The case for a Creator | Lee P Strobel

'But I don't want to leave without posing at least four overall challenges to you.'

As he listened, Meyer removed his gold-rimmed glasses and started cleaning them with a handkerchief. He looked up at me and said, 'That sounds fair. Go ahead. What's your first question?'

Unbelieving scientists?

I glanced down at my notes before speaking. 'If the scientific evidence for theism is so compelling', I began, 'then why don't more scientists believe in God? A study in 1966 showed that 60% of scientists either disbelieved or were doubtful about God, and the percentage goes up if you look at the most elite scientists.'

Meyer pursed his lips as he reflected on the question. 'Initially, I'd say that it takes time for new discoveries to percolate and for their implications to be fully considered, and some of the best evidence for theism is very new', he said. 'Scientists who are focused on one particular field may not be aware of discoveries in other fields that point toward theism.

'Also, the materialistic worldview has exercised dominance on intellectual life in Western culture for 150 years. It has become the default worldview in science, philosophy, and academia in general. It's presupposed. Some people who dissent from it have experienced intense hostility and sometimes persecution. That could discourage others from exploring this area or speaking out favourably toward it.'

This point reminded me of a quote by Sandage, who once told a reporter that the scientific community is so scornful of faith that 'there is a reluctance to reveal yourself as a believer, the opprobrium is so severe'.

'Finally', continued Meyer, 'within the scientific culture there are belief systems that are philosophically very questionable. For instance, many believe that science must only allow naturalistic explanations, which excludes from consideration the design hypothesis. Many scientists put blinders on, refusing to acknowledge that evidence, and a kind of 'group think' develops.'

Design exclusively Christian?

His answer sounded plausible, but it prompted a second line of enquiry. 'There's a flip side to that issue', I said. 'Sceptic Michael Shermer said almost all the people he sees in the Intelligent Design movement are Christians. Doesn't that undermine the legitimacy of their science? Maybe they're only looking for what they want to find and aren't open to naturalistic explanations that might be sufficient.'

This challenge seemed to push a button with Meyer. 'Every scientist has a motive', he said firmly, 'but motives are irrelevant to assessing the validity of scientific theories, a case in court, or an argument in philosophy. You have to respond to the evidence or argument that's being offered, regardless of who offers it or why. If every person in the Intelligent Design movement were a fundamentalist who attends Baptist Bible Church, it wouldn't matter. Their arguments have to be weighed on their own merits.'

'But is this an exclusively Christian movement?' I asked.

'No, it's not', he replied. 'There are scientists who are proponents of intelligent design who are agnostic or Jewish, but I still don't think that's relevant. The vast majority of people who advocate Darwinism are naturalists or materialists, so you could play the motive-mongering game either way.

'Besides, look at it this way: if a scientist becomes persuaded by the evidence that theism is true and thus becomes a follower of God, should he or she then be disqualified from doing science in that area? Of course not. I say let's get beyond this side issue and let the evidence speak for itself. Is design the best explanation or not?'

Miracles need no science?

'That leads to the third question', I said. 'If scientists do allow the possibility of the miraculous as an explanation, then doesn't that foreclose further investigation? Biologist Kenneth Miller has suggested that inferring the existence of an intelligent designer would result in a scientific dead-end. Why continue to explore an area scientifically once you've thrown up your hands and said, "God did this"?'

Meyer immediately fired back. 'I think the shoe is exactly on the other foot', he said.

'How so?'

'Let's take the issue of origins, for example', he said. 'The question that's asked is, "How did the cell arise on earth?" If you say, "We're only going to let you consider answers that involve materialistic processes", then that shuts down enquiry, because one of the possible causal explanations for the origin of life is that intelligence could have played a role.'

'So', I said, 'you believe that ruling out the possibility of intelligent design stifles intellectual and scientific enquiry.'

'That's exactly right', he replied. 'And I've seen it happen far too often.'

I pointed at him. 'You want to change the rules of the game, don't you?' I said, my tone suggesting I had just caught him with his hand in the cookie jar.

'In a sense, yes', he conceded. 'I don't think it's right to invoke a self-serving rule that says only naturalistic explanations can be considered by science. Let's have a new period in the history of science where we have methodological rules that actually foster the unfettered seeking of truth. Scientists should be allowed to follow the evidence wherever it leads - even if it leads to a conclusion that makes some people uncomfortable.

Apparent poor design?

My fourth objection concerned a topic called 'disteleology', which refers to the apparent poor design in the biological and physical world. 'To adopt the explanation of design, we are forced to attribute a host of flaws and imperfections to the Designer', Miller wrote. The implication is that an imperfect design disproves the existence of a perfect God.

