A Physicist Talks ID

There's an interesting nine minute video of physicist Brian Miller being interviewed by a Polish think tank called En Arche in which Miller answers some questions about Intelligent Design and why he thinks what we know about science points strongly toward an intelligent engineer of life and the universe.

Miller focuses primarily on two phenomena, genetic mutation in living things and the origin of the first living cell, and gives succinct reasons for being skeptical both that mutations can produce large-scale changes in organisms and that a functioning, reproducing cell could've arisen from non-living chemicals at some time in the ancient past. Both phenomena, he implies, defy just about everything we know about science.

About the the possibility that genetic mutations, coupled with natural selection, could've produced large-scale changes in the architecture of an organism, he says this:

All mutations which have been observed which are non-harmful only allow for small-scale change while all mutations which could potentially change the architecture [of an organism] have been shown to be harmful.

Miller also explains in the video why the accumulation of small genetic changes cannot produce large changes in the phenotype of an organism.

It might be mentioned parenthetically that Michael Behe's recent book Darwin Devolves makes a compelling case for the hypothesis that most phenotypical changes (changes in the physical appearance of an organism) can be attributed to the loss of function in genes that already exist, not to the evolution of new genes.

As for the actual origin of living cells Miller says this:

Nothing in nature will ever simultaneously go to both low entropy and high energy at the same time. It’s a physical impossibility. Yet life had to do that. Life had to take simple chemicals and go to a state of high energy and of low entropy. That’s a physical impossibility.

Entropy is a measure of the level of disorder in a system. A low entropy system is one that is highly ordered or organized. What Miller is saying is that in nature high energy systems such as a functioning cell don't simultaneously become highly organized all by themselves, but that's what a living cell would've had to achieve if it was produced with no intelligent input or guidance.

Despite appearances the video is in English:

Thanks to Evolution News for the link.