© Cedarville University International Conference on Creationism. The views expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent those of Cedarville University. Hebert III, L. 2023. Allometric and metabolic scaling: arguments for design...and clues to explaining pre-flood longevity? In J.H. Whitmore (editor), Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference on Creationism, pp. 206-227. Cedarville, Ohio: Cedarville University International Conference on Creationism. ALLOMETRIC AND METABOLIC SCALING: ARGUMENTS FOR DESIGN... AND CLUES TO EXPLAINING PRE-FLOOD LONGEVITY? Leo (Jake) Hebert III, Institute for Creation Research, P.O. Box 59029 Dallas, Texas 75229 USA, jhebert@ICR.org ABSTRACT Among creationists and intelligent design theorists, there is much interest in developing a theory of biological design. Evolutionary scientists have made much progress in this area by assuming living things are designed for efficiency, despite the obvious logical incongruity in their reasoning. This area of research is closely connected to the field of allometry, the study of how different parts of an organism grow or scale in relation to the size of the organism as a whole. The allometric metabolic scaling theory of physicist Geoffrey West and biologists Brian Enquist and John Brown (WBE theory) assumes living things are constructed to efficiently deliver nutrients to their constituent cells. It uses this assumption to successfully predict features of avian and mammalian circulatory and respiratory systems. Moreover, their ontogenetic extension of the theory provides a theoretical justification for the sigmoid mass-versus-age growth curves exhibited by many living creatures. It also provides a general mathematical expression for an organism’s age at maturity. Numerous empirical studies have demonstrated a positive correlation between ages at maturity (first reproduction and/or skeletal maturity) and total lifespan: the higher the age at maturity, the longer an organism’s lifespan. This link to empirical observations may ultimately enable the WBE theory (or one like it) to help explain the large sizes of many pre-Flood creatures, as well as the extreme longevity of the pre-Flood and immediate post-Flood patriarchs. Indeed, fossil data and paleo-ontogenetic growth curves, already published in the mainstream evolutionary literature, provide at least five lines of possible evidence that some animals were experiencing much greater longevity in the pre-Flood and immediate post-Flood worlds, just as humans were. Because of the potential significance of this information to the creation community, this paper also discusses these lines of evidence, while recognizing their preliminary nature and the need for further research before making a strong claim in this regard. KEYWORDS Metabolic scaling, allometry, longevity, scaling laws, WBE theory, optimization, design, giantism I. INTRODUCTION Creationists have long maintained, in agreement with Scripture (Romans 1:20), that evidence of design in living things is overwhelming, and increased understanding of biological systems will strengthen that argument. Within the creationist and intelligent design communities, there is increased interest in applying engineering principles to the understanding of living things (Guliuzza 2017, Miller 2022). Because engineers attempt to maximize certain product features (durability, efficiency, etc.) while minimizing others (cost of production, amount of material used, etc.), one would expect living things, if designed, to show evidence of intentionally optimized features. Although evolutionary biologists acknowledge that living things seem well-designed, they refuse to acknowledge an intelligent Designer. Dawkins (1986) essentially argues that the appearance of design is an illusion, and Ayala (2007) states that Darwin’s greatest discovery was explaining design without a Designer. How then do evolutionists account for the origin of optimized features that in any realm other than evolutionary biology would reasonably be understood as a product of engineering, especially since organisms possess these traits in abundance? They claim that highly engineered qualities like efficiency, optimization, robustness, etc. that typically characterize non-random living systems were produced by a random trial-and-error process where (Godfrey-Smith 2015, pp. 18-20) “natural selection has continually honed” organisms. This “tinkering” process is the “mechanism that is at the very core of any living system and that has been refined over millions of years” (Jacob 1977, p. 1165). Clearly, evolutionists deal with the obvious teleology demonstrated in optimized features by personifying nature with a God-like selective agency to “hone” and “refine” a primitive arrangement of molecules into a complicated, optimized system. But this leaves one wondering, how does this faith-based mantra pervading the evolutionary literature about nature “honing” and “refining” organisms differ in its metaphysical makeup from another scientist’s explanation that biological optimization is the product of an intelligent Creator? Despite this obvious logical inconsistency in their position, evolutionary biologists have long recognized that biological characteristics are, in some sense, optimal, and they have devised mechanistic theories to explain this optimization from basic physical principles. Ideally, such 9th 2023
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