I have been reading numerous scientific articles about
blood. This information is astounding. There is only one rational conclusion,
your body is a walking miracle.
I recommend that those who believe that random chance and "survival of the
fittest" can result in such a miracle need to take a step back and examine their
motivations. They might ask themselves honestly why they want so badly that
evolution be true.
The best current estimate of scientists is that there are
37.2 trillion cells in your body, not counting all the microbes. [1] Inside
each and every one of those cells there are approximately 10 million chemical
reactions taking place every second of your life. [2] Every chemical reaction
requires oxygen and fuel, and then removal of any waste. Let’s thank God for
our blood, otherwise every cell that does not come in contact with it would
die.
And just how does blood get near enough to every cell. It
travels through an incredible network of capillaries. Capillaries are so thin
that about 40 of them equals the width of a human hair. If you lined up all
the capillaries in your body, it would reach 60,000 miles, ¼ of the way to the
Moon. [3]
If you believe that life developed slowly and gradually over
many generations, which came first blood or capillaries. If blood developed
first, was it just sitting there in a pool? If capillaries developed
first, what was their purpose if there was no blood to circulate?
The story of blood is phenomenal. About two weeks after a
sperm fertilizes an egg, the zygote has gotten so big that the growing number
of cells cannot survive. They need a transport system to get oxygen and nutrients. Perfectly on
time, some of the developing cells form into tubes that start pumping. (See
Proof for God #79 The Heart) Simultaneously, capillaries start forming as well
as blood.
Red Blood Cells start forming in a temporary “blood forming
sac” that grows on the outside of the embryo. By the middle of month two, RBC
production will now be taken over by the fetal liver and spleen. By month
number five, RBC production is now taking place in the bone marrow of the fetal
upper legs and shins. It continues to be made there in children, but eventually
it moves again. In adults, most RBCs are produced in the bone marrow of the pelvis,
cranium, vertebrae, and sternum.
The fine-tuning of this whole process screams out that it
was intelligently designed. Even the few things that I have pointed out so far
could not have developed in a slow and linear process over many generations.
The organism would never survive.
And this is just the
beginning.
Men on average have about a
gallon and a half of blood and women a little over a gallon. It is about 45
percent blood cells (nearly half) and 55 percent plasma. Blood makes up about 7
to 8 percent of your weight. [4]
“The liquid component of blood is
called plasma, a mixture of water, sugar, fat, protein, and salts. The main job
of the plasma is to transport blood cells throughout your body along with
nutrients, waste products, antibodies, clotting proteins, chemical messengers
such as hormones, and proteins that help maintain the body's fluid balance.” [5]
If you think that is complicated, we are just scratching the
surface. But stop and think how a slow and gradual process based on mutation
and natural selection over many generations could produce all of those
absolutely essential functions of blood one by one and not have the organism
die off somewhere along the way, probably at the very beginning. There are too many limiting factors that kill
a cell if all those processes are not in place from the beginning. These are
mind-boggling chemical reactions. For just a taste, read Proof for God #74 Proteins.
Now we’ll start to get extremely complicated. There are
three more basic components in blood that I want to discuss briefly (if
possible).
1. Red Blood Cells (also called erythrocytes or RBCs) which
carry oxygen to the tissues.
2. White Blood Cells (also called leukocytes) which
fight infections.
3. Platelets (also called thrombocytes), smaller cells that help blood to clot. [6]
3. Platelets (also called thrombocytes), smaller cells that help blood to clot. [6]
Red Blood Cells
RBCs are produced in bone marrow and develop from a generic
type of cell (pluripotential hematopoietic stem cells) that could also have
become a White Blood Cell or even Platelets. It is very difficult to imagine
how complicated this is. There are sensors in the body that turn on or off
switches that control how much of each type of cell is made. There is a hormone
(called erythropoietin) which comes primarily from the kidneys and that is what
controls the production of Red Blood Cells. Think about that. A hormone from
the kidneys controls production of RBCs in the bone marrow. How many generations
does it take to “evolve” that process?
RBCs are really, really unique. They have no nucleus because
the cell loses it during growth along with other organelles. [7] They are shaped
somewhat like a donut which just happens to be the best design of surface area
for absorbing a full load of oxygen in a fraction of a second. They are made
from five very specialized proteins that are very flexible. This is vitally
important because they are about twice as big as a capillary and need to bend
nearly in half to travel down the capillary and then spring back into shape on
their way back to the heart.
RBCs are loaded with a protein called hemoglobin that is a
fantastic carrier of oxygen and carbon dioxide. There are 250 million hemoglobin
molecules in each of your billions of RBCs. [8]
Your body makes about 2 million RBCs every second to replace
those that die off. [9] In men, there are an average of 5,200,000 RBCs per
cubic millimeter and in women there are an average of 4,600,000 RBCs per cubic
millimeter. The ratio of cells in normal blood is 600 RBCs to 1 White Blood
Cell and 40 platelets.
Amazingly, RBCs do not eat up any of the oxygen themselves
as they carry it out to all your cells. Special enzymes provide the power they
need. This is another process that precludes evolution and necessitates a
master designer.
