Elegant Design
Monday, May 5th, 2008After 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.