Intelligent Design Icon Intelligent Design
Life Sciences Icon Life Sciences

Marcos Eberlin: Chicken-and-Egg Questions Suffuse Life, Pointing to Intelligent Design

Marcos Eberlin

Here’s another good question to ask the next Darwinist you meet: Explain the causal circularity that suffuses life. And what does that mean?

EberlinDistinguished chemist Marcos Eberlin is the author of the new book Foresight: How the Chemistry of Life Reveals Planning and Purpose, which carries an impressive three endorsements from Nobel Prize-winning scientists. He explains in a great article up now at The Stream, “The Chicken-and-Egg Problem Is Everywhere in Biology.”

The chicken reference is not just a metaphor. The problem of a baby chicken and its egg is the “archetypal example” of a conundrum that unguided evolution is powerless to solve. It takes the form: “To get A we need B, but to get B we first need A. We can’t have one without the other. To get both together, we need foresight — an engineer capable of planning for the future.” In biology, there are many A’s, and many B’s.

Other examples he describes: the structure of cell membranes, and the relationship between DNA and RNA and proteins. Both are at the foundation of life. The phenomenon of causal circularity is a “circle that points” to intelligent design. Read the rest over at The Stream.

You could pose the question to one of our Darwinist critics and see if you can get a meaningful reply. As Dr. Eberlin advises, don’t be satisfied with handwaving or question-begging explanations. Nor, I would add, with the usual snarky put-downs that pass for responses. 

Photo credit: Myriams-Fotos, via Pixabay.

David Klinghoffer

Senior Fellow and Editor, Evolution News
David Klinghoffer is a Senior Fellow at Discovery Institute and the editor of Evolution News & Science Today, the daily voice of Discovery Institute’s Center for Science & Culture, reporting on intelligent design, evolution, and the intersection of science and culture. Klinghoffer is also the author of six books, a former senior editor and literary editor at National Review magazine, and has written for the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Seattle Times, Commentary, and other publications. Born in Santa Monica, California, he graduated from Brown University in 1987 with an A.B. magna cum laude in comparative literature and religious studies. David lives near Seattle, Washington, with his wife and children.

Share

Tags

causal circularityChemistrychickenDarwinistseggEngineeringevolutionforesightintelligent designMarcos EberlinNobel PrizeThe Stream