The Beatles are recognized for inspiring countless musicians and shaping the face of pop music. Likewise, beetles (the insect, not the musicians) have offered their fair share of inspiration—at least in the engineering world. The latest contribution comes from the Namib Desert beetle (Stenocara gracilipes). Using the beetle’s shell as inspiration, a team of researchers from Virginia Tech (VT) recently developed a new type of frost-free surface.¹ This latest engineering advance may well translate into new types of surfaces that can reduce the cost and aggravation that arise when airplane parts, windshields, and condenser coils frost up.

This advance has ramifications for Christian apologetics by highlighting the remarkable biological designs found in nature—designs that point to a Creator’s role in orchestrating the history and the design of life.

Uninspired Attempts to Solve the Frost Formation Problem

Frost formation on cold surfaces is a real problem. Once frost forms, getting rid of it can be quite expensive. For example, deicing the wings of airplanes causes flight delays and requires the use of relatively large volumes of chemicals. Many engineers believe these types of problems can be sidestepped by designing frost-free surfaces.

Frost can form when water vapors condense into liquid on a surface (condensation frost). Once on the surface, the droplets eventually freeze. Thus, researchers have tried to design frost-free surfaces through the use of superhydrophobic (water-repelling) materials. In principle, these surfaces should arrest frost formation because they prevent the condensed water droplets from serving as nucleation sites for the frosting process.

But in practice, these superhydrophobic surfaces don’t work. Any slight defect on the surface allows the droplet to serve as a nucleation site—and a single droplet is all that is required to frost the whole surface. Once one droplet freezes at a defect site, it will harvest water from other droplets and form ice bridges, which will cause the other droplets to freeze, and so on.

Beetle’s Design Sparks Creative Solution

With the frost formation problem unresolved, the VT researchers turned to the surface design of Stenocara’s shell for inspiration. This remarkable beetle lives in one of the hottest places on Earth and survives by collecting water from the morning fog. An array of bumps, about 1 millimeter apart, pepper the surface of Stenocara’s back. These bumps are hydrophilic (water-attracting), but the troughs between them are coated with superhydrophobic wax. So, when the beetle goes for a stroll on a foggy morning, water condenses on the tips of the bumps, rolls down the bumps, and flows down the hydrophobic troughs and into the beetle’s mouth.²

Inspired by Stenocara’s design, the VT researchers created a similar surface with contrasting hydrophobic and hydrophilic regions. The researchers reasoned that the hydrophilic regions would attract water, serving as a site for droplet formation—just as they do on the beetle’s back. And if the hydrophilic regions were spaced far enough apart, then ice bridges wouldn’t be able to form between the droplets, thus preventing frost formation. By testing prototypes based on this design, the VT researchers were able to demonstrate that they could indeed slow down the rate of frost formation and even halt it in some instances.

The team believes that the processes used to fabricate this type of frost-free surface can be scaled up in a cost-effective way to make the surfaces commercially feasible.

Does Bioinspiration Support Evolution or Intelligent Design?

It has become rather commonplace for engineers to employ insights from insect biologyto solve engineering problems and to inspire the invention of new technologies—even technologies unlike anything found in nature. This activity falls under the domain of two relatively new and exciting areas of engineering known as biomimetics and bioinspiration. As the names imply, biomimetics involves direct copying (or mimicry) of designs from biology, whereas bioinspiration relies on insights from biology to guide the engineering enterprise.

From my perspective, the use of biological designs to guide engineering efforts seems fundamentally at odds with evolutionary theory. Generally speaking, evolutionary biologists view biological systems as the products of an unguided, historically contingent process that co-opts preexisting systems to cobble together new ones. Evolutionary mechanisms can optimize these systems, but even then they are still kludges, in essence.

Given the unguided nature of evolutionary mechanisms, does it make sense for engineers to rely on biological systems to solve problems and inspire new technologies? Is it in alignment with evolutionary beliefs to build an entire subdiscipline of engineering upon mimicking biological designs? I would argue that these engineering subdisciplines do not fit with the evolutionary paradigm. On the other hand, biomimetics and bioinspiration naturally flow out of a creation model approach to biology. Using designs in nature to inspire engineering only makes sense if these designs arose from an intelligent Mind.

