#93 Camels

Just as the Emperor Penguin (Proof #92) could never have evolved in the frigid and desolate Antarctica without dying before evolving, there is an animal specifically adapted by God for the harsh climates in the desert. I’m sure you know that animal is the camel. However, you will be amazed to learn the details about the camel.

For evolution to be true and a camel to evolve all the special adaptations that it has for the desert, it would need to be living in the desert most of the time, otherwise the adaptations are useless so would not be selected slowly and gradually over generations by Natural Selection. But if you think about it, the camel could not be living in the desert in the first place UNLESS it already has its special adaptations.

“A camel can go a week or more without water, and it can last for several months without food. It can survive a 40 percent weight loss and then drink up to 32 gallons (145 liters) of water in one drinking session!” [1]

If the camel did not live in the desert, there is no advantage to developing the special adaptations that it has. So Natural Selection would never develop a camel outside of the desert.

Camels have been domesticated for at least 3,500 years. [2] This means that they have been very, very helpful to humans living in the desert areas of the world. 

"Humans have used camels for their wool, milk, meat, leather, and even dung that can be used for fuel. Camel milk is an important food of the desert nomadic tribes. A camel can provide a large amount of meat for these people also. The camel’s hump is considered a delicacy in these cultures." [2]

You could easily recognize that this might have been designed because they were so perfect for the job. They even got the nickname “ship of the desert” because they can carry 200 or more pounds about 20 miles a day. They can reach 7 feet tall at the hump(s) and weigh 1,500 pounds. [3] They can run 40 miles per hour for short distances and average 25 mph for long distances. [4]

Camels have two rows of thick eye lashes to provide great protection against sands and winds. They have an inner eyelid which is actually transparent and allows the camel to see though it while protecting the eye. [2] This third eyelid has the special ability to wipe sand and dust out of the camel’s eye.

“Camels have three eyelids. Two of the eyelids have lashes and the third eyelid comes from the corner of the eye. The eyes are protected by a double row of long curly eyelashes which help keep out the sand and dust. Thick bushy eyebrows shield the eyes from the desert sun.” [5]

The Camel’s nostrils are unique. They can be closed at will to prevent sand and dust from entering. They also have a unique lining which captures the moisture out of the air when the camel breathes out. This allows the Camels to preserve moisture in their bodies. [4]

Camels have small ears and lots of hair over their ears to keep out the sand.

Camels have very unique lips. The upper lip is split in the middle and each side can be controlled independently. Each half is tough but flexible. This allows the Camel to put its mouth down close to the ground sideways and chew off low lying vegetation.

The Camel has a very leathery surface inside its mouth. This allows it to eat thistle bushes and cactus and other sharp and strong plants that grow in the desert.

Camel humps do not store water, but they do store fat, up to 80 pounds of fat. This allows Camels to go for weeks and even months on very little food. The fat when metabolized produces energy and also actually releases more than a gallon of water for each gallon of fat. So it is actually a wonderful mechanism for storing water. [2]

"When there is little food and water, the camel's hump fat releases water; 9.3 grams of fat releases 1.13 grams of water, according to research by the University of Singapore." [6]

Another advantage of storing fat in their hump is that camels don’t have to store it throughout the rest of their body which would tend to make them hotter in the summer because of the insulating effect of fat. [7]

Camels have very thick coats that reflect sunlight and help keep them from overheating. Their long legs keep them farther from the hot sand. [2]

Camels have an amazing ability to absorb and maintain water in their bodies. Their kidneys and intestines are excellent at holding water. [2] Various sources say they can drink between 30 [6] and 53 [4] gallons of water in a single session. That’s twice the amount of liquid that would fit in your car’s gasoline tank. That’s three times the amount in a normal tall kitchen garbage can (13 gal.).

Scientists do not know where all the water goes. Any other animal that drank that much compared to its size would die.

Conversely Camels can still function if they are dehydrated way past the point where other animals would die.

“Camels can survive without food and water a long period of time. Most mammals would die if they lose 15% of their water (critical loss of water is called dehydration), but a camel can lose 20-25% water without becoming dehydrated.” [5]

Camels are unique among all mammals because their red blood cells are oval instead of round. This allows their blood to continue to circulate in their capillaries even when the blood gets thicker due to less and less water content. [8]

Camels can even conserve water by concentrating their urine into a thick syrup. They also extract all the moisture from their feces so that it is almost completely dry. It can be burned as fuel from the moment it is released.

Camels have another totally unique ability. Almost all mammals maintain a constant body temperature and this takes energy. Humans keep a body temperature of about 98.6 degrees. Camels can allow their body temperatures to go down to 93.2 degrees at night or up as high as 105.8 degrees before they begin to perspire. [8] Humans would die at those extremes. Camels can survive temperatures down to -20 degrees in winter and up to 120 degrees in summer. How do they do it? Scientists don’t know, nor do they know how it could have evolved in a slow and gradual process.

“Maintaining the brain temperature within certain limits is critical for animals; to assist this, camels have a rete mirabile, a complex of arteries and veins lying very close to each other which utilizes countercurrent blood flow to cool blood flowing to the brain.” [4]

Tell me how something like their cooling system for the brain could possibly evolve by a slow and gradual process over generations. Their brains would be fried by the sun.

Camel feet are specially adapted to walking on sand because they have two large pads on each foot that expand when stepping down and then close up as they are being lifted for the next step. When Camels walk, they walk differently than most animals. Both feet on one side move at the same time so it looks very unnatural. If you’ve ever seen them run, it looks very funny.

Camels have special kidneys and intestines. They have special immune systems. But I’ve gone on long enough.

