Atheists Admit Things Look Designed by Kyle Butt, M.Div.

http://apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=9&article=1691

Atheists Admit Things Look Designed

by	Kyle Butt, M.Div.

The concept of creation by a supernatural Creator has been a powerful and persuasive aspect of truth since the beginning of time. The idea that there is no supernatural Creator, and that everything we see in the Universe—from hummingbirds to humans—has evolved through mindless, chance processes has been advanced in an attempt to dispel the truth of creation. One reason that naturalistic evolution has not made more head-way against creation than it has is because, intuitively, humans can see the obvious fact that the world exhibits every indication of intelligent design. Even the most outspoken atheistic evolutionists tacitly admit this to be the case.

For instance, Richard Dawkins stated: “Living things are not designed, but Darwinian natural selection licenses a version of the design stance for them. We get a short cut to understanding the heart if we assume that it is designed to pump blood” (2006, p. 182, emp. added). Did you catch that? He said that things weren’t designed by any intelligence, but we can understand them more readily if we assume they were.

University of Chicago professor Jerry Coyne, in his book Why Evolution is True, wrote:  “If anything is true about nature, it is that plants and animals seem intricately and almost perfectly designed for living their lives” (2009, p. 1, emp. added).  He further stated, “Nature resembles a well-oiled machine, with every species an intricate cog or gear” (p. 1). On page three of the same book, he wrote: “The more one learns about plants and animals, the more one marvels at how well their designs fit their ways of life.” Atheist Michael Shermer, in his book Why Darwin Matters, stated: “The design inference comes naturally. The reason people think that a Designer created the world is because it looks designed” (2006, p. 65, ital. in orig.).

Consider another example. Kenneth Miller is an evolutionary biologist at Brown University and co-author of a biology textbook published by Prentice Hall that is used widely in high school classes across the country. In his book, Only a Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America’s Soul, he admits that structural and molecular biologists, as they study the natural order, routinely mention the presence of design in their explorations. He, himself, admits that the human body shows evidence of design, pointing out examples like the design of the ball and socket joints of the human hips and shoulders, as well as the “S” curve of the human spine that allows us to walk upright (2008). So powerful is the design inference, Dawkins was forced to grudgingly admit: “So compelling is that illusion [of design—KB] that it has fooled our greatest minds for centuries, until Charles Darwin burst onto the scene” (2009, p. 416).

The irony of the situation is that each of these writers contends that such design is a product of naturalistic, mindless factors. But their telling statements underscore the obvious conclusion. If an Intelligent Designer really did create the world, what would it look like? Answer: Exactly like the one we have!

REFERENCES

Brown University (2008), “There is ‘Design’ in Nature, Biologist Argues,” ScienceDaily,http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/02/080217143838.htm.

Coyne, Jerry (2009), Why Evolution Is True (New York: Viking).

Dawkins, Richard (2006), The God Delusion (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin).

Dawkins, Richard (2009), The Greatest Show on Earth (New York: Free Press).

Shermer, Michael (2006), Why Darwin Matters (New York: Henry Holt and Company).