God’s Crime Scene by J. Warner Wallace examines eight pieces of evidence that are found inside our universe. Reasons are given for the existence of each piece of evidence and that it is necessary to explain where this evidence came from.

The basic building blocks of life have been designed and therefore need an intelligent designer.

When we see something that has been designed, what does it show us? It shows us that there is a designer that created it for a purpose. It wasn’t an accident that what we are looking at exits, but it was created. Buildings don’t pop up by accident, they are created. We see the same attributes of design in our universe the same way we see characteristics of design in created things. There are many things that show design, one of which is the bacterial flagellum. The bacterial flagellum is a motor that powers and controls the bacteria as it travels. This motor is very similar to the intelligently designed rotary engines that we have today. What is fascinating is that it is extremely well designed and is able to spin at high rates of speed and stop within a half rotation; better than any motor an intelligent person can create. Another important factor about the bacterial flagellum is that it is irreducibly complex. This means that it has to be assembled will all its pieces in the right order for it to be functional; lose one piece and lose function.

Some naturalists have agreed that the bacterial flagellum is complex and looks designed but say that it has evolved from other functional motors. The main problem with this view is that the earlier functional motors are also designed and need an explanation for their design. This is what has led some scientists like Richard Dawkins to say that life only has the “appearance” of design. This is like saying the engine in your vehicle only appears design but no intelligent person actually designed and created it. Your car’s engine evolved from a previous engine, but there is no explanation given on how that engine came into existence.

Since some scientists are unable to explain the design seen in biology, their efforts have been focused on showing how an intelligent designer has failed rather than explaining the design. The biggest argument against an intelligent designer is the “imperfection” seen in design. Their argument is that if an all-powerful intelligent designer created the world, we should only see perfect design. After pointing to examples of what they believe to be “bad design” they will conclude that there must not be an intelligent designer. Some of the examples they point to are the panda’s thumb or the eye. Supposedly the panda’s thumb is would work better if it was more like the human thumb, and the eye could be designed better to eliminate the blind spot. However, this objection fails to recognize something important. It is impossible to say that something has been designed incorrectly without knowing the intentions of the designer. Designers have to change minor aspects of their product in order to achieve their final goal. We can’t say that something has poor design just because it doesn’t seem useful for how we want to use it. It is possible that the designer had a different intention when it was created. The “bad” design of the panda’s thumb works perfectly to strip bamboo and allow the panda to eat, and the “bad” design of our eye that creates a blind spot is what allows proper blood flow so that we are able to see in the first place.

Since none of us are all-knowing, and do not know all the intentions of the designer, it is impossible to know if something has poor design. So rather than trying to figure out if something has good or bad design, it seems reasonable reasonable to conclude that ther is design and it exists because an intelligent designer created it that way. We make this conclusion every day. We don’t look at a building and think it appeared through non-intelligence. Instead, we say that an architect designed it and a builder constructed it. The same goes for our universe. The fact that there is design implies that there is a designer, and the universe can’t design itself.

The following blog series comes from a paper I wrote for J. Warner Wallaceon his book, God’s Crime Scene. He has given me permission to post my summary of each chapter for this series. This is a short summary of the fourth chapter, not an exhaustive look at all of the possibilities. If you would like more information, you can purchase God’s Crime Scene here, visit his website, or email me and I will provide further resources.