A person who believes in evolution might be able to imagine how a camel could evolve a couple of these special adaptations, but there are way, way too many of them to be explained like that. Fortunate accidents may happen once in a while, but not repeatedly.

It is therefore clear to me that the Camel was designed and not evolved. Hence, there must be God.

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[1] San Diego Zoo, "Ships of the desert", http://animals.sandiegozoo.org/animals/camel

[2] Camel Facts, https://kidskonnect.com/animals/camel/

[3] SoftSchools.com, "Camel Facts", http://www.softschools.com/facts/animals/camel_facts/38/

[4] Wikipedia.org, “Camel”, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camel

[5] British Llama Society, "All about Camels", www.britishllamasociety.org/camelids/camels/camels.html

[6] Alina Bradford, "Camels: Facts, Types & Pictures", http://www.livescience.com/27503-camels.html

[7] “Facts about camels”, http://www.onekind.org/be_inspired/animals_a_z/camel/

[8] Michele Collet, "20 Amazing Facts About Camels", http://scribol.com/environment/20-amazing-facts-about-camels/3

#92 Emperor Penguins

One of the most amazing documentaries I have ever watched is called “March of the Penguins.” I saw it five or six years ago with my family and to this day whenever I think about that movie and Emperor Penguins, the word that comes to mind is “unbelievable”. The movie is narrated by Morgan Freeman and is kind of slow moving, but you just cannot stop watching it. I checked Amazon and you can download it for $3.99. I highly recommend you put it at or near the top of your list of movies to see next.

Emperor Penguins are the largest of all penguins standing an average of around four feet tall and weighing around 50 to 100 pounds. They live in Antarctica and when winter starts coming, all of the other penguins start heading north for warmer waters. The Emperor Penguins do the opposite. They march right into the teeth of the worst of winter. Then they breed, incubate the egg through the coldest winter, and even hatch it before spring comes. They are the only Antarctic bird that breeds in the winter. [2]

“They breed during the depths of the Antarctic winter and in some of the most desolate, coldest, windiest and downright grim places on the planet during the season of 24 hour darkness.” [3]

How can evolution explain such behavior? It takes many special adaptations for them to survive which would never be necessary if they just went north to warmer water. They are certainly good survivors, but this is not the easiest way to survive and in fact only about 19% of their chicks do survive. [1]

This article is about the amazing abilities they have in order to survive in the coldest place on earth. Surely you will be able to see that they could never develop these abilities slowly and gradually over many generations in minus 40 degrees F.  They would all die in the very first generation without having all these abilities present in the beginning and endowed by their designer.

Emperor Penguins breed in the winter in Antarctica where the temperatures average minus 4 degrees F during the day and reaching minus 40 or 50 degrees F at night. [1] (Another source says minus 80 degrees F. [2]) The wind can blow up to 89 miles per hour or 120 miles per hour [1] depending on your source. Think of the “wind chill factor” in that wind. The females will lay one egg, but they cannot let it touch the ice or be exposed to the outside air temperature. In two minutes it would be dead. They lay the egg on top of their feet and keep it protected by a special fold of skin and feathers called a “brood pouch”.

Soon after that, the females very carefully pass the egg to their mate trying not to let it touch the ice. If it does, it is lost. The male keeps the egg on top of his feet for the next three of four months and protects it with his special “brood pouch”. The male does not eat during this whole time.

The female walks for the 30 to 75 miles to get to the ocean. She eats a lot of food and stores up as much as she can to take back to regurgitate for her baby chick. The egg will hatch in about 63 or 64 days of sitting on the male’s feet. Hatching can take two or three days because the shell of the egg is unusually thick.

She walks all the way back to her mate. This trip takes an average of 115 days round trip. [c] When she gets back to the flock, there are hundreds and hundreds of males. How does she find her mate?

“As the species has no fixed nest sites that individuals can use to locate their own partner or chick, Emperor Penguins must rely on vocal calls alone for identification. They use a complex set of calls that are critical to individual recognition between parents, offspring, and mates, displaying the widest variation in individual calls of all penguins. Vocalizing Emperor Penguins use two frequency bands simultaneously. Chicks use a frequency-modulated whistle to beg for food and to contact parents.” [1]

The chicks are carefully passed from the male to the female. Then the males, now weighing about 26 pounds less than when their mate left, take off walking the many miles to the sea to get something to eat.

To think that Emperor Penguins evolved is preposterous. They could not have evolved the ability to survive in these harsh winters someplace else and then moved there. What individual or group would go into the cold in the first place if walking the other way would be warmer and safer? How could the female and male learn to cooperate like they do? If an egg touches the ice, the embryo dies, first time and every time. No way it could evolve over generations. The male and female both have special “brood pouches” to protect the egg and chick. Where did those come from? How did they develop the special vocalization abilities they have to locate their mates among hundreds or thousands of others?

I can't even cover all of the unbelievable things that they are able to do. They have special feathers and a special layer of fat (up to 3cm) to protect them from the cold. They could not survive without it. It would not “evolve” unnecessarily in a warmer climate and it could not evolve slowly in frigid temperatures because the penguins would die before breeding. It would not need to evolve in the border between cold and warmer climates because the penguin could just walk to a warmer area. All other penguins breed in the spring when warm weather is coming. How could Emperor Penguins “evolve” to breed at the beginning of winter, totally different timing? The answer is that they didn’t, evolution is not a plausible explanation.

