Intelligent Design Cosmogony

Intelligent Design claims to be a scientific alternative to the theory of evolution. What kind of an alternative, exactly? In this essay, a small excerpt from my book Shoehorning God, I explore the question of how Intelligent Design differs from the standard modern scientific account of the origin of the universe. The two accounts are not the same. Where and how do they deviate?

Proponents of ID seek “equal treatment” for their explanations in science classes. Their motto is "teach the controversy". In fairness, if you teach evolution, you should teach Intelligent Design (or creationism), too. Students should be told about “both sides” of the argument, for and against evolution, and then decide for themselves what they want to believe. In this chapter, I ask, what exactly should teachers tell students about the origin of the universe from the perspective of Intelligent Design?

Advocated of Intelligent Design advocates are usually not Bible thumpers. So, the issue is not the large timescales that science describes. While the proponents of ID cite the Cambrian explosion as evidence for design, they do not deny that it occurred a very long time ago - over half a billion years ago. Proponents of ID accept that life arose over time but insist that the process was externally guided.

Intelligent Design is said to have a “big tent” approach to creation and design. It is claimed to incorporate (other) creationist views within itself. However, most proponents of Intelligent Design believe their worldview is different from creationism. The age estimates of the universe are an important factor in this. The vast majority of Intelligent Design proponents subscribe to an old Earth universe view and adhere to the age estimates accepted by various scientific disciplines. 

Stars and planets still condensing in space are part of an overall renewal going on in the universe. Supposedly, we could interpret this as design and see with our own eyes how it is unfolding in the universe. We can study life forms under laboratory conditions and draw conclusions about their design. We can look at individual organisms and chemical systems to think about their origins and how they came to be. Was design involved, and if so, what kind - artificial or natural? Intelligent Design, however, is about the origin of the universe on a larger scale. It has to do with how the entire world we live in came to be – and the people in it.

The discussion on ID is mainly about the origins of the universe, humanity, and the distant past. How did the world and its various contents - galaxies, stars, life forms, and humanity - come into being? At the heart of the discussions is the question of cosmogony, that is, the “study of the history of the universe.” For most of human history, this subject has been the specialty of religious scholars and philosophers. Religions answer these questions in their creation stories and myths, in which various gods create the world and humanity, or how the cosmic egg breaks open and the universe comes into being.

The ancient Babylonians believed that the heavens and the Earth were created from the carcass of a slain god. In Hindu mythology, Purusha was the primordial man whose body became the universe. These accounts are clearly worded, although they may not be based on the imagination and reasoning of pre-scientific cultures. In the Bible, for example, God begins with the creation of the heavens and the Earth, then the Sun, the Moon, and the stars. After that, all living things that move are formed, and finally, human beings are created.

In modern times, the history of the universe can be studied scientifically. We can devise a scientific cosmogony, that begins with the Big Bang and ends with human beings. Intelligent Design, however, does not subscribe to this account. It is often touted as an alternative to the theory of evolution, and takes a contrarian view of it. What kind of alternative cosmogony does it present?

According to ID, God did not simply create the conditions for the emergence of life at the Big Bang. If one simply assumes that God was behind the Big Bang, cosmogony would not be a true alternative. It is an interpretation that says that everything that happens at and after the Big Bang is God's creative activity. This view does not assume that God acts in any way other than through the natural processes that He sets in motion. This would be the cosmogony of the deists and the evolutionary creationists.

A scenario in which the universe comes into being by chance due to a quantum flux and the Designer decides to intervene only later hardly seems plausible. Logically, this cannot be the case. As pointed out, if an Intelligent Designer exists, He has to have caused the Big Bang at the beginning and set the world's processes going. If the Designer is to intervene in the universe, He must first set it up.

