Is the human body a cosmic accident, or is it the handiwork of a master engineer? Can purely material causes — like natural selection acting on random mutations — account for the coherent, interdependent, tightly coordinated, and precision-tuned systems that life requires? On a new episode of ID the Future, I begin a two-part conversation with physician Dr. Howard Glicksman, co-author with engineer Steve Laufmann of the new book Your Amazing Body, a fresh, abridged version of their previous book Your Designed Body.
It is not hyperbole to say that life is, every second, a do or die proposition. As Glicksman and Laufmann point out in Your Amazing Body, “Building a self-sufficient human body from a single-celled zygote requires solutions to millions of problems.” And that’s just the building part. Life also has to maintain itself, which involves a whole separate host of engineering challenges. And contrary to the Darwinian story, none of the systems and subsystems essential to life have the luxury of coming online slowly through a gradual, step-wise process. For life to be life, it’s all or nothing. There is no half alive.
In Part 1 of the conversation, Dr. Glicksman begins by contrasting unguided material causes (Darwinism) with intentional intelligent causes, emphasizing that intelligent design better explains the intricate, interdependent coherence found within the human body. He argues that Darwinian evolution only describes how life looks, failing to explain the complex functional capacity, control systems, and engineering principles required for life to actually work and survive. Glicksman then shares how his four decades of experience with the human body prepared him to write Your Amazing Body and Your Designed Body. He also reveals what he has learned about the design of life from working with an engineer on these projects, and reminds us why it’s crucial for engineers and biologists to come together to study life.
Download the podcast or listen to it here. This is Part 1 of a two-part conversation. Look for Part 2 next!
Dig Deeper
- Order copies of Your Amazing Body as gifts, to read in a small group or book club, or for family read-aloud time!
- Watch the trailer to the accompanying video series Secrets of the Human Body: