23. Evidence for God – Design Convinces Scientists 9 – A. E. Wilder-Smith

Posted by: BibleScienceGuy | November 21, 2013

23. Evidence for God – Design Convinces Scientists 9 – A. E. Wilder-Smith

The Argument from Design is a powerful argument for the existence of God. It has convinced countless people throughout history and it’s used throughout the Bible.

Complex designs require a Designer to produce them. The kind of information the designs contain can only come from an intelligent Agent. This is the Argument from Design. The prequels of this Evidence for God series have extensively discussed the Design Argument.

Evolutionists promote the view that scientists support Evolutionism and that scientists do not believe evidence for design. But this is false. Many eminent scientists accept the Argument from Design.

This article and its prequels/sequels present quotations from a number of prominent scientists who have been convinced by the Argument from Design.

Wilder-Smith Book

A. E. Wilder-Smith

Possessor of three earned doctorates,
organic chemist and pharmacologist
Dr. A. E. Wilder-Smith (1915-1995) was a highly regarded scientist of international renown and a Fellow of Britain’s Royal Society of Chemistry.

Wilder-Smith authored over 70 scientific papers along with more than 30 books which were translated and published in 8 languages.

Wilder-Smith saw design throughout the biological world and argued that because of its complex organization life could not have arisen and developed by random chance.

One of his best-known books on this topic is
The Natural Sciences Know Nothing of Evolution in which he argues that science itself is contrary to the theory of evolution. Wilder-Smith analyzes the purported chemical origin of life, the probability of random programming of a living cell, and dating methods. The book is a scathing indictment of evolutionism via multiple lines of argument. Here are several excerpts:

“Highly qualified academics and professors of reputable universities in the Anglo-Saxon world and in Europe today no longer believe in a transformism of the old Neo-Darwinian type, where a primeval cell is supposed to have changed into all the species of our present biology solely through the forces of chance and natural selection. Today it is clearly not objective to state that only ignorant people refute the Neo-Darwinian theories.”
(Wilder-Smith, The Natural Sciences Know Nothing of Evolution, 1981, p. viii.)

“The origins of the coded programs in the biological cell are attributed [by evolutionists] to chance and the auto-organization of inorganic material. This supposition is categorically untenable according to the tenets of modern information theory … The Neo-Darwinian hypothesis offers no explanation for the greatest phenomenon of life: the development of the coded genetic information which makes life possible…Darwinian transformism demands spontaneously increasing genetic information. The information on the chromosomes of the primitive cell must become greater for the primeval cell to become a human one … Neodarwinism collides head-on with the second law of thermodynamics, which lays down the principle that matter, on its own, does not organize itself to higher order … As regards the so-called auto-organization of matter, Neodarwinism is without either a theoretical or an experimental basis.”
(Wilder-Smith, The Natural Sciences Know Nothing of Evolution, 1981, p. x-xii.)

“Evolutionary theory attempts to attribute the problem of biogenesis [beginning of life] and of the origin of species to chance and to natural selection in the struggle for survival. It attributes the generation of teleonomy [purpose of structure or function in living organisms] to random nonteleonomy, which is sheer nonscientific nonsense. Today it is simply unscientific to claim that the fantastically reduced entropy of the human brain, of the dolphin’s sound lens, and of the eye of a fossilized trilobite simply ‘happened,’ for experimental experience has shown that such miracles just do not ‘happen.’ By attributing such marvels to happenstance, we are simply throwing in the scientific towel. Attributing the production of the well-nigh inconceivable concept of a brain or of an eye to chance is not only scientifically unacceptable–it is simply naive, and, because it amounts to an often religious philosophy, it is superstitious as well. It is a fact of experience that superstitions die hard.”
(Wilder-Smith, The Natural Sciences Know Nothing of Evolution, 1981, p. 146.)

“The synthesis of a [dolphin’s] sound lens represents a technical feat of a fantastic standard. It is entirely untenable to ascribe such a technical feat to chance. The same, of course, also applies to all other organs, such as the eye, kidney, liver, intestinal tract, and the brain. The hierarchical combination of all these organs into a functioning organism requires even more concepts, and concepts of an even higher order. To attribute this hierarchy to chance and to the laws of nature which are not teleonomic, reveals such incredible credulousness and naiveness … The concepts behind all biological organs and behind all hierarchical combinations of such organs thus require
(a) knowledge of the laws of nature providing the functional basis of the organs, and
(b) know-how in order to transform such knowledge into practice and to apply it.
The laws of nature never execute themselves teleonomically––the properties of iron in cast iron never act teleonomically and spontaneously to build car cylinder blocks––and carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen atoms never build [dolphin] sound lenses spontaneously either! For this reason we assume that something outside time and matter, called ‘Logos’ by the Greeks, fulfilled both functions (a) and (b).”
(Wilder-Smith, The Natural Sciences Know Nothing of Evolution, 1981, p. 51.)

Therefore…

Professor A. E. Wilder-Smith recognized signs of design in the biological realm. He implicitly used the Argument from Design to conclude that life could not have arisen and developed by random chance. There must be an intelligent Creator or Logos (Word) which the Apostle John identified as Jesus (John 1:1-3, 10, 14-15, 29-30).

Questions to Ponder

Do you agree with Wilder-Smith that it is false to claim only ignorant people dispute evolutionary theory? Do you know of rational thinkers who are not evolutionists?
Is Wilder-Smith correct that it is impossible for inanimate matter to self-organize itself and produce the DNA genetic code? If not, why not?

Share your thoughts on these questions in the comments below. It could encourage or help another reader.

Soli Deo Gloria.

Read the sequel:
24. Evidence for God – Design Convinces Scientists 10 – Robert Millikan

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©William T. Pelletier, Ph.D.
“contending earnestly for the faith”
“destroying speculations against the knowledge of God”
(Jude 1:3; 2 Cor 10:4)
Thursday November 21, 2013 A.D.

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God, or give thanks; but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures. (Romans 1:18-23)