Modern scientific textbooks attest to the same account of the origin of the universe and life through natural processes. They describe the Big Bang and the formation of matter in the first 400 000 years. Soon, the universe cools down enough to allow subatomic particles and, later, simple atoms, to form. Galaxies begin to form in the first few hundred million years of the universe. Our galaxy formed about 800 million years after the Big Bang. Stars were created within galaxies. Heavier elements were slowly produced by nucleosynthesis inside massive stars. Supernovae spread the necessary materials for planets and biological life throughout the universe. These processes are still ongoing in the universe, as new stars and planets are constantly forming inside interstellar clouds. As a result of the Big Bang, all the galaxies are moving away from each other. On Earth, life began soon after the star system stabilized. Life evolved and diversified over time through natural processes such as mutation and natural selection. The first simple life arose in the sea. After more than three billion years of evolution, life settled on land, then in the sky, and finally, in cubicles.

Of course, there are still unanswered questions. The cause of the Big Bang is a mystery to which we will return in this book. Whether there was a period of cosmic inflation in the earliest moments of the universe remains controversial. How water arrived on Earth and how the moon formed are still not clear. The “Giant Impact” theory assumes that the Moon was formed by a massive collision between the Earth and another celestial body. However, if one studies the origin of the universe from non-creationist sources, one will get basically the same explanation for the origin of the world and man.

Our own solar system is believed to have formed about 9 billion years after the Big Bang. Proponents of ID have not proposed an alternative view to replace the Big Bang and the subsequent processes. For instance, the proponents of ID do not claim that a Designer had to intervene to condense matter and gather it into galaxies. Nor does He have had to create stars and planets manually. In general, these processes are thought to be the result of the fine-tuning of physics, the 1/100 000 ripples in the primordial matter, and the expansion of the universe after the Big Bang. Therefore, the two explanations for the formation of the universe in the first 9 billion years do not differ.

Life emerged after the star system formed. The proponents of ID do deny that life could evolve on its own without guidance. In the evolutionary history of ID, life does not evolve on its own – at least not on a large, macroscopic scale. It is too complex to have formed without planning. Some have argued that there is a law against it – the law of biogenesis. So, it is abiogenesis and the theory of evolution that pose serious theological problems, while the first 10 billion years of the formation of the universe pose no problems. Since life clearly came into existence somehow, we must assume that God artificially created it. So, Intelligent Design claims that there are no natural mechanisms for macroevolution. Rather, life is the result of the design work of a conscious and rational designer.

The main difference seems to be that in the explanation not based on ID, God is not invoked as a agent influencing the universe after the Big Bang. Scientists don’t explain the emergence of new life forms in terms of God or design. Even though biochemists haven’t yet figured out how life arose, they assume it was a natural process. Proponents of ID, however, claim that life emerged as the result of an artificial design. They attribute biological diversity to conscious activities rather than to unconscious, undirected, and “blind” factors such as mutation and natural selection. Abiogenesis and macroevolution are believed to be impossible. Life consists to a large extent of “irreducibly complex” structures. The Cambrian explosion is too great a change to be solved by natural causes. In addition to the Cambrian explosion, there are other gaps in the fossil record due to the activities of the Designer. 

In the account that follows, I will assume that these Intelligent Design hypotheses are true. Intelligent Design is consistent with reality and is the way things happened in reality. I will assume that a rational, intelligent agent was indeed involved in the origin and diversification of life. In this scenario, God first sets up the universe with finely tuned physical laws. Later, after 10 billion years, He descends into the universe to carefully construct life. He alters and manipulates biomolecules in appropriate ways to set life processes in motion - He artificially inseminates the universe, so to speak.

The purpose of this description is not to give a comprehensive account of everything that happened after the Big Bang. It is to give the reader an idea of how Intelligent Design departs from the standard scientific account of the origin of the universe, life, and humanity.

The Universe Radiates from God

The Intelligent Designer causes the universe to begin forming. The universe begins to unfold from its original state of undifferentiated unity. Within the first second after the Big Bang, there were "epochs" which were incredibly short. In these epochs, the fundamental particles are formed, and the forces of nature separate from each other.

The Planck epoch is the period between the beginning of the universe and about 10−43 seconds when the universe was still very compact. The laws of physics are not understood. The four known forces of nature began as a single force, but as the universe expanded, each force established its own identity. The Grand Unified Epoch was a period when gravity separated from the other three forces of nature. The universe began to cool and expand.