“Houston, we’ve had a problem.”

Commander Jim Lovell’s famous, though often misquoted,¹ words mark the epic struggle of the disabled Apollo 13 mission, called a “successful failure” because while the three-man crew never reached the Moon, they did return to Earth safe and sound.

Following his now-iconic statement, Lovell described their situation to NASA’s ground control, “We’ve had a MAIN B BUS UNDERVOLT.”² In electrical jargon, “bus” is short for “bus bar,” a large metal conductor that receives power from electrical sources and serves as a distribution point to individual devices or circuits. The circuit breaker panel in your house is also an electrical bus.

Losing power at home does not typically lead to catastrophic results, but when you’re on the way to the Moon you want significant redundancy so that you have multiple power sources and even multiple distribution mechanisms (see figure 1). As Commander Lovell observed, one of the two main electrical distribution systems aboard Odyssey (Apollo 13’s Command Module) showed decreasing amperage. Later the astronauts saw the same thing happen in Main Bus A.

Figure 1. A simplified schematic of the type of power supply redundancy needed on a spacecraft
Image credit: Eddy del Rio

The Human Body’s Redundant “Power” Distribution System

Obviously, a good engineer will take the need for redundant power distribution into account. We see evidence of such thoughtful design in our own bodies.

In the human body, the heart serves as the single power source and the blood stream that delivers oxygen and glucose represents power itself. Serving as our bus bar is the aorta. Just like the electrical box in your home, this vessel feeds the body indirectly via the major arteries that arise from it. Of all the places to which blood is delivered, the brain is likely the most important. But where is the redundancy in the delivery of such important support to the brain? Fortunately, we have an auxiliary blood bus in the form of the cerebral arterial circle, also known as the Circle of Willis (CW), named after English physician Thomas Willis (see figure 2).

Figure 2. A typical anatomical illustration of the Circle of Willis
Image credit: Gray’s Anatomy, available athttps://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gray519.png  

This feature is a ring-shaped artery at the base of the brain. It receives blood from the heart through the aorta by four pathways. The arteries that feed the CW are the left and right internal carotid arteries and the left and right vertebral arteries (the latter two join just prior to the CW in a single large caliber artery called the basilar artery). The CW then serves as a pressurized blood reservoir from which arise several bilateral (left and right) arteries that deliver blood to the brain. These include the posterior cerebral, middle cerebral, and anterior cerebral arteries, plus their many branches. The basilar artery itself, which connects directly to the CW, also delivers blood bilaterally (left and right) to the anterior inferior cerebellar arteries, the labyrinthine (internal acoustic) arteries, several basilar and pontine arteries, and the superior cerebellar arteries (see figure 3).

Figure 3. This schematic demonstrates the network of arteries supplying the brain with blood. Note that the crossing lines do not represent intersections.
Image credit: Eddy del Rio

As you can see, there are many redundant routes for delivering blood to our most important “device.” Engineers will immediately appreciate the design aspects. And just as the design of an Apollo Command Module’s power distribution system demonstrated intelligence and forethought, I’d argue that so too does the cerebral arterial circle!

Dr. Eddy M. del Rio

Dr. Eddy M. del Rio received his MD from Saint Louis University in 2004, and currently serves as a practicing physician for the Veterans Health Administration in the greater Springfield, MO region.

A fundamental assumption in the scientific investigation of living things is that the components of an organism or cell have specific functions. The evidence for design in nature at both the macro (organismal) and micro (cellular) levels is overwhelming. Reverse engineering of natural machines, in addition to revealing their purpose in nature, has revealed new technologies for useful human applications. Consider the seahorse tail, which was recently highlighted in the journal Science.

