{"id":2806,"date":"2017-12-03T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-12-03T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/apologeticspress.review\/atheists-design-admissions-5492\/"},"modified":"2025-09-17T16:00:54","modified_gmt":"2025-09-17T21:00:54","slug":"atheists-design-admissions-5492","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/apologeticspress.org\/atheists-design-admissions-5492\/","title":{"rendered":"Atheists’ Design Admissions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Atheistic philosopher Paul Ricci summed up the Teleological Argument for the Existence of God well when he said, \u201c[I]t\u2019s true that everything designed has a designer\u2026. \u2018Everything designed has a designer\u2019 is an analytically true statement.\u201d1<\/sup> There are an infinite number of design examples that present themselves to us when we study the natural realm\u2014a problem for Ricci and his atheistic colleagues, to be sure. We have documented dozens of such examples in the past (see the various \u201cDesign\u201d topics in the \u201cExistence of God\u201d category on our Web site), but consider the following points in addition to those examples of design. It is one thing for theists to provide positive evidences for the existence of design in the Universe, but it makes the job much simpler for theists when naturalists themselves admit<\/strong> evidences for design. Here are five areas of science where scientists openly acknowledge design in nature.<\/p>\n

#1: \u201cWe Need to Figure Out Who Wrote the Laws of Science.\u201d<\/h2>\n

Famous atheist, theoretical physicist, and cosmologist of Cambridge University, Stephen Hawking, clearly highly reveres the laws of science. In 2011, he hosted a show on the Discovery Channel<\/em> titled, \u201cCuriosity: Did God Create the Universe?\u201d In that show, he said,<\/p>\n

[T]he Universe is a machine governed by principles or laws\u2014laws that can be understood by the human mind. I believe that the discovery of these laws has been humankind\u2019s greatest achievement\u2026. But what\u2019s really important is that these physical laws, as well as being unchangeable<\/strong>, are universal<\/strong>. They apply not just to the flight of the ball, but to the motion of a planet and everything else in the Universe. Unlike laws made by humans, the laws of nature cannot ever be broken<\/strong>. That\u2019s why they are so powerful.2<\/sup><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Hawking, in obvious awe, acknowledges that the laws of nature exist, are unbreakable (i.e., without exception), and apply to the entire Universe\u2014not just to the Earth. But those admissions by the evolutionary community presents a major problem for atheism. Humanist Martin Gardner said,<\/p>\n

Imagine that physicists finally discover all the basic waves and their particles, and all the basic laws, and unite everything in one equation. We can then ask, \u201cWhy that equation?\u201d It is fashionable now to conjecture that the big bang was caused by a random quantum fluctuation in a vacuum devoid of space and time. But of course such a vacuum is a far cry from nothing. There had to be quantum laws to fluctuate. And why are there quantum laws?<\/strong>…There is no escape from the superultimate questions: Why is there something rather than nothing, and why is the something structured the way it is?<\/strong>3<\/sup><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Even if Big Bang cosmology were correct (and it is not), you still can\u2019t have a law without a law writer.<\/p>\n

In \u201cCuriosity: Did God Create the Universe?\u201d Hawking boldly claimed that everything in the Universe can be accounted for through science without the need of God. This is untrue, as we have discussed elsewhere,4<\/sup> but notice that Hawking does not even believe that assertion himself. He said, \u201cDid God create the quantum laws that allowed the Big Bang to occur? In a nutshell, did we need a god<\/strong> to set it all up so that the Big Bang could bang?\u201d5<\/sup> He provided no answer to that crucial question\u2014not even an attempt. And he is not alone. No atheist can provide a reasonable answer to that question.<\/p>\n

The eminent atheistic, theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and astrobiologist of Arizona State University, Paul Davies, noted Hawking\u2019s sidestep of that question in the \u201cround table discussion\u201d on the Discovery<\/em> Channel<\/em> following \u201cCuriosity,\u201d titled, \u201cThe Creation Question: a Curiosity Conversation.\u201d Concerning Hawking, Davies said,<\/p>\n

