Intelligence Behind Intelligent Design

Skyscraper, airplane, automobile, television, etc. are created to serve a special, important, and useful function. They are reliable, efficient, and long lasting. They are built with plastic, rubber, metal, semiconductor, etc. which are materials having their origins from the Earth. Above all, they are put together using technologies that can be realized only through the understanding of how Nature works. They are the products of intelligent design. The intelligence behind the design is the human species. No other species on Earth possesses such intelligence. But, the human species likes other species found on Earth is a product of Nature. The human species can be considered an intelligent design. So, there must be an intelligence behind it. To find this intelligence, we need to understand Nature which consists of the physical and the biological worlds.

Physical World

It consists of all the in-animated matters and the environmental conditions that they are in. The in-animated materials may appear to be without order and the environmental phenomena may seem to be unpredictable. It is now understood that:

1) Environmental conditions – The cycle of day and night, the changing seasons, the varying temperatures, the weather systems, etc. are the results of a spinning Earth orbiting around an energy-emitting Sun. Every single or complex event happens for a reason that can be explained by meteorology and physics and follows repeatable mechanisms that can be described by precise mathematical formulas.

2) In-animated matters – Air, water, rock, metal, etc. are made up of one or more of the 118 basic elements. These elements are in turn made up of a combination of 16 fundamental particles. Each element has exact properties and characteristics that can be studied and manipulated by the principles of Chemistry. Each particle has exact properties and characteristics that can be studied and understood by the equations of Quantum Mechanics.

There are laws and orders underneath the chaotic and unforgiving physical world. In it, the in-animated matters under the environmental conditions and with the help of the energy from the Sun give birth to the biological world on Earth.

Biological World

It is the world of the living organisms built upon the animated matters which are complex molecules containing, in the least, the basic element of Carbon. The road from the inorganic compound to the organic compound, from the self-replicating molecule to the living cell, from the plant and fish to the human species is long, treacherous, remarkable, and nothing short of miraculous, but in the end, inevitable.

1) Organic compound – It is by no accident that carbon is the building block. Being one of the most abundant elements on Earth, carbon has the inherent ability to bond with a wide variety of other elements to form stable and complex organic molecules. To do this, a large amount of energy is needed. It is now understood that crucial organic compounds like fatty acid, amino acid, base, sugar, etc., were formed under high energy environments (lightning, undersea volcanic vents, or meteor impacts) amid a mixture of inorganic materials.

2) Self-replicating molecule – With the formation of simple and complex organic molecules, a unique molecule called nucleotide that is made up of a base, a sugar group, and an inorganic phosphate could connect itself in a chain to make a long stranded molecule called RNA (ribonucleic acid). The base in the nucleotide can be only one of the 4 organic compounds - adenine, cytosine, guanine, and uracil abbreviated as A, C, G and U. As it turned out that a nucleotide with a A-base could attract and attach to a nucleotide with a U-base and a G-base to a nucleotide with a C-base under the proper condition. In this fashion, a long stranded RNA made of many different based nucleotides would eventually become a two stranded molecule which would then separate into two individual strands with identical base sequence under elevated temperature. Thus, a self-replicating molecule was born capable of also making a copy of its unique nucleotide combination.

3) Living cell – The self-replicating molecule had to survive in an unpredictable and hostile environment. Its existence was precarious and its chance of evolving into a higher state of function was minimal. This scenario was changed with the formation of an enclosed membrane composed of the fatty acid molecules. The nucleotides were then able to move in and build RNA molecules in a more stable environment. Under this protective enclosure, it was a matter of time that the RNA evolved to form DNA and build other molecules and structures that eventually became the living cells.

4) Plants and Fish – As the living cells multiplied, multi-cell organisms would come into existence when either several single living cells joined together or during replication, the two cells did not separate but still enclosed in the same membrane. The multi-cell organisms found advantages in mobility, specialization, and stability. As they acquired a competitive edge for surviving in a challenging surrounding, over time, the multi-cell organisms evolved into bigger, more specialized, and efficient living things called fish in the water and plant on the land.

5) Human species – Its arrival can be traced all the way to the fish through anthropology and DNA. The process is governed by 2 straightforward mechanisms – survival of the fittest and mutations in an ever changing and challenging environment.

a) Anthropology – Through the discovery and study of the fossils in the ground all over the world, the ample evidences point to the fact that the human species belongs to a family of animals called the Mammal. The Mammal’s origin can be traced to the Reptile. The Reptile’s origin can be traced to the Amphibian. The Amphibian’s origin can be traced to the fish.

b) DNA – All living things on Earth may look and behave differently but they all are made up of cells each containing the DNA that ultimately determines the looks and behaviors. There are more similarities between the DNAs of the fish and the human species than differences. Both have the same internal functional organs and external sensing organs. Both are the master of the environments that they are living in. The differences are mere in the size, shape, and complexity.

Intelligence Ladder

The physical world is made up of 118 basic elements and everything happens under the guidance of a finite set of unalterable rules. Without them, it is un-imaginable to ponder what the world will be like. It is by no accident that the biological world sprang from the physical world. With the addition of the in-exhaustible energy from the Sun, the inorganic turned organic and the in-animated became animated. After 3 billion years on Earth, the single living cell evolved into the human species that has a consciousness, intelligence, and an inquisitive brain to ponder the meaning of existence and to seek the intelligence behind Nature’s work.

The human species has come a long way from pagan worship and human sacrifice, to the belief of a single omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence being who is responsible for all that was, is, and will be, and finally but inevitably, to arrive at a maturity to employ scientific disciplines and logical thinking to seek the truth beyond a reasonable doubt. The human species is no question the most intelligent animal on the Earth. It has created many intelligent designs to make the hash life easier. But, none of those designs can rival the intelligence, sophistication, and elegance of the human species’ own physical body. There are concrete evidences that the human species was the result of an intelligent process just like the automobile produced at the end of an automated assembly line. It is only logical to deduce the presence of a greater intelligence behind Nature’s work. By the same token, it can be deduced that there is even greater intelligence behind that intelligence. The human species just happens to be at the bottom of an intelligence ladder.