Seahorse Tails

Unlike most tails, the seahorse tail is not round; rather, it is square. Seahorse tails are comprised of square prisms interconnected through three types of specialized joints that allow bending and twisting motions. These joints are the ball-and-socket, peg-and-socket, and gliding joints. The question is, why a square tail instead of the usual round one?

Reverse engineering of the seahorse tail provided the answer. From their knowledge of its structure, investigators made a 3D model of the seahorse tail using a method called computer-aided design. In this case, the seahorse tail was scanned using microcomputed tomography, and the images were used to print a 3D model, which investigators used to construct a seahorse tail model containing “mechanical features that closely mimic the different gliding, peg-and-socket, and ball-and-socket joints.”¹This “working” tail model was subjected to various tests for flexibility, rigidity, and strength and was compared to a round version of the tail.

Pressure was applied to the two model tails, and it was found that the square tail returned to its original shape after deformation, while the round tail did not. Deformation did not alter the square tail’s exterior shape, while the round tail remained deformed. Additionally, the square tail was better at grasping things. Though the round tail could twist and bend to a greater degree than the more rigid square tail, the combination of rigidity and strength with the ability to bend, twist, and grasp is of great benefit to the seahorse. These features allow the seahorse to attach to important structures in its environment as well as protect itself against predators.

This study of the seahorse tail showed that reverse engineering of a biological component could be used to determine its important functions for the life of the organism. However, another benefit of this approach was the identification of design features that could have useful functions for us, like in developing new types of robotic devices. The article states:

Human beings have big heads to house large brains. Unfortunately, big heads make it difficult for infants to pass through the birth canal. This is called the obstetric dilemma.

Compared to all other animals, human birthing is long, painful, difficult, and dangerous. Globally, 3 to 6 percent of all births are obstructed, and 8 percent of maternal deaths during birth are caused by a mismatch in the infant’s head size and the mother’s pelvic opening. Because human brains are so large a significant amount of brain growth and development must take place after birth. Newborn brains are 25 percent the size of adult brains and one-year-old brains are about 50 percent. (A chimpanzee’s brain size grows from 40 percent the size of an adult’s to 80 percent in one year.)

Many evolutionary biologists view childbirth as an evolutionary “kludge job” that traces back to the emergence of bipedalism (as early as 6 million years ago). Knuckle-walking apes have a broad pelvis, rendering the birth canal larger than the infant’s head. Evolutionary biologists believe that as the first hominids evolved the ability to walk on two feet, their pelvis and birth canal narrowed to meet the biophysical demands of bipedalism.

This narrowing probably didn’t pose a big problem for the australopithecines, the first hominids that unequivocally possessed the ability to stand erect. Australopithecines had a relatively small brain size compared to humans and had fontanelles, openings in the neonatal skull that allow the frontal bones of the skull to slide past each other, compressing the infant’s head during passage through the birth canal.¹

Evolutionary biologists believe birthing became more difficult for larger-brained members of the genus Homo. It’s difficult to gauge the degree of difficulty experienced by Homo erectus and Neanderthals because paleoanthropologists have recovered few fossilized pelvic bones. Based on what fossils are available, paleoanthropologists think the birthing pattern of H. erectus and Neanderthals was distinct from modern humans’, but still might have been difficult.²

Many biologists view the obstetric dilemma as a consequence of a historically contingent evolutionary process that settled on a barely workable design for human births. Accordingly, the anatomy of the common ancestor we shared with chimpanzees constrained the childbirth process. However, new research suggests childbirth might be more optimized than previously thought—findings in favor of viewing human birth as one of God’s good designs.³

Pelvis Shape, Body Height, and Head Size

Researchers recently made use of a vast amount of data on the human pelvis—originally collected in the 1980s to help improve the design and safety of car seats—to understand the relationship between pelvis morphology and the demands of childbirth. They discovered a close association between pelvis shape, body height, and head size.