“Its stiff feathers are short, lanceolate (spear-shaped), and densely packed over the entire skin surface. With around 100 feathers covering one square inch (15 feathers per cm2), it has the highest feather density of any bird species. An extra layer of insulation is formed by separate shafts of downy filaments between feathers and skin. Muscles allow the feathers to be held erect on land, reducing heat loss by trapping a layer of air next to the skin. Conversely, the plumage is flattened in water, thus waterproofing the skin and the downy under layer.” [1]

Or check this out.

“"The Emperor Penguin is able to thermoregulate (maintain its core body temperature) without altering its metabolism, over a wide range of temperatures. Known as the thermoneutral range, this extends from -10 to 20 °C (14 to 68 °F). Below this temperature range, its metabolic rate increases significantly, although an individual can maintain its core temperature from 38.0 °C (100.4 °F) down to -47 °C (-53 °F). Movement by swimming, walking, and shivering are three mechanisms for increasing metabolism; a fourth process involves an increase in the breakdown of fats by enzymes, which is induced by the hormone glucagon." [1]

And check this out.

“A penguin's normal resting heart-beat is about 60-70 beats per minute (bpm), this goes up to 180-200 bpm before a dive as they load up with oxygen, then as they hit the water, the rate drops to 100 bpm immediately slowing to only 20 bpm during most of the dive so they use the stored oxygen in blood and muscles to the maximum effect. On returning to the surface again, the heart rate goes back to 200 bpm probably to pay back the "oxygen debt" they have incurred during the dive.” [3]

“The American physiologist Gerry Kooyman revolutionized the study of penguin foraging behaviour in 1971 when he published his results from attaching automatic dive-recording devices to Emperor Penguins. He found that the species reaches depths of 265m (869 ft), with dive periods of up to 18 minutes. Later research revealed a small female had dived to a depth of 535 m (1,755 ft) near McMurdo Sound.” [1]

“In addition to the cold, the emperor penguin encounters another stressful condition on deep dives—markedly increased pressure of up to 40 times that of the surface, which in most other terrestrial organisms would cause barotrauma. The bones of the penguin are solid rather than air-filled, which eliminates the risk of mechanical barotrauma.” [1]

How could they evolve such bones? Here’s another fact extremely hard to explain by evolution.

"Eventually, the female returns across the sea ice. This usually coincides with the hatching of the chick. Sometimes the chick will hatch before the female returns. If this happens, it will be fed with a secretion of protein and fat produced by the male from its esophagus, a sort of penguin 'milk'".[3]

Milk produced by the male of the species!!! All right, here’s one last one. Just exactly how could the following coordinated action of the group evolve over many generations? They would all have died before they were successful at it.

“As a defense against the cold, a colony of emperor penguins forms a compact huddle (also known as the turtle formation) ranging in size from ten to several hundred birds, with each bird leaning forward on a neighbor. As the wind chill is the least severe in the center of the colony, all the juveniles are usually huddled there. Those on the outside upwind tend to shuffle slowly around the edge of the formation and add themselves to its leeward edge, producing a slow churning action, and giving each bird a turn on the inside and on the outside.” [1]

"They survive by huddling together for warmth, very unusual behavior for adults of other penguin species which are usually aggressively territorial. They also take turns to occupy the coldest most exposed outside positions. Without this huddling behavior, they would be unable to endure the combined conditions of fasting, bitter cold, and hurricane force winds and would not be able to live and breed in the way they do. Even though they are close together during these huddles, they have been recently shown to be not quite touching. If they touched and squashed the puffed out feather down it would reduce the insulating value and make them colder, so they really fine-tune the process." [3]

Again I suggest you watch “March of the Penguins” DVD to get a real impactful understanding of the life of the Emperor Penguins.

Fact after fact after fact about Emperor Penguins defies any slow and gradual mutation/natural selection scenario. Evolution of an Emperor Penguin is impossible.

You’ll see. There has to be God.

NOTE: HERE IS A LINK TO ALL MY OTHER PROOFS FOR GOD: http://101proofsforgod.com/

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[1] Wikipedia.org, “Emperor penguin”, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_penguin 

[2]  Emperor Penguin (Aptenodytes Forsteri)  http://antarcticconnection.com/information/emperor-penguin-aptenodytes-forsteri/

[3] “Emperor Penguins Facts” http://www.coolantarctica.com/Antarctica%20fact%20file/wildlife/Emperor-penguins.php

#91 Spider Webs

I’m sure you must be familiar with spider webs. Every one of us has seen them and most of us have gotten tangled in one from time to time. Most of us would be just fine if we never had anything to do with a spider or its web again.

We try to avoid encountering them or even thinking about them, but a spider’s web is an engineering marvel that most of us could not begin to figure out how to create even if we had the resources. Scientists don’t even know how they do it.

Most spiders have three different “spinnerets” that are organs in their bodies to produce the three different types of silk that go into making a spider web. They have both sticky and non-sticky silk. Most of the silk threads in a spider web are the “sticky” type which catches insects for them to eat.

As you have probably heard, the silk of spider webs is stronger than steel for its size, but it is way more elastic.

Did you ever wonder why spiders don’t get all caught up in their own webs? They have special legs, claws, feet, and hairs that help them not get stuck. They also spin the type of silk that is “non-sticky”. When they run across their web, they stay mostly on the non-sticky silk threads.

Reading about spider webs is a fascinating education.

There are so many elements that come together to create a spider web that most rational people who study about the details have to conclude that it is a total miracle if it happened by mutation and natural selection through slow and gradual changes as predicted by the Theory of Evolution. However, it’s so much simpler and more elegant to imagine a super-intellect designing it all, as I do.