One example Miller cited is the vertebrate eye. 'We would have to wonder why an intelligent designer placed the neural wiring of the retina on the side facing the incoming light', he wrote. 'This arrangement scatters the light, making our vision less detailed than it might be, and even produces a blind spot at the point that the wiring is pulled through the light-sensitive retina to produce the optic nerve that carries visual images to the brain.'

Other Darwinists, including Oxford's Richard Dawkins, also have decried the eye's poor structure, with George Williams going so far as to declare it 'stupidly' designed because 'the retina is upside down'.

This seemed to be a compelling counter-argument to intelligent design. 'If there is a designer', I said to Meyer, 'doesn't the botched eye design prove he's not really intelligent?'

He pounced on the issue. 'There's an important physiological reason as to why the retina has to be inverted in the eye', he said. 'Within the overall design of the system, it's a trade-off that allows the eye to process the vast amount of oxygen it needs in vertebrates. Yes, this creates a slight blind spot, but that's not a problem because people have two eyes and two blind spots don't overlap. Actually, the eye is an incredible design.'

With that, Meyer stood and walked to the other side of the room, where his briefcase was leaning against a desk. He rifled through some papers and finally withdrew a photocopy of an article.

'In fact', he said as he handed it to me, 'biologist George Ayoub wrote this piece to refute the claim that the eye was badly created'. I glanced at the technical article, in which Ayoub, a professor whose expertise is the cellular physiology of the retina, concludes:

'The vertebrate retina provides an excellent example of functional - though non-intuitive - design. The design of the retina is responsible for its high acuity and sensitivity. It is simply untrue that the retina is demonstrably suboptimal, nor is it easy to conceive how it might be modified without significantly decreasing its function.'

Feeling a little chagrined, I put down the article. 'Okay', I conceded, 'maybe that's not a good example of disteleology, but there are a lot of others'.

The whole story

Meyer interrupted. 'Don't move on too quickly', he said. 'There's a good lesson here. People make a lot of claims about bad biological design, but sometimes the entire picture is changed when you hear the rest of the story. For instance, people claim a design is bad because they look at only one parameter and claim it could have been better designed. However, engineers know all designs require optimising a whole suite of parameters, and so trade-offs are inevitable to create the best overall result.'

That was a mouthful that demanded elaboration. 'Give me an example', I said.
He gestured toward the Apple computer in the open briefcase at my feet. 'One illustration that's sometimes given is a laptop', he said. 'You could look at the screen and say, "Bad design; it should have been bigger". You could look at the memory and say, "Bad design; should have had a larger capacity". You could look at the keyboard and say, "Bad design; should have been easier to use".

'But the engineer isn't supposed to be creating the best screen, the best memory, and the best keyboard - he's supposed to be producing the best computer he can given certain size, weight, price, and portability requirements. Could the screen be bigger? Yes, but the portability suffers. Could the computer have more memory? Sure, but then the cost goes too high.

'So there are inevitable trade-offs and compromises. Each individual part might be criticised for being suboptimal, but that's not the issue. The real issue is how well the overall laptop functions. That's how good engineering works - and that explains some of the examples of supposed disteleology that are raised.'
While that made sense, it didn't answer everything. 'You'll have to admit that there are other illustrations of disteleology that are more difficult to explain away', I said.

'I don't deny that', he replied. 'Some are just silly. Others are more thoughtful and serious, and they require effort to think through. For instance, Gould claimed the panda's thumb looks jerry-rigged and not designed. Well, experts on the panda say it's a pretty efficient way of scraping the bark off bamboo. In the absence of a standard of good design, which Gould can't provide, it's really hard to say whether it's good or bad. It seems to perform its function exceedingly well.

The Fall

'Other illustrations of disteleology get into issues of theodicy, or reconciling belief in God and natural evil. For example, what about viruses and bacteria that harm people? Did God create those? Natural theologians in the 19th century believed that if a perfect God created the world, then it would be perfect, so they were ill-equipped to deal with Darwin's disteleological arguments.

'However, from a biblical point of view, there isn't an expectation that nature would be perfect. The Bible says there has been decay or deterioration because evil entered the world and disrupted the original design. We're not given all of the specifics on how this happened, but the biblical book of Romans affirms the natural world is groaning for its redemption, because something has gone wrong with the original creation. Based on the biblical account, we would expect to see both evidence of design in nature as well as evidence of deterioration or decay - which we do.'

It was time to move on, but I glanced down at the laptop computer in my briefcase. I had to admit that Meyer's basic explanations about disteleology did make a lot of sense.