Technological advances since the dawn of the 20^th century have been nothing short of astounding.  Things that my grandmother would have thought to be science fiction are now common day necessities of life (or so we think). Not only are phones no longer anchored to the wall nor are you tethered to it via the tangled two foot cord of death, you now walk around with it in your pocket and don’t even have to remove it to talk to your grandmother via Bluetooth and wireless ear buds.  Two other such technological wonders are the Wankel rotary engine and the invention of the electron microscope.

German engineer and inventor, Felix Wankel, developed the first rotary engine in 1951 and it was first developed commercially by Mazda in 1961.[1] While the Wankel engine eventually fell out of favor around 2012, it was still quite a marvel for its time and due to its lightweight nature and capacity for high rpm, it was ideal for motorcycles and race cars.

The other invention, the electron microscope, had a much greater impact on the world, especially the world of science.  As Nobel Laurette Dr. Alan Finkel commented, “Without microscopy, there is no modern science.”[2] In 1931 German scientists, Ernst Ruska and Max Knoll, realized that instead of using light they could pass electrons through a specimen to create an image.  This led to the development of the first electron microscope.[3] Prior to the invention of the electron microscope, little was known of cell biology; not much more than they existed as a fundamental unit of life. The electron microscope, however, opened enormous bay windows into the cell’s interior, and today “scientists have a fairly complete knowledge about the chemical composition of the cell’s structures and contents.”[4]

You may be wondering what Felix Wankel and the electron microscope have in common.  The answer is that now that the interior world of the cell has been opened to us, scientists are observing cell components that are best described as cellular machines or motors.  One such structure is the bacterial flagellum. The bacterial flagellum is a cellular structure with a whip-like tail, embedded in the cellular membrane, which provides the bacterial cell with motility allowing it to move toward such things as food sources and away from toxic chemicals.  It is composed of over forty proteins, each with a specific function, and it produces the energy to run itself by a flow of acid through the bacterial membrane.[5]  What is most fascinating about the flagellum is that its “proteins function in concert as a literal rotary motor…and stand as direct analogs to the parts of a man-made motor, including a rotor, stator, drive shaft, bushing, universal joint and propeller.”[6] In other words, all the parts of the flagellum work together for the purpose of producing movement in the bacteria.

It is a normal everyday experience for us to recognize design in a thing and rightfully infer that there is a designer behind it.  For example, as I drive by the Ford dealer on my way to work and see a bright red Mustang on the lot, I am  rational to believe that this beauty of a car started as an idea in the mind of an engineer, was transferred to blueprints by a drafting engineer and then brought to reality by a vast team of highly skilled laborers.  The reason behind my inference is because I understand that the parts of the mustang are not haphazardly thrown together.  In fact, it is quite the opposite.  All the parts have been skillfully assembled to accomplish the end goal of transportation.  In addition to this, all the parts had to be assembled in a precise order to have a car that functions according to the engineer’s purpose.  We have all had that horrible experience of having to assemble something, thinking we are done, and discovering we missed a part.  Enough to make even the finest Christian lose his religion!  We end up having to dismantle half of it so it can be reassembled like it was designed to be.  This is simply a modern- day version of William Paley’s Watchmaker argument.

As soon as a Christian mentions Paley, the scoffing begins.  I would agree that in many ways Paley did take his argument too far.  However, as biochemist Michael Behe notes, “It is surprising but true that the main argument of the discredited Paley has actually never been refuted.”[7]  Time and space do not permit me to elaborate…you can simply take this up with Behe.  And while Hume’s argument claiming Paley’s analogy is too dissimilar to be credible may make it a poor analogy, it still does nothing to explain why it is irrational to infer design from the flagellar motor which parts are arranged in just the right way to provide motility to the bacteria and if they were arranged in any other way the bacteria would be stuck in the proverbial mud.

And if that were not enough, the cell orders the construction of the flagellar motor in a very precise manner.  Biochemist Fazale Rana explains:

“Flagellum assembly proceeds through a well-orchestrated process that ensures the right proteins are produced at the proper time.  Class 1 operons direct the production of two proteins.  The two Class 1 proteins, in turn, activate Class 2 operon genes (fliFGHIJK, fliMNOPQR, fliE, etc.).  The Class 2 operons turn on, one-at a time according to the spatial positioning of the proteins within the flagellum.  Once the Class 2 operons shut down, the Class 3 operons direct the production of proteins to complete the assembly of the flagellum.”[8]

It is as if you can envision a tiny crane operator at a construction site lifting in the proper materials at just the right time to ensure the final assembly functions as the designer intended. You can watch a short video explaining the structure and assembly of the flagellum here.

And the skeptic might be justified in stating that we are taking a single example too far.  However, living cells are replete with such examples, such as F1-F0 ATPase, the AcrA/AcrB/TolC complex, Myosin, Dynein, Brownian ratchets, etc.  And all these examples are found in the simplest of life forms.

And a few other interesting facts about the bacterial flagellum.  The flagellum can rotate at an amazing 100,000 revolutions per minute (rpm), reverse directions in a quarter of a turn, and rotate at 100,000 rpms in the opposite direction.  This means that the flagellum can propel the bacteria twenty lengths per second through a very viscous medium.  That would be equivalent to a six-foot person swimming at a speed of 120 feet per second.

When we observe the bacterial flagellum, we see just the right parts, working in concert in just the right manner to produce the end result of highly efficient motility which, through chemical communication with its surroundings, allows the bacteria to pursue food sources and escape toxic chemicals. I argue that it is completely rational to infer that a designing mind is behind the flagellum and all of life.  If the naturalist disagrees, she must explain how the mindless Darwinian mechanism can accomplish such a feat.  If I am correct, not only did God beat Wankel to the punch, he did it with style!

---

[1] https://www.britannica.com/biography/Felix-Wankel#ref227909

[2] https://www.thermofisher.com/blog/microscopy/the-history-of-the-electron-microscope/

[3] https://www.thermofisher.com/blog/microscopy/the-history-of-the-electron-microscope/

[4] Fazale Rana, The Cell’s Design: How Chemistry Reveals the Creator’s Artistry (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2008), 16.

[5] Michael J. Behe, Darwin’s Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution (New York: Free Press, 2006), 72.

[6] David F. Blair, “How Bacteria Sense and Swim,” Annual Review of Microbiology 49 (October 1995): 489-520.

[7] Michael J. Behe, Darwin’s Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution (New York: Free Press, 2006), 213.

[8] Fazale Rana, The Cell’s Design: How Chemistry Reveals the Creator’s Artistry (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2008), 75.