I want to go through the article in Wikipedia.Org [1] on Spider Webs and point out some questions that you should ask yourself if you have any doubt about God.

“When spiders moved from the water to the land in the Early Devonian period, they started making silk to protect their bodies and their eggs.” [1]

The writer says that spiders just “started making silk.” Now if you imagine what they are really doing, you'll see this is a miraculous performance. It’s not like they decided to put on a jacket or something. Spiders somehow developed a special organ in their bodies that they never had before. This brand new organ actually makes a long continuous strand of silk that is stronger than steel for its size. Somehow they realized that this string coming out of themselves would be good to wrap themselves or their eggs in for protection.

That’s a miracle or it’s a design.

“Spiders gradually started using silk for hunting purposes, first as guide lines and signal lines, then as ground or bush webs, and eventually as the aerial webs that are familiar today.” [1]

Each sentence is taking one or more gigantic leaps by assumption. The kind of silk that was produced to wrap themselves or their eggs must have been the “non-sticky” silk. Otherwise, they’d be in a total mess. So in order to use any silk for hunting purposes, they would need the “sticky” type of silk. This is not produced in the same bodily organ, or spinneret. They need a totally different type of spinneret to produce the “sticky” silk. So they have to grow a whole new organ.

Next, you might also ask yourself, “How did they learn to hunt with sticky silk?” Imagine that you grow an organ to produce sticky silk and it starts oozing from your abdomen. How do you figure out what to do with it? Since it is sticky, it will get all over you, sort of like duct tape gone wild. Remember it is stronger than steel at your level of size. Somehow you have to learn to turn it on and off. Then next, over many generations of getting all stuck to yourself, you evolve special hairy arms and hands with special cells so you can deal with the sticky silk.

Remember the concept of Natural Selection says that every slow and gradual step along the way was an advantage to survival so it was preserved. I’m having a hard time imagining myself wrapped in duct tape and thinking I could survive better that way.

Ok, let’s skip ahead. You’ve got this long strand of sticky silk emerging from your body that you have managed to get under control. How does it become useful for hunting? The author claims it must have been used “first as guidelines and signal lines”. I guess the spiders must have laid it out across the ground and realized that if food got stuck to it, then they could reel it in like on a fishing line. That seems like a possibility until you think of getting some double-sided duct tape and laying it out across the ground. You’re not going to catch anything but dirt. Even if you laid it up the side of a tree, you’re probably only going to catch tree bark.

Maybe they hung upside down from a tree branch and dangled the sticky silk strand in the air. They might accidentally catch a bug for dinner. Odds are not so good. They also might catch a bird and get carried away. I just don’t see this as an improvement on survival abilities. There are more bugs on the ground to eat than they could catch in the air.

“Spiders produce silk from their spinneret glands located at the tip of their abdomen. Each gland produces a thread for a special purpose – for example a trailed safety line, sticky silk for trapping prey or fine silk for wrapping it. Spiders use different gland types to produce different silks, and some spiders are capable of producing up to 8 different silks during their lifetime.

“Most spiders have three pairs of spinnerets, each having its own function – there are also spiders with just one pair and others with as many as four pairs.” [1]

So most spiders have several glands for producing each a different type of silk thread. Some spiders may have up to 8 different glands. Obviously, each type of gland is unique and so there had to be a lot of DNA changes in a spider’s sperm AND egg for those changes to first occur and then be perpetuated from one generation to the next. If only the female or male spider mutates, then a trait is not likely to get passed to the next generation.

“Webs allow a spider to catch prey without having to expend energy by running it down. Thus it is an efficient method of gathering food. However, constructing the web is in itself an energetically costly process because of the large amount of protein required, in the form of silk. In addition, after a time the silk will lose its stickiness and thus become inefficient at capturing prey. It is common for spiders to eat their own web daily to recoup some of the energy used in spinning. The silk proteins are thus recycled.” [1]

I am skeptical that this statement can be arguing in favor of evolution. How much energy does a spider actually expend to run down an insect as opposed to creating a huge spider web? Which strategy is more likely to lead to survival of the fittest? Seems to me that a spider that runs down some food gets to eat it right away as contrasted to the one that builds a huge nest and waits and hopes. Which one will survive better to reproduce, the spider on the ground chasing prey or the one that is taking many generations to learn how to make a spider web and use it?

“The tensile strength of spider silk is greater than the same weight of steel and has much greater elasticity. Its microstructure is under investigation for potential applications in industry, including bullet-proof vests and artificial tendons.” [1]

This is incredible information. A spider can produce from a gland on its body a thread stronger than steel (relatively), which has much greater elasticity. It has taken human beings with intelligence thousands and thousands of years to produce steel, yet evolutionists believe that spiders accidentally stumbled on the way to produce it from developing an organ in their own bodies from scratch, step-by-step, gradually over many generations. Really?

Here’s another issue. Scientists know that a spider web is a mixture of sticky and non-sticky silk which allows the spider to walk over his/her own spider web and not get stuck to it. Just how in the process of figuring out how to build a spider web did the spider learn to make a pattern of non-sticky silk to walk on and avoid the sticky silk. Do you think it was trial and error? Going back to the duct tape analogy, the spider would get stuck in his own web many, many times before learning how to engineer the non-sticky silk that he/she could walk on. The strands would have to be in a certain pattern and distance between them so the spider could get anywhere in the web that an insect might get stuck. The spider legs must be able to reach across the gap.

“During the process of making an orb web, the spider will use its own body for measurements.” [1]

I find this an amazing statement, that a spider takes measurements like an intelligent construction worker planning his next move.

