I have been studying the human body for over thirty years. However, it did not take long to appreciate that the body (and other living things) is a tremendous example of design and engineering. Your finely tuned body has approximately 100 trillion cells functioning in synchrony to sustain life. Inside your cells are specialized biological machines that carry out your cell activities like energy production, detoxification, and several other life-giving activities. The term molecular machine is an accepted and often-used term in biology that refers to the specialized nanomachines (organelles) that run your cell activities. In this article, I will discuss the wondrous design of the body, compare intelligent design and Darwinian evolution theory, and why holistic medicine works so well with your healing systems.
The basis of all life is cells, and cells make up the tissues of the body, tissues make up organs, and organs make up organ systems. Your cells must work in communication with one another, as do your tissues and organs. There is a purposeful arrangement of parts within a cell and systems of the body that interacts together.
Take DNA, for example. DNA contains massive amounts of instructional information. It is like a software program that makes our supercomputers look like a joke. Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft, stated: “Human DNA is like a computer program but far, far more advanced than any software we’ve ever created.” The goal in preventing and treating disease is to work with your genetic code and not against this advanced communication network.
I was fascinated by a recent article in the Journal of Theoretical Biology, which analyzed the fine-tuning of biological life based on statistical modeling. The authors concluded that fine-tuning is a “clear feature of biological systems.” They noted that biology (e.g., human body) is much more complex than the fine-tuning of the universe. That is quite a profound statement about living things since there are precise laws of physics and mathematics that govern the universe. Keep in mind that laws always require a lawgiver, which is the mind behind the laws. Of course, fine-tuning always requires a fine-tuner.
The same authors also address fine-tuning of biological systems and how it challenges the randomness of Darwinian evolution. Most people, including professors, doctors, and other so-called educated people, do not really understand the unscientific principles of Darwinian evolution. The basis of this type of evolution is that unguided, non-intelligent forces are the causative agent behind the origin and diversity of life. In essence, this view purports that although biological life looks complicated and designed, it results from many purposeless chemical reactions.
Darwin focused on natural selection, which means that organisms better fit for their environment are more likely to survive, mate and have offspring, and pass on their genetic information and traits. However, Darwin made a colossal blunder when he took this concept (although not original since others had already written about it) to an entirely different level and gave it creative powers. The creative forces of natural selection only reside in the minds of those who leave the realm of science for imagination. After all, what scientist can reasonably infer that life could have arisen initially by chance? Also, how could the randomness of natural selection provide the mechanism for simple organisms to morph into fundamentally different organisms or creatures more complex in design and function?
The term natural selection is confusing to people since it is misused as a magical force in nature. The idea of this theory is that nature selects those organisms and the traits it wants to preserve and provides the building mechanism for the modification of creatures into fundamentally different creatures. Natural selection, as promoted by the Darwinian view, cannot build anything. It only supports the commonsense notion that organisms with better genes are more likely to survive, mate, and pass on their genetic information.
Yet natural selection in the modern human world is less relevant. For example, in healthcare, we know that a lot of disease and survival are not directly tied to genetics. Instead, one’s ability to survive and thrive is based on multiple factors, including diet, lifestyle, weight, stress coping skills and attitude/worldview, drug and alcohol abuse, socioeconomic status, toxin exposure, and others. This is why holistic medicine is so effective in the prevention and treatment of disease, as it assesses and deals proactively with the many areas of health one has control over.
Natural selection does not provide the mechanism for the body’s intrinsic ability to adapt to its environment or provide evolutionary forces to create new kinds of organisms. Instead, modern science shows it is the other way around. The creation of living organisms, including humans, has been engineered to take information from inside their system (cells, tissues, and organs from efficient messaging systems and from the outside world) and make adjustments within the coding system (DNA and RNA) for the body to adapt. The ability of your genes to respond and adapt to one’s behaviors and environment is known as epigenetics.
Medical doctor and professional engineer Randy Guliuzza notes that biological life reflects an engineered system that constantly tracks the environment and prepares to respond. He aptly terms this observed phenomena as Continuous Environmental Tracking. He describes how humans, animals, and plants utilize logic-based systems characteristic of engineering and programming.
One classic example of engineering observed in the body is If-Then-Logic. Your body takes information from specialized sensors for smell, vision, taste, touch, hearing, vestibular (movement and balance sense), proprioception (body position), as well as through verbal communication and body language. Information is transmitted by the nervous system via the spinal cord to the brain for analysis, and then instructions are sent out by the brain through the spinal cord and nervous system to organs, tissues, and cells (including the DNA inside your cells).
Your body’s ability to adapt to different environments and challenges is what I would term as Internally Engineered Selection (IES). This model better reflects current biological science. In this model, your body’s integrated response system is the selector, not nature. The ability to track your environment and make changes to adapt is possible due to the pre-existing engineering capabilities that were part of the original design by our Creator. The body is not molded by nature. On the contrary, the body molds itself in response to the information it responds to in the environment.
The pre-programmed intelligence in the genome of all your cells reflects the characteristics of an engineered design that one would expect with complex biological life. Can one really believe that nature could randomly assemble the more than 6 billion bases (letters) of the genomic language system in the cell nucleus, a space smaller than 1/6000th the size of a pinhead? If you stretched out the coiled DNA from just one cell, it would stretch six and a half feet!
Darwin proposed that all species were descended from a common ancestor. Some people have humorously termed this type of non-scientific evolution as “goo-to-you.” The problem with the Darwinian approach is that it goes against the evidence. Natural selection cannot provide the new genetic information required to build a new kind of organism.