In the show, Stephen Hawking gets very, very close to saying, \u201cWell, where did the laws of physics come from? That\u2019s where we might find some sort of God.\u201d And then he backs away and doesn\u2019t return to the subject\u2026. You need to know where those laws come from. That\u2019s where the mystery lies\u2014the laws<\/strong>.6<\/sup><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Writing in New Scientist<\/em>, Davies asked, \u201cHow did stupid atoms spontaneously write their own software…?\u201d7<\/sup> In a more extensive discourse on the subject in The New York Times<\/em>, Davies said,<\/p>\n

[W]here do these laws come from? And why do they have the form that they do?<\/strong> When I was a student, the laws of physics were regarded as completely off limits. The job of the scientist, we were told, is to discover the laws and apply them, not inquire into their provenance. The laws were treated as \u201cgiven\u201d\u2014imprinted on the universe like a maker\u2019s mark<\/strong> at the moment of cosmic birth\u2014and fixed forevermore…. Over the years I have often asked my physicist colleagues why the laws of physics are what they are. The answers vary from \u201cthat\u2019s not a scientific question\u201d to \u201cnobody knows<\/strong>.\u201d The favorite reply is, \u201cThere is no reason they are what they are\u2014they just are.\u201d The idea that the laws exist reasonlessly is deeply anti-rational<\/strong>. After all, the very essence of a scientific explanation of some phenomenon is that the world is ordered logically and that there are reasons things are as they are. If one traces these reasons all the way down to the bedrock of reality\u2014the laws of physics\u2014only to find that reason then deserts us, it makes a mockery of science<\/strong>. Can the mighty edifice of physical order we perceive in the world about us ultimately be rooted in reasonless absurdity<\/strong>? If so, then nature is a fiendishly clever bit of trickery: meaninglessness and absurdity somehow masquerading as ingenious order and rationality<\/strong>…. Clearly, then, both religion and science are founded on faith<\/strong>\u2014namely, on belief in the existence of something outside the universe, like an unexplained God or an unexplained set of physical laws.8<\/sup><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In conclusion, Davies highlighted the fact that naturalists have a blind<\/strong> faith when assuming that the laws of science could create themselves free from an \u201cexternal agency\u201d: \u201c[U]ntil science comes up with a testable theory of the laws of the universe, its claim to be free of faith is manifestly bogus.\u201d9<\/sup> Bottom line: there must be a rational origin of the laws of science. In 2016, Davies reiterated, \u201cThe ballyhoo about a universe popping out of the vacuum is a complete red herring<\/strong>. It just dodges the real issue, which is the prior existence of the laws of physics<\/strong>.\u201d10<\/sup> In an article titled \u201cTaking Science on Faith,\u201d Davies responded to the assertion that the existence of a multiverse could account for the origin of the laws of science, saying,<\/p>\n

The multiverse theory is increasingly popular, but it doesn\u2019t so much explain the laws of physics as dodge the whole issue<\/strong>. There has to be a physical mechanism to make all those universes and bestow bylaws on them. This process will require its own laws, or meta-laws. Where do they come from?<\/strong> The problem has simply been shifted up a level from the laws of the universe to the meta-laws of the multiverse.11<\/sup><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Astrophysicist and science writer for New Scientist<\/em>, Marcus Chown, wrote:<\/p>\n

If the universe owes its origins to quantum theory, then quantum theory must have existed before the universe. So the next question is surely: where did the laws of quantum theory come from<\/strong>? \u201cWe do not know,\u201d admits [cosmologist Alex\u2014JM] Vilenkin. \u201cI consider that an entirely different question.\u201d When it comes to the beginning of the universe, in many ways we\u2019re still at the beginning.12<\/sup><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

University of Oxford physicist David Deutsch said, \u201cEven if the answer to why there is something rather than nothing were because of how quantum field theory works, the question would become why are the laws of quantum field theory as they are.\u201d13<\/sup> Cosmologist and Professor of Physics at California Institute of Technology, Sean Carroll, writing in Scientific American<\/em>, discussed the question of the origin of the Second Law of Thermodynamics: \u201c[E]xplaining why low-entropy states evolve into high-entropy states [i.e., the Second Law of Thermodynamics\u2014JM] is different from explaining why entropy is increasing in our universe<\/strong>…. [T]he real challenge is not to explain why the entropy of the universe will be higher tomorrow than it is today but to explain why the entropy was lower yesterday and even lower the day before that<\/strong>.\u201d14<\/sup> In other words, why is there such a thing as a law of nature, like the \u201cSecond Law of Thermodynamics\u201d?<\/p>\n