Next we need to spend a little time with the phenomenal way a spider actually goes about spinning a web and ask ourselves lots of questions of how can this rationally be explained without a master designer.

“Many webs span gaps between objects which the spider could not cross by crawling. This is done by first producing a fine adhesive thread to drift on a faint breeze across a gap. When it sticks to a surface at the far end, the spider feels the change in the vibration. The spider reels in and tightens the first strand, then carefully walks along it and strengthens it with a second thread. This process is repeated until the thread is strong enough to support the rest of the web.” [1]

Think about this for a little while. It’s talking about a spider up in the air letting a silk drift in the breeze. (Remember to think about duct tape.) However, the Wikipedia author previously said that webs were created on the ground first. So spiders were merrily making spider webs on the ground until they realized they needed to make them in the air and then they somehow figured out that they should go up high and dangle a sticky silk to blow in the wind. If it dangles around for a while and doesn’t stick on anything, then they should let out some more silk.

Once it sticks to something, they carefully reel it in and try to make it tight. Then they travel down the sticky silk (remember duct tape) without getting stuck in it and without breaking it and falling. They drag some other sticky silk behind them without getting stuck in that and attach it to the end point. Now they have two strands across the gap. But still they repeat this process again to make the sure it can support the whole future web. How they know when they have enough strands, that is a mystery. With each additional strand of sticky silk (remember think double-sided duct tape) they manage to go back and forth across without getting stuck. How many generations did it take them to learn how not to get stuck.

“After strengthening the first thread, the spider continues to make a Y-shaped netting. The first three radials of the web are now constructed. More radials are added, making sure that the distance between each radial and the next is small enough to cross. This means that the number of radials in a web directly depends on the size of the spider plus the size of the web. It is common for a web to be about 20 times the size of the spider building it.” [1]

“The spider easily grips the thin threads with special serrated claws, a smooth hook and a series of barbed hairs on the end of its legs. As it walks along the initial structural threads, it lays more frame threads between various anchor points. Then it starts laying out radius threads from the center of the web to the frames. The spider does not coat the frame and radius threads with sticky material, since it needs to walk across them to get around the web.

“After building all the radius threads, the spider lays more nonstick silk to form an auxiliary spiral, extending from the center of the web to the outer edge of the web. The spider then spirals in on the web, laying out sticky thread and using the auxiliary spiral as a reference. The spider eats up the auxiliary spiral as it lays out the sticky spiral, resulting in a web with non-sticky radius threads, for getting around, and a sticky spiral for catching bugs.” [2]

About all I can say to this is WOW. I am daily watching a construction crew put a new wing on the building where I work. Each day is awesome as the scaffolding goes up in a precise and coordinated way, step-by-step. It takes a lot of brains to figure out an engineering feat like the lowly spider is accomplishing.

Lastly there is the spider’s ability to sense by touching a silk thread that it has caught something. Its brain can tell the difference between the wind blowing or a leaf and true prey stuck in the spider web by touching a silk strand with its claw.

“The spider might also leave the web, to retreat to a separate nest, while monitoring the web via a connected signal line.” [2]

There is no way that all these different types of spiders learned to create different types of webs using several different materials from different organs in their own bodies in a slow and gradual process.

There must be God.

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[1] Wikepedia.Org article, Spider Webs, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider_web

[2] HowStuffWorks.Com, A Typical Spider Web, http://animals.howstuffworks.com/arachnids/spider5.htm

#90 Copying Degradation

Most of you who have ever worked in an office are probably aware that when you make a photocopy, it is not an exact copy of the original. If you then make a photocopy of the photocopy, and you continue to repeat this process always making a copy of the last copy, then pretty soon you will be able to really notice the difference between the very original sheet and the latest copy. The discrepancies become really obvious after a while.

There is always a slight degradation with each new generation of copying. This is what I mean by “Copying Degradation.”

In my office we have a tremendous copy machine that does color copies, double-sided, folded, stapled, and even hole-punched copies. It cost over $20,000. But it cannot make a perfect copy and is subject to the same rule as above. Every once in a while, we have to call the technician to repair it and re-calibrate it.

If you talk to computer hardware people, you will also learn that the same is true for digital copying inside a computer. The computer is based on the binary system, meaning all information is stored as “0’s” and “1’s”. Computers are, of course, vastly more accurate at copying, but sooner or later there is a mistake. You know this because sometimes your computer locks up for no reason and you have to restart it to make it work. Every modem and Wi-Fi system has a built in error correction system or “protocol” that checks constantly to be sure the data being transmitted and received is identical.

So if Copying Degradation is a universal truth in the real world, what is the result that it yields? Do we ever end up with something that is better than the original? We know we never end up with a photocopy that is better than the original, especially after many generations. For data copying in computer programs, an error in copying data, or worse yet the program software, is most likely to cause a malfunction and very, very, very unlikely to result in a better program.

Let’s think about DNA. Rather than a binary system like computers, it is based on four possible “base pairs” and two are used on any given rung of the ladder. What do you think keeps happening as the DNA gets copied over and over? This is a question that scientists can now investigate.

The Theory of Evolution predicts that given time and many small incremental and accidental changes to the DNA coding, along with some natural selection, the end result is a totally new species that is fully functioning. Evolution predicts that DNA copying has made copying mistakes millions upon millions of times and that has successfully increased functioning complexity. Starting out with something akin to an amoeba, we have advanced all the way to the millions of varied species and to the human body and brain.

According to my Google search, the latest scientific estimate is that there are approximately 8,700,000 different species on the earth. The Theory of Evolution says that all 8.7 million species started out from a single cell with DNA. By repeatedly copying that DNA over and over, mutations occurred so that the 8.7 million new species eventually arose.

