Oh No! It's Intelligent Design, Educational, AND FUN!

(http://www.cellcraftgame.com/Home.html)

For the past half year or so I've had some ideas floating around in my head for a fun little educational strategy game based on creating a functional living cell. Well it turns out that someone with actual game design experience and education has beaten me to the punch. 

While reading an article about a small company that recently released a strategy tower defense RPG flash game, I noticed that the writer mentioned another game he had developed and released called CellCraft. I was immediately interested as it sounded EXACTLY like what I had been thinking about doing for a game. I looked it up and sure enough it did a lot of what I'd had in mind. It taught the Player about the parts and workings of a living cell. Good for the developer! I was a little disappointed that someone else had come up with a fun little game based on the same kind of idea, but I was also happy to see that such an idea had been put to good use already.

The underlying meaning of this game concept, however, is what initially poked my interest. The game was going to show the Player just how incredible the biology of a single cell was. How a single cell did all kinds of different things based on all kinds of different parts and chemicals in order to survive and accomplish what it needs to. What does all that marvellous structure and functional detail say about the incredible complexity of life? That it can't have happened by accident! It's SO detailed, SO interconnected and SO full of rich specific information and instructions to build and use all kinds of molecule-sized parts that the only way to describe it is to say that it is an astoundingly sophisticated self-sustaining miniscule biological machine. And where do machines come from? An intelligent designer and manufacturer, a creator.

This underlying theme was not at all lost on evolutionist educators who were at first impressed with the game and how it could teach the Player all about the different parts and functions of a single living cell... And then they realized the horrific truth. Neo-Darwinist evolution was mostly absent from the game and instead, the Player of the game was essentially an Intelligent Designer, an alien biologist (a platypus, in fact) constructing a living cell. Evolutionists and atheists immediately wrote articles attacking the game and stating that it was in no way educational or beneficial to any student who might play it because it promoted “Creationism”. 

Game reviews for CellCraft were very good and a lot of people were raving about the fact that the game was educational AND fun! People were saying how much the game taught them about cell biology and that they had a great time playing it too, a rarity in educational software.

“Where CellCraft excels is in the depth of the scientific material presented throughout the game.” “… a challenging and informative educational game with creative and satisfying gameplay mechanics.”

(http://www.brainsforgames.rachelnponce.com/2011/07/review-cellcraft.html)

“Played Cellcraft this morning, which turned out to be one of the best science education games I’ve seen in a while.”
(http://www.meme-hazard.org/blog/2011/06/12/game-review-cellcraft/)

“Now that I've played this highly educational, yet highly fun, game, I would ask they create more games like this.”

(http://omgn.com/review/2011/01/25/cellcraft-review)

So people without any sort of political bent in the debate between Neo-Darwinist evolution and creationism or Intelligent Design clearly thought the game was an outstanding and fun way to learn basic cell biology. Everyone was raving about its educational merits. Atheists, however, were NOT impressed.

PZ Myers, an atheist evolutionist who quite regularly takes on the issues of intelligent design vs evolution (from the pro-evolution and anti-creation perspective) wrote about the game under a blog post titled, "CellCraft, a subversive little game".

"... as a tool for teaching anyone about biology, it sucks. It is not an educational game, it is a miseducational game. I hope no one is planning on using it in their classroom."

(http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/07/cellcraft_a_subversive_little.php)

 The credits for the game include this damning few lines of text. 

"Also thanks to Dr. Jed Macosko at Wake Forest University and Dr. David Dewitt at Liberty University for providing lots of support and biological guidance."

Evolutionists discovered that two of the science contributors to the game were scientists that support the Intelligent Design belief that all life was Intelligent Designed and planted on earth by an Intelligent Designer (Creator). This belief basically states that life is far too sophisticated, complex and full of detailed specified instruction and information (like a massive computer program and intricate city all contained in a single cell) for it to have simply happened by the accidental chance combination of available chemicals of the universe. The atheists and evolutionists had their smoking gun.

As PZ Myers states, 

"Those two are notorious creationists and advocates for intelligent design creationism. Yep. It's a creationist game."

Yes, it's true, the game does not promote Neo-Darwinist evolution. It instead places the Player as the intelligent director and builder of a living cell and their parts. You, as the Player, simply collect the needed chemicals to build the parts and when you have enough of those chemicals, your part is build and added to the cell, giving it a new important feature. The game is structured and plays like a game should, while also providing a lot of information on cell biology that most people would have no clue about.