Theoretical physicist, faculty member at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, and adjunct Professor of Physics at the University of Waterloo, Lee Smolin, admitted, \u201cCosmology has new questions to answer. Not just what are the laws, but why are these laws the laws?\u201d15<\/sup> In a 2014 interview with Scientific American<\/em>, cosmologist George F.R. Ellis of the University of Cape Town, co-author with Stephen Hawking of the book The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time<\/em>, gave a stinging response to theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss of Arizona State University, who argues in his book, A Universe from Nothing<\/em>, that physics has ultimately answered the question of why there is something rather than nothing. Among other criticisms, Ellis said,<\/p>\n

And above all Krauss does not address why the laws of physics exist<\/strong>, why they have the form they have, or in what kind of manifestation they existed before the universe existed (which he must believe if he believes they brought the universe into existence). Who or what<\/strong> dreamt up symmetry principles, Lagrangians, specific symmetry groups, gauge theories, and so on? He does not begin to answer these questions<\/strong>.16<\/sup><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Quantum physicist Michael Brooks agreed with Ellis in his criticisms of Krauss\u2019 book. Writing in New Scientist<\/em>, he said, \u201c[T]he laws of physics can\u2019t be conjured from nothing…. Krauss contends that the multiverse makes the question of what determined our laws of nature \u2018less significant.\u2019 Truthfully, it just puts the question beyond science<\/strong> [i.e., beyond the natural\u2014JM]\u2014for now, at least.\u201d17<\/sup><\/p>\n

In his book, The Grand Design<\/em>, Hawking tried to submit a way that the Universe could have created itself from nothing without God and still be in keeping with the laws of nature\u2014an impossible concept, to be sure. He said, \u201cBecause there is a law like gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing.\u201d18<\/sup> Of course, even if such were possible, he does not explain where the law of gravity came from. Professor of mathematics and Fellow in Mathematics and the Philosophy of Science at Oxford University, John Lennox concurred. He took Hawking to task over his assertion that the laws of physics alone can explain the existence of the Universe, saying,<\/p>\n

Hawking\u2019s argument appears to me even more illogical when he says the existence of gravity means the creation of the universe was inevitable. But how did gravity exist in the first place? Who put it there? And what was the creative force behind its birth? <\/strong>Similarly, when Hawking argues, in support of his theory of spontaneous creation, that it was only necessary for \u201cthe blue touch paper\u201d to be lit to \u201cset the universe going,\u201d the question must be: where did this blue touch paper come from? And who lit it, if not God?19<\/sup><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Simply put, a more rational statement from Hawking would have been, \u201cBecause there is a law like gravity, the Universe must have been created by God.\u201d Bottom line: the existence of the laws of science is evidence of a Designer\u2014even atheists tacitly admit it.<\/p>\n

#2: \u201cWe Need to Know Who Created Life.\u201d<\/h2>\n

In Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed<\/em>, well-known British evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, Oxford University\u2019s Professor for Public Understanding of Science from 1995 to 2008, said concerning the possibility of intelligent design:<\/p>\n

It could be that at some earlier time, somewhere in the Universe, a civilization evolved by, probably, some kind of Darwinian means, to a very, very high level of technology, and designed a form of life that they seeded onto, perhaps, this planet. Now that is a possibility, and an intriguing possibility. And I suppose it\u2019s possible that you might find evidence for that, if you look at the details of our chemistry, molecular biology, you might find a signature of some kind of designer<\/strong>. And that designer could well be a higher intelligence from elsewhere in the Universe.20<\/sup><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So, according to Dawkins, when we look at our chemistry\u2014our molecular biology\u2014(1) there could be evidence of design there, and (2) that design would imply the existence of a designer\u2014a direct admission of the validity of the Teleological Argument. Granted, Dawkins does not directly endorse God as that Designer. Instead, he irrationally postulates the existence of aliens.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, since there is no evidence for the existence of aliens, there can hardly be any evidence for their establishing life on Earth. Such an idea can hardly be in keeping with the evolutionist\u2019s own beliefs about the importance of direct observation and experiment in science. Such a theory does nothing but tacitly admit (1) the truth of the Law of Biogenesis\u2014in nature, life comes only from life (in this case, aliens); and (2) the necessity of a creator\/designer in the equation.<\/p>\n

