#65 Mitochondrial Eve and Y-Chromosome Adam

Genetic scientists seem to be in general agreement that we are all descendants of one woman and one man. This research was fairly recent, starting about 1978. They, of course, do not believe in the creation story of Adam and Eve in the Bible, but their conclusions are getting closer and closer.

In case you have not heard about this, it makes very interesting reading. But I think it raises a number of profound challenges to the Theory of Evolution.

The scientists base the above conclusions on the known facts of human reproduction, specifically on properties of the sperm and egg.

Mitochondrial Eve

What are mitochondria? They are membrane-bound organelles found in the cells of all plants, animals, fungi, and many other forms of life. [1]

“These structures are sometimes described as "cellular power plants" because they generate most of the cell's supply of adenosine triphosphate (ATP), used as a source of chemical energy. In addition to supplying cellular energy, mitochondria are involved in other tasks such as signaling, cellular differentiation, cell death, as well as the control of the cell cycle and cell growth.“[2]

Every person inherits his or her mitochondria for every cell in their body exclusively from their mother. The father contributes only a sperm cell to the developing fetus. But a sperm has only a small amount of mitochondria in the tail that gets used up in propulsion or else destroyed after fertilizing the egg.

Researchers sampled the DNA from the mitochondria in 147 people from all the major racial groups of the world. From this DNA they concluded that we all descended from a single woman. They think she must have lived between 99,000 and about 200,000 years ago in Africa.[3] It’s a theory and has its opponents, but it has gained a lot of support. The theory is interesting, but a little complicated. I encourage you to read up on it if you would like to. Scientists believe there were other women alive at the same time, but their line of descendants died out or does not include all living humans today.

This common female ancestor of all anatomically modern humans alive today was nicknamed "Mitochondrial Eve".

Y-Chromosome Adam

What is the Y-Chromosome? Probably you learned about it in school.

“The Y chromosome is one of two sex chromosomes in mammals, including humans, and many other animals. The other is the X chromosome. Y is the sex-determining chromosome in many species, since it is the presence or absence of Y that determines male or female sex.” [4]

Females do not have a Y-Chromosome in their cells. Only males inherit Y-Chromosomes and they always come from the father only. Therefore researchers can study the Y-chromosomes of men all over the world and can then theorize that all men are related and in fact descended from one man long ago. This is based on certain changes to the DNA in the Y-Chromosomes. By theorizing about the rate of mutations or types of changes to the DNA itself, they can make predictions about a common male ancestor. It is believed that many generations ago the ancestor of all men came from the same tribe, and finally a single great-great-…..-great-grandfather.

The conclusion is thus that we are all descendants of one male ancestor and he has received the nickname of "Y-Chromosome Adam". [5] He lived by various estimates between 120,000 and 338,000 years ago. And by analyzing the divergence of DNA in earthly populations, it was determined that he also likely lived in Africa.

This is a nice coincidence because most religious groups also believe that all humans are descendants of one man and one woman. Scientists have not concluded that they mated with each other, but they do put them in Africa and within a few 1000 years of each other. Religious people believe that God miraculously created the first man and woman. Secularists and evolutionists believe that there were many other humans around at the same time as Mitochondrial Eve or Y-Chromosome Adam, but their lineages did not result in an unbroken line to all humans alive today.

So let’s now look at some of the contradictions and challenges that the evolutionists have to deal with.

First off, scientists say that roughly 200,000 years ago (plus or minus 100K) a male and a female existed that were anatomically JUST LIKE US. Over the 200,000 years until today, although there have been mutations in their genes, they are still humans just like us.

This means there has been no evolution or species change for 200,000 years. There is no slow and gradual change that Darwin predicted! Think about that for a minute. If there has been no observable change in the last 200,000 years, how can we be so sure that there was any change the previous 200,000 years? Or how about the 200,000 years before that? If there has been no evidence in genetic research of evolution in 200,000 years, why assume evolution is true at all. They are building their case on faith.

Secondly, 200,000 years is a long time without significant change. The human body is extremely complicated and the time frame is just too short for evolution to be true. Current scientific belief is that humans diverged from apes about 5 to 7,000,000 years ago.

