The year 2024 is the 20th-year anniversary of my book What Darwin Didn’t Know. Of note, the Foreword, titled “The Gig Is Up,” was written by William A. Dembski. Behe, Schroeder, and Macosko wrote nice reviews. The book went through eleven printings (how book sales were counted before Big Amazon); I’ve lectured across Spain, Israel and the Northwest U.S.; and I’ve been on many radio shows including Coast to Coast with George Noory thrice. At one time, Rabbi Harold Kushner, author of When Bad Things Happen to Good People, readily agreed to endorse my book, but later changed his mind. He said that he was worried intelligent design might be too controversial. That was 2003. I wish that I could speak with him again. I quote him often.

When I lecture, I typically discuss intelligent design as if it were a near-perfect or maybe an entirely perfect process creating inexplicably complicated human beings (and other living entities). Yet, as a physician, I know a lot of things can and do go wrong. How can that be? If God is the designer, how could his work be flawed? The Bible says we are made in his image (Gen. 1:27), and that his way is perfect (Ps. 8:30). If God is not the designer, all bets are off and maybe the responsible extraterrestrials were drinking on the job.

Our DNA information system, our recipe, if you will, requires a thinker and typist, of sorts. Trial and error, evolution’s chance happenings with a touch of natural selection, would require trillions of years to come up with a male and female human being with complementary parts, DNA, and chemistries. There’s a very good reason to believe the actual length of time is Never.

Many Questions Follow

If there are “errors” in our design, many questions follow. Were these imperfections actually human-caused later on, after a perfect design was originally set in motion? That is, were changes caused by Free Will and Free Won’t? Or were trouble-causing genes purposefully placed in the genome (predestiny)? Was this baby supposed to have deformed limbs or that baby supposed to die from heart disease? Were these problems left as challenges or puzzles for humans to work out eventually — by developing vaccines, discovering new antibiotics, making new medications, and improving surgical techniques? And/or are we to go on treasure hunts much like the discovery of glass in the old days and penicillin more recently?

Or was Darwin actually right? Maybe he was just misunderstood. Perhaps his grammar was off. One might ask if chromosomal errors such as trisomy 21 and Tay-Sachs are the philosophical “vestigial” structures of the 21st century? And scientific explanations will be forthcoming. If a baby was strangled to death by its own umbilical cord, might that be connected to Original Sin? Or a convoluted consequence of man’s damage to his environment? Satan? Bad luck?

Why Not Expect Mistakes? 

The chance of finding mistakes in a comparably sized factory (if one could ever exist) must be very high. The uncountable changes that occur in moving from a fertilized egg to a person over seventy years of age involve trillions of moving and changing parts. Some are controlled locally; some are controlled centrally. Each part may also have tens of thousands of constantly changing components and connections. Maybe millions. 

Try to imagine putting together a 3-D jigsaw puzzle with 35 trillion+ flexible, pulsating pieces, each with all of the correct features (shapes, twists, size, loading docks, unloading docks, pores, colors, scents, lights, electrical charges, life expectancy, and more) plus blood supply and nerve innervation, coming together in the correct order, in the right place, making the right connections, all at the right time. It’s mind-boggling. Why not expect a mistake here and there, every once in a while?

Could there have been a problem with the designer’s foresight? Or misspellings in the DNA? Shouldn’t perfect intelligent design have included resistance to lead poisoning and immunity to polio and rabies infections? Dr. Steven Rosenberg at the NCI has been separating out a patient’s killer white cells, culturing them with interleukin-2, and then re-infusing billions of these cells into patients with certain cancers. He is seeing remarkable results, mostly with blood-borne cancers. He has now moved on to solid tumors. Melanoma starting in the eye and going to the brain, which is an incurable disaster, can now be cured in a few patients. Why not have these white cells available in large numbers and prepared to fight disease from birth in every human being?

Then again, maybe it’s really not the designer’s fault at all. Might some of those seeming flaws or mistakes be maternal (or paternal) indiscretions (sex, booze, drugs, cannabis, medications, absorbed perfumes/colognes, etc.)? And/or environmental factors like industrial pollution, mental illness, alcohol use and/or smoking during pregnancy, complications of medications, and/or poor nutrition? Or mystery chemicals? Plus bad timing? Or some combination of these?

