilled Christian.
For me, it was sad to observe that both Behe and Swamidass were comfortable with man evolving from some apelike creature, and yet both claim to be Christians. It is obvious from this belief that both do not believe in the inerrancy of God’s Word nor do they spend much time reading God’s Word. It is difficult to comprehend how Swamidass believes that man is made in God’s image and at the same time could have evolved from an ape.
This is probably one of the most important videos I have seen on the arguments for a theistic world view versus an atheistic world view.
John Lennox is always a delight to listen to and I am now a fan of Dr. Stephen Meyer. Both men have Ph.D. qualifications from prestigious universities, Lennox, Oxford, and Meyer, Harvard. What has to be a first, Oxford University Professor Dr. Lennox in Mathematics and Philosophy. Both men exhibit a humility that is only evident in devout Christians.
Intelligent design proponent Stephen Meyer sits down for a conversation with Oxford mathematician, and debater extraordinaire, John Lennox. Both have explored the intersection of science and faith, and challenged the atheistic materialism pushed by many scientists and scholars. Here they discuss the science that leads them to believe in a purpose driven universe from the origin of life to biological evolution to the fine-tuning of nature and the universe. The conversation comes in advance of the forthcoming one night only film “Against the Tide: Finding God in an Age of Science.” The movie stars Oxford University mathematician John Lennox and actor Kevin Sorbo, and highlights debates between Professor Lennox, arguing the case for theism, supported by science, against prominent atheists including Richard Dawkins and the late Christopher Hitchens. You can see it on November 19, for one night only, in theaters across the US. Be sure to reserve your tickets here: https://againstthetide.movie/.
Are our worldviews merely philosophical speculations with no right or wrong answer and therefore with no consequences. No! One of them begins with the basic premise that God does not exist, the other with the premise that He does. They are therefore mutually exclusive therefore one is true and the other is not.
It is essential you know whether or not God exists as there is no third option. How we relate to God is the foundation for our thinking because it determines the way we view our world.
You need to make the right choice, as I pointed out in a recent post there are only two outcomes: eternal life offered as a free gift by your Creator or face the judgement of God and then the second death in the Lake of Fire.
Your choice of worldviews will shape how you live your life on earth. If you believe God exists then you will want to live your life according to His statutes but if not, then their are no restraints on how you live your life, only those imposed on you by society. You are the product of blind chance random mutations. There is no basis for good or evil, right or wrong. There is no hope of life after death. This is all there is so make the best of it. There are no answers to the big questions of life – why am I here , what is the meaning to life, what is my purpose, what is my ultimate destiny?2
Oxford Professor of Mathematics John Lennox says it well: “What divides us is not science… but our worldviews. No one wants to base their life on a delusion but which is the delusion? Christianity or atheism?”
Sadly, I think most people are afraid to look reality in the eye because it may take them in a direction they do not want to go. It is probably one of the great flaws in human character. We stubbornly hold on to our beliefs because it is how we want life to be rather than how life should be as established by our Creator.
Dr. Francis Collins was Director of the Human Genome Project (ENCODE). Dr. Collins directed over 2000 scientists work on ENCODE. It was the most complex biological research project of all time. He has a powerful testimony on coming to faith in God.
“As a graduate student in physical chemistry in the 1970s, I was an atheist, finding no reason to postulate the existence of any truths outside of mathematics, physics, and chemistry. But then I went to medical school, and encountered life and death issues at the bedsides of my patients. Challenged by one of those patients, who asked “What do you believe, doctor?”, I began searching for answers.
I had to admit that the science I loved so much was powerless to answer questions such as “What is the meaning of life?” “Why am I here?” “Why does mathematics work, anyway?” “If the universe had a beginning, who created it?” “Why are the physical constants in the universe so finely tuned to allow the possibility of complex life forms?” “Why do humans have a moral sense?” “What happens after we die?”
I had always assumed that faith was based on purely emotional and irrational arguments, and was astounded to discover, initially in the writings of the Oxford scholar C.S. Lewis and subsequently from many other sources, that one could build a very strong case for the plausibility of the existence of God on purely rational grounds. My earlier atheist’s assertion that “I know there is no God” emerged as the least defensible. As the British writer G.K. Chesterton famously remarked, “Atheism is the most daring of all dogmas, for it is the assertion of a universal negative.”
But reason alone cannot prove the existence of God. Faith is reason plus revelation, and the revelation part requires one to think with the spirit as well as with the mind. You have to hear the music, not just read the notes on the page. Ultimately, a leap of faith is required.
For me, that leap came in my 27th year, after a search to learn more about God’s character led me to the person of Jesus Christ. Here was a person with remarkably strong historical evidence of his life, who made astounding statements about loving your neighbor, and whose claims about being God’s son seemed to demand a decision about whether he was deluded or the real thing. After resisting for nearly two years, I found it impossible to go on living in such a state of uncertainty, and I became a follower of Jesus.
What about your journey? What worldview do you live out? Does it answer all of the difficult questions of life? When you become a follower of Jesus, God the Father sends the Holy Spirit to be your counsellor, comforter and teacher. You will then know God exists and you are one of His children.
There is physical order in the cosmos; there is also social order, and spiritual order. In the beginning, Genesis teaches us, God not only made matter, he made order. In creating the cosmos ex nihilo, He ordered it–that is, He gave it form, structure, coherence, beauty and symmetry.
Order is not incidental to Christian doctrine; order is central. God is the maker and ruler of all things; the creation is distinct from him, yet exists by the super-sustenance of his Son (Colossians 1:17); the world in which we dwell is not characterized in fundamental terms by randomness and disorder, but by divine design.
