Physical Design: Toward a Better Understanding of The Designer

Phillip Johnson
Fellow of the reDiscovery Institute

Reprinted from The reDiscovery Institute Proceedings, 2005


We are now satisfied that nature is too complex and too subtle in function to have arisen by random chance. As Intelligent Design (ID) researchers we must move to the next logical areas of inquiry. One of these areas is known as "Physical Design". We use the term "Physical Design" to describe the observable, quantifiable creative act consisting of the reconfiguration of energy and mass by the Intelligent Designer. Discredited naturalistic sciences depended on fields, forces and other phenomena to shuttle particles, atoms and molecules into position to create more sophisticated structures. Our "Intelligent Designer" must employ roughly analogous means to translate thought into action; somehow a Creator must be able to express ideas as physical objects. In this brief paper we seek to open the gates of this nascent avenue of ID research. We begin by assessing what we must necessarily assume about the present state of Physical Design as a collection of phenomena amenable to observation. We then move to identify current gaps in our observations of Physical Design at work. We hope this effort will serve to steer physicists into areas of research that are tractable and productive.

Is Physical Design presently available for observation? If we are not prepared to assume that the agency responsible for such marvels as black holes, tadpoles, trimethylamine, magnetars, cephalopods, cosmic rays and Homo Sapiens has "said all there is to say" about our universe and the living creatures within it, then we must assume that this agency is still active. It is unlikely that such a grand project should be abandoned without further manipulation or improvement. Therefore observable traces of Physical Design are available to us for identification and measurement. It is of course possible that the "end times" prophesied by so many religions are cultural recognition that the universe we inhabit is simply the whimsy of a higher power with an attention span of limited duration, but of course religion has no place in scientific inquiry and in any case we cannot hope to achieve much if we assume we've been abandoned by our hypothetical Designer.

Has the Designer intentionally made us blind to Physcial Design? Possibly, and yet such an ambitious scheme as the creation of an entire universe is something that may be very difficult to achieve without leaving any tracks. The seemingly paradoxical nature of quantum mechanics may itself be an unavoidable clue to the true nature of the designer's means and limitations (1). Indeed, assuming that we have been crippled in our observational powers by an entity that chooses to remain in the occult, this very limitation should prove susceptible of identification by thoughtful experimental methods.

Granting for purposes of experimentation that we should be able to catch the hand of the designer in the creative act, what might we look for? What artifacts must an Intelligent Designer leave strewn about, if only we know to look for them? Apparently smooth walls of sheetrock turn out to be a hodgepodge of nails, plaster and tape when viewed from the backside, and frequently susceptible to nailpops (2). Just so, let us look for the observable traces of construction in our universe and the creatures that walk and swim in it.

Chemical facilitators as secondary tracers of Physical Design:
Catalysts and enzymes are ideal candidates as necessary artifacts of Physical Design. In particular, many biological processes would be impossible in the thermal regime we inhabit without the aid of enzymes (3). Enzymes should be placed high on the list of possible "puppet strings" without which the Intelligent Designer would be severely constrained in creative expression. We need to ask why the Designer did not simply specify the appropriate reaction rates at body temperature. Enzymes are commonly said to be "miraculous" in their actions; as scientists let us eschew miracles and instead seek to understand why an entity with limitless power would resort to enzymatic chicanery. Only by parameterizing the limitations of the Intelligent Designer can we fully understand our subject.

Geologic/Geophysical processes as telltales of Physical Design:
For reasons to which we are not privy, the Designer seems to be busily rearranging the configuration of the continents even as we ride helplessly about on the little bit of dry, inhabitable land we've been alloted. This is an energy intensive process on a massive scale, and it seems clear that the mechanism is not quite perfect. Earthquakes and massive, frequently explosive outpourings of basalt and toxic fumes seem to be an unavoidable defect of whatever plan is in motion(4). This is all to the good because we seem to have a creative system ripe for observation here. Again, as in the case of enzymes, this seems to be a unavoidable secondary artifact due to the limitations of the Designer but may well provide a route to direct observation of Physical Design in action.

Quantum Mechanics as limits of Intelligent Design tools:
It has been suggested that quantum mechanics are not so much a feature of nature as they are the resolution limits of a system designed to express the universe as a creative act. If we think of the Intelligent Designer as the publisher of a tabloid weekly using inexpensive halftone color pictures (5), with the dots in the pictures likened to the limits of the resolution of the design of the universe (quanta), we begin to capture the idea. By examining the shortcomings of the Designer's rendering capability, we can seek to understand some fundamental parts of Physical Design.

God of the Gaps:
It seems that direct observation of the kind of prodigious sleight of hand needed by an Intelligent Designer to perform daily maintenance while remaining discretely out of view will be a very difficult task. Yet the small handful of leads we suggest here are by no means exhaustive. We leave it to our fellow scientists to imagine more of the seams, gaps, overlaps, exposed fasteners, dribblings of glue and other signs and manifestations that must necessarily arise from such a massively ambitious undertaking as the hasty design and construction of an entire universe.

(1) Nick Bostrom. Philosophical Quarterly, 2003, Vol. 53, No. 211, pp. 243-255.

(2) Michael J. Crosbie, Manufactured Housing, 2002, Vol. 2, No. 3, "Drywall Problems"

(3) Jim Crane, RV Life Magazine, 1995, Vol. 24, No 3, "Toilet Chemicals"

(4) 1st Lt. Robyn A. Chumley, Airman, Magazine of America's Air Force, 1991, Vol. 35, No.9, pp.2-3

(5) Reginald Fitz, The National Enquirer, 2005, Vol 48, No. 16, pp. 5-6