“A new study of genes in humans and chimpanzees pins down with greater accuracy when the two species split from one. The evolutionary divergence occurred between 5 million and 7 million years ago, an estimate that improves on the previous range of 3 million to 13 million years in the past. Modern chimps are the closest animal relative to humans.” [6]

There are some very major changes that had to take place in the body structure of apes to turn them into humans. Remember also that both female humans and male humans had to evolve from ape-like creatures. Presumably both the male and the female had to evolve thousands of similar changes at nearly same time for Natural Selection to be working. Imagine if women evolved but men didn't. Then the men would still walk around and be shaped like chimpanzees.

Very little if anything has actually changed in human bodies in the last 200,000 years according to genetic scientists. Where is the slow and gradual change predicted by Darwin? 5 million is only 25 times 200,000. If almost nothing changes in 200,000 years, then how could there be millions of dramatic changes in the previous 4,800,000?

It doesn't make sense. How could there be rapid change from an ape shape to a human shape and then no change? The Theory of Evolution predicts slow and gradual change. Scientists say there is no difference between humans today and 200,000 years. In order to get humans from monkeys in 4,800,000 years there has to be a lot of rapid changes and that violates the Theory of Evolution.

Thirdly, genetic scientists are accepting that we all are descendants of one man and one woman. This makes sense because it’s not likely that mutation could have produced identical advances or genetic advantages in 2 different and distinct lineages. All of us have 3 billion codes in our DNA makeup, so random mutation will never produce the same human beings in two different locations.

But if we are all descendants of one male and one female, how could a supposed evolutionary change take place in one individual and then that new trait be spread throughout the whole population of humans? The only way that can work is if all descendants WITHOUT the new trait die off and only descendants WITH the new trait survive. A new common ancestor would be needed every time a new trait emerged. And it would take not just a new Eve, but it would require a new Adam.

Let’s try to think of how we humans could evolve from today. Then I think you’ll see this is impossible. I would maintain that it would be equally impossible to have happened in all the populations in the past.

Let’s just suppose that someone was born who had mutated hugely in one generation (not the Darwinian slow and gradual) so that this person would clearly be the fittest to survive. (Think of the X-Men movie.) Just to pick an example, let’s say this person has a super-Einstein brain. You can make up your own mutated trait if you like for your own example.

Let’s call him NewMan for reference purposes. (Also NewWoman would also be fine.) Our goal is that all human beings at some point in the future have this new mutated trait, super-Einstein brain. That would mean that NewMan must become the ancestor at some point in the distant future of all the humans alive on the planet. Those without the new trait must become extinct. What would have to happen?  How long would it take?

This mutated characteristic (super-Einstein brain) would have to able to be passed on to NewMan’s children. Not all mutations can be inherited so the odds are challenging. Also NewMan would have to accidentally marry a spouse who is compatible with his mutation being inherited. He might not mate at all of course. Not all spouses would necessarily reproduce the mutated trait with him even if they mated. The odds of all this are not good. But let’s keep going. Suppose all of their children had super-brains. Still they would also have to intermarry with “normal” humans without super-brains. The genes for super-brains would have to be dominant or they would die out quickly.

There are 7 billion people in the world having children. How long would it take, if ever, before all people in the world would have a super-brain? That would mean that all people were descendants of NewMan. We would also have to get to the point that all children being born would have super-brains and the genes for non-super-brains are totally gone. Otherwise, some children might be from parents that still carried the non-super genes and the result could be that their children might have ordinary brains.

One other major problem is that the human race is spread all over the globe. Look at the picture above again of the spread of humans out of Africa. If another change occurred to our species in Africa say, how could it possibly spread all over the glove to all the other human groups? 

This seems so absurdly complicated to me that it is impossible. And this is just for one change. If we came from monkeys, we had to go through thousands of changes if not millions. (Please read my Proof for God #12, Chimpanzees, for more information on the millions of DNA differences between apes and humans. [7])

Fourthly, the idea behind Natural Selection and Survival of the Fittest is that EACH time there is an advance, then it somehow becomes universal among all members of that species in later generations. So for every small advance through evolution, and there have been thousands of them, there would have to be a NewMan and NewWoman to start the species all over again with the new trait. The corollary of course is that all the other members of the species without the new advantage are going to die out and leave no descendants. Once there are millions of members of a species, how could there be continuing evolutionary changes that spread to the entire population and don't leave out a single individual? We know that the DNA of every individual of a species is basically identical. Evolutionists want you to believe that the DNA of some advantageous mutation can be spread exactly as it is to the DNA of every individual in a species at some point in the future.