That’s a phenomenally huge statement of faith if you ask me.

Those who believe in God have many varied ideas of how God did it, but it’s still a very big mystery. They do however admit that their beliefs are based on faith.

However, there is some agreement among the believers who are also scientists that God created according to “kinds”. This means that God created an original model or body plan of a species and then there was tremendous variation from that original. Take for example the “dog kind”. God somehow created the original male and female dog and then all the different breeds eventually could emerge by natural selection or mankind’s active intervening in the process.

Dogs actually have 78 chromosomes in their genome which allows for tremendous variations. By comparison, chimpanzees have 48 chromosomes and humans have only 46 chromosomes.

These facts seem to show the opposite from the Theory of Evolution model. More complicated life has less chromosomes. Evolution starts with a very simple set of DNA that branches into more and more complicated forms of life. Creation theories start with a very complicated original “kind” and predict that over time DNA changes lead to loss (not gain) of DNA complexity and the differences and variations within a species are the result of the loss of information in the DNA code.

So here we have two profoundly opposite predictions and we should be able to do scientific experiments to observe which of these two processes is taking place in nature.

If evolution is true, then we should see the DNA of species getting more and more complicated and gradual improvements in the code which eventually can lead to a new species. After all, that’s how they believe we got the 8.7 million species.

But if the DNA copying from one generation to the next shows that there is copying degradation, then our scientific conclusion will have to be that evolution is false. That will only leave us with one of the alternative theories that involves a Creator being.

Well, folks, the scientific research has been done. The results are in. There is in fact copying degradation at the DNA level which is taking place. DNA degrades over time. It does not get more complex. Is this surprising, not really? It’s the same in life everywhere you look.

“My own work with 35 protein families suggests that the rate of destruction is, at minimum, 8 times the rate of neutral or beneficial mutations...Simply put, the digital information of life is being destroyed much faster than it can be repaired or improved. New functions may evolve, but the overall loss of functional information in other areas of the genome will, on average, be significantly greater. The net result is that the digital information of life is running down.” [1]

It is statistically impossible for evolution to be taking place because it could not overcome the disadvantage of 8 harmful errors to every one possibly beneficial or neutral error.

Durston, author of the above quote, goes much further, even saying the human genome is running down.

“First, the digital information for the bacterial world is slowly eroding away due to a net deletional bias [2] in mutations involving insertions and deletions. A second example is the fruit fly, one of the most studied life forms in evolutionary biology. It, too, shows an ongoing, genome-wide loss of DNA [3] across the entire genus.

“Finally, humans are not exempt. As biologist Michael Lynch points out in a paper in PNAS, "Rate, molecular spectrum, and consequences of human mutation" [4]:

“ ‘[A] consideration of the long-term consequences of current human behaviour for deleterious-mutation accumulation leads to the conclusion that a substantial reduction in human fitness can be expected over the next few centuries in industrialized societies unless novel means of genetic intervention are developed.’

“We continue to discover more examples of DNA loss [5], suggesting that the biological world is slowly running down. Microevolution is good at fine-tuning existing forms within their information limits and occasionally getting something right, but the steady accumulation of deleterious mutations on the larger scale suggests that mutation-driven evolution is actually destroying biological life, not creating it.” [6]

Another important fact, scientists have discovered that there are as many as three processes within a cell that actually repair DNA when there is a mutation. [7] Cells do not like copying mistakes. Another name for mutation in cells is cancer.

"Replication also contains built-in error checking. The frequency of errors is about 1 per 100 million bonds (1 x 10-8). Over the entire human genome, that works out to roughly 30 errors every single time the genome replicates. BUT! There are really only around three errors per replication because of DNA repair. If a repair enzyme finds a mistake, it can fix it, and it can tell which strand is wrong because it can tell which strand is the newly synthesized strand by the extent of cytosine methylation.” [8]

“As a major defense against environmental damage to cells, DNA repair is present in all organisms examined including bacteria, yeast, drosophila, fish, amphibians, rodents and humans. DNA repair is involved in processes that minimize cell killing, mutations, replication errors, persistence of DNA damage and genomic instability. Abnormalities in these processes have been implicated in cancer and aging. [9]

As far back as scientists have known about DNA, there is no known example of a new species arising out of another species. Believe me, they have been trying to find one. As mentioned above and in my Proof for God # 27 The Truth About Mutation [10], scientists have tried unsuccessfully to mutate fruit flies for 40 years and could never produce a new species.

If you have a theory and you derive logical predictions from that theory, but those predictions are totally false, then the only conclusion is that the theory is false and worthless for further study. That’s where we stand today if we accept the scientific evidence.

The Theory of Evolution is scientifically falsifiable.

As we have seen throughout history, faiths and beliefs die slowly even after they are proven false. But rest assured, the Theory of Evolution is dying. Many don’t know it yet, but scientific evidence will put the nail in its coffin.

Therefore, there must be God.

