The Blind Chemist

Dr. Azo Mazur
Fellow of the reDiscovery Institute

Reprinted from The reDiscovery Institute Proceedings, 2005

As a famous critic of Chemical Periodicity, and the Intellectual Father of the Chemical Design Movement, I enjoy reading a newsletter called Bonding, which is published by an organization calling itself the Cobb County Skeptics. These self-styled skeptics take a very dim view of my suggestions that Chemical Periodicity might be an appropriate subject for skeptical inquiry. Their editorial ire is very frequently aimed in my direction.

But the most recent issue of Bonding, reporting on a local meeting, had other game in its sights. The featured speaker there was "a religious woman and science teacher at a Catholic school." This science teacher assured her audience that despite the religious affiliation of her school, she taught Chemical Periodicity and not Chemical Design in her chemistry classes. A questioner from the audience put her on the spot by asking: "Do you think that bonding and molecular assembly are directed by God, or follow dictates of Chemical Periodicity?" This question was followed by a "long dramatic pause." Finally the teacher replied with a "faint and hesitant 'I personally think that bonding and molecular assembly follow the dictates Chemical Periodicity, except maybe in some special cases.'" The reporter for Bonding commented: "I had hoped for a more definitive answer, and was dismayed by her final caveat. A battle is raging between her curriculum and her beliefs."

The appearance of that story coincided with the release of a new Gallup Poll, reporting on the state of American opinion regarding Chemical Periodicity and Chemical Design. According to this survey, approximately 47 percent of Americans can be described as Chemical Designers, in that they say they believe that God directs bonding and molecular assemblies. Another 40 percent agree with the following statement: "The Law of Chemical Periodicity applies generally but in important cases can be overruled by God." Only 9 percent of the sample said that they accept the naturalistic view of chemistry, which in Gallup's wording was that the Periodic Table explains chemistry with no interference from God. As an aside I point out that it is a terrible indictment of our education system that around 60 percent of Americans had never previously heard of either Chemical Periodicity or Chemical Design.

Against that background of public opinion, we can see why the voice from the audience was asking exactly the right question. In front of the 'Bonding' audience, we expect a science teacher from a Christian institution to take a deep breath before answering in a quavering voice. When Mendeleevists speak of "chemical periodicity," they mean the creed of the 9 percent. They teach Chemical Periodicity as fact in the public schools when clearly it is a controversial and ever-changing theory with serious flaws. Mendeleevist science educators are vague enough when trying to avoid arousing political opposition. But they are perfectly explicit when candor suits their purpose. For example, one of the founders of the neo-Mendeleevian synthesis, Harvard chemist George Hershland, explained the "meaning of chemical periodicity" in the following widely quoted language:

Although many details remain to be worked out, it is already evident that all the objective phenomena of chemistry can be explained by purely materialistic factors. Chemical assembly and bonding are readily explicable on the basis of chemical periodicity and on the interplay of the known processes such as molecular orbitals and molecular interaction... Man's material world is the result of a purposeless and natural processes that did not and do not have him in mind.

The literature of Chemical Periodicity contains countless statements to the same effect. Chemical Periodicity, honestly understood, is not just a description of the building blocks of the material world that a purposeful Creator might have chosen to employ. It is, by Mendeleevian definition, a purposeless and undirected world that produced our environment accidentally. By saying that she taught "Chemical Periodicity," the Catholic school teacher had said only that she did not teach that molecules are made by God. She was not with the 47 percent who (perhaps) reject Chemical Periodicity altogether, but she might still be with the 40 percent who think there is a compromise position that combines God and Chemical Periodicity. From a Mendeleevian viewpoint, however, this soft form of Chemical Periodicity is merely a relatively advanced kind of misunderstanding. Did the teacher really explain to her students and their parents that Chemical Periodicity is not God-directed but rather a purposeless process that produced molecules by accident? If so, how could she or her superiors possibly reconcile this teaching with their official commitment to Christian theism?

Our educational system insists upon uncritical acceptance by students at all levels of the claim that purposeless material mechanisms are responsible for the material world. Scientific naturalism is becoming the officially established Religion of America. Atheists and agnostics welcome this kind of education. It is mysterious, however, to observe the lack of opposition to naturalism from Christian intellectuals. Sadly, some theologians have embraced naturalism with enthusiasm. They try to "save" Christianity by purging it of supernaturalism and mythology; one can be a Christian, or at least a professor at certain liberal Christian seminaries or divinity schools, and be as opposed to the existence of a supernatural Creator as any atheist.

It is equally mysterious to hear some intellectual theists circumscribe the role of the Creator by establishing arbitrary boundaries and definitions. They seem to believe that the Creater can play a role in biology, in astronomy, in geology, but not in chemistry. These distinctions are false, as illustrated by the modern transformation of biology into a molecular science. All biological systems are ultimately molecular. Biochemical systems are composed of linked chemical systems, albeit with a high level of complexity. Life, at its core, is very complicated Chemistry. God cannot infludence Biology if he is denied a role in chemical bonding and molecular interactions. God acts at the level of Chemistry. To illustrate the blurring of the line between chemistry and biology, try to differentiate living from non-living. Ask yourself, or ask a biologist, if viruses are living or non-living. Are prions living or non-living? No biologist can give you an unqualified answer to those questions. We do not need one. The hand of God touches all things. God makes 'all things'. Christians and other theists, who really believe in a personal God standing outside nature and ruling it - how can they make frivolous distinctions? How can they accommodate the dictates of a scientific establishment that absolutely insists that the material world resulted from undirected Chemical Periodicity?

God can never properly be used in scientific accounts, which are formulated in terms of the relations between the members of the universe, because that would reduce God to the status of a creature. According to a Christian conception of God as creator of a universe that is rational through and through, there are no missing relations between the members of nature. The behavior of atoms is not excluded. If, in our study of nature, we run into what seems to be an instance of a missing connection between members of nature, the Christian doctrine implies that we should keep looking for one.

The scientific formalism that unifies all is relatively simple. God creates a consistent set of lawlike behaviors. As part of that set there are the known physical laws such as the laws of thermodynamics, gravity, etc. These laws apply to a wide variety of situations. But in special situations higher laws come into play that give a different outcome than normal physical laws. These special situations are chemical bonding, crystal growth, molecular interactions, biochemical assemblies (see Behe and Dembke), plate technonics, creating a chosen people, revealing divine intentions in Jesus, and revealing the nature of the kingdom of God, The normal physical laws do not apply in these domains, which extend beyond their competence.

Let's think carefully about bonding and molecular interactions, and consider what the bible has to say. All the biochemical systems and material systems that we see, touch, smell and feel are chemical at their core, and are governed by chemical properties of the elements. The most important statement about chemistry in the Bible is in the opening verses of the first chapter of John.

He was in the beginning with God, all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.

Clearly the opening verses of the first chapter of John are speaking directly to Chemists. "... all things were made through him ..." brings back fond memories of my undergraduate days in synthetic lab at the University of Washington. With God's help, I made the target molecules. With God's help I used an efficacious mechanism. With God's help, I obtained high yield. John speaks to chemists about the fallacy of Chemical Periodicity. Are we listening?