Design Dissected

The mystery of how living things came to be has been the focus of much investigation and debate for centuries. Many people assert that all of reality, including life, has simply emerged as a result of natural law and circumstance. How credible is that assumption? How well does it fit with what we find? Exquisite features of apparent design are in evidence everywhere we look. Getting down to basics, we can say with confidence that either something is responsible for all the molecular engineering of life or, it just happened and nothing is directly responsible. Which option offers the best explanation?

The theme of this book concerns the evidence for design in the complexity of life and it assembles an argument to challenge the conventional assumption that the source of the amazing systems in living things is entirely natural.

It provides a clinician's perspective on the evidence for real design in living things. While it is written at a popular level, there are some technical details but these will be accessible to everyone. Those with a basic understanding of human biology or a background in healthcare will immediately connect with many of the examples. I have chosen some actual clinical cases to illustrate particular points or to provide a backdrop to the argument as it develops. Some of the amazing connected systems that exist in immunology, endocrinology, physiology, biochemistry and neuroscience are explored. Specific design scenarios are described, such as the astonishing changes that have to take place in the human circulatory system when the placental oxygen delivery is switched off and the lungs suddenly have to come into operation at the time of birth. Had that system failed to operate for you – you would not be reading this sentence!

There are three sections. Firstly, Enigmata, outlines the means by which the great questions of science have been tackled and how scientific truth has sometimes even been ridiculed before finding acceptance. The discovery of scientific conclusions can be contaminated by presuppositions of various kinds reductionism as an enterprise to uncovering causation is reviewed. Whether the idea that natural processes are entirely sufficient to produce what we find in the living world, or not is addressed? There is also a warning about the dangers of scientism – that is, the assumption that science is equipped to answer every ultimate question.

The second section, Layers of Perplexity, aims to reveal why the conventional understanding about the origin of life and of biological complexity fails to carry the intellectual weight it is required to bear.

There are examples from human systems and the discipline of origin of life chemistry. Each of these demonstrates that a naturalistic understanding offers a completely inadequate explanation for the intricate and nuanced systems that underpin our existence.

The final section, Thinking about Thinking, opens the mystery of the origin of consciousness and asks the questions of ultimate reality that, for many, seem to be just too difficult and are therefore consigned to the 'consider it later' pile!

The conclusion may not be palatable for some but the evidence included in this book exposes the reality that neither the origin of life, nor complex biological systems nor even consciousness can be explained by a natural mechanism and that a transcendent agency has better explanatory power. This book provides a powerful challenge to the naturalistic or materialistic view that the universe and life results from unguided 'natural' processes and numerous strands of evidence accumulate to show just how untenable such a view really is. The case for real, rather than illusory, design is powerful and persuasive. It is time to consign outdated thinking and theories to the scrap heap rather than trying to resuscitate ideas that fly in the face of the evidence.