Book will be in stock at Amazon on Dec. 25th.

Christmas Greetings,

Amazon is saying on my book page that 101 Proofs for God will be back in stock on Dec. 25th.

http://amzn.to/2ht50e1

If you don't want to wait, you can order it directly from the Publisher (BookBaby) at:

https://store.bookbaby.com/book/101_Proofs_for_God

Thanks a lot. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Jim

Ebook, Kindle Book, now available on Amazon

Hi everyone,

Just a few days ago I finished all the formatting changes needed to be able to publish my book as a Kindle book, an ebook.

They say you can read it on any device.

You can buy it on Amazon for just $9.99.

If you are an Amazon Prime subscriber (like me), you can read it for free.

http://amzn.to/2hV0nui

Hi all,

MONEY BACK GUARANTEE (see below).

My book is already on backorder at Amazon. They didn't buy enough from the publisher in their original order to meet the demand...at least I'll believe that.

It's selling at the discounted price of $13.49, down from $19.99.

So far there are 2 reviews. Both gave the book 5 stars.

It is also available on Barnes and Noble and other online retailers of books.

Here is the link to the Amazon sales page:

http://amzn.to/2g3DfrS

MONEY BACK GUARANTEE. Here is my guarantee. Buy the book and if you don't like it, then mail it to me and I'll reimburse you for the book and shipping. Just contact me at 101ProofsForGod@gmail.com for return details.

Buy my book. (please)

After 7 months of starts and stops, changing directions, hours and hours of investment in details and editing, and getting my education on how book publishing works, MY BOOK IS NOW AVAILABLE.

Hard to believe that this day has actually come.

Pre-orders are being taken now at the publisher for shipping in November.
 https://store.bookbaby.com/book/101_Proofs_for_God

Then it will also be on sale at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc.

More details are at www.101ProofsForGod.com.

I have 100 copies here at home. You can email me through the contact form at the right and I'll ship you one for $19.99 plus $4 postage.

A new adventure begins. I'm going to develop a Powerpoint and begin public speaking in churches, libraries, community groups, home-school organizations, whoever will have me.

Wish me luck.

#101 The Messiah

As I was getting closer and closer to my goal of 101 Proofs for God, I began thinking a lot about what should be the concluding Proof for God, number 101. I wanted it to be a more universal one, something more of the heart than the head.

I thought about “good and evil” and “morality” which have been classic proofs for God because they cannot originate inside of the materialistic world. I thought about “free will” and “faith” because those are very real things, but they are definitely not of this material world. No materialistic explanation of our existence (i.e. evolution) can explain their existence.

As I sat down and prayed about it, “The Messiah” came to my mind. That was very satisfying and totally appropriate. After all, what’s life and proofs for God all about right now anyway?

The Messiah is the essential crux of human history. For believers, this one person, Jesus of Nazareth, leads us to being able to explain who is God, how the world got messed up, what the solution is, and what kind of world we should be looking forward to.

Just think about the effect that one almost totally obscure man has had on the world since he lived. He lived in a pretty obscure, little country for only 33 years and shared his ideas for only three years. Not only has he had an effect on billions of people for the last 2,000 years, but even today there are billions of people being affected by his life. His ideas affected the founding of our nation, its constitution, and government. Freedom and responsibility have led to the greatest advances in science, medicine, technology, art, and commerce that the world has ever seen.

How do you explain that type of phenomenon from three years of a man’s life? He was tapping into something way beyond ordinary lives. Something very supernatural must be going on.

Now, I’m not going to try to convert anybody to anything here. I just want to put forth some facts that might bring a new perspective or two for you.

Let’s take a look at the Bible from the perspective of it being just a book and compare it to other books. The Bible is the bestselling book of all time with over 5 billion sold. (To be accurate, Quotations from Chairman Mao claims over 6 billion in print, but does not claim they were all purchased. Also, the Qur'an claims billions, but there are not enough accurate records.) [1]

The next best seller at 150 million is Lord of the Rings. [2] The Bible outsells it by 30 to 1.

Back in 2001, records show the number of new Bibles distributed (sold or given away) in the United States was about 168,000 per day. [3]

Could the Bible possibly be just a lie and really worthless to all those people? Are they really that stupid? Could they just be deluding themselves? Could they just be fantasizing their experiences with the God of the Bible?

