The United States and the Soviet Union conducted a cold war after World War 2 which reached its zenith in the 1980s. At that time the Soviet Union faced a number of strategic difficulties. Lech Walesa was organizing Polish workers in the Eastern Bloc’s first independent trade union, helping to dismantle Soviet dominance in that country. The Soviets were also bogged down in their invasion of Afghanistan where the population was proving to be a very tough opponent. President Reagan had announced the development of a comprehensive military space program -Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI)-which the press promptly dubbed “Star Wars”, half in derision and half in awe. To counter these threats, the Soviet leaders needed two things: technology and cash. The technology they planned to steal from the West while the cash was to be obtained by selling oil and natural gas. Large deposits of natural gas were in Siberia and a mechanism was needed for transportation of this resource eastward across a vast wilderness, requiring technology which was not available in Russia. Line X was a KGB directorate especially created to steal technology from Western Nations.
United States intelligence agencies, aware of these requirements, begin planning a counter campaign designed to subvert the KGB’s efforts and in fact turn the Soviet efforts back upon the perpetrators. Key scientific and technological companies were identified and brought into the counter spy program. Two hundred American technology company executives were enlisted to visit with their Russian counterparts to learn what innovations were most desired. High on the list was the ability to build a functioning pipeline to transport the natural gas. Meanwhile a KGB operative, Vladimir Vetrov (code named Farewell) assisted the US intelligent services in appearing to steal the information required by the Russians. In actuality the CIA set up dummy corporations that allowed theft and sales of blueprints and software for gas turbines, oil drilling equipment, computer chips, chemicals, stealth technology, and advanced aircraft designs. The stolen designs, while appearing on the surface to be functioning top of the line programs, were actually fake. Top engineers were assigned to produce equipment that would be sufficiently functioning to fool Soviet personnel, but clever enough to have hidden flaws which would at the appropriate time fail spectacularly. By all reports, the designers of these bogus programs gleefully set about their tasks of outwitting their Soviet opposite numbers.
The giant K 84 gas turbines needed to propel the natural gas through the 4500 kilometer trans Siberian pipeline were intended to crash. Initially functioning as the Soviets expected, in October of 1982, the inserted computer code malware caused a catastrophic malfunction resulting in the colossal destruction of a large segment of this newly built pipeline. Satellite images that registered the massive explosion at first led to speculation that an actual nuclear device had detonated. The equivalent of $ 8 billion U.S. dollars in expected revenue to the Soviet Union vanished. At the same time, the Saudis responding to U.S. administration overtures cut the price of petroleum, further weakening the Soviet economy. A side benefit was that henceforth, stolen information would have to be regarded suspiciously as possible forgeries.
Blueprints have to be accurate-both in mechanical applications and biologic structures. We have own internal blueprints in the form of encoded genetic material. Our genetic code results in folded active proteins as well as intricate regulation of turning on and off various genes in a pattern so advanced when would think it designed by a far advanced extraterrestrial civilization. Medical students dissecting cadavers in gross anatomy labs are presented with incredibly sophisticated intertwining of biologic configurations. There are vast anatomic highways of these structures : airways, organ location, foramina to allow passage of nerves and blood vessels. And the placement of each anatomic layout is minutely consistent and exact. How do folded proteins do this?
Let me give an example. Gross anatomy lab during my medical school education contained about 20 cadavers. In dissecting the upper extremities we found consistently that the brachial artery descending through the upper arm would bifurcate just below the elbow into the ulnar and radial arteries of the forearm and wrist. However, 1 cadaver showed a variant–the brachial artery divided halfway down the upper arm. This was such a striking finding that the instructors had all medical students come over to view it . The genetic code is that exact. In fact, even a cursory glance of the anatomy of any part of the body shows consistent detailed identified structures– not only are nerves and blood vessels located in specific sites, but their caliber must be exact. The skull is an enclosed bowl of dense bone, and in order for nerves, arteries and veins to enter and exit, tiny foramina (basically holes) have to exist in very specific locations. The blue print for these structures is incredibly detailed and exact. To complicate this arrangement, bone arises from mesoderm, while nerves are the product of ectoderm in the developing fetus. Totally unrelated structures, yet their cooperation is required for life.
Another example of incredible collaboration and synergy is the development of blood vessels. Our network of vascular structures does not proceed from a central vessel and spread outward. Instead, there are hundreds of sites-called blood islands-that are spread out throughout the developing child that are subsequently joined together in the 3rd week of pregnancy to become our vascular system . The outer layer of these blood islands becomes actual blood vessels, while the interior becomes the stem cells of our bone marrow. These networks then joint the heart which begins beating at 6 weeks.
I have touched on only a tiny set of examples of the amazing results of our internal blueprints. The complexity is far beyond human ability to duplicate. The chance of blind undirected processes resulting in such intricacy is staggeringly low. There has to be an architect.