Intelligent design

This is all about intelligent design.

Most of you will have heard about the concept of intelligent design. What exactly is it?

The concept of intelligent design basically states the following: if one comes accross a system - a physical object like a car, a pair of scissors, the heart of an animal, or something like a chemical pathway - and one can discern that this system does something specific, one can examine the system and see how it was designed to fulfill its function. If there is a narrow correlation between its design and its function, it is obvious that the system was designed to fulfill its function. We know of nothing that has a clear function and can be proven to have come about by itself. On the contrary, we know of a great many things that have a clear fucntion and were designed. Mostly because these things were designed by humans.

Atheists, like Richard Dawkins, hate the concept of intelligent design passionately and with a fury that makes spittle fly when they talk about it. Why? Because it seems so logical to most people, because it is gaining adherents and because they cannot refute it. Also, it implies a creator.

They want it banished, declared illegal and done away with. They say that even if something appears to have a clear function, that does not imply that someone designed it. They say no conclusions about any designer or design can be drawn from studying something which clearly has a function. And they don't want you to do it.

The biggest scientific support for the principle of intelligent design comes from mathematical probability. Haemostasis (the fact that mostly one stops bleeding in response to a wound before one bleeds to death ) has several components to it; the chemical side in which sticky chemicals get formed in a sequence of about 13 steps and the more physical side where blood vessels contract, cells and platelets are caught in collagen fibrils, forming a plug, stopping the bleeding. The probability that the 13 steps of the chemical side of heamostasis "just happened by itself" is so remote as to be impossible. Each step might have been one of a great number of other chemical reactions that would not have contributed to the coagulation process. The fact that one step is exactly what it needs to be, and not something else, is remarkable. Now, do this for thirteen steps and the odds aqainst it happening by chance is utterly remote. And this is only the chemical coagulation side of the clotting process. And this is just blood clotting. What about the fact that the electormagnetic force and the strong nuclear force, to name just two, are exactly what they need to be to make the universe possible?

The only valid argument for chance I have ever heard is the scenario where four persons are dealt thirteen cards each from a deck of cards. Say each gets a certain hand of cards. You may deal till kingdom come and they will not all four get the same hand of cards again, ever. Say this one hand of cards was the magic hand that made someting possible, then of course it happened by chance. The catch, however, is that you may now have one of the thirteen steps of the coagulation cascade, or the electromagnitic force just right, but what about all the great many other things that need to be just right for the universe to exist as it does? You'll have to deal magic hand after magic hand to the four players to make that happen.

The field of probability and how it relates to intelligent design is far too big to explore in one page or one book. One book that touches on some of the things mentioned here is Just Six Numbers: The Deep Forces that Shape the Universe by Martin Rees.

The attacks on intelligent design will continue. They will continue to be almost entirely emotional in nature with nearly no factual basis. The concept of intelligent design will continue to gain converts. All facts at our disposal support intelligent design. It just seems so right and is so simple even the man in the street can understand it, and be convinced by it. This makes the atheists furious enough to lose control of their bowel functions. But of course, an atheist soiling himself is not going to convince anybody that the concept of intelligent design has no merit.

If you feel any of the above is factually incorrect, please e-mail me.