At 10−36 seconds the electroweak epoch began. The temperature dropped below the level required to maintain the grand unified symmetry. The strong interaction decoupled from the other forces. During the inflation that followed, the universe expanded enormously in a very short time. It then resumed its former normal rate of expansion.

At 10-12 seconds, the quark epoch begins. Quarks, electrons, and neutrinos are created. The four forces are separated. At this point, there were almost as many antiquarks as quarks. As the universe cooled, the quarks and antiquarks paired up and cancelled each other out. But there was a slight imbalance. There was a slight excess of quarks left, which made up everything we see today. This was exactly what the designed universe was supposed to do. Everything, including humans, is now made up of that tiny difference. The universe now consisted of free quarks and gluons, along with the carrier particles of the combined electromagnetic and weak forces.

As the universe expanded, it cooled, allowing more subatomic particles to form. At 10−6 seconds after the Big Bang, quarks condensed into hadrons, ushering in the hadron epoch. Electrons collided with protons and formed neutrons.

At the age of one second, the universe entered the lepton epoch. Particles associated with the weak interaction, such as electrons, muons, and neutrinos, dominated the cosmos. Leptons and antileptons annihilated each other, giving birth to vast amounts of photons.

About 180 seconds after the Big Bang, the universe passed through the temperature range where nuclear fusion occurred. In the nuclear epoch, fusion occurred rapidly before conditions became too cool for further reactions. The cosmic sea of unbound protons, neutrons, and electrons turned into hydrogen, deuterium, helium, and a small amount of lithium.

In the first moments, one epoch followed the other in an elegant transition, just like the Intelligent Designer had planned it. The Intelligent Designer fine-tuned the expansion rate of the universe just right for life to evolve later.

About 370 000 years after the Big Bang, atomic nuclei and electrons combined to form hydrogen and helium atoms. Shortly thereafter, photons decoupled from matter. Photons began to move freely through the universe without interacting with matter. At this point, the microwave background was formed. A short time later, the universe became transparent.

Over time, the universe continued to expand and cool. Radiation gave way to matter as the dominant component of the universe. The slight differences in the density of matter ("perturbations") began to prevail. The Designer set in motion a smooth universe, but not one that was too smooth. If the primordial matter had been too smooth, no galaxies could have formed. The densest regions collapsed due to gravity. They formed clusters of galaxies, just as the Intelligent Designer had planned. The galactic epoch began 100 million years after the Big Bang. Large clouds of primordial hydrogen and helium condensed into stars. The stars began synthesizing all the other elements found in the universe today.

Although our galaxy was formed 800 million years after the Big Bang, it took about 9 billion years for the Sun to form. Massive stars had to die before the ashes of nuclear fusion accumulated to the point where they contained enough oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, sulfur, and phosphorus to create an environment conducive to life. A nearby supernova explosion compressed a dense cloud of gas and dust, which collapsed due to its own gravity.

The cloud from which the solar system formed drew on the remnants of some other stars that had preceded it. As the cloud condensed, it became hotter and spun faster. Eventually, the center of the cloud became so hot that it began to fuse hydrogen into helium. About 4.5 billion years ago, a huge dust cloud collapsed on itself. At the center of the cloud, the Sun began to shine.

Newborn stars are surrounded by a protoplanetary disk of dust and gas. From this disk are formed the objects we can observe everywhere in the universe, such as moons, planets, and asteroids. Our solar system formed in the middle of a dense interstellar cloud of dust and gas. The Earth was created in the thin disk of gas and dust surrounding the protostar. All the matter in the original collapsing interstellar cloud does not coalesce into the star itself. It collapses into the spinning circumstellar disk, where planets form by accretion. Centrifugal forces separated the heavier elements away from the center of the disk.

