The Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on Creationism (2018)

many organs and systems of organisms to similar devices produced by human engineers. Yet, knowing that organisms have functions operating by the same engineering principles as man-made things does not equate to saying that living things are only machines. Just like human-engineered devices, organism have organs and systems which utilize the properties of natural laws like such as gravity, inertia, and momentum. Biomechanical engineers advocate the mimicry of systems found in living things and use them for inspiration in design (Socha 2012). Biological researchers already “reverse engineer” biological systems by methodically disassembling their components piece by piece to discover their operation. Further, the ever-increasing awareness that biological functions bear striking resemblance to man-made systems using sophisticated engineering has not been ignored. In 2016, an international conference dedicated to engineering biology was held at the University of Pittsburgh ( http://www.pitt.edu/~pittcntr/ Events/All/ Conferences/others /other_conf_2015-16/04-15-16_ reengineering/reengineering.html). Its goal was to develop a new engineering paradigm in biology that emphasizes how engineering- based perspectives on biology contrast with established biological thinking. Conference organizers maintained that engineering- inspired fields such as integrative systems biology, biomedical engineering, and synthetic biology appear to have more in common with engineering approaches than with traditional biological ones. Thus, even evolutionary biologists, though rooted in design- exclusive assumptions, will face the inevitable rising tide of scientific literature from other disciplines that are using engineering principles to better explain biological functions. 4. Biblical Rationale for Explaining Biological Functions Using Engineering Principles It would seem natural for researchers who claim to embrace the explanation that living things look designed because they are designed, to get out in front of this trend for using engineering principles to explain biological functions. For those who believe that the Bible provides insight into biological function, there is justification for approaching research from an engineering perspective. Psalms 19:1-6 and Romans 1:18-25 are key passages stating that some attributes of God are revealed in nature. Both texts emphasize that living things manifest “workmanship.” Nature displays features unique to designing agency that humans would ascribe to the workmanship of artists or engineers. For instance, living things are full of systems with multiple parts working together for a purpose, which are otherwise only found in human- engineered devices. It is this clearly-seen tight correlation between the function of living things and human-engineered contrivances that strongly indicates that living things were, in fact, designed by an intellect—with engineering prowess far surpassing the best human engineers. Analysis of Romans 1:18-25 prompts a profound question related to biological research: is there a biblical (or scientific) reason to believe that any biological function will be discovered that will operate by different engineering principles than those by which human-engineered apparatuses are already operating or could be operating? Therefore, researchers open to intelligent causation for living creatures should expect to find an ever-increasing resemblance of biological function to sophisticated engineering. Since creatures were commanded to “fill the earth” (Genesis 1:22, 28; 8:17; 9:1, 7) which was a highly dynamic place after Creation and the Flood, design-guided biological researchers should begin to identify the basic engineering principles governing the operation of systems which appear to self-adjust to dynamic external conditions (i.e., the how of biological adaptation). It is time to rethink the concepts of diversification and adaptation, and to develop a framework that explains biological function with engineering principles; one that naturally incorporates the numerous highly regulated mechanisms that appear to be incompatible with current evolutionary theory. 5. Formalizing a New Engineering-based Framework To begin formalizing, rather than just conceptualizing, biological adaptability within a valid framework of engineering design, we should consider: (1) objectives, (2) constraints, (3) variables, and (4) the biological systems (corresponding to mathematical equations in engineering) related to the previous three. Incorporating several broad observations and re-interpreting them in this light will form a new description of what organisms achieve when they adapt (i.e., the design objective for what they are doing). Organisms are observed to modify their own developmental course by continuously monitoring, responding to, and adjusting, their internal and external states, and these adjustments appear to play a significant role in producing novel, potentially beneficial, phenotypic variants (Bateson 2017). Further, there is a growing body of evidence that appears to indicate that recently- discovered regulated mechanisms enable organisms to actively and continuously track environmental changes. For instance, organisms appear to quickly respond to significant environmental changes—often making surprisingly rapid adaptations—and then more gradually adapt to conditions during periods with relatively little environmental change (Reigner 2015). What are organisms doing? We posit that organisms are continuously tracking environmental changes and responding with suitably self-adjusted traits to maintain homeostasis—within their lifetime and cross generationally—resulting in adaptation. How might they achieve this objective within realistic constraints? A. Hypothesis We observe sophisticated human engineering demonstrated in automated, autonomous robotic drones equipped with exquisite detectors, logic-centered algorithms, and locomotive performance to reliably track a target. If the application of engineering design objectives, constraints, and variables for human-created tracking systems can be applied to biological systems, then this readily offers a testable hypothesis: Organisms actively and continuously track environmental variables and respond by self-adjusting to changing environments—utilizing the engineering principles that constrain how human-designed things adapt to changing conditions—resulting in adaptation. This assumes that fluctuating environmental conditions are comparable to the variability of moving targets followed by tracking systems. If this assumption and the above hypothesis are true, then we expect:1) organisms should possess innate mechanisms with features that correspond to elements of human-engineered tracking systems, 2) these mechanisms should be demonstrably utilized to Guliuzza and Gaskill ◀ How organisms continuously track environmental changes ▶ 2018 ICC 160