#99 Complexity, Equilibrium, and Energy Costs

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

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

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

Here is the definition of equilibrium.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There must be God.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

#98 Acacia Trees and Ants

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There must be God.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

#97 The Retina

In doing research for my next proof for God, I came across a quote that blew me away. I had never heard any detail like this about the retina of your eye, even though I had already written one Proof for God about the Eye (#45) [a]

As you know, the retina of your eye is the part that allows you to be able to see this page or anything else. It is full of nerve cells that convert light into electrical and chemical signals that are sent to the brain down the optic nerve.

Your retina is thinner than Saran Wrap, by the way.

I find what it does really hard to imagine. Here is the quote:

"To simulate 10 milliseconds of the complete processing of even a single nerve cell from the retina would require the solution of about 500 simultaneous non-linear differential equations one hundred times and would take at least several minutes of processing time on a Cray supercomputer. Keeping in mind there are 10 million or more such cells interacting with each other in complex ways, it would take a minimum of a hundred years of Cray time to simulate what takes place in your eye many times every second." [b]

You could quibble and say that this is an old quote, which it is, from about 1985. But even given that computers are a lot faster now, it would still take a super computer (like big in size and needing lots of power) to do what your tiny little retina is doing every second, in each eye of course.

Researchers at UC Berkeley discovered that our retinas form a stack of 10 to 12 different image representations of what we view by using "cross-talk" between different layers of cells in the retina. The images are not very good quality. But they are all sent to the brain and the brain assembles them into the wonderful images we experience. [c]

No person in their right mind who knows what a computer chip is would ever proclaim that it could have evolved. Yet some very sane people refuse to see that there was any super intelligence behind the formation of a retina that is vastly superior to any computer chip. And retinas have been around for millions of years.

“The retinal rods and cones are composed of various layers. The human rods have a dynamic range of about 10 billion-to-one. In other words, when fine-tuned for high gain amplification (as when you are out on a dark night and there is only starlight), your photoreceptors can pick up a single photon. Phenomenal sensitivity! Of course the retina does a number of processing tricks on that just to make sure it is not picking up noise, so you don't see static; it really wants at least six receptors in the same area to pick up the same signal before it "believes" that it is true and sends it to the brain. In bright daylight the retina bleaches out and the volume control turns way down for, again, admirable performance.” [d]

Take note that your retina can pick up a single photon of light. That’s how sensitive it is. But just to be sure there are no mistaken electrical impulses sent to the brain, the retina makes sure by checking around and only sending a signal if six photoreceptors all pick up the same thing.

A retina that sensitive if exposed to sunlight would get totally bleached out and you wouldn’t be able to see anything. However, your retina is able to adjust to major changes in the amount of light. Imagine how that could possibly evolve. And remember, all this ability is contained in something thinner than Saran Wrap. Note also that the retina is transparent (you can see right through it).

That’s just the tip of the iceberg. Just about everything about your retina is a profound miracle.

Think some more about a computer chip when compared to your retina. Remember that the computer chip was absolutely designed by some very smart people. The retina only occupies 0.0003 cubic inches of space and the power consumption of the retina is about 0.001 watts. The retina has a resolution of about 10,000 by 10,000 pixels. It has about 25 billion equivalent "gates" in it that are like the transistors in a computer chip.

Other parts of the retina are equally miraculous. There are three layers of cells on the back of the retina: the Retinal Pigment Epithelium, the choroid, and the sclera. The Retinal Pigment Epithelium is a multifunctional and indispensable structure. The RPE is a single-cell-thick tissue layer consisting of relatively uniform polygonal-shaped cells. These cells touch the extremities of the rods and the cones (the photoreceptors) with dense microvilli and basal membrane infoldings.

Posterior to the RPE is the vascular choroid layer which is filled with blood vessels that supply oxygen and nutrition, and remove waste.

“The structure of the choroid is generally divided into four layers (classified in order of furthest away from the retina to closest):

1. Haller's layer - outermost layer of the choroid consisting of larger diameter blood vessels.

2. Sattler's layer - layer of medium diameter blood vessels.

3. Choriocapillaris - layer of capillaries.

4. Bruch's membrane - innermost layer of the choroid.” [e]

So your retina has small blood vessels, medium sized, and also larger blood vessels. These are all necessary for the correct functioning of the eye. It’s incomprehensible that this emerged by evolution in a slow and gradual process. The fossil record constantly shows only animals that have fully formed eyes.

Posterior to that is another layer of connective tissue known as the sclera.

