Living Technology 1
Most complex phenomena known to science are found in living systems—including those involving electrical, acoustical, mechanical, chemical, and optical phenomena. Detailed studies of various animals also have revealed certain physical equipment and capabilities that the world’s best designers, using the most sophisticated technologies, cannot duplicate. Examples of these designs include molecular-size motors in most living organisms (a); advanced technologies in cells (b); miniature and reliable sonar systems of dolphins, porpoises, and whales; frequency-modulated “radar” and discrimination systems of bats (c); efficient aerodynamic capabilities of hummingbirds; control systems, internal ballistics, and the combustion chambers of bombardier beetles (d); precise and redundant navigational systems of many birds, fish, and insects (e); and especially the self-repair capabilities of almost all forms of life. No component of these complex systems could have evolved without placing the organism at a selective disadvantage until the component’s evolution was complete. All evidence points to intelligent design.
Equally amazing is the monarch butterfly which flies thousands of miles from breeding grounds in Canada to wintering grounds in Mexico. In its pinhead-size brain, the butterfly processes information from its antennae and navigates using a magnetic compass and sunlight.
a. “Life implies movement. Most forms of movement in the living world are powered by tiny protein machines known as molecular motors.” Manfred Schliwa and Günther Woehlke, “Molecular Motors,” Nature, Vol. 422, 17 April 2003, p. 759.
b. “We would see [in cells] that nearly every feature of our own advanced machines had its analogue in the cell: artificial languages and their decoding systems, memory banks for information storage and retrieval, elegant control systems regulating the automated assembly of parts and components, error fail-safe and proof-reading devices utilized for quality control, assembly processes involving the principle of prefabrication and modular construction. In fact, so deep would be the feeling ofdeja-vu, so persuasive the analogy, that much of the terminology we would use to describe this fascinating molecular reality would be borrowed from the world of late twentieth-century technology.
“What we would be witnessing would be an object resembling an immense automated factory, a factory larger than a city and carrying out almost as many unique functions as all the manufacturing activities of man on earth. However, it would be a factory which would have one capacity not equalled in any of our own most advanced machines, for it would be capable of replicating its entire structure within a matter of a few hours. To witness such an act at a magnification of one thousand million times would be an awe-inspiring spectacle.” Denton, p. 329.
c. “Ounce for ounce, watt for watt, it [the bat] is millions of times more efficient and more sensitive than the radars and sonars contrived by man.” Pitman, p. 219.
d. Robert E. Kofahl and Kelly L. Segraves, The Creation Explanation (Wheaton, Illinois: Harold Shaw Publishers, 1975), pp. 2–9.
Thomas Eisner and Daniel J. Aneshansley, “Spray Aiming in Bombardier Beetles: Jet Deflection by the Coanda Effect,” Science, Vol. 215, 1 January 1982, pp. 83–85.
Behe, pp. 31–36.
e. Jason A. Etheredge et al., “Monarch Butterflies (Danaus plexippus L.) Use a Magnetic Compass for Navigation,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 96, No. 24, 23 November 1999, pp. 13845–13846.
[]From “In the Beginning” by Walt Brown]In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood - 41.