There are other significant problems with Darwinism that are too extensive to cover in this article. However, one example would be that the fossil record does not show the gradual transition of one kind into another. One should see extensive transitional form intermediates in the fossil record, but they do not exist. There has never been any observation of one kind of creature transitioning into a fundamentally different kind of creature. We see changes only within kinds, such as different species of bacteria (Staphylococcus bacteria vs. Streptococcus bacteria), dog (German Shepherd vs. Dalmatian), plant (White rose vs. French rose), variation within humankind, and so on. The most extensive genetic study conducted on evolution found that there was no genetic relationship among different species, including humans and their relationship to other species. If we had ancestral connections to the non-human type of life, one would expect a clear genetic linkage. A more reasonable evaluation would be that there is a common designer, and since there are similar functions among organisms, we would expect some genetic similarities. Yet, the dissimilarities are so striking that a lineage is not possible.
At the time of Darwin, the field of genetics was not understood. An expansion of Darwinian evolution in modern times adds the concept of random mutations (changes in genetic information from damaged or miscoded letters as the “new blueprints” used to form different organisms. An increasing number of scientists are abandoning Darwinian evolution since this model is illogical. The random mutation theory is illogical since it requires random mistakes in a software coding program (DNA) to provide the new information needed to build a more complex organism or a fundamentally new organism (e.g., from bacteria to plant and animal life, from dinosaurs to birds, from primates to humans). For example, any software engineer will tell you that adding coding mistakes randomly (e.g., random mutations) to their software program will result in degradation and dysfunction, not an improved version. And while mutations do occur, our body has an inherent design to protect against, identify, and fix mutations.
The modern field of epigenetics backs up the intelligent design of the body. This branch of genetics studies the changes in the expression of genes based on the environment and our behaviors. These adjustments are constantly occurring with a continuous tracking and response system. For example, if you are out in the sun more than usual, your DNA response is to tell your skin to make more of the pigment melanin for protection. Essentially, the body demonstrates “engineered adaptability” as given by God.
The type of vast information required in our genetic codes cannot be attained through Darwinian evolution. Does it make sense that putting coding errors (mutations) into a coding program gives more functional information? No, the opposite happens as it leads to a breakdown of the instructional information. Remember that very few genetic mutations are beneficial and are very limited in their benefits. Most genetic mutations are neutral (with a net effect of slightly harmful), while some are lethal. Research by geneticists has shown that the number of genetic mutations is accumulating in the human gene pool, with more being passed onto each generation. This fact of accumulating genetic breakdown through successive generations is known as genetic entropy and the opposite of what one would expect with Darwinian evolution.
In recent years, many scientists have left the Darwinian model of evolution. Darwinian evolution not only has a history of cruelty (racism, eugenics, sexism, etc.), but it is unscientific. The whole Darwinian concept cannot give a coherent explanation for the beginning of biological life. Instead, it starts with a presupposition that involves science fiction where a soupy mixture on primitive earth changed into a living organism such as a bacteria, and then over time transformed into plant, animal, and human life.
Biological life is so complex that it had to be started by a Creator. A law of science, known as the Law of Biogenesis, states that life only comes from life. In all of human observation, each kind reproduces its own kind, and without exception. This observable biological fact is the same description as given in the book of Genesis. Life looks designed because it is designed!
People intuitively know that agents in their natural form are generally healthier than synthetic agents. Of course, there are exceptions, such as naturally occurring arsenic and mercury are not healthy! However, the general premise holds true. For example, foods in their unprocessed states are healthier than refined, packaged foods. Vitamins and minerals generally have far less potential for toxicity than pharmaceutical agents. Herbal products can stimulate the body’s own healing system in a well-tolerated manner. Proper exercise and stretching optimize health while sitting for long periods are unnatural and unhealthy. Sunlight in moderation stimulates vitamin D production by the body, while those who never get outside are more prone to vitamin D deficiency and disease risk.
The cells, tissues, and organs in our bodies are designed to best interact with natural agents. Therefore, it makes sense to focus on natural agents as the primary means of preventing and treating disease. However, there are times where people need powerful and suppressive conventional therapies to recover or slow down disease. The paradox that an incredibly designed body is still susceptible to ill-health is due to the fallen world we live in. This paradox can only be answered with philosophical and theological considerations. However, even in cases of drug therapy or surgery, the body’s healing systems are still in play with the support of conventional treatments. For example, when you are given antibiotics, they can destroy harmful bacteria. However, while they are killing harmful bacteria, they are giving your immune system the ability to take care of the same bacteria without being overwhelmed. In other words, the antibiotics are not killing all the bacteria. The immune system is still at work and is needed to eradicate the infection. This is why I have a hierarchy of treatment that focuses on natural therapies as much as possible but still prescribe conventional therapies when needed.
In general, holistic therapies are better suited to treat the root causes of disease for two reasons. First, they are typically more compatible with the body's systems compared to foreign agents (e.g., pharmaceuticals). And secondly, as a result of maximum compatibility, natural agents generally work better in preventing and treating the root causes of illness, especially chronic disease.
The good news is that you have a body with fantastic design and adaptability. You also have innate value since there is a Creator behind the original design. As you continue to read my Health Breakthroughs, you will learn how to best work with the healing design of your body.
Dr. Mark Stengler NMD, MS, is a bestselling author in private practice in Encinitas, California, at the Stengler Center for Integrative Medicine. His newsletter, Dr. Stengler’s Health Breakthroughs, is available at www.markstengler.com and his product line at www.drstengler.com
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