If, by chance it is the designer’s fault, might some of this be predetermined? Might it be purposeful, but for reasons we don’t understand? For example, 25 years after one’s birth, there will be a pothole in the interstate highway. The accident will kill you and all the other occupants in your car. 

“It Is Written”

According to the CDC, 1 in every 33 babies born in the U.S. has a birth defect. These include Down syndrome, cleft palate, congenital heart defects (several types), a clubfoot, major spine disorders, and hypospadias (having the urethra beneath the penis, along the shaft not at the tip). Some of these have clearcut genetic causes. But what caused the “genetic causes”?  We know certain medications and alcohol intake during pregnancy can cause profound genetic problems. Maybe smoking. So can vitamin deficiencies and some other medications, alone or in combination. Just browse pictures of the thalidomide babies. Might there be other silent, toxic items afoot? EMF, radiation, cosmic rays, and the like may have more detrimental effects than we realize. We know very little about combinations and it may take a very long time to find out more. Just adequately explaining Darwin’s list of vestigial organs away took a little over 150 years. 

We give our children over 50 vaccines before they reach adulthood, many before the age of six, some immediately after birth. Could this be a cause of many later maladies? These include shots against hepatitis B, diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, Haemophilus influenzae, respiratory syncytial virus (RSR), polio, pneumococcal pneumonia, rotavirus, Covid, flu, chicken pox, measles, mumps, and rubella.  Some think the increased incidence of autism is a consequence, now 1 in 36 births in our country.  One might ask why babies come so poorly equipped, from the very start, to fight these serious infections. 

Did the world of bacteria, viruses, prions, and fungi change significantly after man showed up? There’s no way to know for sure. If the microbial world changed, might that be due to man’s careless (and careful) activities and pollution?  Might childhood diseases fall into the same philosophical category as motor vehicle accidents, violent crime, and shark bites? Is that in the Plan?

Congenital problems also include cancers in the unborn and/or newborn. Typically, they are not inherited, but probably result from unexplained mutations that happen randomly. Brain cancer is the most common and it may be the worst. A parent’s (and child’s) nightmare. Those who believe life was created perfect must wonder why this happens to the most vulnerable and the sweetest models of life. 

Why Aren’t Humans Poison-Resistant? 

Preventable poisoning numbered 102,958 cases in 2022. Laundry detergents, old medicines, lead and carbon monoxide poisoning are very common. Every year thousands of people are also poisoned by old or ill-prepared food, shellfish during certain months, and misidentified mushrooms.  Should a perfect design have a means to readily eliminate heavy metal poisonings built in? That is, in addition to coughing, choking, vomiting, and diarrhea?

Another problem is the endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) that are commonly found in our drinking water. The sources are diverse, including water disinfection processes, released from industry and livestock activity, and therapeutic drugs released into sewage which returns in drinking water. Among these drugs are disinfection byproducts, fluorinated compounds, bisphenol A, phthalates, pesticides, and estrogen. Infertility problems and very low sperm counts are standout consequences. One can’t help wonder if the rise in gender dysphoria isn’t also related.

Lately, scientists have been finding large amounts of nano-plastics in our bodies. They linger and accumulate, forever. This is a monster problem that so far lacks a solution. Micro-particles of plastic are found everywhere in our environment, including our food. They are broken down to nano-plastics, which are particles smaller than the eye can see. They can easily be found in our bloodstreams, in all tissues, and in clots that block arteries. They may be contributing to heart attacks, strokes, and death. Should our bodies have originally included plastic-destroying cells? 

Why might a forty-year-old man suddenly die from a heart attack, leaving five kids and a handicapped wife. Or why does a young woman die during delivery?  And why is it that humans don’t have the ability to make our own vitamin C when it’s critical for life while nearly every animal on the planet, save for a few primates and guinea pigs, can?

Evidence of intelligent design is clearly present in our creation. Nothing else explains the DNA information system, complexity upon complexity upon complexity, and the 180-degree twist in the spinal cord. Some sequelae may seem perfect, some awful, and many flawed. Was this a consequence of design, or in spite of it?