THE MAGIC OF MOTORS

I have an electric tool. It has an electric motor.

The motor is configured in such a way as to spin a drill bit when the trigger-switch is pulled.

Interestingly, I also have another electric tool. It also has an electric motor.

This motor is configured in such a way as to cause a rod to push out and pull in many times per second.

Now, these two tools perform vastly different tasks.

But they both use very similar motors.

Each motor has a core of iron with wire wrapped around it, a magnet wrapped very close to the wire-wrapped core, a set of "brushes" (really chunks of carbon) that rub against the casing and other similar components.

One motor is made by the Black and Decker company, the other by Makita.

No one in his/her right mind would argue that the more complicated motor came into being through a series of accidental assemblies perpetrated by the other simpler motor.

To the right is a biological motor.

It is used by certain bacteria to rotate their flagella for locomotion.

It is much more remarkably engineered than the most complicated electric motor ever devised by the most brilliant scientist.

Some life-forms have a biological motor that does not rotate flagella, but pushes a cellular rod in and out.

These cellular motors have some similar structures, some different structures, and operate in different ways. They also have fewer parts and are simpler motors.

The other day I was watching a PBS science program on TV which showed each of these biological motors.

Interestingly, the "scientist" on the program thought that the fact that there were two different kinds of biological motors with similar parts meant that one "evolved" from the other.

You would think that a scientist would be smart enough to recognize that just as each of my tool motors had to have been intelligently designed, so, too, would the extraordinarily more complex biological motor.

If you are a scientist reading this post, are you smart enough to recognize that truth?