Natural Design

The "natural order of things" appears to be everywhere. We can observe order in the behavior of subatomic particles; in the characteristics of all things on this Earth, both living & non-living; and in the physical attributes of the known universe.

But why? And how? Why does nature seem to favor order and symmetry? Where does "the order" for order come from?

I can't even come close to answering these questions- maybe your friendly neighborhood physicist or molecular biologist could provide some decent answers.

"The key to the universe may lie in the full understanding of self-organizing, self-replicating, interlocking patterns of nature." Sorry, that's the best I can do at this point in time!

I can, however, say with all confidence that the answer to any of the above questions is NOT "intelligent design".

In a sense, ID is conventional religion's last great hope. Intelligent design appears to be the only method of attempting to "prove" the existence of a creator/designer God using science- regardless of non-existent evidence and illogical reasoning.

Evidence of nature's self-perpetuation and, dare I say, self-design, is readily apparent... all one needs to do is take a good look around. On the other hand, evidence of a Creator God/Grand Designer/Universal Mind is the same as it's always been, which is none/zilch/nada/zero/missing.

ID proponents resort to anti-science when attempting to validate their theory. We have this, from the "Intelligent Design and Evolution Awareness Center" (I.D.E.A.):

"It's pretty simple: intelligent design theory works by looking for the tell-tale signs of intelligent design in biology. We know and understand the sort of information produced by intelligent agents. We can then look for that sort of information in biology. These tell-tale signs include high levels of specified complexity, which we know is always the product of intelligent design. Thus, when we find evidence for specified complexity, we have evidence that there was intelligent designer! Intelligent design theory need not provide some sort of external evidence for an intelligent designer because the theory itself is a legitimate rationale for concluding that the cause of intelligent design was at work."

Sorry, religious-apologetic-masquerading-as-science-person, you'll have to do a lot better than that!

Mark T.