There is totally overwhelming evidence that God really does exist everywhere you look. See 101 Proofs for God. Furthermore and most importantly, you can have a relationship with Him if you decide to. But there is the real catch, you have to decide to on your own.

Before this one I’ve put together 100 Proofs for God and if you read all of those and are still not sure if God exists or not, your next step actually is to take a “leap of faith”. There’s plenty more I could write about. I could keep going for another 40 years and get up to 1001 Proofs for God.

However, faith in God is actually a gift that comes to you once you accept that God exists and decide to believe in Him. Only after you have received the gift of faith, then you start to build your relationship with God. That’s the place you want to get to. That’s the part that is wonderful. That’s the goal.

Think of people like St. Francis of Assisi or Mother Teresa. They had an amazing personal relationship with Jesus. They had many deep experiences with him as have millions of others down through the years. As you probably know, St. Francis was the first to receive the stigmata, where the palms of his hands, his feet, and his side shed blood in the same place as Jesus’ crucifixion. It lasted for two years prior to his death. [4] The stigmata came upon him during a 40-Day fast when he was 43 years old.

This paragraph is from his biographer.

“His wrists and feet seemed to be pierced by nails, with the heads of the nails appearing on his wrists and on the upper sides of his feet, the points appearing on the other side. The marks were round on the palm of each hand but elongated on the other side, and small pieces of flesh jutting out from the rest took on the appearance of the nail-ends, bent and driven back. In the same way the marks of nails were impressed on his feet and projected beyond the rest of the flesh. Moreover, his right side had a large wound as if it had been pierced with a spear, and it often bled so that his tunic and trousers were soaked with his sacred blood." [5]

Many people have received stigmata over the years. But modern science cannot explain it. So what do they conclude?

Some modern research has indicated stigmata are of hysterical origin, or linked to dissociative identity disorders, especially the link between dietary constriction by self-starvation, dissociative mental states and self-mutilation, in the context of a religious belief. [6]

In essence, they are crazy people. Is that what you want to believe about St. Francis? How about Mother Teresa? You’d have to be a crazy person to spend your life among lepers like she did, right?

Some people may say that the historical Jesus did not exist. (That might be an even better proof for God if somehow all the miracles for 2,000 years have been done by God without an earthly Jesus.) But he actually did exist. The evidence for his life is far more substantial than evidence for other ancient figures that everybody accepts as having existed without doubt, e.g. Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Homer, and others.

Go to this type of resource for a thorough analysis of proof for Jesus: Is The New Testament Reliable As An Historical Record? [7] It lays out three tests to apply to historical documents: (1) The Bibliographical test, (2) The Internal evidence test, and (3) The External evidence test. The life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth pass with high flying colors.

There are some 24,000 copies of the New Testament in existence (5,600 in Greek, 10,000 in Latin, and 9,000 in other languages from wide ranges all over the Middle East.) This compares to “The Iliad” by Homer which is in second place with 643 copies. [8] There are about 250 known manuscripts for Plato. [9]

“We have 114 fragments of the New Testament dating back to 50-100 A.D., and 5366 Greek copies of parts of the New Testament, and over 19,000 manuscripts in other languages, including 250 books containing most of the N.T and 325 complete New Testaments within 225 years of their writing and less than 300 years from Christ’s Resurrection.” [10]

A surprisingly huge number of the New Testament fragments and copies are very close in time frame to their original documents, increasing the likelihood that they are accurate. But for Plato who lived around 400BC, we do not have any copy of his work that was made until 1200 to 1300 years later. So there could be a lot of errors in the copy. For Homer, our existing copies were made 500 years after his originals. 

 

Further evidence for the real life of Jesus is that many people living at his time or shortly thereafter wrote about him and his followers and the New Testament. Writings of later church fathers contain 19,368 citations referring to texts from just the Four Gospels alone.[11]  

Another point is, “What’s the whole big deal about a Messiah, anyway?” For non-believers, Jesus is not a big deal. However, people with a religious inclination know in their hearts there is something wrong with this world. Human nature has good and evil. It’s different when compared to the harmony in all of Nature. Somehow we are separated from the goodness and happiness that we long for in our hearts. If there is a Messiah, a person who saves us from this situation, then there is an explanation for our plight and a solution to return to the original ideal. There is hope. Also, the existence of the Messiah is proof there is a God acting behind the scenes who loves us and sends the Messiah for us.

