Making Life’s Big Decisions: Part 2

In Part 1, we posed the question “What would you expect to find in nature if God had created the world?” and maintained that evidence of design would be a logical answer. However, because evolutionists declare billions of years of natural processes like selection and mutation (processes with no mind) can eventually accomplish even better designs than our most brilliant minds can today, they often dismiss design arguments outright.

As our scientific knowledge continues to increase, the staggering amount of decision-making programming (a hallmark of intelligent design) inside living things becomes more evident. Dr. D. L. Abel, an origin-of-life researcher in the fields of ProtoBioCybernetics and ProtoBioSemiotics, clarifies,

We have spent much of the last century arguing to the lay community that we have proved the current biological paradigm [i.e., neo-Darwinian theory]. Unfortunately, very few in the scientific community seem critical of this indiscretion. . . . Science has an obligation to be honest about what the entire body of evidence clearly suggests. . . . The fact of purposeful programming at multiple layers gets more “apparent” with each new issue of virtually every molecular biology journal.1

And as we showed, even what evolutionists consider to be some of the simplest original life-forms exhibit this programming. Indeed, in his 2025 paper in the Journal of Bioinformatics and Systems Biology, Abel makes several other statements that continue to hammer the point home,

The Oxford Languages’ definition of Cybernetics is: “the science of communications and automatic control systems in both machines and living things.” It is rare that the role of communications and automatic control systems are attributed to subcellular or cellular life [i.e., bacterium]. Oxford’s inclusion of “living things” is insightful, honest and refreshing. But attributing the success of biosystems to various forms of programming and control is now becoming quite routine in the literature.2

Neo-Darwinism’s Demise?

We’ll pick up on more of the purposeful programming comparison between machines and living organisms later in this article. Dr. Abel’s comparison is for good reason, and it’s even beginning to cause a civil war within the evolution-believing community, with comments such as the following causing massive cracks in the monolithic foundations bolstering the entire materialistic worldview: “The fact is that I think Neo-Darwinism is dead.”3

Many reading this might be thinking, what sort of creationist knucklehead made that rather bombastic statement? I mean, all you have to do is go to any reputable scientific journal, textbook, or university, and you will see that the overwhelming consensus among scientists today is that the modern synthesis of evolution (what is called neo-Darwinian theory) is presented as practically incontrovertible. Just look at the following quotations from what the Oxford University Press describes as “the gold standard in undergraduate-level evolutionary biology textbooks”:4

Biologists talk about the “theory of evolution” in the same way that physicists talk about the “theory of gravitation.” Scientists are as confident about the reality of evolution as they are about the reality of gravity.

Geneticists, systematists, and paleontologists . . . reconciled Darwin’s theory with the facts of genetics. The consensus they forged is known as the evolutionary synthesis, or modern synthesis, and its chief principle, that adaptive evolution is caused by natural selection acting on particulate (Mendelian) genetic variation, is often referred to as neo-Darwinism. . . . Mutation and natural selection together cause adaptive evolution: mutation is not an alternative to natural selection but is, rather, its raw material.5

From the highest levels of academia down to the iconic pop-culture references seen at every level of Western society, the modern story of evolution is declared with such authority to be true by the vast majority of scientists. Consequently, even the majority of Christian theologians, Bible college professors, authors, and pastors have embraced it as the supposed way God created, all in contradiction to the plain reading of Genesis 1–11. Even the arguably best-known Christian apologist alive today (Dr. William Lane Craig), who is quite favorable of evolutionary ideas, has stated, “While young Earth creationism is possible it would fly in the face of scientific evidence.”6

One might assume the statement “Neo-Darwinism is dead” must have come from some fundamentalist Bible-thumper living in the Stone Age who obviously knows nothing about science. Except it didn’t. Rather, it came from one of the most distinguished evolution-believing scientists on the planet today, whose accolades are impressive by any and all academic standards.

