Frank Salisbury - Case for Divine Design

What others are saying about The Case for Divine Design:

This book and similar ones published by scientists in recent years force a dramatic change in the historical debate over evolution. What since Darwins time has been dubbed a debate between science and religion has, whether traditional Darwinists like it or not, become a debate between science and science, inasmuch as the challenges to Darwinism being advanced are based on solid scientific arguments, not religious ones. In this book, Professor Salisbury raises a plethora of biological and physiological issues that evolution via natural selection does not and seemingly cannot account for. An objective reader of this book will come away convinced that many key and essential processes in biological creation and its miraculous unfolding over aeons of time are inexplicable without allowing for the inputs of a directing intelligence.

Richard Schmutz, PhD History (Ret.)

Dr. Frank Salisbury has the unique ability to express complicated concepts in easily understood phrases. This book is a unique and valuable contribution to express the tremendous odds against all the present forms of life having evolved without some kind of divine creative force.

Duane S. Crowther, author and publisher

In this book, a superbly qualified biologist presents a persuasive case that, while the evidence doesnt compel belief in an intelligent creator, a reasonable reading of the evidence is consistent with such beliefand, for those inclined toward faith, can powerfully support it. Believers in God have rational grounds for their faith.

Daniel C. Petersen, Professor of Islamic Studies and Arabic Brigham Young University

I am very impressed with the approach. The sections on biological processes are logically presented and flow well. They provide necessary background, especially for non-biologists. I also enjoyed the sections that dealt with the importance of a Creator in the process and the impossibility of being able to explain how a fully functioning biological system could have evolved. I enjoyed seeing the writers personality in the writing. I like the approach he used. I suspect that most readers will also enjoy that aspect of the text as well.

Wilford M. Hess, Professor of Botany and Range Science

Brigham Young University The Case for Divine Design is a must read for anyone interested in the Intelligent Design (ID) controversy. I was attracted to the book because the author wrote a college-level botany text I once used and has authored several leading college textbooks in this area with major textbook publishers. The author has a PhD in plant physiology from Caltech and is a leading researcher in the field. Salisbury was also department head at Utah State University for many years. He reviews a great deal of cell biology and biochemistry in this 258-page, well-illustrated book, and does an excellent job showing that the case for Intelligent Design is very strong, and this is one major reason for the opposition to the idea today. Opponents see it as clear competition to classical Neo-Darwinism, although in articles critical of ID, the authors try to imply the opposite. He also does a good job answering many of the common objections to ID. No one can claim to be informed about this issue without reading this well-documented book, which should become a classic in the field. He has much good material on irreducible complexity, showing that everything is irreducibly complex, except quarks and leptons, and they may not be fundamental particles either! If 2 or more parts are required for something to function, it is irreducibly complex.

The Professor, Amazon.com Reviewer

C e l l s , C o m p l e x i t y, a n d C r e a t i o n Computer-drawn illustrations by Tami Allen Salisbury
Horizon Publishers Springville, Utah

To my wife, Mary Thorpe Salisbury, who stood by me through the years that I prepared this book and who never wavered in her faith that it would some day see the light of day. And to all those who need to know something about how our world works and about the intelligent Creator who watches over us and our fellow organisms.

Preface ............................................................................................ ix Acknowledgments.........................................................................xv 1. gaining Knowledge: by Science and by Faith ...................... 1 2. Macro evidences for evolution: A Strong Case................. 21 3. Modern Cellular and Molecular Biology:

4. Those Pesky Sequences: What Are the Chances? ............. 83
5. The origin of Life: A rather Weak Case ......................... 111
6. A House Divided: Who Believes What and Why?......... 145
7. Choose your Weltanshauung: An Intelligent Creation? ..... 171
Appendix C: Photosynthesis, Cellular respiration,

ii Table of ConTenTs

Appendix D: evolution, Natural Selection, and The Church
glossary....................................................................................... 231
Sources ........................................................................................ 233
Index ............................................................................................245
About the Author ......................................................................255

iii

our world is one of conflicting philosophies about many things. This book is concerned with two philosophies of Creation: Do we live in a nogod (atheistic) universe in which our world was the result of natural laws operating over vast time intervals, resulting in life, including even the brains that allow us to consider it? or is there a Supreme Being, an Intelligent Creator, a god who exists and in some way was responsible for Creationin my own philosophyby guiding Creation through application of those natural laws?1

Philosophy is a broad term with many meanings in any dictionary. I like the german word weltanschauung (literally, worldview), sometimes used in our english language. It comes closer in its english and its german usage to what I mean by a worldview philosophy. The American Heritage Dictionary defines weltanschauung (veltnshouoong) as a comprehensive worldview, especially from a specified standpoint. In german usage, it is a kind of universal way of looking at who we are, why we are here, and how the rest of our universe got here, based on intuition or scientific knowledge.2

A weltanschauung of an Intelligent Creationprovides one good example: a specific philosophy involving a role for god in Creation. The contrasting weltanschauung is that intelligence was not involved in how life and the universe came into being. In this book, Ill hold that science can neither prove nor disprove either weltanschauung. yet, clearly, we must consider science in developing our personal views because science (especially biology) is giving us great insight into how our world functions. Actually, well see that both of these views are consistent with the findings of modern biology; hence, the findings of biology cannot eliminate either weltanschauung. our views must of necessity be highly personal. Im writing this book because my own weltanschauung includes an Intelligent Creator, god, who guidedengineered, actuallythe Creation in which we find ourselves. Ill expand on these ideas in chapter 1.