Some planetesimals began to collide and stay together due to gravity. Planetesimals grew larger and formed the planets and their satellites. The planets slowly cleared out the space around the star. Over millions of years, the planetary embryos collided with each other, reducing their numbers. In the case of our solar system, the protoplanetary disc broke up into ten rings, representing the nine future planets and the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. A Mars-sized planet may have crashed into Earth, leaving the Moon behind.

The period of heavy bombardment corresponded to the end of planetary accretion. In addition to planets, a variety of small bodies formed in the disc, including comets and asteroids. During the period of heavy bombardment, various smaller bodies collided frequently. Comets raining down on the inner solar system provided an abundance of water for the planet. Comets and asteroids probably also delivered the early precursors of the biomolecules that would eventually spark life.

Initially, the Earth was a molten mass, but as it cooled down, its surface solidified about 4.5 Ga, giving rise to primordial continents. The cooling process led to the separation of the Earth into distinct layers: an outer cool crust, an inner molten mantle, and a core. The heavier iron sank towards the core, while lighter elements rose to the surface. This marked the beginning of plate tectonics. The Earth was ready for life.

 

Life’s Construction

Around this time, the Intelligent Designer pulled up his metaphysical sleeves and set to work designing life. 10 billion years had gone by without a glitch in the naturalistic processes. The period and extent of fine-tuning were over. Many molecules necessary for life had been formed in space and arrived on Earth with asteroids. However, they could not form life on their own. For sure, the laws of nature were fine-tuned for life. They were not so fine-tuned that life should have naturally emerged as a result of them. Thus, no chemical laws exist in the universe to bring about even the simplest cell, just its components, like amino acids and the bases of DNA and RNA. In this universe, life cannot arise from inanimate material. It only comes from preceding life, and the Intelligent Designer is the only living God. Thus, the only place where life could come from is the Designer himself.

The epoch of artificial design began when the Intelligent Designer entered the universe and began to manually design life. He needed someone with whom He could establish a personal relationship. It would be a short and simple task, He thought to himself, and set to work.

The Designer descended on his divine plan and had the biomolecules copulate. Now begins the manipulation of atoms to form amino acids and nucleic acids that make up DNA or RNA. They are embedded in phospholipid layers. From these components, the Designer could build the machinery and structure of the cell.

No one knows exactly what the Designer did, and probably no one ever will. However, it appears that the Designer first created very simple, single-celled organisms that grew and reproduced in the oceans. Somewhat later, He designed archaea and bacteria.

About 2.4 billion years ago, photosynthesizing prokaryotes began to produce large amounts of oxygen. It began to accumulate in the Earth’s atmosphere. So much oxygen was formed that it poisoned and extinguished every other non-aerobic life form on the Earth that the Designer had created. Oh, well. Necessary sacrifices on the path of progress.

At first, the Designer was very slow at creating life. For almost 2 billion years, simple prokaryotic organisms prevailed. Then the Designer decided to make more complex cells. The Designer caused one of the early prokaryotes to engulf another, and the two cells entered into a symbiotic relationship. This was the birth of the first eukaryote. Later, the Designer introduced cyanobacteria into eukaryotes. They established themselves as symbionts in their host. This led to chloroplasts.

The diversification of eukaryotes and the first multicellular organisms emerged about 1.2 billion years ago. Probably the earliest example of multicellularity is the fossil of Bangiomorpha pubescens, a red alga. It was a wonderful idea by the Designer. Higher intelligence requires multicellularity. But all in all, the Designer designed created little new complexity in the Proterozoic. There is even a period of a billion years during which the Designer designed hardly any new living things. Only microevolution took place. Geologists call this period the ”Boring Billion” or the “Barren Billion”. Perhaps the Designer had to take a nap after constructing the very complicated bacterial flagellum.

It could be that not much life could be developed because snow and ice filled the Earth. During the ”Snowball Earth” period, the lower carbon dioxide content in the atmosphere caused the Earth to cool and ice to form. A positive feedback effect occurred as the ice reflected more sunlight back into space. The ice moved from the poles and encompassed the entire Earth. This cold spell was so intense that the oceans may have frozen over. The ice did not melt until a certain threshold level of volcanically generated carbon dioxide caused enough warming to melt the ice.