If mutations were that powerful (which they aren't), there would be total chaos in the DNA of every species. Millions of individuals would mean millions of mutations all vying to change the DNA of the whole species.

Fifthly, as we can see it becomes impossible to explain how such a process (super Einstein brains) could evolve new humans. Evolution has a tremendously bigger problem. Evolution is supposed to apply to every other one of the 800,000 species (insects, birds, fish, plants, animals, and even bacteria). Because evolution works magically only when there is reproduction, therefore new traits have to start with an original male and female. So once any significant change takes place, you would have to start all over again with another original male and female who mate with each other or at least somehow become of common ancestor of the whole species later on. 

There are so many major changes between species that this process of starting over with a new couple would have to be repeated hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of times. (See Missing Links, Proof #64 [8]) All birds, fish, animals, and all living beings would have to follow this process. That doesn’t make sense. There is not enough time in history. There is no such fossil record.

The only theory that is workable is that God created each species, a male and female, as unique originals at a point in time and from there came many variations within the species but not between species.

There must be God.   

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[1] Mitochondrion, Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrion

[2] Mitochondrion, Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrion

[3] Clark, Josh, Are we all descended from a common female ancestor? http://science.howstuffworks.com/life/evolution/female-ancestor.htm

[4] Y-Chromosome, Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y_chromosome

[5] Y-Chromosome Adam, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y-chromosome_Adam

[6] LiveScience Staff, When Humans and Chimps Split, Dec. 19, 2005, http://www.livescience.com/3996-humans-chimps-split.html

[7] Jim Stephens, Proof for God #12, Chimpanzees. http://101proofsforgod.blogspot.com/2012/07/12-chimpanzees.html 

[8] Jim Stephens, Proof for God #64, Missing Links, http://101proofsforgod.blogspot.com/2014/07/64-missing-links.html

#64 Missing Links

I’m sure you have heard of the term “Missing Link” and understand that it refers to missing fossils in the fossil record that would show the transitional stages between certain species according to the Theory of Evolution. The theory predicts which species are the ancestors of other species and that there was a slow and gradual transition with intermediate generations.

Did you ever stop to think deeply about how many Missing Links there truly must be? Even just a rough guess? If you look at the imaginative drawings of evolutionists, you might suppose that there are just one or two Missing Links. But that could not be further from the truth. I intend to show you in this article that there would necessarily be billions of Missing Links if evolution were true. Thus it isn't true and God is behind the creation of each species.

There are so many Missing Links that honest scientists should have discarded the Theory of Evolution a hundred years ago for that reason alone. But they have clung to a God denying ideology while still claiming to be scientific against all the evidence.

Take a look at this Wikipedia page of Missing Links which they call Transitional Fossils. [1] Many of the so-called missing links are drawings. A drawing is not a missing link and it is not scientific. They base these drawings mostly on their imaginations because all they have are a few bones and no complete skeletons. Go down the page of so-called missing links and count how many are incomplete, inconclusive, speculative, or controversial. That is not good science.

Let’s take a simple example of “evolving” from a monkey foot to a man’s foot. Evolution is supposed to take place by slow gradual mutations over many generations and Natural Selection acts on the results to weed out the new species or feature that is "fittest". I previously wrote articles on the Truth about Mutation [2] and Natural Selection [3] and showed these processes are a FAIL and will not work. But let’s just suppose for the sake of this article that they did work as theorized. What would you get? I contend there would have to be millions upon millions of fossils we don't have and therefore these are Missing Links. There are too many Missing Links to call evolution a reasonable theory.

Using a slow and gradual transition, exactly how many intermediate foot shapes are needed to get from an ape foot to a human foot? The exact number is certainly higher than 10 or 20, don’t you think? Note that the shape of the feet are different. The toes are different (especially the big toe). The heels are different. And the ankle has changed a lot necessarily because a human walks upright. For each small change in the foot according to evolution theory there was a living being with that type of foot who produced descendants. Probably, in fact, there had to be more than one generation for each small change. Therefore, that living being with a transitional foot could have been fossilized like any ape or human that was. None have been found. Therefore, they must all be considered Missing Links.

Just considering the foot alone, there have to be many generations of Missing Links. Now think about other parts of the ape body transitioning to the human body. Consider the pelvis. [4][5] There are many, many changes to transition through in the pelvic area to be able to walk upright. This is also true for the neck. There are major changes to the skull, the chest, the arms, the hands, the spine, and just about every other part. For an ape ancestor body to be modified into that of a human, there are going to be thousands upon thousands of changes. Therefore, there are thousands upon thousands of generations of Missing Links, not just one or two individuals.

Here’s another equally important point to consider. According to evolution, mutation produces many variations of a given species and then Natural Selection weeds out the fittest one to survive. Think about how many variations existed but did not advance as the “chosen” one. Random mutation by definition must have produced hundreds if not thousands of “mistakes” or “mutants” that lived and died but were not on the direct line from ape to human. These beings lived and died but they were not part of the “fittest” which eventually resulted in humans.

All those mutants lived. Maybe they didn't reproduce much, but they could have been fossilized. Where are they in the fossil record? These beings are all Missing Links also. So how many more Missing Links should be added to our estimate? Well, don’t we have to assume that for every mutation that “got it right”, the Theory of Evolution predicts that many, many would have “got it wrong” and thus have died out.

So for each and every direct-line transitional step (Missing Link) from apes to humans, there must have been tens or hundreds of mutations off the direct line. These beings were just as likely to have been fossilized just like the apes or men that did get fossilized. Let’s call these Missing NON-Links. They are definitely missing, but they are not on the “direct chain or lineage” from apes to humans. A wild guess would be that there are thousands upon thousands of these Missing NON-Links, just going from apes to humans.

So far I have talked about Missing Links and Missing Non-Links between apes and humans. But evolution supposedly explains the transition from every species to every other species. Because there are something like 800,000 species, we have to conclude that there are hundreds or thousands of Missing Links and Missing Non-Links for every one of those other species of plants, insects, birds, fish, amphibians, mammals, etc. Otherwise evolution is not true.

How many Missing Links are there? I originally said billions. Can you see where I got that estimate?

Darwin thought the problem of Missing Links would be solved once they discovered more and better fossils. But his problem has only gotten worse. Of all the known fossils today, 99.9% of them have been discovered since Darwin. In other words, we have 1,000 times more fossils today than at Darwin’s time. The more fossils that are discovered and the better preserved they are, the less Darwin’s theory is supported. Missing Links are not being found. Claims of Missing Links exist but in a tiny fraction of the number compared to predictions.

Another problem concerning Missing Links is that there have been many fakes. Unscrupulous scientists wanting fame and fortune have trumpeted their “discoveries” of the Missing Link to prove evolution. Either they were unscrupulous or they had to be totally incompetent, which is unlikely.

As an example, the Nebraska Man was “reconstructed” from a single tooth. In the end it was discovered to be the tooth of an extinct pig. The Piltdown Man was falsified with a human skull and an apelike jaw.

Here’s another argument that should be considered. Suppose someone someday does claim to have dig up another Missing Link. How can they prove it is our ancestor? All you have are some bones. If I went to a cemetery and dug up some bones, what could be proven from looking at those bones? We could know if it was human, if it was a male or female, its size and approximate weight. We could guess at its age and maybe a bunch of other things. But how do you know he/she had any children? You could get DNA off of real bones, but not off of a fossil. You don’t know if this was the ancestor of anybody. You don’t know if their descendants reproduced. Could a fossil woman in Africa really be the great-great grandmother of a fossil woman in China?

All of the so called Missing Links from apes to humans really are only pieces of a skeleton. Look at the famous "Lucy" above. In the left picture are the actual bones and the right is someone's imagination. We don’t have full skeletons. Lucy had no hands or foot bones.

One individual can’t be our ancestor because there had to be male and female and many generations. There should be a whole lot of a particular group of beings, even whole tribes. One very isolated individual can’t logically be an ancestor.

If all they have is pieces of a skeleton, how do you know for sure what the rest of it looked like? How do they know all the pieces belong to the same individual being? They are only guessing. And we know we can’t trust that because of all the hoaxes that have already be passed off as real. If these pieces were really human fragments and they truly survived for millions of years, how come there are not thousands of other pieces that also survived those millions of years. The earth should be covered with human remains and Missing Links. Bones found in England, China, and Indonesia are supposedly millions of years old. However, they were found in damp earth, which is scientifically controversial because they should have decayed.

Look at these human skulls. They are very different, yet they are all human. Can you tell if one is the ancestor of another one? Impossible.

Something else, also, evolutionists are guilty of confusing differentiation within a species with transition between two different species. Some of the fossils in the Wikipedia category of Transitional Fossils (Missing Links) [1] are not intermediates between two different species. They are simply developments within the same species. 

Horses have changed over time. Dogs have changed over time as have most species. But this is NOT evolution between species. No creation scientist or proponent of Intelligent Design denies that there has been differentiation within species. Horses have changed. But they deny that one species becomes another species, which is the essence of the Theory of Evolution. Apes are not the ancestors of humans.

If you take out the faked Missing Links and then the controversial ones between apes and humans, all you really have left are apes and humans with nothing in between but someone’s imagination.

The Theory of Evolution has so many “holes” in it (to coin a phrase) that it should have been debunked 100 years ago. In claiming to follow the “evidence” they have refused to accept the obvious and denied its implications.

One final point. Let’s imagine way,way in the future that you go to a fossil bed and dig up a whole lot of rather simple fossils. Then you arrange them in an order that makes sense to you, putting them in two rational sequences. See the picture below.

The objects in the pictures are much, much less complicated than living animals. Absolutely no respected scientist would claim that these rather simple “fossils” evolved by random mutation and Natural Selection (although I can see Intelligent Selection at work). Therefore, it makes no rational, scientific, or even logical sense for someone to decide that there was no intelligence involved in the creation of all the formerly living beings which became the actual historical fossils that we have today .

There must be God.

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[1] List of Transitional Fossils, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_transitional_fossils

[2] Proof #27, The Truth About Mutation, Jim Stephens, http://101proofsforgod.blogspot.com/2013/02/27-truth-about-mutation.html

[3] Proof #35, Natural Selection, Jim Stephens, http://101proofsforgod.blogspot.com/2013/05/35-natural-selection.html

[4] Sherwin, Frank, Paleontology's Pelvic Puzzle, http://www.icr.org/article/7399/

[5] Pelvic Anatomy, Upright Posture and Health, http://www.upright-health.com/pelvic-anatomy.html

#63 Skin

Before you ever came out of your mother’s womb, you had developed a fully functioning and amazing organ covering your entire body. It is called skin and it accomplishes at least 6 functions that keep you alive. Without any one of these not one of our ancestors would have survived.

Is it even possible to imagine how skin could have evolved in a slow and gradual process taking thousands of generations? If human ancestors evolved from fish with scales, then those scales had to become skin. Looking at skin for a little while in this article should convince you that scales did not turn into skin in a godless process.

The following functions of skin are all necessary for us to survive. How could they have evolved one at a time over generations?[1]

Barrier to water loss. Our skin actually keeps us from losing moisture to the air and anything that we touch such as our clothes. It also keeps nutrients in that the cells could lose if exposed.

Healing. It has amazing immunization and healing functions. It protects us from permanent damage and blood loss.

Protection against pathogens. Our skin prevents bacteria and viruses from entering our bodies. The top layer of our skin is actually dead cells which are constantly sloughing off.

Barrier to toxins and harmful chemicals. Our skin protects us from most harmful chemicals in our environment, shielding us against any damaging effects of what we touch or what touches us.

Shield and protection against damage. It is the first line of defense against injuries.

Organ for excretion of salts, urea, and toxins. Our skin actually releases a number of toxins for us. It secretes sweat to keep us cool and lubricate the skin.

Temperature regulation. Our skin helps regulate our body temperature. When we get too hot, it allows blood closer to the surface to give off heat and sweat glands release fluids to cool us through evaporation. When we get too cold, blood vessels contract to keep blood away from the surface. Muscles in the skin contract so that we shiver in order to generate heat.

Blood pressure regulation. Mechanisms in our skin increase or decrease the flow of blood in capillaries to regulate our blood pressure.

Sense of touch and pain. Everywhere on the surface of our skin we feel touch. Imagine trying to live without being able to feel anything. We are extremely sensitive to our environment, from the lightest touch of the spring breeze to the heavy thud of a hammer on our thumbnail.

Sense of hot and cold. What if you put your hand on a hot stove and couldn’t feel it? What if you took a hot shower but couldn’t tell how hot it was? What if you couldn’t tell if it was a cold day or a hot day?

Friction grip. Our skin, especially our palms and fingertips are specially designed with thicker skin and ridges so that we can grab things and hold onto them. What if your glass of milk kept slipping out of your hand?

Identification. Not only your fingerprints are unique and useful for identification, but your face is totally unique because of your skin. Take the skin off our faces and we’d all look pretty much the same.

Synthesizes Vitamin D. We all need Vitamin D to survive. Our skin makes that for us when we get enough sunlight.