Third Way Evolution

The pronouncer of these words is Professor Denis Noble, the professor emeritus and codirector of computational physiology at Oxford University, which is almost always listed in the top three universities on the planet—especially in the fields of science and medicine.7 Noble, a British physiologist and biologist, is one of the pioneers of systems biology and actually developed the first viable model of the working heart in 1960. This is likely why he held the Burdon Sanderson Chair of Cardiovascular Physiology at the University of Oxford for 20 years (1984–2004) and has received numerous other awards throughout his career.

For example, he is the recipient of the Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, which recognizes persons who have rendered important services to Great Britain and its associated nations. He’s also been made part of the Fellowship of the Royal Society, an award granted to individuals who’ve made a “substantial contribution to the improvement of natural knowledge, including mathematics, engineering science, and medical science.”8

He’s also been granted an award given to medical scientists judged by the UK Academy of Medical Sciences for the “excellence of their science, their contribution to medicine and society and the range of their achievements.”9 And he has been granted membership into the Fellowship of the Academy of Medical Sciences, which is an award conferred by the Academia Europaea by invitation only (after nomination by existing MAE members and a peer-review selection process) to an individual “who distinguishes herself/himself in his scholarly studies.”10

He is the cofounder and editor-in-chief of Voices from Oxford, has published in Nature magazine, is a lecturer on evolution, has authored several books on evolution, and was the doctoral examiner of ardent atheist and evolution promoter Professor Richard Dawkins. One can hop on Oxford’s team page to find many more of his accomplishments.11

Yet curiously, while searching YouTube for some of Denis’ many interviews to better understand his position and arguments, I quickly came across a thumbnail for a video posted by a popular, ardent atheist titled “Denis Noble Is a Clown,”12 which mocked him by depicting the Oxford professor wearing a Bozo the Clown nose.

A Critique of Denis Noble

Looking at the poster’s page, I noticed it had 4.25 million subscribers (no small feat in the world of social media) and was titled Professor Dave Explains. On the page owner’s profile, it said he’d “received a BA in chemistry from Carleton College, and performed graduate studies in both synthetic organic chemistry and science education at Cal State Northridge, receiving an MA in the latter,” and had taught general chemistry, physics, and biology for about a decade in various high school and undergraduate settings.13

I then looked at the description of what the video would be covering, and it had this to say regarding Dr. Noble and his research:

He only offers a pathetic distortion of principles in evolutionary biology which are so disgraceful that it raises the question of who is paying him to do it. Don’t worry, all your questions will be answered and all of Noble’s ridiculous rhetoric will be dismantled in this video!

So one has to wonder, why the hate from this so-called professor? Both of these gentlemen believe in the story of evolution as being absolutely true in the general sense—that life isn’t dependent on a Creator and that it all somehow came about through materialistic processes over billions of years. How can this YouTube “professor” with limited teaching experience be so comfortable and confident in exhibiting this much contempt and mocking such a distinguished fellow evolutionist this way? Are we really to believe Dr. Noble is supposedly describing such a pathetic distortion of evolutionary biology so disgraceful that he must be being paid off to declare what he’s saying? Seriously?

Does this fellow really know so much more than this “veteran of veterans” scientist who hasn’t just taught and regurgitated what he gleaned from limited studies, but has performed hard science and contributed to the foundational infrastructure of modern medicine? Noble’s research pioneered areas of cardiac electrophysiology simulation involved in drug safety testing for arrhythmia risk, the designing and tuning of pacemakers, and the study of heart rhythm disorders. Noble has dedicated his entire life to research that has saved and/or extended the lives of millions of people around the world. And yet this critic supposedly knows more than he does?

Well, apparently not, because as we’ve all experienced on the internet, watching one video gets the algorithm to feed you more of the same related content. And in a 60-second short14 that popped up showing a clip from an online debate between this “Professor Dave” and his opponent (the Islamic creationist philosopher Subboor Ahmad), the professor smarmily makes the claim that Denis Noble isn’t an evolutionary biologist and mocks Subboor by saying he’s surprised he didn’t know that because (using the millennial vernacular) you can just google it. Subboor then does so and proves it is, in fact, the good professor himself who is absolutely incorrect about Noble indeed being an evolutionary biologist.