There could never be The Messiah if there were no God. In fact, The Messiah necessitates a loving, long-suffering God who is trying to bring home His “lost sheep”, His lost children. That is exactly the Heavenly Father that Jesus taught us about. No one else in history taught us that God is our Heavenly Father and forgives us.

Certainly, Jesus believed in God. If there ever was an “expert” that we could trust, he’s the one. Maybe you think that you know “the truth” better than anyone else. If that were true, then we should call you “god”, shouldn’t we?

One day everyone will find the truth, whether it is in this life or the next. Deep inside every person is the inerasable quest for truth. That is the guarantee that we will all keep searching until we find our source.   

There must be God.

_________________________________________________________

[1] List of best-selling single-volume books, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_books

[2] List of best-selling single-volume books, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_books

[3] About the Bible, ChristianAnswers.net, http://www.christiananswers.net/bible/about.html

[4] “Francis of Assisi”, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_of_Assisi

[5] “Stigmata”, Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stigmata

[6] “Stigmata”, Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stigmata

[7]  “Is The New Testament Reliable As A Historical Record?”, Know What You believe.Com, http://knowwhatyoubelieve.com/believe/evidence/bible_reliability.htm

[8] “Is The New Testament Reliable?”, Know What You believe.Com, http://knowwhatyoubelieve.com/believe/evidence/bibliographical_test.htm

[9] Wikipedia, “Plato: Textual sources and history”, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plato

[10] “Did Plato Really Exist?”, http://www.dakotavoice.com/2008/03/did-plato-really-exist/

[11] “Manuscript Evidence for the Bible: An Outline”, http://www.faithfacts.org/search-for-truth/maps/manuscript-evidence

#100 Quality Control and Error Correction

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 2015 was given jointly to three scientists who discovered repair mechanisms in our DNA.

“The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2015 is awarded to Tomas Lindahl, Paul Modrich and Aziz Sancar for having mapped, at a molecular level, how cells repair damaged DNA and safeguard the genetic information. Their work has provided fundamental knowledge of how a living cell functions and is, for instance, used for the development of new cancer treatments.” [1, also links to illustrations below]

“Damages occur to your DNA every day.” Sara Snogerup Linse is the chair of the Nobel Committee for chemistry. ‘In fact, right here, right now, if all those errors were left uncorrected, your genetic material would have very little resemblance to the original chromosomes in your very first cell. Life as we know it today is totally dependent on DNA repair mechanisms, as have been revealed in molecular detail by this year’s chemistry laureates.’” [2]

Think about what Nobel Prize Chemists are actually saying. This is totally anti-evolution. Our DNA repairs itself. Maybe that seems like it is not important, or perfectly natural, unless you think about it for a few minutes. What is DNA repairing itself from? Why mutations of course. DNA does not like mutations and actually has at least three different ways of fighting against mutation, and trying to stop mutation, and repairing against it when it does happens (which is often).

Now evolutionists will have an even more difficult time explaining that their mechanism for developing new species is even remotely possible. Scientists have shown that mutation cannot really be the process for change.

Here is what the Nobel Academy said about Dr. Paul Modrich’s discovery of the “mismatch repair mechanism”.

"This mechanism, mismatch repair, reduces the error frequency during DNA replication by about a thousand fold," the academy said. [3]

The Nobel Prize was given to a man who made evolution about a thousand times more difficult. Imagine what science will finally discover in the future if they keep going.

This quote is from a CNN article about the Nobel Prize for Chemistry.

Tomas Lindahl, Paul Modrich and Aziz Sancar won "for having mapped, at a molecular level, how cells repair damaged DNA and safeguard the genetic information."

The organization (prize committee) tweeted graphics explaining the scientists' work. [1]

Lindahl, a Swedish scientist, showed that "DNA decays at a rate that ought to have made the development of life on Earth impossible," the academy said.

