When left to their own devices, the laws of nature tend toward death, not life. So what does it take for life to exist? On a classic ID the Future episode, host Eric Anderson begins a two-part conversation with physician Howard Glicksman about some of the remarkable engineering challenges that have to be solved to produce and maintain living organisms such as ourselves. Glicksman is co-author with systems engineer Steve Laufmann of the book Your Designed Body, an exploration of the extraordinary system of systems that encompasses thousands of ingenious and interdependent engineering solutions to keep us alive and ticking.
In the “just so” stories of the Darwinian narrative, these engineering solutions simply evolved. They emerged and got conserved. Voila! But in this chat, Anderson and Glicksman explain that it takes more than the laws of nature to keep us from dying. “Chemicals on their own don’t have any desire or tendency to turn into living organisms,” says Anderson. “They tend to degrade, they tend to break down, they tend to go back to their basic constituents.” Glicksman and Anderson discuss examples, including how the human body handles friction, heat transfer, and the crucial task of maintaining chemical balance at the cellular level. And where does all this essential innovation come from? Glicksman points to an intelligent cause that transcends matter and energy.
Download the podcast or listen to it here. This is Part 1 of a two-part discussion. Look for Part 2 in a separate episode.
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- This conversation is just one of many detailing an exciting new perspective in biology, one informed by the principles of engineering. Look here and here for more episodes.