Women with larger heads give birth to children with larger heads and women with smaller heads to children with smaller heads. It turns out that women with larger heads also have a shorter sacrum, which provides extra room in the birth canal to accommodate a larger-headed infant. Researchers think that head size is genetically determined. Thus, head size and sacrum size are genetically linked traits. So, too, are body size and the shape of the birth canal. Shorter women have a smaller but rounder birth canal. Again, genes that control body height appear to be linked to genes that control pelvis shape, consequently easing the obstetric dilemma.

As in australopithecines, the human obstetric dilemma is also alleviated by the presence of fontanelles. Particularly, humans’ anterior fontanelles remain for the first few years of life, allowing for a newborn’s massive growth in brain size. Eventually, new bone is laid down and the frontal bones fuse.

Facing Trade-Offs

From a creation model perspective, these facts of genetics and anatomy demonstrate that human birthing is optimally designed to balance the trade-offs that arise from the competing demands of bipedalism and a large brain size. All engineers know complex designs often face trade-offs. Some components must be suboptimal in order to achieve maximum overall performance. Any attempt to maximize performance in one area (large brain size, for example) will degrade performance in others (as in birthing). Engineers must manage trade-offs carefully to achieve optimal performance for the system as a whole. I believe it is reasonable to see the birthing process in modern humans as an optimized system constrained by the demands of bipedalism.

A skeptic might ask why the Creator wouldn’t just design the human body so that bipedalism and large brain size don’t conflict. This is a fair question, but, again, trade-offs are inevitable for complex, multi-objective systems. It might be possible to conceive of a design for humans in which large brain size and bipedalism aren’t competing objectives, but that alternative would most certainly face trade-offs of another sort. It should also be noted that a biblical perspective of humanity would expect a difficult childbirth process. Genesis 3 tells us that as part of the curse God put on fallen humanity, He increased women’s struggles with childbirth.

Biological Archetypes

While evolutionary biologists regard childbirth as a kludge job, support for the design view can be found in the ideas of Sir Richard Owen, a preeminent biologist who preceded Darwin. In Owen’s day the chief debate among biologists centered on function versus form. Some asserted that functional considerations were the most important principle for understanding organisms’ features. Others maintained that form (or architecture) of the organism was key.

Owen sought to unite these camps. He developed a sophisticated model that accounted for shared features in organisms as manifestations of an archetype that existed in the Mind of the First Cause. Whereas Darwin argued that shared features resulted from common descent, Owen asserted that they reflected common design. In Owen’s mind, the archetype represented teleology of a higher order:

Traffic in Los Angeles is horrendous.

But it would be even worse during rush hour if the freeway on-ramps weren’t metered. Stoplights regulate the number of cars permitted to merge onto the freeway. This pause causes a backup in the merging lane, but improves overall traffic flow. So, it is worth it for motorists to wait a few minutes to merge in exchange for a shorter time in traffic.

Recently, a team of biochemists from the Weizmann Institute in Israel discovered that the same principles used by traffic engineers are at work inside the cell during transcription.¹ Transcription refers to the processes employed by the cell’s biochemical apparatus to decode the information stored in DNA, and ultimately, to produce proteins—large complex molecules that carry out all the activities in the cell.

Transcription begins when a protein called an RNA polymerase binds to a region of DNA called a promoter. The promoter sequence is part of the transcription initiation site. Once RNA polymerase latches on, this enzyme moves along the DNA—like a car traveling on a highway—and produces an RNA molecule. Depending on the specific region of the DNA read by the RNA polymerase, the newly minted transcript can be used to make a protein at the ribosomes or to regulate the production of other RNA molecules.

While studying the production of a particular class of regulatory RNAs (called microRNAs), the Weizmann Institute investigators discovered that transcript production decreased when the transcription initiation rate increased. On the other hand, decreasing the initiation rate led to increased microRNA manufacture.

Researchers explained this counterintuitive observation when they uncovered evidence for pause sites during the transcription of microRNAs. At these sites, the RNA polymerase enzyme slows down. Each time initiation takes place, a new RNA polymerase enzyme latches onto the DNA and begins its journey along the double helix. If initiation rates are high, then a traffic jam ensues. As a result of the traffic backup, RNA polymerase molecules will collide with one another at the pause sites. This biochemical traffic jam leads to a premature termination of transcription as the RNA polymerases are jolted off the DNA from the impact of the collision. But if initiation rates are low, then the RNA polymerase enzymes have time to move past the pause sites before a backup occurs, successfully completing transcription.

This study shines light onto the elegant and clever processes that typify biochemical systems. Along these lines, it is intriguing to note how the molecular logic of biochemical systems—metering initiation leads to improved traffic flow along the DNA molecule––displays remarkable similarity to the type of logic employed by civil engineers when they design systems to regulate the flow of traffic.

As I discuss in The Cell’s Design, the analogy between human and biochemical designs, like this discovery on the regulation of transcription, refuels the Watchmaker argument for God’s existence and strengthens the scientific case for a Creator.

Air conditioning and heating of all buildings and vehicles have greatly increased the productivity, health, and comfort of human beings and their domesticated animals. However, in spite of the comfort and convenience, air conditioning and heating both engender plentiful complaints.

For example, as in many offices, the top-ranking source of disputes among our Reasons to Believe employees is thermostat wars. A temperature that is optimal for one employee proves freezing cold or sweltering hot for another. In cities that experience extreme heat and humidity, the buildings are so over air-conditioned that many people find themselves reaching for a sweater or jacket when entering from the outside.

Air conditioning and heating factor big-time into the global warming and climate change debates. Climatologists point out that more than 10 percent of the fossil fuels we burn and, consequently, the greenhouse gases we emit, go toward maintaining our air conditioning and heating units. With every passing year, that percentage rises. Hence, many scientists and politicians have called for drastic reductions in air conditioning and heating as a means to mitigate global warming and climate change.

Laws that ban citizens from using air conditioning and heating are unlikely to be popular or inexpensive to enforce. However, thanks to a new invention, such laws may not be necessary.

Personal Thermal Comfort
A team of eight scientists at the University of California, San Diego has developed flexible, wearable thermoelectric devices that can deliver more than 10°C (18°F) of adjustable cooling or heating effect for up to eight hours (see the featured image).¹ The use of such devices means that individual humans can be kept comfortably cool or warm without the use of air conditioning units and furnaces to cool and heat buildings, homes, and vehicles. Unlike the one-temperature-fits-all output of air conditioning units and furnaces, such devices can be customized to meet the individual thermal comfort conditions preferred by different people.

The wearable thermoelectric device that the team of eight invented and developed was not the first personal cooling garment. However, previous personal cooling garments were bulky, consisting of vests containing large fluid or gel channels for coolant circulation and either delivering only a small temperature drop or a nonadjustable temperature drop.

What is especially novel about the eight scientists’ invention is that the garment is a solid state cooling device consisting of stretchable double elastomer layers separated by rigid thermoelectric pillars (see figures 1 and 2). This garment is lightweight and flexible.

Figure 1: Engineering Features of the Thermoelectric Device. Image credit: Sahngki Hong, University of California, San Diego

Figure 2: Flexible Nature of the Thermoelectric Device. Image credit: Sahngki Hong, University of California, San Diego

Many Potential Benefits
This wearable temperature control garment is the only cooling garment that can deliver adjustable, broad-range temperature drops for a continuous eight hours. At eight hours of sustained cooling, a human can wear one of these garments at work, another at home, and another for commuting and running errands between work and home.

Wearable thermoelectric devices also possess the advantage in that they can keep humans comfortably cool or warm in outdoor scenarios. Athletes, construction workers, firefighters, police, and people in other outdoor occupations would be able to perform at much higher levels of productivity. The death rate in such occupations would drop and the health of such people would improve.

There are also medical benefits. Wearable thermoelectric devices could enhance the recovery rate and time from burn wounds, fevers, and neurological disorders.² The quality and longevity of life for people living with sclerosis could be improved.³

People in the military would be able to function under high heat and extreme cold conditions. Thermal cooling of individual soldiers could serve as thermal camouflage, enabling them to hide the thermal signature of their bodies from infrared detectors.