"This insight led him to discover a molecular machinery, base excision repair, which constantly counteracts the collapse of our DNA."

Modrich, an American, showed how a cell corrects errors that occur when DNA is replicated during cell division.

"This mechanism, mismatch repair, reduces the error frequency during DNA replication by about a thousand fold," the academy said.

Sancar, a U.S. and Turkish citizen, mapped nucleotide excision repair -- the mechanism that cells use to repair UV damage to DNA, the academy said.

"People born with defects in this repair system will develop skin cancer if they are exposed to sunlight, it said. [4]

Here is another important statement.

“Paul Modrich showed how cells correct errors that take place during DNA replication, every time a cell divides. This mismatch repair fixes some 99.9 percent of the errors that take place.” [5]

That means almost 100% of DNA errors are repaired, which makes evolution virtually impossible. Here is another amazing statement in a report.

“Towards the end of the 1960s, many scientists considered DNA to be incredibly stable. But working at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Dr. Lindahl worked out that there must be thousands of potentially damaging attacks on the genome every day – an onslaught that would make human life impossible.” [6]

The Nobel Prize Committee admitted that human life should be impossible because DNA is so fragile. Dr. Lindahl, way back in 1974 (42 years ago) proposed a mechanism to explain how we could even exist despite the fact that our DNA is so unstable. (Note, we shouldn’t be here. We are a miracle.)

Here are some more statements in the report by The Guardian and some more from the Nobel Committee.

“From the moment an egg is fertilized it begins to divide. Two cells become four, four cells become eight. After one week a human embryo consists of 128 cells, each with its own set of genetic material. Unravel all that DNA and it would stretch for 300 meters.

“But many billions more divisions take place on the path to adulthood, until we carry enough DNA in our trillions of cells to reach 250 times to the sun and back. The most remarkable feat is how the genetic information is copied so faithfully. ‘From a chemical perspective, this ought to be impossible,’ the Nobel committee said.

“‘All chemical processes are prone to random errors. Additionally, your DNA is subjected on a daily basis to damaging radiation and reactive molecules. In fact, you ought to have been a chemical chaos long before you even developed into a fetus,’ they added.” [7]

The chemists admitted that “from a chemical perspective” it is impossible. Obviously, something beyond chemistry must be at work here.

Here’s the truth that evolutionists must now face. Their theory about a slow and gradual step by step process for species development must now overcome the newly established chemistry of DNA repair mechanisms. How can evolution claim that mutation is their operating process when it is being reversed 99.9% of the time by these Nobel Prize winning repair mechanisms?

Have you ever tried to go someplace by taking two steps forward and two steps back? The Theory of Evolution starts from very simple organisms and ends up after a long climb at millions of extremely complicated structures. But evolution can never even get started without DNA. Now we find that DNA basically won’t mutate because it already has inside itself an anti-mutant mechanism in place.

DNA repair mechanisms are like “quality control” in a manufacturing plant. Here is a definition:

"’Quality control’ is a system for verifying and maintaining a desired level of quality in an existing product or service by careful planning, use of proper equipment, continued inspection, and corrective action as required.” [8]

In order for this DNA repair system to function, I can name at least six separate actions that are required. You have to be able to (1) inspect the DNA replications for errors, (2) recognize when there is a copying error or failure and exactly where it is, (3) turn on a repair mechanism, (4) fix the error, (5) turn off the repair mechanism, and (6) check to see if the repair was successful. Sounds a lot like intelligence was required at a very highly sophisticated level that human beings can only imagine.

There must be God.

___________________________________________________________

[1] The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Press Release, October 7, 2015, http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/2015/press.html

Illustration - DNA Structure (pdf 650 kB) http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/2015/fig_ke_en_15_dnastructure.pdf

Illustration - Base excision repair (pdf 495 kB) http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/2015/fig_ke_en_15_baseexcisionrepair.pdf

Illustration - Mismatch repair (pdf 1,5 Mb) http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/2015/fig_ke_en_15_mismatchrepair.pdf

Illustration - Nucleotide excision repair (pdf 537 kB) http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/2015/fig_ke_en_15_nucleotideexcisionrepair.pdf