The atheists are mad because a couple of the scientists that the game’s science was double checked with believe in Intelligent Design, and the game itself does not contain much (if any) explicit references to evolution. They can’t complain about the actual science in the game, but that doesn’t matter. What irks them is the lack of evolution and the fact that the game does an admirable job of showing just how amazing and complex a single living cell is. That complexity can’t help beg the question, “How could this have ever ‘just happened’ by chance?” though such a question is never implied or asked in the game itself.

One furious atheist commenter online said about the game (slightly censored by myself)…

“motherf***ing insidious b*st*rds.

well, it's obvious not ALL of them are complete morons, though it's still the case that all of them are sleazy, underhanded, b*st*rds.”

Thankfully there are also many level headed and rational people out there (evolutionists and atheists included) that have posted comments in relation to the game in a much more positive light

“I don't care who makes the game, if I find it educationally useful.”

Some angry atheists freaked out because the game doesn’t directly preach evolution. In fact, it doesn’t directly preach ANYTHING! But it shows you just how desperate evolution must become in order to survive. Unless it is constantly pointed at, taught, included or spoken of as absolute truth, the incredible realities of life all around us testify to their magnificent and brilliant Creator, God.

GENETICS: All Creatures From Noah's Ark?

Evolutionist Argument:  You believe that all animal life on earth died out in a giant global flood except for a male and female of each “kind” that were saved on a big boat. Now, a few thousand years later, you believe that ALL living creatures came from those few that were saved on Noah’s Ark… Seriously? All dogs, all cats, all reptiles, all bugs, EVERYTHING, from one large floating zoo? Crazy!

Animals Entering the Ark – from the movie Evan Almighty.

Any Evolutionist or atheist that makes such an argument as the one written above has made a monumental mistake of judgement and logic. Noah’s ark has no problem explaining how life survived the flood and became as it is today, while Evolutionists have a massively worse problem trying to explain ALL forms of life (all plants, birds, bugs, reptiles, mammals, bacteria, etc.).

Those of us that believe in Noah’s Ark believe that Noah, with the help of God, managed to collect and care for a male and female of every KIND of creature on the ark. Though we might not know what exactly constitutes a “kind” in every situation, we do know that if you only had to take one male and one female dog onto the Ark, and if you took them on as cubs, they’d be able to generate all the varied dog species we have today, given a cycle of many generations and natural breeding. As dogs spread all over the world, natural selection easily explains how the dog population can change into all different kinds of dogs over time, especially if they all originated from a pair of dogs with an immensely more diverse set of genetics. Such a situation is completely plausible, realistic, and adheres perfectly to our scientific understanding of how genetics and breeding works. But note that all dogs are still dogs, all cats are still cats, all monkeys are still monkeys, and all people are still people. No where does any of these surviving creatures “evolve” into different kinds of creature.

So we, as Bible believing Christians, have no problem explaining all kinds of living creatures today because we simply state that they have ALWAYS existed (since God’s Creation of Earth). Sure, they’ve changed and become much more diverse over many years, but they truly have all descended from one male and one female of their kind.

 

The Biblical Story of Noah’s Ark Fits The Science of Genetics

Biology and genetics are an incredible complex and wondrous field of science, but Neo Darwinism (evolution from molecules to single celled organism to all life on earth) actually goes in the opposite direction that science tells us it should, and does. The story of Noah’s Ark, however, and all living creatures that exist today since that time (about 4000 years ago), fit perfectly into the scientific understanding of genetics.

The Bible says that God created everything in a perfect condition, like a book without a single misprint or flaw. That being said, from the time of Creation to the Flood, is estimated to have been around 2000 years. 

Since we’re playing in the realm of genetics and reproduction here, what would happen if you had two dogs (a male and female) that contained the entire “dog” genetic library within their genes? The genes of those dogs would contain ALL the genetic possibilities and variability that God had “programmed” into them. Over time with each successive generation, new species of dogs would arise as different variations of those genes became dominant and/or lost. Mankind, throughout its existence, has bred all kinds of species for all types of different creatures (horses, dogs, livestock, chickens, cats, sheep, etc.). That’s all done through selective breeding, which is something Evolutionists AND Creationists completely agree on. It’s a proven well documented and heavily verified science. Dogs over time breed different kinds of dogs. That same principle works across all other forms of life on our planet both in the past and today.

 

Neo Darwinism Is In WAY More Trouble Than Noah’s Ark

What if we compare the Creationist explanation of modern day life to the Darwinist explanation? Not surprisingly, you find that the Darwinist is in WAY more trouble trying to explain the existence of all life (not just air breathing life) than Creationists are.

