REVIEW OF FAZALE RANA, “THE CELL’S DESIGN”
Thu, 27th May, 2010 - Posted by
The Cell’s Design: How Chemistry Reveals the Creator’s Artistry, by Fazale Rana (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2008). Pp. 332. Reviewed by John A. Battle.
During the last decades several books supporting Intelligent Design have appeared. Their basic argument usually has been this—living components and structures are so complex and specified that they never could have appeared by mere chance. Therefore, they must be the result of Intelligent Design. This basically is a negative argument: there is no way to explain this apart from some divine intervention.
Critics call this the “God-of-the-gaps” argument. If there is a gap in our knowledge, then God must account for what we see. The obvious problem with the God-of-the-gaps argument is that similar gaps in the past often have shrunk and then disappeared as scientific knowledge has increased. Now that natural causes are known, we no longer are required to use the “God” explanation.
Microbiologist Fazale Rana, an openly Christian scientific apologist, is keenly aware of this weakness in the traditional ID argument. Yet, he also is aware of even greater positive evidence for design in living systems. He seeks a positive argument from the data to design.
Recent science in cellular biology and chemistry has made astounding leaps and discoveries about the inner working of the basic building block of all life, the living cell. All cells of plants and animals are basically the same in their components and method of operation. Yet they are ideally suited in their differences for the different kinds of organisms and the different tasks the cells must perform within each organism.
Rather than starting from apparently inexplicable complexity, Rana starts from actual examples and types of human design. Recently it has become apparent that the cell’s processes are largely mechanical and electrical, as the various proteins interact with each other within the cell. This is biochemistry at its most basic level. In the last few centuries humans have developed technology using these same forces on a larger scale.
Rana builds a positive argument, using “abductive reasoning.” Wikipedia defines this type of reasoning as follows: “Abduction means determining the precondition. It is using the conclusion and the rule to assume that the precondition could explain the conclusion. Example: ‘When it rains, the grass gets wet. The grass is wet, it must have rained.’ Diagnosticians and detectives are commonly associated with this style of reasoning.” As the definition states, abduction is most useful when explaining why the present circumstance is the way it is. This is the situation when we wonder about how living things got the way they are.
Rana’s argument is abductive rather than negative. We see humans designing mechanical and electrical items all the time. What thinking and processes do they go through when they design and manufacture these items? The products they make are the actual fruits of design. Rana describes many of these features of design in the main part of the book, taking one chapter for each main design feature. He introduces the chapters with paintings by famous artists, each of which makes an interesting and pointed illustration of the design feature being discussed. Along with mechanical and electrical design, Rana sees artistic expression as well in the cell’s workings (“the Creator’s artistry” is part of the subtitle of the book).
The heart of the book takes these various design features and shows how they are employed in the makeup and workings of every individual cell. Cells show even more exquisite design and precision than the best human engineering and technology. Rana writes for a mature reader who can take time and effort to learn some details of microbiology. He explains these processes as clearly as possible for those of us not trained in biology. There are many well drawn illustrations. An introductory chapter helps a lot by explaining the basic parts and workings of the cell, and a glossary in the back is handy for checking the technical terms. Many of the processes Rana describes are complicated, and sometimes are difficult to follow; but Rana’s explanations are as clear as can be expected in view of the complexity of the subject. Sometimes I had to read a section several times before getting the main point, but the effort was worth it!
It will be interesting to see how The Cell’s Design will be received. Will it simply be disregarded as a disguised ID or creationist work, or will evolutionary scholars interact with the actual positive examples of design? Many think that the very idea of allowing the possibility of God’s design in creation denies the scientific method. However, if God really exists, how can such a presupposed position lead to the truth about the cell’s design? To follow the evidence, using sound logic, is the best way to reach the right conclusion. Rana provides an excellent case for an intelligent, skilled, and artistic Creator.
Hi John,
I enjoyed your comments re the difference between Rana’s “abductive” argument and ID’s approach. You seem to be saying that abduction deploys a rigorous logic–maybe as opposed to a less rigorous logic than, say, the way William Dembski argues. I think, though, it’s better to say that abduction is more a kind of reasoning–reasoning to the best explanation. Intuitiveness, I’ve always thought, is vital to abduction. Abduction, so far as I know, is not succeptible to rigorous logical formalization. In science, it is simply a direction of thought: What hypothesis best fits the data? Accordingly, abduction has never been a part of FORMAL logic, and Rana’s bottom line might well be persuasive to those whose intuitions are similarly developed, but no abductive inference can be the product of a formal QED.
What Dembski has offered the current debate is the logical structure of the design inference itself! His 1998 “The Design Inference” published by Cambridge University Press is not intuition driven (I’m not knocking intuition; I think intuition is very important); anyhow, he takes up the formal logic of that category of inference. To use the term “negation” (process of elimination?) to characterize ID betrays some basic misunderstanding–it seems to me.
I think that abduction (we all use it, how can we not?) has no formal sanction to bestow on its conclusions (verdicts), so the opposition to acknowledging God in creation can always go into a “formal” sulk toward any Christian who claims LOGICAL conclusiveness. There simply can be none with abductive reasoning! The LOGICAL contribution re inferring design (as opposed to natural law or chance) is Dembski’s.
Oh, there are far better quick resources for understanding abductive reasoning than Wikipedia. Also the way you characterize ID argumentation would not be recognized as fair by its chief advocates. I am not an expert but your brief characterization strikes me as really misleading given the literature. But John, I do appreciate your last paragraph.
Would love to chat with you sometime.
In Christ,
Dave Hoover
One more thought, John. I just re-read your piece and then checked Dembski’s more readable work, “Intelligent Design” (InterVarsity Press, 1999). What you describe in your first paragraph is not the intelligent design Dembski explains and defends. In fact he lists in an appendix popular objections (often inattentive misunderstandings) to what he is doing–including some of your own mischaracterization–e.g. whether he commits a “god-of-the-gaps” fallacy. I strongly recommend you read it, if only the Appendix.
Dave
Thanks, Dave, for your clarification. I do appreciate your expertise in philosophy. My guess is that the ID position that Dawkins and others criticize must be a misunderstanding of Dembski’s position, but rather a more popular idea that people have, “It’s so amazing, it must be God!” I plan to take your advice and check Dembski’s more popular work, Intelligent Design (reading The Design Inference was a challenge, and I think I didn’t appreciate all he was saying!). Meanwhile, I think Rana does a great job with a different approach–showing in a positive way that the same types of design human engineers use has already been used in remarkable ways in the cell.
John