[2]  Scientific American.Com, "2015 Nobel Prize in Chemistry", By Steve Mirsky on October 7, 2015, http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/2015-nobel-prize-in-chemistry/

[3] CNN.Com, "Nobel Prize for chemistry awarded to 3 scientists for DNA repair studies", By Holly Yan and Don Melvin, CNN Updated 9:32 AM ET, Wed October 7, 2015, http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/07/world/europe/nobel-prize-chemistry/

[4] CNN.Com, "Nobel Prize for chemistry awarded to 3 scientists for DNA repair studies", By Holly Yan and Don Melvin, CNN Updated 9:32 AM ET, Wed October 7, 2015, http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/07/world/europe/nobel-prize-chemistry/

[5]  Scientific American.Com, "2015 Nobel Prize in Chemistry", By Steve Mirsky on October 7, 2015, http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/2015-nobel-prize-in-chemistry/

[6] The Guardian.Com, "Nobel prize for chemistry: Lindahl, Modrich and Sancar win for DNA research", by Ian Sample and James Randerson, October 7, 2015, https://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/oct/07/lindahl-modrich-and-sancar-win-nobel-chemistry-prize-for-dna-research

[7] The Guardian.Com, "Nobel prize for chemistry: Lindahl, Modrich and Sancar win for DNA research", by Ian Sample and James Randerson, October 7, 2015, https://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/oct/07/lindahl-modrich-and-sancar-win-nobel-chemistry-prize-for-dna-research

[8] “Quality Control”, http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/quality-control

#99 Complexity, Equilibrium, and Energy Costs

I’m sure you remember the phrase from physics class that a body in motion tends to stay in motion and a body at rest tends to stay at rest. This is known as Newton’s First Law of Motion.

This has an interesting application to recent research on evolution. As you can imagine, it takes a certain amount of energy to produce something new and different. And mutating new systems is the essence of how evolution creates new species.

If forces are in a state of equilibrium, then generally there will not be change. Darwinism requires that there be change over time and therefore there must be an input of energy.

Here is the definition of equilibrium.

A condition in which all influences acting cancel each other, so that a static or balanced situation results. In physics, equilibrium results from the cancellation of forces acting on an object. In chemistry, it occurs when chemical reactions are proceeding in such a way that the amount of each substance in a system remains the same. [1]

In a July, 2014, peer reviewed article in the journal Complexity, researchers Snoke, Cox, and Petcher have realized that the Theory of Evolution has a major problem. [2] Their conclusion was this.

The bottom line seems to be that whatever cause generated the biological features we observe, unguided Darwinian evolution is not it. [3]

They used a computational model to simulate the processes that must take place for evolution to be true. The Theory of Evolution says that Natural Selection chooses one from among many variations in a survival of the fittest process. The essential point to discuss here is that there must first exist the many variations for Natural Selection to be able to act on something.

If you don’t have many variations already existing, then the odds of Natural Selection working successfully become totally impossible.

In order to get many variations, there is necessarily an energy requirement. The researchers chose a certain level of energy as the amount needed to make a new variation and then tested to see what the results would be.

[T]here is an additional energy cost to increased complexity. ... In real systems, building new systems is costly, and the cost of carrying along useless or redundant systems is one of the arguments for the efficiency of existing living systems, as excess baggage is dropped as too costly. [4]

So in other words, once a good design exists, it tends to be in equilibrium and it will continue. It will not develop other systems because of the extra energy required to develop them. Adding new variations onto an already functioning and efficient system would require extra energy that the organism would tend to select against.

As an example, how do you evolve a human pelvis from a monkey pelvis? The orientation, structure, and strength points are very different because a human walks upright. The monkey pelvis works fine for the monkey. Why would a partially human pelvis and a partially monkey pelvis be remotely a good idea from an efficiency perspective?

You could make the same argument for legs, feet, arms, hands, and on and on, trying to develop a monkey into a human.

The model showed that in most cases, no changes would take place in a working system. It also showed another problem.

If you plug a number into the model that would represent a low cost of energy in order to make a new variation, then you would indeed get lots of variations. This is necessary for Natural Selection to be able to operate. However, many variations when the energy cost is low would also be carried forward even if they did not have a functional purpose. This ultimately caused the organism to fail from the burden of useless vestigial systems.