I recently watched a DVD of a scientist, Dr. David Menton [2], talk for over 2 hours just about details of the skin. He hardly “scratched the surface” as they say. It was totally amazing and way beyond what I want to cover in this article. All of the above functions are very, very complicated processes involving very specialized cells in the skin. How anyone could imagine, let alone believe, that this all came about by accident is dumbfounding to me.

Let’s just talk about hair for a minute, as just one example of the complexity of different aspects in the skin. When you are born, you already have every hair follicle you will ever have. There are 3 types of hair on your body and the hair follicles are able to change themselves so that they can grow each of the different types of hair.

Lanugo hair is the type you have in the womb. It falls out before you are born.

Vellus hair is short, fine, light-colored, and barely noticeable hair that develops on most of a person's body from his/her childhood. It grows to a certain length and then stops. Eventually a totally new hair starts to grow underneath and the old hair falls out. Most of our body is covered with this type of hair as well as most animal bodies, although it is darker on animals.

  

Terminal hairs are thick, long, and dark. This is the kind that keeps growing continuously like on your head and in a man’s beard. Humans are almost the only animal that has this type of hair. Poodles are one of the very few other animals that have it.

Each hair follicle on your body has a small muscle attached to it. (Remember my Proof for God #62, Muscles, and that nobody knows how muscles could have “evolved”. [3] Well, they didn't.) So for example, if you get a chill, that muscle will make the attached hair stand up. If evolution were true, how does this make sense?

Also, each hair has a nerve connected to it that connects the hair to your brain. So when the wind blows your hair, you feel it because it registers in your brain. I’m sure you’ve noticed the wind blowing even though it is invisible. This is certainly a wonderful ability to have which makes us very sensitive to the people and the world around us.

Hair follicles have sebaceous glands [4] which secrete oils which lubricate and waterproof the skin. Specialized sebaceous glands secrete tears to help our eyes. Our hands and feet do not have these, which is a nice design feature. There are a number of different types of sebaceous glands in different areas of the body. Very, very interesting if you want to look it up.

Another amazing fact about our hair is that in some specific areas of our body there is a sweat gland which is attached to the hair follicles in that area. For example, when your body gets overheated, sweat comes out of the hair follicles in your arm pits, which helps cool you down quicker. Only one other animal sweats like humans, the horse. No evolutionist believes that we evolved from horses or that horses evolved from people, so how can they explain that we both have this amazingly complicated function in our skin. What are the odds that totally unrelated species could develop this same mechanism in their skin?

Each hair follicle is also connected to arteries and veins to supply oxygen and nourishment. Without these incredibly complex connections, we would not have hair.

Did you ever see a woman in the circus hanging by her hair and wonder why it doesn’t pull out and she falls? This is because each hair has a sheath around it which has a zigzag or ratchet pattern that is exactly matched by the surrounding hair follicle. It holds the hair in sort of like Velcro. But amazingly the hair can still grow.

OK, so I have just talked about hair so far and it's just a very small proportion of what's in your skin. But this article is getting pretty long so let me finish up quickly, but strongly note that the following, equally amazing properties of skin could all be talked about just as much as hair.

Our skin is composed of 3 layers: epidermis, dermis, and hypodermis. The very outermost layer, the epidermis, is composed of many layers of only dead cells. They are arranged in a complicated interlocking pattern like patio tiles. There are even small hook-like structures keeping them attached to each other. When a top layer of cells falls off or gets rubbed off, it gets replaced from the bottom. A layer of cells dies in the dermis and all the cells move up toward the surface. What an amazing design for replenishing the skin!

Think how amazing this is. As cells are lost on the surface, how do the cells below know to die in just the exact quantity to replace the lost cells? If your skin did not have this ability, then maybe too many dead cells would build up and clog the surface. Or maybe too few cells would be produced and all your epidermis would be rubbed off exposing the dermis where all the blood vessels and nerve endings reside.

That layer of dead cells, the epidermis, is about the thickness of Saran Wrap and yet it is totally essential to your survival. It holds in moisture so you don’t dry out. It keeps toxins and chemicals out along with bacteria and viruses.

Blood is carried into every tiny millimeter of your skin by an incredible network of capillaries. Look at this picture. There is no way this came about by random changes.

Your skin has millions of nerve endings everywhere. These are all connected to your brain and sending signals about your environment. Is it hot or cold? Are you being touched lightly or strongly? They can tell the texture of substances, whether they are soft or abrasive.

