The Privileged Polymer

now playing at a theater near you

This lavishly produced movie documents our finely tuned universe, which was designed for chemistry and for chemists to do chemistry.

By Azo Mazur
Fellow of the reDiscovery Institute


Unless you've been hiding under a rock, you've heard about the intelligent design movement and some of its leading intellects - Azo Mazur, Mike Behe, Willie Dembski, Ann Coulter and William Bennett. Moral giants, surely. Unfortunately, you also heard the mainstream media's negative spin. They use quotations supposedly representing the view of all "serious chemists," along with the phrase "overwhelming evidence of chemical periodicity".

Desperate Midwives

So what is design theory? Design theory is the comforting and popular argument that the natural world is best explained as the result of an intelligent agency. The universe is so complex and so finely tuned that it could not have been created by random chance or blind luck. Design theory is science with a moral and ethical compass. It is based on evidence and only coincidentally on Genesis. Design theory reduces the complex and frightening universe to a binary system of good and evil, exposing morality and clear transcendent truth.

Natural science, in contrast, is the unsettling and harsh view of nature promoted by blue state PhDs. Nature must submit to deterministic laws. Scientific information must be attained by verifiable, reproducible means. Natural science blindly requires empiricism, experimentation, repeatable methodology, prelims, peer review, and publication. Natural science is based on a frightening faith in reason and rationality. Natural science denies revelation, miracles, good and evil, and everlasting life. Stalin was an atheist.

Onto the odious edifice of natural science, Dimetri Mendeleev hoisted a conjecture that the properties of atoms vary in a periodic fashion with atomic weight. In spite of serious flaws in Mendeleev's theory- the sorting by atomic weight was switched to atomic numbers, element 118 was added then removed, etc. - chemists continue to teach that complex molecules around us - and in us - grow from a purposeless and amoral process called bonding. Bonding seizes and joins atoms together, forcing them to inter-penetrate in acts of molecular pornography. Mendeleev and his followers (Mendeleevists) explain away the apparent design in the chemical world, the beauty of gold and diamonds, the stoniness of stone, sandiness of sand, the soapiness of soap, the dirtiness of dirt, the filthiness of filth, as subjective, as only apparent. In this nihilist view, humans are just conglomerates of molecules arising from blind chance and bonding. The laws of thermodynamics, chemical periodicity and quantum mechanics rule chemical and biochemical processes. Polymerization is the illicit love child of luck and chemistry.

The chemical elite, largely atheists, control us. They allow us to believe whatever we want in church on Sunday, but force us to bow down to the periodic table once we enter the lab or the classroom. Undergraduate students who cite purpose or design or god in their laboratory reports receive poor grades and bad recommendations.

The Universe Strikes Back

There is one problem with this tidy rule. Nature forgot to cooperate. We explain how in our documentary, "The Privileged Polymer" - playing at a theater near you. Critics have described it as "Jesus Christ Superstar crushes Bill Nye the Science Guy". "The Privileged Polymer" incorporates information from the CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics. The movies uses slick computer animation to present spectacular images of reactants, products, transition states and more, all being manipulated by the intelligent designer (not shown). The result is an extraordinary 60-minute documentary and a fascinating look at a timeless question: What is our significance within the grand scheme of molecules?

As told in "The Privileged Polymer," the properties of atoms - carbon-carbon bonds are stable, carbon forms four bonds, carbon forms a tetrahedron - appear finely tuned for formation of complex molecules. If carbon-carbon bonds were unstable, the world as we know it would be impossible. This fine-tuning is clear proof of the work of a "designer."

There is more (see the movie!). We document that even in this finely tuned universe, local conditions such as temperature, pressure and concentration have to be just right to form a given molecule. Incredibly, the best conditions for bonding and chemical reactions are not so different from the most healthy conditions for chemists. Earth has lots of molecules and lots of chemists. Outer space has fewer types of molecules and no chemists at all. The most chemical-friendly region of the galaxy is also the best place to be a chemist. A coincidence? Hardly. This linkage proves that the universe was designed for chemistry and for chemists to do chemistry.

"The Privileged Polymer" disproves chemist Lodless Giberal, who famously put it, "Mendeleevism excites me. Our shameful urges have molecular origins. I never say, 'Jeez, I'd like to evade taxes and exceed the speed limit, but that would violate Mendeleevism.' Mendeleevists don't have to think like that. Mendeleevism lets us off the hook morally. This is why Mendeleevism has persisted in spite of obvious flaws. We like it."

The G-word

Now, at the beginning of the 21st century, we have powerful techniques such a thin layer chromatography, rotary evaporation, and phenolphthalein indicator. We have intellectual and moral giants such as Azo Mazur, Willie Dembski, Ann Coulter, Mike Behe and Bill Bennett. Standing in the way are Mendeleevists and their periodic table.

Recently Nobel-prize nominee Azo Mazur asked, "What is the purpose or meaning of molecules? Or of phase transitions? Or of second-order kinetics? If chemistry has a purpose, then molecules, equilibrium and kinetics must reflect this purpose. This purpose should be openly and carefully discussed."

Unfortunately, few are brave enough to follow Mazur's advice. If one writes about chemical design, god, angels, or the devil in an undergraduate laboratory report, one gets points deducted. If one writes about revelation and miracles in a submission to JACS, one is subject to scathing reviews and rejection by editors. In our current climate, even the bare mention of virgin birth in a chemical publication causes some to reach for their stash of derisive terms - "theocrat," "fundamentalist," "creationist," "charlatan," "con artist," "hack," "fool," "idiot," "resident of Cobb County, Georgia."

But that response rings increasingly hollow. The secular Mendeleevists are in retreat. The genie is out of the bottle, and name-calling and misinformation won't put him back. With the reDiscovery Institute on the scene, the Mendeleevists can no longer control the flow of information to those who seek it. It's time to see the movie, "The Privileged Polymer", playing at a theater near you.