In order for Natural Selection to function, the theory says there have to be a lot of systems to choose from. But the modeling based on energy costs demonstrates that in reality too many of those various systems would not be discarded. The organism would eventually have to fail from the burden.

There was no stable energy cost point for getting to the scenario where Natural Selection could work its magic. They either got no evolution or too much useless evolution which Natural Selection could not deal with.

The analysis of the energy cost of producing variations showed this:

There are two competing processes. On one hand, the energy cost of carrying vestigial systems makes them weakly deleterious, not neutral, which tends to reduce their number. Conversely, without stabs in the dark, that is, new systems which might eventually obtain new function but as yet have none, no novelty can ever occur, and no increase of complexity. Thus, if the energy cost of vestigial systems is too high, no evolution will occur. [5]

So here is the big problem. The tendency it turns out is to stay in equilibrium once an efficient system is attained. From there, no evolution occurs. The energy cost of many variations is too high. Thus no new systems tend to develop and no further evolution takes place.

When researchers tested what would happen if only a small amount of energy cost was needed to produce lots of variations. They found that this would produce the many new systems that are needed, however, this would also lead to many left over systems that are useless. Over time more and more useless systems would accumulate. Eventually that would cause the organism to die out from lack of efficiency.

But trying lots of new things mean you cannot weed out slightly deleterious traits. Over time unhelpful traits accumulate. Eventually such mutations pile up to an extent that the population reaches a crisis point, and crashes. The junk has become an unbearable burden. The organisms go extinct. [6]

I like this new phrase “arrival of the fittest” in the next quote. Before there can ever be “survival of the fittest”, there has to be “arrival of the fittest” on the scene. Science is now having a problem identifying how systems could even “arrive”, let alone be in a position to be selected.

Many scientists now recognize the insufficiency of the classic Darwinian story to account for the appearance of new features or innovations in the history of life. They focus on other theories to account for remarkable differences between genomes, the appearance of novel body plans, and genuine innovations like the bat's wing, the mammalian placenta, the vertebrate eye, or insect flight, for example. They realize that the traditional story of population genetics (changes in allele [7] frequencies in populations due to mutation, selection, and drift) cannot account for "the arrival of the fittest" and not just the "survival of the fittest." [8]

Let me repeat the conclusion of that peer-reviewed article. Please pass it on to others so that they too will be aware of what researchers themselves are more and more aware of.

The bottom line seems to be that whatever cause generated the biological features we observe, unguided Darwinian evolution is not it. [9]

As research continues, even stubborn believers are going to have to give up on Darwinian unguided evolution. The end has to come sooner or later and it will be scientists who pull the plug on Darwinian Evolution.

There must have been some intelligence far greater than ours to engineer the world around us.

There must be God.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

[1] The American Heritage® New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition, Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Company.

[2] Snoke, David W.; Cox, Jeffrey; and Petcher, Donald, "Suboptimality and complexity in evolution", Complexity Journal, Volume 21, Issue 1, http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/cplx.21566/abstract

[3] Luskin, Casey, "Peer-Reviewed Paper Reveals Darwin's Unavoidable Catch-22 Problem", December 27, 2015, http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/12/6_of_our_top_st101881.html

[4] Snoke, David W.; Cox, Jeffrey; and Petcher, Donald, "Suboptimality and complexity in evolution", Complexity Journal, Volume 21, Issue 1, http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/cplx.21566/abstract

[5] Snoke, David W.; Cox, Jeffrey; and Petcher, Donald, "Suboptimality and complexity in evolution", Complexity Journal, Volume 21, Issue 1, http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/cplx.21566/abstract

[6] Luskin, Casey, "Peer-Reviewed Paper Reveals Darwin's Unavoidable Catch-22 Problem", December 27, 2015, http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/12/6_of_our_top_st101881.html

[7] Allele: one of two or more alternative forms of a gene that arise by mutation and are found at the same place on a chromosome.

