Elegant Design
by KeithAfter watching the movie Expelled and learning a little bit about what Intelligent Design is, I’ve run across another idea that seems to reinforce the need for teaching the Intelligent Design perspective. There is a new study called biomimicry, where nature’s designs are studied and the design ideas are used to form new solutions for humanity.
All sorts of things can be reverse engineered from studying the designs found in nature. Seems to me that these people are not at all shy about saying that nature is full of complex designs worthy of study. The question remains as to what is causing these designs. Natural selections, or God? Deists think God causes the natural selections. Atheists think that natural selections caused humans to invent God. Most Christians fall somewhere between Deists and a young earth 7 24 hour day creation event. From a science perspective, does it matter?
It seems to me this study of nature and the designs that are found is a powerful tool and can actually open up new lines of investigation. I didn’t find this point made in Expelled, though I may have dozed off during it. I didn’t hear a practical reason for teaching this perspective. For example — and this is just a poor example — we used to think the appendix and tonsils were useless randomly leftover parts (“vestigial organs”), but today, after a little study, we know they do have some purpose. The closer we look, the more designed things appear to be, and that is exciting to think about as a Scientist. Don’t take nature for granted. Look for the designs and ask questions. What could be better?
Whether you say that natural selection is smarter than we are at designing, or attribute it to God, it should be of interest to study things from the design perspective. Taking it all for granted and saying nothing to look at here, move on, seems medieval.
Tags: biomimicry, Expelled, intelligent design
May 7th, 2008 at 9:05 am
Great post, Keith. I love the idea behind biomimicry, and I suppose we’ve really been doing that for a long time. Don’t architects learn something from the dams made by beavers?
Personally I’m always looking (sometimes intently) at the world around me and marveling at it and wondering what I can learn from it. Back in the day that often turned into interesting sermon illustrations, but then I was preaching to a farming community and they got the world in ways that most of us urbanites and suburbanites don’t.
Our clue for using “nature” in various ways comes from Jesus, who often used nature to teach us truth. Perhaps there are more truths there.
So you are right, there is plenty to look at here!
May 7th, 2008 at 10:26 am
After your blog post, Keith, I’ve concluded there is nothing more to look at here (the argument of ID and NS).