Our animals and our animal husbandry economy would benefit. These devices can be manufactured to serve as thermal control garments for domesticated animals. No longer would horses, donkeys, cows, and other animals that serve us need to die or suffer from heat stroke and freezing cold.

If these devices were to become ubiquitously available for human use, about 10 percent of the total energy presently being consumed by humans could be eliminated. Since most of this 10 percent comes from the burning of fossil fuels, the input of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere could be significantly reduced and global warming substantially mitigated.

Our Responsibility and Resources
In Genesis 1:28–30 and Job 37–39 God exhorts humans to manage Earth and its resources for our benefit and the benefit of all life. This thermal control clothing invention serves as one of many examples of how God has provided all the resources we need to fulfill his exhortations.

Featured image credit: Sahngki Hong, University of California, San Diego

I finally upgraded my iPhone a few weeks ago from a 5s to an 8 Plus. I had little choice. The battery on my cell phone would no longer hold a charge.

I’d put off getting a new one for as long as possible. It just didn’t make sense to spend money chasing the latest and greatest technology when current cell phone technology worked perfectly fine for me. Apart from the battery life and a less-than-ideal camera, I was happy with my iPhone 5s. Now I am really glad I made the switch.

Then, the other day I caught myself wistfully eyeing the iPhone X. And, today, I learned that Apple is preparing the release of the iPhone 11 (or XI or XT). Where will Apple’s technology upgrades take us next? I can’t wait to find out.

Have I become a technology junkie?

It is remarkable how quickly cell phone technology advances. It is also remarkable how alluring new technology can be. The next thing you know, Apple will release an iPhone that will assemble itself when it comes out of the box. . . . Probably not.

But, if the work of engineers at MIT ever reaches fruition, it is possible that smartphone manufacturers one day just might rely on a self-assembly process to produce cell phones.

A Self-Assembling Cell Phone

The Self-Assembly Lab at MIT has developed a pilot process to manufacture cell phones by self-assembly.

To do this, they designed their cell phone to consist of six parts that fit together in a lock-in-key manner. By placing the cell phone pieces into a tumbler that turns at the just-right speed, the pieces automatically combine with one another, bit by bit, until the cell phone is assembled.

Few errors occur during the assembly process. Only pieces designed to fit together combine with one another because of the lock-in-key fabrication.

Self-Assembly and the Case for a Creator

It is quite likely that the work of MIT’s Self-Assembly Lab (and other labs like it) will one day revolutionize manufacturing—not just for iPhones, but for other types of products as well.

As alluring as this new technology might be, I am more intrigued by its implications for the creation-evolution controversy. What do self-assembly processes have to do with the creation-evolution debate? More than we might realize.

I believe self-assembly processes strengthen the watchmaker argument for God’s existence (and role in the origin of life). Namely, this cutting-edge technology makes it possible to respond to a common objection leveled against this design argument.

To understand why this engineering breakthrough is so important for the Watchmaker argument, a little background is necessary.

The Watchmaker Argument

Anglican natural theologian William Paley (1743–1805) posited the Watchmaker argument in the eighteenth century. It went on to become one of the best-known arguments for God’s existence. The argument hinges on the comparison Paley made between a watch and a rock. He argued that a rock’s existence can be explained by the outworking of natural processes—not so for a watch.

The characteristics of a watch—specifically the complex interaction of its precision parts for the purpose of telling time—implied the work of an intelligent designer. Employing an analogy, Paley asserted that just as a watch requires a watchmaker, so too, life requires a Creator. Paley noted that biological systems display a wide range of features characterized by the precise interplay of complex parts designed to interact for specific purposes. In other words, biological systems have much more in common with a watch than a rock. This similarity being the case, it logically follows that life must stem from the work of a Divine Watchmaker.