Complex living things were not created until 630 million years ago, 3.2 billion years after life’s origin. After the ice and snow had subsided, the Designer could really get to work designing new species. About 600 million years ago, the Designer created the Ediacara fauna. The Ediacara fauna were organisms with soft bodies, such as jellyfish or seaweeds, in a variety of sizes and shapes. However, the Ediacarans were a dead end. They were still far too simple. No conscious thought could exist in them, and so the Designer stopped designing them. The Ediacarans largely disappeared about 542 million years ago.

Now, the Designer remembers that the Sun will produce light and heat for only 10 billion years. At this rate, self-conscious, intelligent beings will not emerge during its lifetime. After all, there has been life for 3 billion years already, but it has not even reached land yet. The Designer decides to speed things up. This realization marks the beginning of the Phanerozoic Eon, which comes from the Greek and means ”visible life”. Now the Designer gets busy and designs new lifeforms very rapidly. Multicellular plants and animals become more common across the globe. The diversity of life explodes in what we now know as the Cambrian Explosion. The Designer designs a multitude of different life forms within just a few million years. Fish and protoamphibians are designed. Flowering plants are also made, and the land begins to green. The Designer is proud of his achievements.

But then a massive mass extinction occurs. The Designer certainly didn’t see this coming. The mass extinction in the late Ordovician, about 444 million years ago, wiped out 85% of all marine species. This event saw massive losses of the dominant animals of the time: trilobites, brachiopods, and corals. No worries, the Designer can design more species. He has made another c hange to his plan: terrestrialization. He decides to move life from the water to the land. Now, insects and amphibians are designed. The Designer also incorporates animals with blood-clotting systems. Life fills the planet again while the Designer is busy creating new species.

But - another mass extinction occurs. The Designer cannot believe it. Not again. The Late Devonian mass extinction occurred about 375 million years ago and spelled the end of 70% of marine invertebrates. The Designer designs more life forms. Tens of millions of years pass as new life forms, such as reptiles, are designed.

Just as the Designer was getting the hang of it, another mass extinction occurred. This largest mass extinction at the Permian–Triassic boundary 252 million years ago is often called the “Great Dying”. Over 80% of terrestrial species and more than 90% of marine species disappeared. Several major groups became extinct, including, for example, the famous trilobites. It is frustrating, but the Designer could always design more species to replace those that perished.

 

Now, another 50 million years or so have passed. But again, another mass extinction occurs, at the end of the Triassic period. This new extinction event, known as the Triassic-Jurassic extinction, resulted in significant losses among fish, mollusks, brachiopods, and other marine groups. About 76% of marine and terrestrial species perished. However, this extinction event created an opportunity for new life forms to emerge, particularly mammals. But first, the Designer decided to focus on designing dinosaurs. An incredible 165 million years go by as the Designer fills the world with these magnificent beings. Unfortunately, a devastating asteroid hits the Earth in the Yucatan Peninsula, leading to the near-extinction of the dinosaurs and erasing much of the Designer’s painstaking work. It was a regrettable oversight on the Designer’s part not to have cleared the asteroids and comets from the solar system. One of them ended up causing the demise of his finest designs so far. It was truly a shame, considering that those raptors were on the verge of acquiring higher levels of cognitive abilities or conscious thought.

Undeterred by this setback, the Designer shifted his focus to developing mammals instead. Perhaps He could create intelligence in one of those species. Again, tens of millions of years go by. The Designer guided the evolution of a group of apes by placing them in the savannah environment and facilitated their transition to an upright posture. With the ability to walk upright, the apes began to exhibit more complex behaviors. They started to use tools, cooperate, and communicate among themselves more. Finally, humanity begins! In a few million years, they will be able to establish a meaningful relationship with their Designer. If not the gaps in the fossil record, perhaps a few localized miracles will convince them that their Designer truly loves them.

Intelligent Design imagines that life on our planet was constructed artificially by an inferior god, a demiurge.