How does an intelligent agent go from idea to artifact? What can the process of art teach us about the evidence of design in the natural world? A new episode of ID the Future, I talk with medical illustrator and artist Jody Sjogren to discuss the similarities between machines and living organisms and the insights art can give us about the mind of intelligent designers.

Between studying and illustrating both human anatomy and machines, Jody started noticing what she eventually termed the Machine-Living System Analogy. “I began to see the analogies between systems in living systems and man-made machines, such as structural complexity, fuel delivery, electrical systems, sensory systems, power plants, etc,” says Jody. “We live with machines all the time and we know they’re designed. What’s the problem with looking at something infinitely more complex, a living system, and saying the same thing?” 

Photo and image credit: Jody Sjogren, with permission.

Jody’s training in the detection of the hallmarks of design paired well with her husband’s job as a structural systems engineer. Both of them had the ability to structurally visualize a project, the first step in the design process. “To design is to invent,” explains Jody. “If you want to bring something into existence, you have to use the ability to conceive of something in your head, a picture of what needs to be brought into existence, and then show that to somebody else by means of a visual form so that they know what’s in your mind so they can fabricate it.” Jody goes on to explain how the human designing process can help us understand the evidence for design we find in the natural world. 

Download the podcast or listen to it here. This is Part 2 of a two-part conversation. Listen to Part 1.

Dig Deeper

• More on the arts and intelligent design: “How the Arts and Sciences Point to Intelligent Design in Nature.”
• More with Jody Sjogren: Jody discusses her experience illustrating Jonathan Wells’s modern classic Icons of Evolution.