Fazale Rana, The Cell’s Design: How Chemistry Reveals The Creator’s Artistry (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2008), 332 Pps., $16.99
Has not modern science once-for-all uncovered the bases of molecular complexity? Is there really a need for yet another book to be written about the apparent design in nature? Fazale Rana, president of research and apologetics at Reasons To Believe, a think-tank for Christian apologetics, thinks that there is. Rana is a biochemist by training (PhD, Ohio University) who thinks that the ingenuity, beauty, complexity, and sheer exquisiteness of the cell begs for the existence of a Creator. Instead of making a negative argument regarding what macroevolution cannot do, as many other contemporary design advocates have done, Rana argues that the finer details and nuances of nature present a positive case for the existence of a designer. He contends that it is the collective case of a magnificent gallery of awe-inspiring characteristics that signify the Creator’s work in nature. It is collective characteristics that Rana turns his attention within this book, and it is to these that the focus of this review now turns as well.
Chapter one argues that the weight of inter-related evidence supports the advocation of intelligent design within biochemical systems. It is important to note that Rana critiques William Dembski here because Dembski’s ‘explanatory filter’ produces false negatives in that if God used evolutionary processes to create life, said filter may or may not be able to detect his [sic] involvement (26). He contends that the ‘filter’ cannot be used to establish intelligent causation in practice until much more is learned about biochemical systems and the potential of naturalistic processes to generate them. Cell biology and cell biochemistry are overviewed in chapter two. These details provide the necessary background, according to Rana, to appreciate the elegant design that is present within the cell’s chemical systems.
Chapters three through twelve provide the ‘meat’ of Rana’s argument within this title. In these chapters, Rana describes separate biochemical arguments for design, each of which, according to him, provides evidence of an intelligent and creative mind. For example, in chapter three, Rana focuses upon the general biochemical features of the simplest life-form, that is, the essential gene set and internal molecular organization of ‘life’. Chapter four focuses upon molecular machines, and notes that they revitalize, from considering both their form and function, the Watchmaker argument laid forth by William Paley. Within chapter six, Rana demonstrates that molecular precision, present in nearly all aspects of life’s chemical systems, raises questions about the ability of undirected evolutionary processes to achieve the apparent carefully crafted designs. In chapter seven, Rana gives examples of how the last half-century of research has given evidence about the structure and function of a myriad of proteins that, collectively, argue for intelligent causation. He notes that biochemical processes appear to be intentionally optimized, providing the examples of regulatory genes and the production of ATP as support.
Chapter eight displays the information-based nature of cell systems and molecules, and chapter nine notes that the rules of the genetic code cannot be accidental in nature, but the product of intelligent design instead. The remarkable complexity of the genetic code, he avers, makes it virtually impossible that natural selection could have stumbled upon it by accident (182). He tackles historical contingency in chapter eleven, and asserts that it suggests a way to discriminate between ‘apparent’ design and ‘intelligent’ design. The fact that a number of life’s molecules and processes are virtually identical and have arisen independently, he maintains, also indicates intelligent design (206–207). He contends that the collective evidence of these chapters provides irrefutable evidence of a supernatural derivation of life (243).
Notably, chapter thirteen addresses the problem of imperfections in nature. He argues that, for example, although ‘junk DNA’ was once thought to have no function within the cell, recent advances have demonstrated that junk DNA indeed has a function. For example, some duplicated pseudogenes help regulate the expression of their corresponding genes (259). Moreover, rather than imperfections being a big problem for intelligent design, suboptimal biochemical designs could result from the outworkings of the second law of thermodynamics (267).
All in all, the book is written in accessible language, making it accessible to a large group of individuals. Though no ardent evolutionist will be persuaded by Rana’s presentation of analogical reasoning for intelligent design within this book, it does serve to make scholars who have an open mind take pause. For this reason alone, it is a worthy addition to one’s library. It is highly recommended for those who have interests in the design argument particularly, and apologetics in general.
Bradford McCall
Regent University, Virginia Beach, VA