The argument against Noah’s Ark that exists at the start of this blog post states that believing all present day dogs (or any other kind of creature) descended from a common biological ancestor, is preposterous… But that’s exactly what Darwinists believe!!! That ALL living things on earth of ALL kinds (not just air breathing creatures) descended from common ancestors. Not just all dogs from dogs, but ALL things (plants, bugs, bacteria, mammals, fish, etc.) from a specific limited set of ancestor life forms! Mammals all evolved from the same thing, according to Darwinists. Cats, dogs, monkeys, bears, deer, gophers, rabbits, horses, cows, elephants and even humans! We ALL supposedly descend from the SAME common ancestors…

Tell me now. WHO is the crazy one? If all dogs cannot have descended from a single pair of dogs, then all mammals could most definitely not have “evolved” from a couple “almost mammals”, and absolutely NOT from a single celled organism, which itself evolved from a pile of chemical goo, so the Evolutionist believes.

An example of the Evolutionary “Tree of Life”. All life from a single celled organism. But they still can’t explain where that “single celled organism” came from.

 The Evolution Of Life Runs Backwards

Neo Darwinism (the modern theory of evolution) actually claims that life runs in the OPPOSITE direction from what history and science tells us it does. 

Genetics shows us that a small group of creatures have to be very similar genetically in order to breed together. Even many different species of dogs, or horses, or cats, or whatever else of the same kind, cannot properly breed with their own kind because over time their genes have become too different to properly and successfully “pair up”. Why? Because the genetic library (DNA) is finite, limited, and it digresses (falls apart and shrinks) over time. It does NOT expand or grow and develop brand new sets of genetic information and advancement. This is why if you take twelve similar dogs and breed them over and over and over again (performing no intelligent natural selection of your own, simply letting them breed on their own) you’ll eventually end up with a pile of very genetically weak and sickly dogs.

A couple years ago I visited a zoo and one of the scientists there briefly mentioned that there are so few cheetahs left in the wild now that they will never again be a strong vibrant species. Why is this? Because the genetic library of the world’s living cheetahs has shrunk so much over time that they can no longer produce an adequate supply of genetically healthy offspring. Their genetics are handicapped, forever, because there’s not enough genetic variability between them all anymore. This very same principle works within the population of mankind. Lock a set of people onto an island and don’t allow anyone from outside to join their population, and within a short number of generations you’ll end up with a very genetically weak and damaged population group. The babies that survive birth will be overflowing with tons of genetic defects resulting in all manner of physical and mental handicaps because their DNA is so polluted with copied and duplicated errors. This is why we can’t marry and have babies with our siblings, and why we shouldn’t even make babies with cousins. Because the genetic flaws in our own DNA are going to be very similar to a lot of the same genetic flaws in our near relatives, resulting in children born with genetics that ONLY contain the errors and have no alternate set of genes without the errors to make up for the genetic damage.

This is scientific fact! Genetics and DNA is a library of variability, but over time that library becomes polluted with countless copying errors that degenerate that library, making it inferior and weak. To combat this major problem, mankind even has laws in place to prevent people from marrying and having children with near relatives. Look at all the diseases and handicaps both physical and mental that exist throughout our population today. A good number of these (most of them, actually) have a genetic origin. They are caused by weak error-riddled DNA. Mankind’s population and genetic library is massive, yet it’s still so heavily damaged that we’re producing tons and tons of genetically damaged children. Copy errors in the genetic code are HARMFUL, NOT beneficial, like evolutionists so badly want to believe. Science shows us that the exact opposite of Neo Darwinism happens to DNA over time. It degrades and loses information. It does NOT gain it.

Creationists have NO problem explaining why this happens. We believe that God created a perfect genome, a perfect set of DNA for all life on earth (a perfect set of dog DNA, a perfect set of Turtle DNA, a perfect set of Human DNA, etc.) and that when mankind sinned and brought corruption into the world, that perfect world began to break down. So instead of a perfectly preserved genome existing in all kinds of life all over the planet, life is now running on borrowed time with a genetic library that is gradually falling apart collecting more and more copy errors with each new generation. There still exists a vast quantity of genetic variability in life and that variability results in all the different appearances and structures of life all around us today, but change within the DNA of life over time is degrading that DNA, NOT improving it, like Evolutionists believe. The funny thing is that Evolutionists know this and admit this, because it’s hard and proven science, but they blindly and wishfully believe that these laws of entropy don’t apply when it comes to their theory of Evolution, because it CAN’T have applied for their beliefs to have worked, or happened.