All this matters greatly for our understanding of men and women, those who are made in the image of God (Genesis 1:26-27). The man is created first in the Old Testament, and possesses what the New Testament will call headship over his wife. Adam is constituted the leader of his home; he is given authority in it, authority that is shaped in a Christlike way as the biblical story unfolds. According to the apostle Paul, a godly husband does not lord his role over his wife, but rather sees his headship in cruciform terms. He dies to himself over and over in order to love his wife and children well (Ephesians 5:22-33). This does not mean that he fails to exercise actual on-the-ground leadership or make decisions; it means that he constantly seeks to shepherd his wife and family so that they will flourish in Christ. On the basis of a man’s domestic leadership, men are called to provide spiritual leadership and protection of the church (1 Timothy 2:9-15). Elders preach, teach, and shepherd the flock of God; only men are called to the office of elder, and only men who excel as heads of their wives and children are to be considered as possible candidates for eldership (1 Timothy 3:1-7; Titus 1:5-9).
It is right for men to lead their homes, and put their lives on the line when their family members are endangered, and work hard to be the financial pillar of their loved ones. It is right for women to be distinctively feminine, bear and raise children as God allows, submit to and support their husbands per 1 Peter 3, and serve their churches in ways that use their gifts. Living out these realities is good and glorious, and shows us the beauty of the Christian worldview over against secular conceptions of the sexes.
The teaching of evolution in our schools and universities as fact has totally undermined the Biblical view of the history of our planet. A planet created by a loving God, initially perfect, without sin and death. It had the potential for sin and death but only if man disobeyed God. Sadly, Adam and Eve who were made in the image of God were deceived by Satan, a created angelic being that had already rebelled against our Creator God. Satan had wanted to be God. He convinced Eve that she could be like God, knowing good and evil, if she ate of the fruit God had commanded Adam not to eat on pain of death. As a result, God banished Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden so they could no longer eat of the Tree of Life and live forever.
Only from the Bible do we know that the origin of sin, pain, suffering and death in the world is a result of man’s disobedience. Fortunately, it reveals a loving God has provided a way back into a right relationship with Him. The penalty for our disobedience was death and it has been paid for by God’s own son, the second person of the Trinity, Jesus Christ. If we repent, are baptised (die to self, alive in Christ) God the Father sends the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, to indwell every believer, to do what we can’t do for ourselves, He will start the sanctification process to make us like Christ. As we allow Him to direct our will, He produces the fruit of the Spirit in our lives; love, joy, peace, patience, faithfulness, gentleness, goodness, kindness and self control. He also provides the gifts of the spirit for ministry to believers and unbelievers.
God’s Word, The Bible, reveals the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end of the story for this world. Its many prophecies reveal the future of nations, particularly the nation God established for His purposes, Israel. It reveals the time we are in right now, with a great falling away from God and Biblical truth (apostasy), a time of tribulation for Christians leading up to even great tribulation before Jesus returns to conquer the nations and rule and reign for one thousand years from Jerusalem.
Listen to Dr Mark Harwood tell you why the church needs Creation Ministries. Let me commend this ministry to you. It played a large role in my conversion at age 47. Evolution being a major stumbling block to my acceptance of Biblical inerrancy.
Many church denominations and their associated Bible Colleges have accepted evolution and billions of years of earth’s history. As a result, they have rejected the Genesis account of creation. This is devastating, as Genesis is the foundational book of the Bible where most of church doctrine is established.
The caterpillar transforms into a butterfly. The impossibility of this ever having evolved and from what, is convincing evidence of intelligent design, and yet universities and schools can only teach evolution. Why? The only reason is not sound science, it is because “they” claim science can only deal with the natural not supernatural and intelligent design requires a designer who is outside of his creation. Science should take us to wherever the evidence leads.
Watch this 2 minute video explain why only design explains this incredible organism.
Does God give us a picture of this ugly caterpillar being changed into a beautiful butterfly that is now capable of so much more, imagine flying, to give us a glimpse of what He has promised us – resurrected bodies capable of so much more than those we now occupy.
I have abbreviated the review by Joel Tray, Creation Ministries International, of the book Undeniable: How biology confirms our intuition that life is designedby Douglas Axe. For the full review go to http://www.creation.com.
The book is written for the non scientist. For this reason, much space has been devoted to the use of elaborate analogies in order to simplify complex technical details. Interwoven between these analogies are personal stories and an overall narrative approach to the book. At times, this causes the book to come across as slow, repetitive and unnecessarily drawn out.
By comparison Jonathan Sarfati’s By Design (2008) is far more concise and easy to understand.—both books discussing design—the feel is that one chapter of Undeniable would have the same amount of scientific content as two or three pages in Sarfati’s book. Apart from the excessive wordiness, the science contained in Undeniable is sound, though it falters when it comes to its philosophy of science. However, this book will prove to be a challenge for those who hold to naturalistic evolution.
Unfortunately, as it is with most ID books, Undeniable comes across as somewhat naive from an epistemological viewpoint. Axe correctly draws a distinction between creationists and the ID movement. At times throughout the book, Axe even appears to hold to contradicting philosophical positions. For example, he rejects scientism on the basis that our intuition tells us that design requires a designer (p. 49) yet at the same time rejects the inference to God by creationists since “Intelligent Design takes a minimalist view”, and there is a jump from intelligent designer to God (p. 50) that goes beyond science.
But if one cannot infer beyond science, then how is one not stuck with scientism? Either we infer beyond science, or we are stuck in scientism (which Axe also rejects). A naturalistic intelligent designer is still a designer within naturalism. But if the designer is not naturalistic, then one must infer beyond the boundaries of mere science. Worse, towards the end of the book, Axe himself does what he says creationists ought not to do, by saying that the designer only makes sense if it is God.
LIVING ETERNAL NOW 