Biochemistry and the Watchmaker Argument

As I discuss in my book The Cell’s Design, advances in biochemistry have reinvigorated the Watchmaker argument. The hallmark features of biochemical systems are precisely the same properties displayed in objects, devices, and systems designed and crafted by humans.

Cells contain protein complexes that are structured to operate as biomolecular motors and machines. Some molecular-level biomachines are strict analogs to machinery produced by human designers. In fact, in many instances, a one-to-one relationship exists between the parts of manufactured machines and the molecular components of biomachines. (A few examples of these biomolecular machines are discussed in the articles listed in the Resources section.)

We know that machines originate in human minds that comprehend and then implement designs. So, when scientists discover example after example of biomolecular machines inside the cell with an eerie and startling similarity to the machines we produce, it makes sense to conclude that these machines and, hence, life, must also have originated in a Mind.

A Skeptic’s Challenge

As you might imagine, skeptics have leveled objections against the Watchmaker argument since its introduction in the 1700s. Today, when skeptics criticize the latest version of the Watchmaker argument (based on biochemical designs), the influence of Scottish skeptic David Hume (1711–1776) can be seen and felt.

In his 1779 work Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, Hume presented several criticisms of design arguments. The foremost centered on the nature of analogical reasoning. Hume argued that the conclusions resulting from analogical reasoning are only sound when the things compared are highly similar to each other. The more similar, the stronger the conclusion. The less similar, the weaker the conclusion.

Hume dismissed the original version of the Watchmaker argument by maintaining that organisms and watches are nothing alike. They are too dissimilar for a good analogy. In other words, what is true for a watch is not necessarily true for an organism and, therefore, it doesn’t follow that organisms require a Divine Watchmaker, just because a watch does.

In effect, this is one of the chief reasons why some skeptics today dismiss the biochemical Watchmaker argument. For example, philosopher Massimo Pigliucci has insisted that Paley’s analogy is purely metaphorical and does not reflect a true analogical relationship. He maintains that any similarity between biomolecular machines and human designs reflects merely illustrative analogies that life scientists use to communicate the structure and function of these protein complexes via familiar concepts and language. In other words, it is illegitimate to use the “analogies” between biomolecular machines and manufactured machines to make a case for a Creator.¹

A Response Based on Insights from Nanotechnology

I have responded to this objection by pointing out that nanotechnologists have isolated biomolecular machines from the cell and incorporated these protein complexes into nanodevices and nanosystems for the explicit purpose of taking advantage of their machine-like properties. These transplanted biomachines power motion and movements in the devices, which otherwise would be impossible with current technology. In other words, nanotechnologists view these biomolecular systems as actual machines and utilize them as such. Their work demonstrates that biomolecular machines are literal, not metaphorical, machines. (See the Resources section for articles describing this work.)

Is Self-Assembly Evidence of Evolution or Design?

Another criticism—inspired by Hume—is that machines designed by humans don’t self-assemble, but biochemical machines do. Skeptics say this undermines the Watchmaker analogy. I have heard this criticism in the past, but it came up recently in a dialogue I had with a skeptic in a Facebook group.

I wrote that “What we discover when we work out the structure and function of protein complexes are features that are akin to an automobile engine, not an outcropping of rocks.”

A skeptic named Maurice responded: “Your analogy is false. Cars do not spontaneously self-assemble—in that case there is a prohibitive energy barrier. But hexagonal lava rocks can and do—there is no energy barrier to prohibit that from happening.”

Maurice argues that my analogy is a poor one because protein complexes in the cell self-assemble, whereas automobile engines can’t. For Maurice (and other skeptics), this distinction serves to make manufactured machines qualitatively different from biomolecular machines. On the other hand, hexagonal patterns in lava rocks give the appearance of design but are actually formed spontaneously. For skeptics like Maurice, this feature indicates that the design displayed by protein complexes in the cell is apparent, not true, design.

Maurice added: “Given that nature can make hexagonal lava blocks look ‘designed,’ it can certainly make other objects look ‘designed.’ Design is not a scientific term.”