Thankfully, the RBCs also remove Carbon Dioxide from our
cells. The RBCs carry a certain enzyme (called carbonic anhydrase) which
processes most of the CO2 (70%) and takes it back to the lungs for
elimination. [10] That sure looks like a designed plan also. Enzymes don’t form
by accident and even if they did, you would still have to get the exact right
one in the right place.
White Blood Cells
These are the amazing cells that circulate throughout our
bodies to fight disease. They are made in the bone marrow from the same
original cells as the Red Blood Cells. WBCs come in the following six main
types, with their average percentages:
• Neutrophils - 58 percent. Have faintly blue-pink granules
with digestive enzymes to eat bacteria.
• Eosinophils - 2 percent. Have orange-red granules. They kill
parasites and have a role in allergic reactions..
• Basophils - 1 percent. Have purple granules. They are not
well understood, but they release histamine.
• Bands - 3 percent. These are immature Neutrophils.
• Monocytes - 4 percent. They kill bacteria and also destroy
old, damaged and dead cells in the body.
• Lymphocytes - 4 percent.
“Neutrophils and monocytes use
several mechanisms to get to and kill invading organisms. They can squeeze
through openings in blood vessels by a process called diapedesis. They move
around using ameboid motion. They are attracted to certain chemicals produced
by the immune system or by bacteria and migrate toward areas of higher
concentrations of these chemicals. This is called chemotaxis. They kill
bacteria by a process called phagocytosis, in which they completely surround
the bacteria and digest them with digestive enzymes.” [11]
Our disease fighting immune system is phenomenal, to say the least. The smartest scientists can't come close to copying it, let alone making a better one.
When the WBCs release the granules into the blood stream to
fight disease, they last for about 4 to 8 hours before being absorbed into body
tissues and sticking around another 4 or 5 days. What an amazing system for
fighting disease for you. How can anyone conceptualize how this could have
evolved?
Platelets
When you cut yourself, your blood will clot and form a scab.
Did you ever ask yourself why your blood does not clot inside your body and
turn you into a statue? The smooth inner surface of the blood vessels and a
finely tuned balance of chemicals or “clotting factors” keeps that from
happening. [12] Evolutionists must believe that we are really lucky that blood
clotting worked perfectly the very first time. Otherwise we would have bled out
completely on the ground or else frozen solid from internal clotting.
“…platelets are not actually cells
but rather small fragments of cells. Platelets help the blood clotting process
(or coagulation) by gathering at the site of an injury, sticking to the lining
of the injured blood vessel, and forming a platform on which blood coagulation
can occur. This results in the formation of a fibrin clot, which covers the
wound and prevents blood from leaking out. Fibrin also forms the initial scaffolding
upon which new tissue forms, thus promoting healing.” [13]
The number of platelets also has to have a controlling
chemical process so there is just the right number in your body. Too many
platelets and people would be getting strokes and heart attacks. Too few and
we’d lose a lot of blood to excessive bleeding. Here again it looks like there
must have been a very intelligent designer.
Okay, I’m sure you are getting the idea and are probably
tired of reading so I’m going to wrap it up now.
There are different types of Platelets: T-cells and B-cells.
The T-cells come in 4 types: (1) Helper T cells, (2) Cytotoxic T cells, (3)
Memory T cells, and (4) Suppressor T cells. Each of them has their own unique
chemicals and very complex purposes.
And I haven’t even talked about the Plasma, which makes up
55% of your blood.
In conclusion, there must be God.
___________________________________
[1] Smithsonian.com, "There are 37.2 Trillion Cells in
Your Body", http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/there-are-372-trillion-cells-in-your-body-4941473/?no-ist
[2] Guliuzza, Randy J., "Life-Giving Blood", http://www.icr.org/article/4823
[3] Guliuzza, Randy J., "Life-Giving Blood", http://www.icr.org/article/4823
[4] American Society of Hematology, "Blood
Basics", http://www.hematology.org/Patients/Basics/
(Excellent 52 sec video: https://youtu.be/R-sKZWqsUpw )
[5] American Society of Hematology, "Blood
Basics", http://www.hematology.org/Patients/Basics/
[6] WebMD article, “Heart Health Center”, http://www.webmd.com/heart/anatomy-picture-of-blood
[7] Bianco, Carl, "How Blood Works", http://health.howstuffworks.com/human-body/systems/circulatory/blood.htm/printable
[8] Guliuzza, Randy J., "Life-Giving Blood", http://www.icr.org/article/4823
[9] U. S. National Library of Medicine, "Red blood cell
production",
[10] Bianco, Carl, "How Blood Works", http://health.howstuffworks.com/human-body/systems/circulatory/blood.htm/printable
[11] Bianco, Carl, "How Blood Works", http://health.howstuffworks.com/human-body/systems/circulatory/blood.htm/printable
[12] WebMD article, “Heart Health Center”, http://www.webmd.com/heart/anatomy-picture-of-blood
[13] American Society of Hematology, "Blood
Basics", http://www.hematology.org/Patients/Basics/
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