Rational Responders # 12 - Premise 2

My children are two boys and a girl ages 10, 10, and 8. I was surprised this past Christmas when it was my daughter who asked for a remote control car ... which she got. I get a kick out of watching her play with it, driving the thing around the kitchen floor, crashing it into my feet. Those gizmos are fun to watch.

Over the past few years Americans have been intrigued by the space missions to Mars as the Mars rover rolls across the surface exploring the planet. Years ago the Soviets developed a similar lunar exploratory machine named Lunakod.

Planetary explorers, lunar rovers, and remote control cars with wheels have limitations. They require a relatively flat surface and are not always able to spin around in position, like a soldier doing an 'about face'. However there are living organisms that are capable of climbing over virtually any type of surface. You've likely seen humans climbing up the face of a cliff, cockroaches running across your ceiling, or ants climbing up a wall carrying a crumb.

A gentleman by the name of Marc Raibert founded the MIT Leg Lab in 1980. The MIT Leg Lab developed the first robots that were able to mimic human walking. Raibert also created a robot capable of flipping itself in an aerial somersault and landing on its feet.

The amount of technology required to overcome the problem of traversing uneven terrain is astounding and instills in the careful observer a sense of awe at the ingenuity present in the legs of humans, animals, and insects. In Michael Denton's book Evolution: A Theory In Crisis Denton states that "The control mechanisms necessary to coordinate the motion of articulated legs are far more complicated than might be imagined at first sight." In 1983 the magazine Scientific American quoted M Raibert and I Sutherland as saying that "It is clear that very sophisticated computer-control programs will be important component of machines that smoothly crawl, walk or run." And yet we observe, in nature, organisms that CAN crawl walk and run.

My two sons were born premature by 14 weeks. They spent week after week after week in the hospital and I was frequently asking the doctors about their development and what type or problems they may have being premature.

I'll never forget a conversation that I had with one doctor while asking him about when my sons would crawl and walk. He said: "Your boys will walk when they are programmed to walk". The ability to walk is sophisticated and complex and it requires a control program. If there is ingenuity and if there is a program, there must be an ingenious programmer. That programmer is our powerful, creator God.