There are actually 2 types of skin. “Thick skin” is on your palms and feet. It is hairless but contains specialized nerve ending so it is much more sensitive to touch. “Thin skin” is everywhere else and contains hair.

Your palms and fingers have more specialized touch sensitive nerve endings. The name for the ending of those nerves is Meissner’s Corpuscle.[5] They are responsible for sensitivity to very light touch. How amazing that just where you need it the most, your skin provides super sensitivity. Try to imagine if your palms and fingertips were not as sensitive as they are. Read up on this type of corpuscle and how it works and tell me this is not a miracle.

You know what pain is. Do you know how miraculous it is that you can feel it? Everywhere in your skin are “specialized free nerve endings called ‘nociceptors’ or ‘pain receptors’ that only respond to tissue damage caused by intense chemical (e.g., chilli powder in the eyes), mechanical (e.g., pinching, crushing) or thermal (heat and cold) stimulation. Once stimulated, a nociceptor sends a signal along a chain of nerve fibers via the spinal cord to the brain. Nociception triggers a variety of autonomic responses and may also result in a subjective experience of pain in sentient beings. Nociceptive neurons generate trains of action potentials in response to intense stimuli, and the frequency of firing determines the intensity of the pain.” [6]

Notice that nociceptors have a special connection to the brain and even can trigger “automatic” reactions not initiated by the brain. Think about your “reflexes” and how quickly you pull your hand off of a hot stove. This is just the proverbial “tip of the iceberg” about how fantastic your skin is.

Imagine that you could not experience physical pain from your skin. You would never know if you had damaged any part of your body.

The skin on your face is what makes you look like you. We would all pretty much look alike without our skin. In fact the skin on your face has lots of embedded muscles whose sole purpose is to outwardly express your emotions. No other animals have anything like it.

All of us actually have the same color of skin. It is only because of different amounts of a chemical called melanin released in our skin that makes some skin black, brown, yellow, or red, or whatever. This too is an amazing process.

The idea that all these functions of our skin were not designed by a superior intelligence but happened accidentally over a few million years is impossible. That’s just assessing the incredible functionality of human skin. What about all the other animals that have skin as well? Some skin allows their owners to live in amazing environments, very, very cold or hot, wet or dry places. There are probably as many different types of skin as there animals. This multiplies the probability against evolution exponentially. The only thing that makes rational sense is that there must be a master intelligent designer.

There must be God.

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[1] Wikipedia, Human Skin, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_skin

[2] Dr. David Menton, The Integumentary System (Skin), Body of Evidence DVD Series. www.answersingenesis.org  

[3] Jim Stephens, Proof for God #61, Muscles. http://101proofsforgod.blogspot.com/2014/05/61-muscles.html

[4] Wikipedia, Sebaceous Glands, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sebaceous_glands

[5] Wikipedia, Tactile Corpuscle, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tactile_corpuscle

[6] Wikipedia, Nociception, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pain_receptors

#62 Common Sense

All people have what is called “Common Sense” (to a greater or lesser degree it seems). This is the ability to organize our experiences in life and our observations into a coherent understanding of how things work.

This definition is from Wikipedia: “Common sense is a basic ability to perceive, understand, and judge things, which is shared by ("common to") nearly all people, and can be reasonably expected of nearly all people without any need for debate. ...a type of basic awareness and ability to judge which most people are expected to share naturally, even if they can not explain why.” [1]

You’ve probably heard the expression “That doesn’t make sense”. This is based on our ability to judge our environment and make rational order of it. This is part of our intelligence. It can only exist because there is genuine order in the world around us and not chaos. There is a natural order of things and there are universal laws and principles.

Let’s take a statement like, “Rocks turned into people”. Your reaction would probably be “that doesn’t make any sense”. Yet that is a basic conclusion you would have to draw from so-called “scientific theories” that don’t include God. Atheists must necessarily believe that given billions of years, starting from rocks, eventually through purely chemical processes, then life accidentally started. Then came bacteria, and from bacteria life kept getting more and more complicated until humans came about.

Common Sense pretty much would tell you that life didn’t come from rocks no matter how long you waited, even billions upon billions of years.

If I tell you that there is absolutely nothing in a certain place, then suddenly for no reason there was a huge explosion and after that there were huge stars and planets everywhere, what would you say? “That doesn’t make any sense.” Precisely. If there was nothing, what exploded? And why?

