Intelligent Design: If you find a design you expect to also find a designer

Having discussed the Cosmological Argument for the existence of all that is, and having come to the conclusion that it is most logical for matter not to have come into being from nothing nor having always existed in some form, but rather that God always existed and created everything from nothing (as the bible states it happened), and, in that argument having dismissed all pantheistic views of God, let’s proceed to the next argument for the existence of a creator God.

I first heard the argument of Intelligent Design termed as, “The Watchmaker Theory.” The definition of “intelligence” is, “the ability to learn or understand or to deal with new or trying situations, the skilled use of reason, the ability to apply knowledge to manipulate one's environment or to think abstractly as measured by objective criteria, mental acuteness.” It is my desire to show that the things in this world and universe reveal to us that there had to be a lot of intelligence which created it and that it didn’t just come into being accidentally as a result of trillions of occurrences of random chance. So, I want to speak to you about intelligence then. William A. Dembski, a proponent of intelligent design has stated, "there are natural systems that cannot be adequately explained in terms of undirected natural forces and that exhibit features which in any other circumstance we would attribute to intelligence."

The Wikipedia online encyclopedia explains the following about the history of the intelligent design argument, “Philosophers have long debated whether the complexity of nature indicates the existence of a purposeful natural or supernatural designer/creator. The first recorded arguments for a designer of the cosmos are in Greek philosophy. In the 4th century BC, Plato posited a "demiurge" of supreme wisdom and intelligence as the creator of the cosmos in his Timaeus. Aristotle also developed the idea of a creator-designer of the cosmos, often called the "Unmoved Mover", in his work Metaphysics. In De Natura Deorum, or "On the Nature of the Gods" (45 BC), Cicero stated that "the divine power is to be found in a principle of reason which pervades the whole of nature." The use of this line of reasoning as applied to a supernatural designer has come to be known as the teleological argument for the existence of God.”

The “Watchmaker Theory” was proposed to me in the form of a rhetorical question when I first heard it: “If you took all of the pieces of a very expensive Swiss Watch and put them in a shoe box, and then began to shake the shoebox, how long do you think you would have to shake the shoebox until you could open the box and find all of the pieces of the watch perfectly pieced together working in precise synchronicity?” The answer of course is that it could never happen. When you look at a Swiss Watch you are brought face to face with the fact that there had to be a designer for such a fine piece of machinery that works so flawlessly. It could not have come into being as a result of trillions of random chance acts. In the same way, in the created world in which we live there are too numerous to count examples of highly complex systems that in operation show the handiwork of a master watchmaker, or designer.

Being in the field of Electrical Engineering and working as a software engineer for over twenty-five years, I have had a fascination and appreciation for big fast computers. About ten years ago, I was fascinated by the press release of IBM’s new supercomputer, ASCII White: “WASHINGTON-IBM announced Wednesday it has built the most powerful supercomputer in the world, able to perform 12.3 trillion [floating point] operations per second, three times faster than the next fastest computer…The computer, called Advanced Strategic Computing Initiative White, or ASCI White, covers 9,920 square feet of floor space , equal to two NBA basketball courts, and weighs 106 tons. IBM will deliver ASCI White to the Energy Department's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory this summer to simulate the testing of nuclear weapons. In time, said IBM and Livermore officials, this computer could lead to the end of nuclear testing. IBM officials said the existing 18-hour computing cycles needed to create a global weather model could be reduced to seconds with the new computer. ASCI White has 8,192 microprocessor and is 1,000 times more powerful than "Deep Blue", which defeated Garry Kasparov [the chess champion] in 1997.” But, what fascinated me even more was that when I happened over to the Lawrence Livermore Labs web site hoping to read more about the capabilities of this huge supercomputer, I found posted there this very intriguing remark: “The human brain, it is estimated, computes about 1,000 times faster than ASCI White, which requires 1.2 megawatts of power, enough electricity to power 1,000 homes. At IBM's current rate, a supercomputer could exceed the brain's capacity in 10 years. Even now, it would take one person with a calculator 10 million years to do the same number of calculations ASCI White can do in one second.” The human brain was 1,000 times more powerful than this supercomputer?! And, instead of needing the size of two NBA basketball courts to house it, and 1.2 megawatts of power to run and cool it, the human brain weighs about 2-4 lbs and is powered by eating tasty foods that we eat and enjoy.

Lawrence Livermore’s web site stated more about the power of the human brain: “It is possible to make a very rough estimate of the computing power of the human brain. The human brain contains about 100 billion neurons, each of which is connected to about 1000 of its neighbors through synapses. This equals a total of 100 trillion connections, all of which operate in parallel. If we estimate each connection to be capable of 100 operations per second then this gives a total of 10,000 teraflops for the whole brain. Note that this really is a rough estimate. Others rate the brain at between 100 and 100,000 teraflops. But one way or another the computing power of the human brain is of the order of hundreds of times greater than ASCI White. Although the human brain is much more powerful, it is not unimaginably more so. It is believed that supercomputers will increase in power by a hundred fold within the next decade. This would mean that supercomputers would be on a par with the human brain by the year 2010.” The ASCII White has the computing power of a mouse’s brain according to another IBM press release, and even today I recently read that the human brain is about 100 times more powerful than today’s most powerful supercomputers. And, I read recently that mankind with all of our advanced technical understand and capabilities still understands less that 1% of how the brain does what it does. Amazing!

Now, I cannot think of any good reason when we discover the computing power of the human brain to consider for even a nanosecond that it could have evolved to what it is today by many millions and millions of interations and prior interspecies mutations. Plus, as I pointed out in our previous discussions, the fossil record includes no interspecies anyway. The thought of the human brain evolving to what it is is absolutely absurd! Ah, but it isn’t only the human brain that reveals such complexity, there are many such systems and designs all around us in this world. Within our own human body, our nervous system is incredibly complex and very little understood, as is our sense of sight which gives us depth perception and three dimensional apprehension, our sense of hearing which gives us depth perception also due to the brain’s ability to interpret the right and left inputs, as well as the ability to perceive numerous different pitches and harmonics simultaneously. In The Truth Project, Dell Tackett recently documented the complexity of our body’s clotting system, and then stated that this system couldn’t have evolved to what it is today because without it functioning just as it does no human being would survive bleeding to death at just a few hours or day’s old. Tim Chaffey has written the following in his book, “God and Cancer”: “Biochemist Michael Behe coined the phrase “irreducible complexity” in his highly successful book Darwin’s Black Box. This term refers to creatures or structures that require several parts to be in operation at the same time and in the same place or it could not function. This argument has dealt a serious blow to naturalistic evolution. For his example, Behe talked about the mousetrap. It is a simple device with a few working parts. Nevertheless, all of those parts need to be in place at the right time and be made out of the right materials or the mousetrap would not function.”

The incredible complexity of all kinds of mechanisms and systems in the universe reveals that the creator is extremely intelligent and creative.

Now, there are many things in our world that are very destructive and make it seem sometimes like there was not a thorough thought put into creation. For instance, there is disease, illness, deformity and natural catastrophes (what are sometimes referred to as “acts of God” in our secular world), and the Intelligent Design argument cannot answer these. But, we will talk later about the existence of evil and disease in our world.