Non-Life Into Life

Making matters even worse for Neo Darwinists is that they still can’t explain how life actually began. They’ve been trying ever since Darwin first put forth his theories about the origins of life on earth, but they’ve never been able to make non-life become alive, despite our massive and impressive amounts of technology and scientific understanding. The problem is that life doesn’t just happen. It doesn’t appear out of no where. The only way to make life is to make it with more life. You can’t build life from the ground up no matter how hard you try. The “basics” of life are way too complex and intricate for that to ever work randomly or naturally. But Evolutionists believe that this must have happened at least once eons ago in the past because we’re surrounded by life today, despite the fact that science shows us this is impossible.

You cannot take all the basic components of a computer broken down into their simplest molecules, toss them into a box, mix it up and have a fully functional computer appear by random out of the mess. It’s impossible. The EXACT same problem exists when trying to explain life today. Evolutionists try to get around this by calling the molecules that make up life “organic”, but that simply means that the set of molecules they’re looking at are what life is made of. I can say the same sort of thing about the molecules that make up a computer (these are “computer molecules”), but it still won’t change the fact that mixing them together at random won’t ever produce a functional computer.

Life is very special, very complex, and even our vast intelligence and modern technology combined with our scientific understanding can’t do half of what life does constantly all around us every day. Life is no accident of nature. Life is an intentional creation, intelligently designed and supernaturally strung together and jolted into existence by Almighty God.

Conclusion

Evolutionists say that ALL life came from a single celled organism and a pile of mixed up chemical goo… And to them, this is realistic and plausible, despite science significantly showing otherwise.

Don’t ever let an Evolutionist tell you that all animals coming from Noah’s Ark is ridiculous, when they themselves argue that all life, period, came from non-life, by accident. That makes it pretty obvious which of the two parties in this debate have to have monumental amounts of blind faith. The Bible believing Christian’s understanding of the world and life matches perfectly with what science tells us about it, however the Neo Darwinist believes in the exact opposite of what science shows us in order to believe that all life evolved from non-life. Christianity has no problem with the real and observable scientific facts of genetics. Evolution does.

All air breathing creatures today came from all the creatures saved on Noah’s ark.

Random Natural Processes?

 (Google map mystery of giant lines spotted by satellite in Gobi desert)  [dailymail.co.uk]

The internet is abuzz with what the series of strange designs discovered in recent Google Maps images of the Gobi Desert in China mean. Are they a way for China to calibrate satellites? Are they messages to aliens in outer space?

I have a different angle of interest on these shapes. Why is everyone assuming that these massive designs in the desert are man made? Couldn’t random natural processes of weather, geology and chemistry cause these designs to happen without requiring an intelligent designer or builder to make them?…  :)

This is a great example of how structure and design in the world are always attributed to intelligence, EXCEPT when it comes to life itself. Any time certain characteristics of design and pattern appear on our planet, the immediate reaction is to believe that such structures are man-made. Another example of this is the Nazca Geoglyphs in Peru. The shapes and designs are massive and can only be properly seen from the air. Again, these huge shapes are attributed to mankind. But why?

(Wikipedia: Nazca Lines)

Because these patterns simply do not appear in nature by accident. Someone with an intelligent mind must design and build them. The processes of nature will not ever create these shapes and patterns. They contain information and have a planned out purpose.

These designs, despite being huge in scale, are VERY simple compared to the loads of purposeful and functional information found in DNA at a microscopic level. And yet Evolutionists go against all matter of logic with regards to information and decree that all life happened by chance through random natural processes, despite having NEVER seen such a thing EVER happen before. Evolutionists use the excuse that given enough time, anything is possible, or that because life is “organic”, that can account for the miraculous occurrence of life on our planet. But they’re glossing over and shrugging off the fundamentals of true science and logic with such statements. The impossible is still impossible, even if you give it billions of years in which to occur. And classifying certain molecules as "organic" doesn't change the fact that they're still lifeless molecules (building blocks) with absolutely no ability to become functional life on their own.

Ordered information and design of a complex nature only ever occurs when an intelligent mind creates it. We inherently know this to be true. That’s why when we see patterns such as the ones in satellite pictures of strange shapes in the Gobi Desert (China) or the Nazca Lines in Peru, we know immediately they have to have been caused by man. They have to have been made by a directed purposeful intelligence. Yet DNA is a trillion times more complex than these very simple designs.