______________________________

[1] Kirk Durston, "An Essential Prediction of Darwinian Theory Is Falsified by Information Degradation", http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/07/an_essential_pr097521.html

[2] Alex Mira, Howard Ochmanemail, Nancy A. Moran, Dept of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Arizona, "Deletional bias and the evolution of bacterial genomes", http://www.cell.com/trends/genetics/abstract/S0168-9525(01)02447-7?_returnURL=http%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS0168952501024477%3Fshowall%3Dtrue

[3] Dmitri A. Petrov1 and Daniel L. Hartl, Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, "High Rate of DNA Loss in the Drosophila melanogaster and Drosophila virilis Species Groups", http://petrov.stanford.edu/pdfs/11.pdf

[4] Michael Lynch, Department of Biology, Indiana University, "Rate, molecular spectrum, and consequences of human mutation",  http://www.pnas.org/content/107/3/961.full.pdf+html

[5] Sun, López Arriaza, and Mueller, National Institutes of Health, "Slow DNA loss in the gigantic genomes of salamanders",

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23175715

[6] Kirk Durston, "An Essential Prediction of Darwinian Theory Is Falsified by Information Degradation", http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/07/an_essential_pr097521.html

[7] Beth A. Montelone, Kansas State University, "Mutation, Mutagens, and DNA Repair" http://www-personal.k-state.edu/~bethmont/mutdes.html

[8] Leigh Eisenman and Kevan Higgins, Edited Notes, "Chromosomes, Chromatin, DNA Replication and Repair" http://www.dartmouth.edu/~cbbc/courses/bio4/bio4-1997/03-DNA&Chromosomes.html

[9] National Institutes of Health, "What is DNA Repair?" http://www.nih.gov/sigs/dna-rep/whatis.html

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

#89 Earthworms

Did you ever stop to think that we might not be around if not for worms? At least we would not be as healthy as we are.

“In 1881 Charles Darwin wrote: ‘It may be doubted whether there are many other animals which have played so important a part in the history of the world, as have these lowly organized creatures.’” [1]

“They are the main contributors to enriching and improving soil for plants, animals and even humans. Earthworms create tunnels in the soil by burrowing, which aerates the soil to allow air, water and nutrients to reach deep within the soil. Earthworms eat the soil which has organic matter such as decaying vegetation or leaves. Plants cannot use this organic matter directly.  After organic matter is digested, the earthworm releases waste from their bodies called castings. Castings contain many nutrients that the plant can use. Some people even use earthworm castings as garden fertilizer.” [2]

I’m sure you have at least a passing encounter with worms. Maybe you dissected one in middle school biology class or you went catching nightcrawlers for fishing.

Earthworms range in size from one millimeter to over six feet long in Australia. [3] The world record is 22 feet long from South Africa. Most worms live in the upper one meter of the earth, but have been known to exist as deep as five meters (16.5 feet). [4]

It is estimated that there are between 250,000 and 1,750,000 worms per acre (i.e. between 62 to 432 per square meter). The mass of all the worms actually outweighs the animal life on the surface. [5]

This amazing creature makes it very hard to believe in Evolution. Clearly they benefit insects, birds, amphibians, plants, and humans, but what good are they for their own benefit? What explains why Natural Selection or survival of the fittest would choose worms to prosper and not die out?

If a bird eats a worm, the bird survives, but not the worm. Clearly the bird is the fittest to survive. If the worm eats dirt and dead leaves and poops a nice nitrogen fertilizer for plants, that’s good for the plants, but what does the worm get out of it?

Wikipedia states "earthworm casts are five times richer in available nitrogen, seven times richer in available phosphates, and 11 times richer in available potassium than the surrounding upper 6 inches (150 mm) of soil. In conditions where humus is plentiful, the weight of casts produced may be greater than 4.5 kg (10 lb) per worm per year." [6] Wow!

Worms also use chemicals for digestion called drilodefensins.

“Without the drilodefensins, the fallen leaves would stay on the ground for a long period, building up and becoming a thick layer, which would make the countryside unrecognizable and disrupt the entire carbon cycling system, said researchers.” [7]

There are 6,000 to 7,000 different species of worms. Remember now that the definition of a species is that members of the species can successfully inter-breed. So if two worms are from a different species of worms, they cannot inter-breed. Unless there is breeding, there is no Evolution. So each worm has to find another one of its own species before it can breed. It would seem pretty hard to find a mate if you are living and burrowing underground most of the time.

Worms have no eyes, another problem in finding themselves a mate. But they don’t need eyes if they are in a dark hole anyway. Luckily for worms, they are hermaphrodites. This means they have both male and female genitals. But they can’t fertilize themselves, so they must encounter another worm of the same species.

“Special ventral setae are used to anchor mating earthworms by their penetration into the bodies of their mates.” [8]

When two worms meet and copulate, both worms get "pregnant" and each produces an egg cocoon which will contain between one and 20 eggs. [9] The babies when they hatch look just like the parents but very tiny and will grow to full size in about 12 months.

Let’s think for a minute about the problem that Evolution would have trying to explain hermaphrodites. What came just before the first worm? Was there an original worm with both genders within itself? Then we would have to explain how the male and female parts differentiated into separate organs in separate locations on the worm. Did it suddenly mutate both male and female parts in the same generation? That’s extremely unlikely. Remember that Evolution is slow and gradual. But if the female part develops first without the male part, no fertilization or reproduction can take place.

Even if you suddenly had one worm that mutated with both male and female genitals, you’d still need a second one to fertilize it. Maybe we could imagine that two worms from the same cocoon both had the mutation. But they have to grow up for months before they can mate and then they have to find each other to do it. But instant genitals which are male and female couldn't be called evolution, slow and gradual.

Worms are all over the world. They are mostly all the same, so they had to have originated with one “Adam/Eve worm” whose descendants have spread all over the world. Where are all the precursors of this first ancestor worm if it really did evolve? (See my Proof for God #64 Missing Links) They must have all died out because there is no evidence of them. If any intermediary worm type beings before the first ancestor worm existed and they had descendants, then all those descendants died out without a trace.