However, notice: since aliens are beings of nature, they too must be governed by the laws of nature. Recall Hawking\u2019s claim: the laws of physics \u201care universal<\/strong>. They apply not just to the flight of the ball, but to the motion of a planet and everything else in the Universe<\/strong>.\u201d21<\/sup> Evolutionary physicist Victor Stenger submitted his belief that the \u201cbasic laws\u201d of science \u201chold true in the most distant observed galaxy and in the cosmic microwave background, implying that these laws have been valid for over thirteen billion years.\u201d22<\/sup> In the interview with Stein, Dawkins went on to say concerning the supposed alien creators, \u201cBut that higher intelligence would, itself, had to have come about by some ultimately explicable process. It couldn\u2019t have just jumped into existence spontaneously<\/strong>.\u201d23<\/sup> So, the alien creators, according to Dawkins, have been strapped with the laws of nature as well. Thus, the problem of abiogenesis is merely shifted to the alien\u2019s abode, where the question of the origin of life must still be answered.<\/p>\n

Bottom line: life is evidence of design, and by implication, an intelligent designer. Writing in New Scientist<\/em>, Dawkins admitted, \u201cThe more statistically improbable a thing is, the less we can believe that it just happened by blind chance. Superficially the obvious alternative<\/strong> to chance is an intelligent Designer.\u201d24<\/sup> Sadly, the atheist simply cannot bring himself to accept the clear cut, \u201cobvious alternative\u201d that is staring him in the face.<\/p>\n

#3: \u201cWe Have to Figure Out a Way to Explain All of This Design in Nature.\u201d<\/h2>\n

George Ellis and Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Johns Hopkins University, Joseph Silk, wrote in 2014 in Nature<\/em>: \u201cThis year, debates in physics circles took a worrying turn. Faced with difficulties in applying fundamental theories to the observed Universe<\/strong>, some researchers called for a change in how theoretical physics is done.\u201d25<\/sup> Ironically, the \u201cdifficulties\u201d theoretical physicists have encountered have become considerable enough that going beyond nature is necessary. According to cosmologist Bernard Carr of Queen Mary University in London, a supernatural option of some sort is demanded. He warned cosmologists to accept the inevitable implications of the evidence: \u201cIf you don\u2019t want God, you\u2019d better have a multiverse.\u201d26<\/sup> The multiverse has, therefore, been latched onto by many naturalists to try to explain away the \u201cdifficulties\u201d facing physicists without resorting to God, even though, among other issues with it, there is absolutely no evidence for its existence.27<\/sup> Lee Smolin said, \u201cWe had to invent the multiverse,\u201d28<\/sup> and according to Lawson Parker, writing in National Geographic<\/em>, it was from our \u201cimagination.\u201d29<\/sup> The use of our imagination to determine where we came from certainly sounds like today\u2019s \u201cscience\u201d is moving ever further into the realm of fiction.<\/p>\n

Regardless, notice that according to many physicists, something beyond the current definition of science is needed to explain certain things\u2014i.e., the existence of the unobservable, supernatural realm is demanded by the evidence. Recall how Davies put it: \u201cClearly, then, both religion and science are founded on faith<\/strong>\u2014namely, on belief in the existence of something outside the universe<\/strong>, like an unexplained God or an unexplained set of physical laws, maybe even a huge ensemble of unseen universes, too.\u201d30<\/sup><\/p>\n

Besides the existence of the laws of physics, what kind of \u201cdifficulties\u201d are physicists encountering that are forcing them to conclude that something outside of the Universe exists, and therefore, that they need to \u201cinvent\u201d the multiverse to avoid God? Many have articulated well the problem. Read on to see a great lesson by naturalists on the need for a supernatural Designer for the Universe.<\/p>\n

According to Tim Folger, writing in Discover<\/em> magazine, \u201cThe idea that the universe was made just for us<\/strong>\u2014known as the anthropic principle<\/strong>\u2014debuted in 1973.\u201d31<\/sup> Since then, the mountain of evidence supporting the principle has drastically grown in elevation. Consider, for example:<\/p>\n