… think like engineers.
In “Bio-Mechanics” (Salvo 20), Casey Luskin recounts,
Machine-Induced Cognitive Dissonance
In 2005, German biologist Walter Neupert published a letter in Biological Chemistry that unwittingly illustrates the cognitive dissonance faced by evolutionary scientists when they try to explain molecular machines. “Upon wondering and pondering about how similar dynamic protein structures are to products of machines engineered by humans,” he wrote, evolutionary biologists face “a fundamental scientific challenge to understanding the laws of nature that unite evolved and designed systems.” He concluded: “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution”: we know that Dobzhansky must be right. But our mind, despite being a product of tinkering itself strangely wants us to think like engineers.”
In other words, biologists must deny their scientific intuition that molecular machines appear to be the engineered products of intelligent design, and instead must remind themselves that “nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.”
And what happens when evolutionary biologists stop repeating mantras and put pen to paper, trying to describe the evolution of molecular machines? In 2009, a team of scientists published a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences purporting to do just that. The media were so encouraged by the prospect of an evolutionary explanation for a molecular machine that Wired magazine published a piece triumphantly titled “More ‘Evidence’ of Intelligent Design Shot Down by Science.” Instead, Darwin lobbyists shot themselves in the foot.
Bet you guessed. They started using design language to describe what they thought happened.
Salvo is a great deal of magazine for the price. A pointed, funny, troll-free, and ID-friendly zone.