If we theorize that in the beginning there were male worms and female worms, we need to inquire how they originated by mutation and evolved separately. Did the male worm evolve one day from an egg of some non-worm animal? That doesn’t work if there is no female nearby. He would die without reproducing. Male and female would have had to evolve simultaneously and within the same dirt pile, within a few feet from each other.

Hermaphrodite reproduction by worms is very, very interesting and complicated. Slow and gradual evolution is impossible to explain it. After mating, a worm makes a slime tube and fills it with fluid. It then crawls out of the slime tube depositing eggs and sperm into the tube as it passes by. The tube then becomes an egg cocoon. Baby worms emerge in two to four weeks.

“The earthworm will move forward out of the slime tube. As the earthworm passes through the slime tube, the tube will pass over the female pore picking up eggs. The tube will continue to move down the earthworm and pass over the male pore called the spermatheca which has the stored sperm called the spermatozoa. The eggs will fertilize and the slime tube will close off as the worm moves completely out of the tube. The slime tube will form an “egg cocoon” and be put into the soil.” [10]

Let’s turn to other thoughts about the “first worm”. Could it have evolved under the ground where they live now? That’s not likely. It must have developed from an above ground animal.

If the “first worm” mutated into existence above ground, what would lead it to start eating dirt? The whole system front to back has to be in place before it can eat dirt. The mouth has to be there along with the stomach, the circulatory system, even the excretory system.

Also, the earthworm has special adaptations so that it can live underground. It either slithers through soft dirt and dead leaves, pushing with a force ten times its body weight, or else it eats its way through hard ground. But how did it evolve the ability to move its various segments in order to slither. That takes major coordination so a brain and nerves are necessary. A worm also has tiny hairs sticking out of its sides that help hold one part in place while another part creeps forward. How does mutation explain the existence of tiny hairs all over a worm’s body?

“The earthworm is made of about 100-150 segments. The segmented body parts provide important structural functions. Segmentation can help the earthworm move. Each segment or section has muscles and bristles called setae. The bristles or setae help anchor and control the worm when moving through soil. The bristles hold a section of the worm firmly into the ground while the other part of the body protrudes forward. The earthworm uses segments to either contract or relax independently to cause the body to lengthen in one area or contract in other areas. Segmentation helps the worm to be flexible and strong in its movement.” [11]

Circumferential and longitudinal muscles on the periphery of each segment enable the worm to move. Similar sets of muscles line the gut, and their actions move the digesting food toward the worm's anus. [12]

It’s a fact that the excrement from worms is a fertilizer for plants. How could that be a random mutation that gets selected by survival of the fittest? The worm has a highly developed digestive system that creates usable nitrogen and other elements for the plants. It even uses tiny grains of sand to help grind up the dirt. That would take hundreds, if not thousands, of mutations of a worm’s DNA to produce.

“Food enters the mouth. The pharynx acts as a suction pump; its muscular walls draw in food. In the pharynx, the pharyngeal glands secrete mucus. Food moves into the esophagus, where calcium (from the blood and ingested from previous meals) is pumped in to maintain proper blood calcium levels in the blood and food pH. From there the food passes into the crop and gizzard. In the gizzard, strong muscular contractions grind the food with the help of mineral particles ingested along with the food. Once through the gizzard, food continues through the intestine for digestion. The intestine secretes pepsin to digest proteins, amylase to digest polysaccharides, cellulase to digest cellulose, and lipase to digest fats. Instead of being coiled like a mammalian intestine, an earthworm's intestine increases surface area to increase nutrient absorption by having many folds running along its length. The intestine has its own pair of muscle layers like the body, but in reverse order—an inner circular layer within an outer longitudinal layer.” [13]

Scientists believe that worms have a sense of touch and taste. That takes an amazing nervous system.

Worms have blood and a circulatory system. How could that evolve and what keeps the blood moving?

“The aortic arches function like a human heart. There are five pairs of aortic arches, which have the responsibility of pumping blood into the dorsal and ventral blood vessels. The dorsal blood vessels are responsible for carrying blood to the front of the earthworm’s body. The ventral blood vessels are responsible for carrying blood to the back of the earthworm’s body.” [14]

Earthworms are very unique creatures. They are amazingly adapted to do what they do, burrowing through dirt and leaving fertilizer, air and water passages for plant growth behind them. They have a brain, digestive and excretory system, nervous system, movement ability, reproductive system, touch and light sensitivity. All this is proof of design and purpose.

There must be God.  

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

[1] Wikipedia, “Earthworm”, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthworm

[2] University of Pennsylvania, “Earthworms”, http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~rlenet/Earthworms.html

[3] World's Largest Worm,  https://www.allaboutworms.com/worlds-largest-worm

[4] University of Michigan, BioKids, "Oligochaeta",  http://www.biokids.umich.edu/critters/Oligochaeta/

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

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

[7] Anicettion, David, "Secret of Earthworms Eating Leaves Discovered", TimesGazette, Aug. 5, 2015, http://www.thetimesgazette.com/secret-of-earthwormss-eating-leaves-discovered/5986/

[8] Wikipedia, “Earthworm”, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthworm

[9] Biology Junction, "We Love Worms", http://www.biologyjunction.com/earthworm%20facts.htm#hatch

[10] University of Pennsylvania, “Earthworms”, http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~rlenet/Earthworms.html

[11] University of Pennsylvania, “Earthworms”, http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~rlenet/Earthworms.html

[12] Wikipedia, “Earthworm”, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthworm

[13] Wikipedia, “Earthworm”, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthworm

[14] University of Pennsylvania, “Earthworms”, http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~rlenet/Earthworms.html