©Copyright 2018 GEOSCIENCE RESEARCH INSTITUTE
11060 Campus Street • Loma Linda, California 92350 • 909-558-4548
Download PDF
This article was originally published as a chapter in the book “Design and Catastrophe: 51 Scientists Explore Evidence in Nature"
Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary defines the noun “design” as “deliberate purposive planning.”[1] The qualifications “deliberate” and “purposive” imply the existence of some kind of volition behind the action of planning. Designing demands a priori, the foreseeing of an Intelligence capable of deliberate actions and purposes.
Consider the following hypothetical situation in which someone wants to build an electric toaster factory. Besides having to build the plant with appropriate machinery, find the right raw materials, and define the specifications of the industrial manufacturing process, he or she also needs to understand the basics of energy transformation in order to produce ovens that will operate in an efficient and safe way. Any expected function or specification, such as the color of the toasters, has to be addressed beforehand, for example, by adding a step to apply a coating of the right color somewhere along the production line. Clearly, “deliberate, purposive planning” is required for the designing of toasters.
Everywhere we look in nature, we can see evidence for this kind of design. However, when it comes to natural systems, some contend that what we observe is only an illusion or appearance of purposeful design.[2] What, then, is the true origin of our world?
Let us do some thought experimentation to address this question, since in historical science one cannot perform actual experiments. For the sake of argumentation, pretend that our system to analyze is the entire universe, at an original stage with no matter or energy—a total vacuum—and with no space or time structured in it. And from this, the entire universe we see today arose. Everything we have today came from nothing. That is the essence of the big bang proposition. Since there is no natural mechanism that can explain this “nothing-to-everything” process, we cannot even label it as scientific hypothesis. It takes a gigantic leap of faith to believe in such a(n) (im)possibility.
Next, let us concede a different initial system with which to begin: Let our universe be without matter but with lots of pure energy, as much as required for anything, whether transforming into different forms, doing some work, or “materializing.” What kind of energy could that possibly be? It cannot be potential or nuclear or any of the forms that need matter to produce or store. The only possibility would be electromagnetic energy. However, classically, electromagnetic radiation is produced by oscillating electric charges, which, by assumption, we do not have yet. Quantically, there are two possibilities: radiation from an atomic electron’s excited state transitioning to lower energy states (which is also not yet possible, since we are assuming there are no atoms yet), or the quantum field “vacuum,” populated by zero-point quantum harmonic oscillator energies.
Admitting that some fortuitous quantum fluctuations might happen in this vacuum to produce electron-positron[3] and proton-antiproton pairs according to the famous Einstein’s equation E = mc2, and that these protons are attracted electromagnetically to the electrons, then, in principle we have a mechanism whereby hydrogen atoms might have been produced. But the issue is not so much about the possible mechanisms for the production of matter, as important as they may be. The real issue is that hydrogen atoms need precise specifications to have all the properties that allow for all the chemical combinations with other atoms, specifications such as the appropriate mass, charge, and spin for the proton and electron, and their right dimensions (size) and distance between each other. Properties, functionality, and appearance for these particles that compose the atom all must be determined before its creation.
There are a couple of other problems with this suggested mechanism of pair production for the primordial nucleosynthesis. To begin with, it is only when energetic radiation interacts with matter that pair production can occur, but in our assumption there is no matter yet with which to interact. And without this interaction, simple pair production in space is forbidden, because it would violate momentum conservation, a fundamental tenet in physics.[4] Moreover, for each electron (matter) that is produced, one positron (antimatter) is produced at the same time, and the same is true of the proton-antiproton pair. The antiproton and positron would form an anti-hydrogen, which would immediately annihilate hydrogen upon collision, returning matter again to pure energy. But, the universe as we see it is full of matter alone, so there is an essential asymmetry in relation to anti-matter.[5] Having all the correct specifications for the hydrogen atom (and, by extension, for all matter in the universe), this matter asymmetry requires the volition of a superior Mind that, with deliberate, purposive planning, designed matter as we know it in the universe, with all its correct properties.
To imagine that in the beginning of the universe we had only quantum field “vacuum” energy from which fortuitous quantum fluctuations gave rise to pair productions in the nucleosynthesis simply does not hold to an honest scrutiny of modern scientific knowledge.
Atoms, as we know them in nature, bear within themselves the clear fingerprints of design, pointing to a Designer with superior intellect and volition, or, as the Scriptures beautifully declare, “In the beginning …” Logos (John 1:1).
NOTES
[1] “Design.” Merriam-Webster online, entry 1b [accessed August 25, 2020]. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/design.
[2] The biologist Richard Dawkins expresses this sentiment with clarity: “We really need Darwin’s powerful crane to account for the diversity of life on Earth, and especially the persuasive illusion of design.” R. Dawkins. The God delusion. Boston (MA): Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; 2006, p. 168; “Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose.” R. Dawkins. The blind watchmaker. London (UK): The Folio Society; 2008, p. 1; “The illusion of purpose is so powerful that biologists themselves use the assumption of good design as a working tool.” R. Dawkins. River out of Eden: A Darwinian view of life. Science Masters Series: New York; 1995, p. 98.
[3] RP Feynman. Quantum electrodynamics. Reading (MA): Benjamin/ Cummings; 1962, p. 111.
[4] In order to avoid this problem of momentum conservation, some theoretical physicists have proposed that in the early stages of the big bang, physics as we know it today was not valid. Then when did physics start to be valid? It makes more sense to think physics is lid all the way from the beginning, when God created everything.
[5] “Baryogenesis” is the term used by astrophysicists to refer to the mechanism that resulted in matter asymmetry. However, baryogenesis is simply a hypo-thetical process that supposedly occurred just before nucleosynthesis, in an attempt to explain the imbalance between baryons (matter) and anti-baryons (anti-mat-ter). To propose an untestable process is valid solely in the primeval big bang; at the same time, throwing away a well-tested momentum conservation principle does not seem to be scientifically honest.
Alfredo Takashi Suzuki is an associate professor of physics at La Sierra University. He holds a PhD in Physics from the University of London. His current research interests are in the areas of relativistic quantum field dynamics in the light-front and also in negative dimensional integration method in quantum field theories. In addition to publishing several research articles on these subjects, he has co-authored a high school physics textbook, a popular level book on origins, and a research book titled Boson Propagators on the Light-Front.