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With a Hopeful Message About Life’s “X Factor,” Episode 5 of Secrets of the Cell Is Well Timed

Secrets of the Cell

Michael Behe is a biochemist, leading proponent of intelligent design, and a wise guide to understanding the wonders of life with its mysterious “purposeful arrangement of parts.” The new series from Discovery Institute, Secrets of the Cell with Michael Behe, concludes today with a last consideration of the “X Factor” that appears to lie behind the wonderful, irreducible complexity of biology. That “X Factor,” he explains, is an intelligence inconceivably beyond our own:

Secrets distills the argument for intelligent design in five-to-eight minute episodes, five in all. I’m sure ID has never been presented more accessibly, in a way anyone can easily understand. Share Secrets of the Cell with your family, friends, and social media network!

What a remarkable thing that the design of the universe was almost universally appreciated, by scientists, philosophers, and everyone else, whether religious or not, until the middle of the 19th century. Charles Darwin wove an argument that strangely changed the culture of thinking, around the globe, in ways that corroded many people’s previous confidence that the world is a good and benevolently ordered place.

So it’s fortuitous to be releasing this now — more welcome than the producers could have expected. With our country and much of the world stressed by worries about a sickness, on a scale we’ve never seen before, it’s a reminder that the universe is not governed by random accidents only. Behe is the first to admit, as he does in this episode, that science can’t offer answers to all our questions. “Why bad things happen to good people,” for one, is a secret that philosophy and theology can seek to address, perhaps not successfully. Certainly it’s beyond what science can say.

It is reassuring, then when we are upset this way, to think that there is indeed a design behind our existence, that a designer cared to instill a purpose in all the forms of life we see, which are of overwhelming beauty and marked everywhere with hints of an underlying love. Thank you to Professor Behe for this well-timed series!

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.

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accidentsCharles DarwincultureDiscovery Instituteintelligent designIrreducible ComplexityMichael BehephilosophersphilosophyscientistsSecrets of the CelltheologyX Factor