I wrote a post about Fred Brook's view on subcreation a couple of days ago. After writing that post, I went to his site again and found a more intriguing lecture, called "The Design of Design". Brooks gave this lecture when he received the 1999 A.M. Turing award. This award is generally regarded as the highest award that a computer scientist can receive; thus, it is often called the "Nobel Prize in Computing." Ninety five percent of the lecture had to do with design methodology in the context of software engineering in a collaborative context. However, his concluding remarks were relevant to the issue of origins. I have transcribed his closing remarks (note that I may have introduced some unintended transcription errors):
I cannot talk about great designers without saying a few words about the great Designer. If you want to see His monument, look around you. I have spent some years working with biochemists in molecular graphics and watched them over the years untangle the structure and function of superoxide dismutase, a little globular protein (called an anti-aging protein) that in every living creature neutralizes the superoxide ions, the products of metabolism which are damaging. Well, superoxide dismuatase is kind of a round globby thing. It has a little crack in it, and the crack is just wide enough that the superoxide ion can get through it down to the active site and no bigger ions can. The charge is distributed on this thing so that it creates a hemispherical electric field that any charged superoxide ion going by is pulled into this crack. Two of these things are bolted together back to back: one scavenging in front, and one scavenging in back. And I can go on and on, and I won’t.
One cannot prove the existence or activity of God by the argument from design, as medieval scholars tried to do. But as a designer with a lifetime of looking, I’m here to testify that what I see in nature all around, from the galaxies down to the molecules, has all the hallmarks of a design and not just a blind process. And I think that any open minded person has to consider that possibility and the evidence for it.
Now you ask, "Well, what about evolution?" I’m comfortable with the processes of mutation and natural selection and so forth. I observe that good programmers don’t write sorts -- they write sort generators. And it seems to me perfectly natural that Jesus Christ when He made all things made mechanisms for making things. So I’m not a seven-day creationist, but I am firmly convinced that what I’m seeing around me is designed.
But surely the hardest problem is the human paradox. I know right from wrong. At least if I see Jack do wrong to John, I know that that’s wrong, even though I may not see it if I’m doing it. And yet, even though I know right, I do wrong. That’s the human paradox. I feel guilt; I want to atone; I desire to worship. Understanding these things is the mystery of design. Well this is neither the time nor the place to go into this marvelous story. But I would conclude by telling you [that] making things [and] doing design is fun. Technology is fun and it is important, and we are proper to devote our energies to it. But the knowledge that matters most is knowing the great Designer who made us and who loves us. Thank you. [Long applause]
I cannot talk about great designers without saying a few words about the great Designer. If you want to see His monument, look around you. I have spent some years working with biochemists in molecular graphics and watched them over the years untangle the structure and function of superoxide dismutase, a little globular protein (called an anti-aging protein) that in every living creature neutralizes the superoxide ions, the products of metabolism which are damaging. Well, superoxide dismuatase is kind of a round globby thing. It has a little crack in it, and the crack is just wide enough that the superoxide ion can get through it down to the active site and no bigger ions can. The charge is distributed on this thing so that it creates a hemispherical electric field that any charged superoxide ion going by is pulled into this crack. Two of these things are bolted together back to back: one scavenging in front, and one scavenging in back. And I can go on and on, and I won’t.
One cannot prove the existence or activity of God by the argument from design, as medieval scholars tried to do. But as a designer with a lifetime of looking, I’m here to testify that what I see in nature all around, from the galaxies down to the molecules, has all the hallmarks of a design and not just a blind process. And I think that any open minded person has to consider that possibility and the evidence for it.
Now you ask, "Well, what about evolution?" I’m comfortable with the processes of mutation and natural selection and so forth. I observe that good programmers don’t write sorts -- they write sort generators. And it seems to me perfectly natural that Jesus Christ when He made all things made mechanisms for making things. So I’m not a seven-day creationist, but I am firmly convinced that what I’m seeing around me is designed.
But surely the hardest problem is the human paradox. I know right from wrong. At least if I see Jack do wrong to John, I know that that’s wrong, even though I may not see it if I’m doing it. And yet, even though I know right, I do wrong. That’s the human paradox. I feel guilt; I want to atone; I desire to worship. Understanding these things is the mystery of design. Well this is neither the time nor the place to go into this marvelous story. But I would conclude by telling you [that] making things [and] doing design is fun. Technology is fun and it is important, and we are proper to devote our energies to it. But the knowledge that matters most is knowing the great Designer who made us and who loves us. Thank you. [Long applause]