[8] Gauger, Ann, "Waiting for Mutations: Why Darwinism Won't Work", Sept. 23, 2015, http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/09/waiting_for_mut099631.html

[9] Luskin, Casey, "Peer-Reviewed Paper Reveals Darwin's Unavoidable Catch-22 Problem", December 27, 2015, http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/12/6_of_our_top_st101881.html

#98 Acacia Trees and Ants

Gardening is thought of as a skill that requires pretty advanced intelligence. Humans in the whole history of evolution did not start to garden until about 10,000BC. [1]

This Proof for God is about the symbiotic relationship between certain trees and certain types of ants. In particular I want to talk about the Central and South American Bull-Horn Acacia tree and the Pseudomyrmex ant, which is a genus of stinging, wasp-like ants.

“Many species of acacia tress that are deficient in chemical defenses have developed a mutualistic relationship with stinging ants in which protection is exchanged for nutrients and a home. Acacia trees and their symbiotic partner can be found all over the world in temperate, desert, and tropical regions, especially since some species of acacia trees are highly invasive. They reach sexual maturity typically three years after germination, and the adult trees can be used for industrial or decorative purposes. During development, the acacia trees form symbiotic relationships with ants to promote healthy growth for both the ant and the tree. Not only are the trees vigorously protected, but they also provide ants and their larvae a ready home and available nutrients.” [2]

“Ant-plant mutualism is not rare with at least 100 other species of plants and ants exhibiting this relationship.” [3].

Note that the author of the above quote talks about the plant and ants as if they are intelligently discussing with each other how they are going to form a mutually beneficial partnership. How come we humans can’t form a relationship with a plant if an ant can do it? Or how come we can’t form a nice relationship with a bunch of ants if a plant can do it?

As I explain below what amazing things scientists have discovered about this relationship, you will see that the Theory of Evolution has no plausible explanation for its existence. Even if one such implausible relationship could have evolved, how could 100 totally distinct and unique types of plant to ant relationships evolve without any connection to each other?

An important point to make in the beginning is that the Bull-Horn Acacia tree cannot survive without the help of the ants. In experiments where the ants were taken off the tree, the tree died within two to fifteen months. “In studying this amazing relationship, researchers removed the ants from some of these trees. Within two to fifteen months the tree was dead. Without the ants' care, animals eat off all the leaves and surrounding plants overrun it.” [4]

So without help from the ants, there could not be any Bull-Horn Acacia trees. So how could the trees ever have evolved without the ants already there to take care of them? But how did the ants learn how to take care of these particular trees before the trees existed? Gardening the trees would have to have evolved too. It would take a long process of learning for the ants, if ants can even learn like that. Taking care of the Acacia trees is very, very complicated as we shall see.

If you have two minutes, check out this National Geographic video about a similar Acacia tree and its ants. I think you will be amazed:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xm2qdxVVRm4

In this symbiotic relationship, let’s look first at what the Acacia tree does for the ants. There is a lot of the trademark of intelligence here and if you don’t accept that there is a God, then you have to think it is the tree that has intelligence or else it is just some accidental process.

“The mutualistic relationship is established when a newly mated queen is attracted to a tree by its odor and starts nesting inside the large, hollow acacia thorns. She lays 15-20 eggs to produce the first generation of workers. As the colony grows, more thorns become inhabited, and when the colony reaches around 400 individuals, the ants start to protect the plant.” [5]

Scientists know that the queen ant can smell an Acacia tree. Think of all the evolution that would have to go into an ant being able to smell, let alone being able to recognize a particular tree as the one that would provide a good place to start a nest.

The Acacia tree provides a wonderful place for ants to build their nests. The ants can drill a hole into the horns of the plant that are hollow inside and this makes a perfect place for a nest. Since the horns are fairly small, the ants will make nests in the horns all over the tree.

The Acacia tree actually has special glands on their stems which secrete a carbohydrate-rich, sweet nectar that is very nutritious for the ants. If that gland evolved through a slow and gradual process and the nectar that is secreted then also had to evolve by a slow and gradual process, don’t you think the ants would find a different source of nutrition instead of waiting around? Evolutionists have amazing imaginations, but I’d like to see them point out any actual plant that has ever evolved something like this on its own in the thousands of years that humans have been watching plants. It’s never been seen, but still they believe in evolution.