At the same time as the Big Bang exploded and produced gigantic amounts of matter, it also produced universal laws of physics and chemistry. It also produced time and space. Does that make sense?

How about this? There was a huge explosion, then after a while, tiny particles began to move closer together. Eventually they turned into rocks, which became huge. Then they started to spin and they got hotter and hotter. “That doesn’t make any sense.” You’re right. Our experience tells us that after an explosion, matter is far apart and does not come back together on its own.

There are a lot of stars in the Universe, at least 11 trillion for every person on earth. Starting from Nothing, Nothing exploded and created huge amounts of dust which then violated physical and chemical laws by coming together trillions upon trillions of times to make stars out of the dust. Sorry, this doesn’t make sense.

Where did the energy for that explosion come from? It was an extreme amount of energy to be sure. We were taught in school that energy is “neither created nor destroyed, it just changes forms”. Does that make sense?

By the way, the Big Bang produced ONLY the elements of Hydrogen, Helium, and maybe Lithium. [2] [3] This took roughly 300,000 years. Somehow those 2 or 3 elements eventually became all of the 100 plus other elements of the Periodic Table all by themselves. I'm having trouble. This is not making sense.

You’ve probably heard that scientists do not believe in “Spontaneous Generation”, the concept that life can spring up from non-life. [4] [5] Atheists must necessarily believe in Spontaneous Generation. Clearly there was no life at one time and now there is. If it wasn’t spontaneously generated, then where did it come from? Common Sense is against spontaneous generation.

Or how about the idea that if you take lots of different rocks and rain on them for a long time until you have soup, out of the soup comes life. The goo became you. This violates the principle that all particles in water become dispersed, not organized. Probably many other laws are violated as well.

So what if you zap it with a lightning bolt? Our Common Sense will tell us that the energy added from a lightning bolt creates more chaos, not complexity. Adding energy creates an explosion, not life. (See my article on the First Living Cell. [6])

Do you believe that over a long, long time everything got more complex all by itself? Doesn’t make any sense to me. Over time everything rusts, decays, or falls apart.

Do you believe that adding energy in the form of sunlight will cause more complexity and organization? That doesn’t make any sense. Adding random energy hastens decay. Only adding energy PLUS adding intelligence creates better organization.

Intelligent scientists trying for 40 years could not mutate a fruit fly into anything else but a fruit fly. Do you believe if given enough time that it could randomly happen WITHOUT intelligence? Doesn’t make any sense. (Check out my article #27 The Truth About Mutation [7])

If I told you, “My house built itself over thousands and thousands of years. There was no creator. It happened slowly and gradually, one small piece at a time.” You didn’t see what happened over thousands of years and you’re not a scientist, so how do you know the truth? A house is not all that complicated, especially when compared to a human body, so maybe “It could have happened.” The odds are against it, but it could have happened. The house got there somehow, obviously because it’s there. I’m sorry, no. Even billions of years is never enough time for my house to build itself. It had to have a creator.

Here’s my point. I’m not denying that the Big Bang happened. But I am denying that it could have happened without God. Common Sense will also tell you that every step of the way from the Big Bang to human beings, adding more and more complexity, going against the laws of chemistry and physics, would never have happened UNLESS there is an outside force and intelligence acting.

There must be God.
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[1] Wikipedia. Common Sense. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_sense

[2] Wikipedia, Big Bang nucleosynthesis, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang_nucleosynthesis

[3] Berkeley University, Big Bang nucleosynthesis, http://astro.berkeley.edu/~mwhite/darkmatter/bbn.html

[4] Wikipedia, Spontaneous Generation, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spontaneous_generation
“Disproof of the traditional ideas of spontaneous generation is no longer controversial among professional biologists.”

[5] Encyclopaedia Britannica, Spontaneous Generation, http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/560859/spontaneous-generation “By the 18th century it had become obvious that higher organisms could not be produced by nonliving material. The origin of microorganisms such as bacteria, however, was not fully determined until Louis Pasteur proved in the 19th century that microorganisms reproduce.”

[6] Jim Stephens, Proof #41 The First Living Cell, http://101proofsforgod.blogspot.com/2013/07/41-first-living-cell.html

[7] Jim Stephens, Proof #27, The Truth About Mutation, http://101proofsforgod.blogspot.com/2013/02/27-truth-about-mutation.html