Self-Assembly and the Watchmaker Argument

This is where the MIT engineers’ fascinating work comes into play.

Engineers continue to make significant progress toward developing self-assembly processes for manufacturing purposes. It very well could be that in the future a number of machines and devices will be designed to self-assemble. Based on the researchers’ work, it becomes evident that part of the strategy for designing machines that self-assemble centers on creating components that not only contribute to the machine’s function, but also precisely interact with the other components so that the machine assembles on its own.

The operative word here is designed. For machines to self-assemble they must be designed to self-assemble.

This requirement holds true for biochemical machines, too. The protein subunits that interact to form the biomolecular machines appear to be designed for self-assembly. Protein-protein binding sites on the surface of the subunits mediate this self-assembly process. These binding sites require high-precision interactions to ensure that the binding between subunits takes place with a high degree of accuracy—in the same way that the MIT engineers designed the cell phone pieces to precisely combine through lock-in-key interactions.

Figure: ATP Synthase is a biomolecular motor that is literally an electrically powered rotary motor. This biomachine is assembled from protein subunits. Credit: Shutterstock

The level of design required to ensure that protein subunits interact precisely to form machine-like protein complexes is only beginning to come into full view.² Biochemists who work in the area of protein design still don’t fully understand the biophysical mechanisms that dictate the assembly of protein subunits. And, while they can design proteins that will self-assemble, they struggle to replicate the complexity of the self-assembly process that routinely takes place inside the cell.

Thanks to advances in technology, biomolecular machines’ ability to self-assemble should no longer count against the Watchmaker argument. Instead, self-assembly becomes one more feature that strengthens Paley’s point.

The Watchmaker Prediction

Advances in self-assembly also satisfy the Watchmaker prediction, further strengthening the case for a Creator. In conjunction with my presentation of the revitalized Watchmaker argument in The Cell’s Design, I proposed the Watchmaker prediction. I contend that many of the cell’s molecular systems currently go unrecognized as analogs to human designs because the corresponding technology has yet to be developed.

The possibility that advances in human technology will ultimately mirror the molecular technology that already exists as an integral part of biochemical systems leads to the Watchmaker prediction. As human designers develop new technologies, examples of these technologies, though previously unrecognized, will become evident in the operation of the cell’s molecular systems. In other words, if the Watchmaker argument truly serves as evidence for a Creator’s existence, then it is reasonable to expect that life’s biochemical machinery anticipates human technological advances.

In effect, the developments in self-assembly technology and its prospective use in future manufacturing operations fulfill the Watchmaker prediction. Along these lines, it’s even more provocative to think that cellular self-assembly processes are providing insight to engineers who are working to develop similar technology.

Maybe I am a technology junkie, after all. I find it remarkable that as we develop new technologies we discover that they already exist in the cell, and because they do the Watchmaker argument becomes more and more compelling.

Can you hear me now?

Resources

• The Cell’s Design: How Chemistry Reveals the Creator’s Artistry by Fazale Rana (Book)

The Biochemical Watchmaker Argument

• “A Biochemical Watch Found in a Cellular Heath” by Fazale Rana (article)
• “The Provocative Case for Intelligent Design: New Discovery Highlights Machine-Like Character of the Bacterial Flagellum” by Fazale Rana (article)
• “Bacterial Flagellum Structure Stacks the Case for Intelligent Design” by Fazale Rana (article)
• “Protein Structures Reveal Even More Evidence for Design” by Fazale Rana (article)
• “New Discovery Pumps Up Evidence for Design” by Fazale Rana (article)
• “Electron Transport Chain Protein Complexes Rev Up the Case for Design” by Fazale Rana (article)

Challenges to the Biochemical Watchmaker Argument

• “Addressing the Concerns of a Critic and the Case for Intelligent Design” by Fazale Rana (article)
• “Nanodevices Make Megascopic Statement” by Fazale Rana (article)
• “A Cornucopia of Evidence for Intelligent Design: DNA Packaging of the T4 Virus” by Fazale Rana (article)