Designs in Nature as those in Caves Required Designers

An essay of  Raymond Fontaine, PhD - September 2002

   On September 12, 1940, four boys named Marcel Ravidat, Jacques Marsal, George Agnel  and Simon Coencas went looking for their lost dog. The lads lived in Southwestern France where many limestone caves dotted the hillsides. One of them had been sealed off for centuries by the forces of nature. In the late 1930's, however, a storm had uprooted a big pine tree leaving a small opening into the Lascaux cave. The boys squeezed through it and called their dog. 

   Combing through several chambers, the boys saw vivid paintings on the walls and ceiling. They first noticed the galloping horses and the reindeer just like Santa's. Then they saw the figure of a man lying on the ground between a two-horned rhinoceros and a bison. We do not know whether the boys found their dog there, but they did discover a fabulous treasure of Paleolithic cave art dating back 17,000 years.

    To view the ancient paintings, you can travel to France or you can visit the Web site of the Lascaux cave. There, the full collection is exposed along with its history and explanation. Click: 
http://www.culture.fr/culture/arcnat/lascaux/en/. If for any reason that address fails, search for "cave paintings/lascaux". Then feast your eyes on the intriguing display of prehistoric art.

   Since that eventful day in 1940, a million people have visited the Lascaux cave. No one ever asked, "Did someone paint those animals? That fact was self-evident. But people wanted to know who the painter was. What was his name? What did he look like? The tour guide simply answered, "We don't know." The artist never signed his name. He did not leave us a self-portrait as did the Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh. Our cave painter left us only his paintings. From them, however, we can infer his existence and one thing more: his intelligence. As the Sistine Chapel exposes the genius of its artist, so does the Lascaux cave  reveal the intelligence of its ancient Michelangelo.

   Never has another painter accomplished so much with so little. He painted on the uneven and rugged walls of a cave by the light of primitive clay lamps on the floor. He made his paints by grinding ocher (an earthy usually red or yellow iron ore) and mixing it with animal fat. He fashioned brushes with bone or wood and horse hair. Often the artist took advantage of rock formations to emphasize particular features of the animals and to capture a vivid, naturalistic sense of movement.  Our cave artist was smart, very smart. This much we know from his work. 

   In the early 1950's, ten years after the four French boys discovered the Lascaux paintings, four scientists James Watson, Francis Crick, Maurice Wilkins and Rosalind Franklin made another fabulous discovery. Peering inside the nucleus of a human cell, which measures a mere 0.0004 of an inch, they focused on the molecule of deoxyribonucleic acid or DNA and deciphered its structural design. Soon thereafter Watson and Crick described it in the scientific journal Nature.  

   This essay is not the place to explain the intricate and intriguing design of DNA.  For this information, I highly recommend the Web site of Doctor Anthony Carpi at the following address: http://www.Visionlearning.com. Once there, click "My Classroom". Beneath the word "Visionlearning", click "Search". At "Search for", type: "Nucleic Acids/DNA." Next in the long table of "Document Title", do NOT click: "Nucleic acids-DNA/RNA-Practice test"; but click" Nucleic Acids-DNA and RNA dated 06/25/2002".

   In that article, Doctor Carpi reveals the DNA structural design that allows the human cell to develop in various mind-boggling ways. For instance, moments after conception, a human cell duplicates itself and then the resulting pair do likewise. This duplicating process continues until about 10 trillion cells form an adult person. All cells of the same individual share identical DNA molecules made possible by the ingenious structural design of DNA.

   The human cell contains other elements that can develop in various ways. They can form muscles or nerves; they develop into different organs, such as the heart, lung and brain. The entire development of the human body, including every detail like the color of the eyes and skin, is directed and controlled by the DNA on account of its structural design.

   As I read Doctor Carpi's article and contemplated  the structural design of DNA, I recalled the reaction of the people as they viewed  the paintings in the Lascaux cave. By instinct, they knew that someone had painted them. No one then and since has ever questioned that fact. Even the four kids, who first discovered them, knew that those pictures were not made by some wind or rain or earthquake but by a human artist.

    When the four scientists discovered the structural design of the DNA, they must have known that someone had produced that masterpiece? But as scientists, they could not mention a designer because none appeared on  the x-ray photograph of the DNA. In my logical mind, however, I know that someone fashioned DNA - not 17,000 years ago but 3 or more billion years when living cells with DNA first appeared on earth. I am not alone in thinking that - most people do.

    Like the artist of the Lascaux painting,  the designer of DNA did not inscribe his name or leave his image in the nucleic acids of any DNA. So the bottom line is:  we know that he is but not who or what he is.  Their works reveal nothing more about their designers. In this respect, the Lascaux paintings and the DNA  are alike: both reveal a design that requires a designer who is intelligent. In this infinitesimal way, the Cro-Magnon cave painter resembles the Designer of DNA, whom our Declaration of Independence calls "Nature's God".

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