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Biologically inspired designs: Testament to evolution?

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aircrapt
The airplane is one of mankind’s most remarkable engineering feats.

Creationists have repeatedly pointed to examples of superior designs in biology. These have served to inspire some of mankind’s most remarkable engineering feats, such as the airplane and the camera.

Biologically Inspired Design is the name given to this increasingly recognized and popular scientific field. Within the last year, two research centres have opened up, one at Georgia Tech in Atlanta, the CBID (Center for Biologically Inspired Design), and another at the University of California, Berkeley.

Recently, a conference was held in Atlanta where researchers gathered from around the world to showcase a range of biologically inspired projects, including investigations into rat whiskers, fish jaws and worm brains. Engineers are studying such things as gecko feet for glue, and the incredible strength and elasticity of spider silk to produce material for stitching nerves and tendons.

‘It really captures the imagination to show how much better organisms are at doing things,’ said Marc Weissburg, a biology professor and co-director of Georgia Tech’s CBID. ‘The natural world doesn’t waste energy, accumulate a large amount of toxins or produce more materials than it uses.’1

‘Every organism is designed to solve a problem,’ Weissburg said.1 In a weblog, he pointed out that ‘organisms are amazing systems that solve certain problems brilliantly.’2

But who gets the credit for all of this creative biological efficiency and ingenuity? Why, evolution of course!

One of Canada’s top national newspapers reported that scientists in the field of biologically inspired design ‘can learn much from the world’s most rigorous process: Evolution.’1

Weissburg and other evolutionary scientists believe that random chance processes have the capability of actually ‘designing’ such systems. However, informed readers know that creationist scientists have, for years, shown that evolutionary processes such as natural selection and mutations are entirely inadequate to explain the origin of living things.

In fact, hundreds (and probably thousands) of scientists around the world are skeptical of neo-Darwinian evolution in general,3 and hundreds more believe specifically in biblical creation.

Dr Jane Orient, executive director and past president of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, noted, ‘Evolution, meaning the origin of all species from a common ancestor, is a wild and fanciful speculation and should not be taught as science, much less as fact.’4

Indeed, it is much more logical and consistent to conclude that the amazing designs found in nature, which human designers only try to mimic, were themselves designed by a Master Designer.

And even with all of our collaborative human effort, we are still struggling to match most of nature’s superior design systems.

What a testament to the Creator who designed them all in the first place!

Published: 12 September 2006

References

  1. Scientists take cues from nature, The Globe And Mail, June 16, 2006, This article was adapted from the Associated Press, and so similar claims were made around the world. Return to text.
  2. Marc Weissburg, from his weblog posting. Return to text.
  3. More scientists express doubts on Darwin, WorldNetDaily, June 22, 2006. Return to text.
  4. Nearly two-thirds of doctors skeptical of Darwin’s theory of evolution, Discovery Institute, May 31, 2005, Actually, the title of this article would be more accurate if it were, ‘Nearly two-thirds of doctors believe that God was involved with the origin of life’, because some of the respondents in the survey believed in God-guided evolution. Return to text.

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