Of course, I believe Denis Noble is wrong about his materialistic evolution, but this goes to show how a materialistic evolutionist can be completely mocked and rejected by fellow evolutionists the moment he questions evolutionary orthodoxy. As soon as you stray from the party line, people with far fewer accomplishments than you will freely mock you as a religious zealot.

“Religious Adjacent” Evolution?

The reason for the professor’s antagonism toward Noble became evident when I brought up the transcript of his original “clown” video and saw it strewn with comparisons of Noble’s research to the beliefs of creationists and Intelligent Design advocates, revealing why he had slurred Noble as a crackpot on several occasions. Indeed, he even made this argument in his video’s description:

You know how creationists often blindly reference a particular scholar, as though the things the scholar says somehow substantiate their ridiculous views? These days that scholar is Denis Noble.

Well, count me as one more of those creationists then, although I am certainly not blindly referencing Dr. Noble’s conclusions, as I’ve listened to and read hours of his work. However, Noble isn’t the only committed evolutionist advocating for a total rehaul of the modern synthesis, as there are over 90 other fully accredited scientists listed on the Third Way of Evolution website15 (a think tank of individuals that also disagree with neo-Darwinian theory), all based on their scientific research, not primarily a different worldview ideology that a biblical creationist like myself would have. These are all people who believe in evolution thoroughly!

And this demonstrates the real objection against not only Dr. Noble’s direct observations in modern science but against many other evolution-believing scientists’ research as well, like Dr. Abel, which I quoted earlier, who isn’t even listed on the Third Way website (showing that there may be many other scientists out there right now who have major doubts about neo-Darwinian theory as well). So it isn’t so much the clinically documented scientific observations (as we discussed in Part 1) that are so concerning to some, but the obvious and logical conclusions one could easily come to based upon those observations. Because such conclusions are so antithetical to materialistic and atheistic beliefs, they directly challenge the prevailing worldview.

Indeed, in a 2024 Forbes magazine article aptly titled “Evolution May Be Purposeful and It’s Freaking Scientists Out,” this association between the observed purposeful programming in living things being equated to evidence of intelligent design from the critics of neo-Darwinian dissenters is mentioned several times.

The scientific story of who we are is a reductionist, gene-centric model that forfeits natural phenomena like purpose due to its association with intelligent design and a transcendent, intelligent designer. Noble is . . . determined to debunk the current scientific paradigm and replace the elevated importance of genes with something much more controversial. His efforts have enraged many of his peers but gained support from the next generation of origins-of-life researchers working to topple the reign of gene-centrism. . . .

[Philip Ball], a former editor of Nature, admonishes the life sciences for ignoring obvious natural properties of living systems like agency and purpose because of “quasi-mystical” associations with intelligent design. . . .

Noble’s critics worry that entertaining religion-adjacent views subverts established science and the entire scientific project. But Noble’s research doesn’t challenge the scientific method. It challenges a scientific epoch marked by a purely mechanistic view of nature that coincided with the Industrial Revolution and age of mechanization.16

Uncomfortable Conclusions

Now, if you still haven’t been able to clearly see why anticipatory, purposeful programming being found inside every living thing is now being associated by many in the evolution-believing community with “religion-adjacent views” in a knee-jerk reaction, let me attempt to make it perfectly clear.

According to Noble (and many other scientists), the “gene-centric” view, popularized and typified by evolutionists such as Richard Dawkins in his book The Selfish Gene, has been demonstrated to be unquestionably false, because living things don’t operate on simple cause-and-effect programming but rather utilize what’s known as if-then programming, which demonstrates purpose. Even more, they have done so from the very beginning of the evolutionary timeline. However, such programming has only been observed as coming from an intelligent mind, which would naturally lead many to a logical conclusion that is antithetical to a naturalistic worldview.

So stay tuned for Part 3, where we’ll further explore this conundrum for those in the anti-creationist camp by identifying the exact qualities that materialists say the story of evolution should be able to explain but which it cannot.