The Acacia tree also produces what are called “Beltian bodies” on the tips of its leaflets. These Beltian bodies are made of a protein-lipid which doesn’t seem to have any other use or value except for the ants to feed their larvae. [6] The Beltian bodies seem to be perfect for that single purpose. Look at the picture below of Beltian bodies and imagine the evolution that had to take place for the tree to produce such a “fruit”. Trees live a long time. They would have to produce seeds, which grow up, and then produce new seeds. How many generations would it take in a slow and gradual process of tree after tree until the Beltian bodies were perfected. Remember that the Beltian bodies give no benefit at all to the tree except to attract the ants by providing the perfect nutrients for their larvae. Remember that without the ants, the trees mostly die so getting many generations of trees to evolve implies that the ants were always there.

That’s already too incredible for evolution. But now let’s take a look at what the ants do for the tree.

If a plant eating animal or insect comes along that will harm the Acacia tree, the ants release a pheromone which is a nasty odor and it sounds the alarm. All of them rush out to attack. They will bite and sting any intruder very severely, usually driving them away.

However, the ants are uniquely selective. If a Praying Mantis or a spider comes along, which actually can benefit the Acacia by eating insect pests, the ants leave them alone. Now how could they have ever evolved that type of selectivity? Ants also will not bother the bees that pollinate the tree.

Another thing that the ants do for the tree is keep away vines and other plants. The ants will chew through any vines that come on their tree or its leaves, thus getting rid of any threat. The ants seem to even know that the tree needs sunlight and will remove leaves of other trees that are obstructing the sunlight.

"According to Daniel Janzen, livestock can apparently smell the pheromone and avoid these acacias day and night. Getting stung in the mouth and tongue is an effective deterrent to browsing on the tender foliage. In addition to protecting V. conigera (Acacia) from leaf-cutting ants and other unwanted herbivores, the ants also clear away invasive seedlings around the base of the tree that might overgrow it and block out vital sunlight." [7]

And here is a very amazing fact that was discovered recently, the ants actually help prevent bacteria problems on the leaf surfaces. Scientists have found that it is likely something on the legs of the ants that yields the antibacterial benefit. Evolutionists are going to have a problem explaining how something like that evolved.

"Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Jena, Germany, have now found that ants also keep harmful leaf pathogens in check. The presence of ants greatly reduces bacterial abundance on surfaces of leaves and has a visibly positive effect on plant health...

"Detailed analysis of the bacterial composition on the surfaces of the leaves suggested that the presence of mutualistic ants changed the bacterial populations and reduced harmful pathogens.

"How antimicrobial protection is transferred from ants to plant is still unclear." [8]

Is that convincing enough that this relationship was designed and not evolved? How about one more point. Researchers have discovered that the tree secrets some repellent, probably from its pollen, that keeps the ants away. This maximizes the reproduction of the seeds of the tree because the ants don’t run over them and disturb their growth. But the secretion eventually wears off about the time that the fertilization has already taken place.  So now the ants will come around and they will perform their duty of protecting the leaves and tree again. [9]

No human being could design something with this chemical and biological sophistication.

There must be God.

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[1] History of Farming, http://quatr.us/economy/farming/

[2] Themes of Parasitology: Relationship Advice: Acacia Trees and Ants http://bio390parasitology.blogspot.com/2012/03/relationship-advice-acacia-trees-and.html

[3] Piper, Ross. Extraordinary Animals: An Encyclopedia of Curious and Unusual Animals. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2007. 1-3. Print.

[4] Bartz, Paul, "Ants who garden", http://www.creationmoments.com/content/ants-who-garden

[5] Themes of Parasitology: Relationship Advice: Acacia Trees and Ants http://bio390parasitology.blogspot.com/2012/03/relationship-advice-acacia-trees-and.html

[6] Marietta College, "Acacia Ants", http://w3.marietta.edu/~biol/costa_rica/animals/acacia_ants.htm

[7] Wikipedia, "Vachellia cornigera", (Bullhorn Acacia), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vachellia_cornigera

[8] Wikipedia, "Vachellia cornigera", (Bullhorn Acacia), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vachellia_cornigera

[9] McDaniel College, "Ant-acacia mutualism", http://www2.mcdaniel.edu/Biology/eco/mut/mutualism.html