I have been reading extensively in the scientific area seeking to understand micro-biology.  What you say!  Why would a former engineer who now is a leadership consultant bother reading about micro-structures and the cell?  There is a method to my madness.  I have news for those who have missed it.  America is involved in a culture war.  Whether people believe it, have decided to remain neutral or just don’t care – it is still here.  If you don’t believe it you are just not informed.  If you wish to remain neutral you will realize neutrality is impossible.  If you just don’t care – I will attempt to explain why you should.  I love this country and all that it was founded upon.  We have been the most blessed country the world has ever known.  The United States and Canada stand in the historic flow of Western Civilization and enjoy the benefits of its gathered wisdom.  The founders created our country on Judeo-Christian principles from the Bible that aided in the blessings of America.    What is going wrong?  G.K. Chesterton said a wise statement, “Never remove a fence until you determine why it was there in the first place.”  How many fences have been torn up in America by judicial activist or well-meaning but unwise politicians?   It is time to retrace our footsteps back to the principles that are timeless and proven.

 

Human nature has not nor will not change regardless of what the evolutionist will tell you.   Technology has changed the way we live, but has not changed who we are.  We still struggle with our emotions overcoming our reason.  We still ask who are we and why are we here?  How you answer the questions will have a radical impact on the way you live.  Yes: Ideas do have consequences.  Rabbi Daniel Lapin is the author of America’s Real War.  He has a perceptive message to America today:

 

One of the most profound truths about America as we approach the end of the twentieth century is that we are no longer one nation under God.  We are really two separate nations with two distinct and incompatible moral visions. . . . . .

 

For the purpose of trying to clarify the cultural tug-of-war, we need only ask the question: Did we get here by a process of unaided materialistic evolution or did God arrange it?  Do we come from a Creator or from apes?

 

Are human beings created?  If they are doesn’t this change the role of leadership compared to if human beings are here by chance?  We must understand the foundational principles of who we are and what our purpose is to lead people properly.  Understanding who we are and why we are here will have a huge effect on the culture of America also.  This is why I read Michael Behe’s incredible book, Darwin’s Black Box.  Michael Behe is Professor of Biological Sciences at Lehigh University.  He received his PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Pennsylvania in 1978.  The book is a biochemical challenge to evolution and is still un-refuted (albeit much discussed) a decade later.  According to Behe,

 

Biochemistry is the study of the very basis of life: the molecules that make up cells and tissues, that catalyze the chemical reactions of digestion, photosynthesis, immunity, and more. . . . . .

 

In its full throated, biological sense, however, evolution means a process whereby life arose from non-living matter and subsequently developed entirely by natural means. . . .

 

The cumulative results show with piercing clarity that life is based on machines—machines made of molecules!  Molecular machines haul cargo from one place in the cell to another along “highways” made of other molecules, while still others act as cables, ropes, and pulleys to hold the cell in shape.  Machines turn cellular switches on and off, sometimes killing the cell or causing it to grow.  Solar-powered machines capture the energy of photons and store it in chemicals.  Electrical machines allow current to flow through nerves.  Manufacturing machines build other molecular machines, as well as themselves.  Cells swim using machines, copy themselves with machinery, ingest food with machinery.  In short, highly sophisticated molecular machines control every cellular process.  Thus the details of life are finely calibrated, and the machinery of life enormously complex. . . . .

 

If you search the scientific literature on evolution, and if you focus your search on the question of how molecular machines—the basis of life—developed, you find an eerie and complete silence.  The complexity of life’s foundation has paralyzed science’s attempt to account for it; molecular machines raise an as-yet-impenetrable barrier to Darwinism’s universal reach. 

 

Do you understand what Professor Behe is saying?  As an engineer - I walked through miles of factories with specifically designed processes to start from raw materials to finished assemblies.  When I observed an intricately designed process—I was inspired to be a better engineer and sought to find the person who designed the machines to learn from them.  Professor Behe is telling us the design of cells is more intricate than the best process any human engineer has ever designed.  Are we really suggesting that a level of complexity beyond any engineer was created by chance outcomes?  This sounds like an incredible leap of faith to me!  What I appreciate so much about Professor Behe is that he is intellectually honest and let the data speak to him without bias.  Professor Behe is one of the early originator of a growing movement known as Intelligent Design.  Intelligent Design does not claim to know who designed the system, but claims evolutionary theory or chance could not generate the level of complexity discovered in micro-biology. 

 

Darwin himself stated, “If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly haven formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.”

 

What type of biological system could not be formed by “numerous, successive, slight modifications”?   Professor Behe has an answer.

 

Well for starters a system that is irreducibly complex.  By irreducibly complex I mean a single system composed of several well-matched, interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, wherein the removal of any one of the parts cause the system to effectively cease functioning.  An irreducible complex system cannot be produced directly (that is, by continuously improving the initial function, which continues to work by the same mechanism) by slight, successive modifications of a precursor system, because any precursor to an irreducibly complex system that is missing a part is by definition nonfunctional. 

 

Microbiology is full of irreducibly complex systems and Professor Behe displays several examples in all their intricate details in his fabulous book.  My personal favorite is the bacterial flagellum.  It has a rotor, stator, bearings etc.  I was stunned when I read about the flagellum because it looks so similar to the fuel pumps I designed.  The fuel pumps had commutators, rotors, bearings, and pumps.  The motor mechanism in the flagellum is an ingenious design by an incredible Engineer!  A good example of a simple irreducible system is the mousetrap.  If it is missing one of its irreducible parts—it will never catch the mouse.  The mousetrap needs all of its parts to work and is worthless unless all the required components are functional.  This makes it irreducibly complex because any part taken away and you lose the function of catching mice.  This is a sure sign that someone designed the mousetrap because it could not have happened through steps of smaller to greater complexity as each step would be non-function and thus not retained.  There is not a functioning half a mousetrap.

 

What does this have to do with leadership and America’s culture war?    I believe plenty!  If a person is created—then leaders must help them fulfill the purpose they were created for.  If a person is here by chance—then any authority figure can manipulate people for their purpose.  This is what the culture war is about.  Are leaders leading people to fulfill their Godly purpose or are leaders manipulating people for the leaders self interest?  If there is no God then the leader must decide what the purpose of the people is.  This is a scary thought!  True leadership of people and God’s plan for someone’s life are intricately linked—like the irreducible complex systems.  We will finish this discussion in a part two.   How we view man and his creation has a huge impact on how we view America and our roles as leaders.  God Bless, Orrin Woodward