Evolutionists like Richard Dawkins, Kenneth Miller, Daniel Dennett, and others have claimed that Evolution is proved because the retina of the eye is backwards. They say this is a “poor design” because the rods and cones are facing away from the direction where light comes from. The retina was even called “functionally stupid”. Their “proof” is that they know better how the retina should be correctly designed and we would have better vision if our eyes were like squid eyes. Since it’s a “poor design”, it must have evolved because they know if there were a God, He would not have done it that way. He would have done it their way.

A “flawed design” is their evidence against a creator God and an argument for a random process of mutation.

So, what if scientists, upon further research, can prove it is not a flawed design but actually the best possible engineering? Could we then proclaim that there is a God? Would the atheists be forced to change their minds?

Well, as it turns out many researchers have discovered that the design of the retina is actually the best design and that there is no evidence that the Evolutionists’ idea of the “best” design would even work at all.

I’m not going to spend a lot more time on this, but I want to point you to a fantastic technical paper that goes into all the details of why the design we have is perfect. If you are interested, read the article: “Why the Inverted Human Retina Is a Superior Design” by Jerry Bergman and Joseph Calkins. [f]

Here is a short list of some of the reasons why the design of our human retina is actually the best design and was clearly designed by an all knowing intelligence.

1. Rods and Cones need a lot of blood. Rods and cones require a greater blood supply than any other bodily tissue. They require close contact with blood in order to receive oxygen and nutrients. Waste products need to be carried away. Vision actually happens because chemical reactions are taking place and sending signals to the brain. Heat is being generated that needs to be cooled by the blood. Photopigments constantly have to be replaced and recycled. Rods and cones (photoreceptors) get used up and have to replace themselves about every 7 days or so. [g]

2. Best location of blood supply. If the retina were designed in the opposite way, where would the blood supply be? You can’t put it in front of the rods and cones. If you put it along the sides, it would take up too much space and reduce the number of rods and cones. That would cause poorer vision.

3. Need opaque layer to absorb excess light. The rods and cones need to be close to a dark surface to absorb stray light. Otherwise, reflecting light would distort our vision. The Retinal Pigment Epithelium provides that dark surface.

4.  Retinal Pigment Epithelium needed. This layer of cells produces critical enzymes for vision. It also stores Vitamin A for regeneration. The RPE also helps maintain water and ion flow between the neural retina and the choroid, protects against free radical damage, and regulates retinoid metabolism. It is also a barrier to protect the inner parts of the eye.

5. Retina should not be more sensitive than it is. As I mentioned above, the retina can recognize a single photon of light. You cannot get any better than that. Our retina works better than any other design. If there were somehow greater sensitivity, you might see “too much” and get blinded. It might be helpful at night, but not at all during the day. It would cause more eye damage too. Why do you think people wear sunglasses?

6. Müller cells. Recent research has discovered Müller cells in the retina. They are actually like funnels that help carry the light through the retina so it is less distorted. They have the perfect index of refraction to transmit the light with minimum loss and distortion. It’s like God invented fiber optic cables thousands of years ago. How about that for design?

7. Light does not get blocked. Amazingly, very little light is actually blocked by the part of the retina the light encounters first. This is the transparent layer of many nerve cells leading to the optic nerve and then the brain. Normal nerve cells are covered with a substance called myelin. But the nerve cells in the retina do not have this covering which would have blocked some of the light. Also the larger blood vessels and nerves inside the eye travel around but not over the area where your focused vision takes place. What a good design.

8. Waste must be carried away. There are waste products from the chemical reactions as well as the dying rods and cones. If the rods and cones faced the front, all the garbage would accumulate inside your eye. The result of that is obvious.

9. Fast recycle time. You know if you drive at night and look into the oncoming headlights you are temporarily blinded. The close blood supply allows a relatively fast recycle time. If your rods and cones faced the other way, you’d be temporarily blinded much longer.

10. Color and much greater detail than squid eyes. Research on squid eyes shows they can perceive shape, light intensity, and texture, but any details are seriously lacking. Squid have only 20 million receptor cells in their retina, whereas humans have 126 million. Squid have only rods, whereas humans have rods and three types of cones, allowing us to see the whole color spectrum. [h]

11. Momentary shadows are a good thing. It turns out that the light having to pass through various cells before getting to the rods and cones is a good thing. Constant light would bleach out the rods and cones, but the momentary darkness gives them a break and allows them to regenerate. Think again about sun glasses.

So we can now conclude that there is no “poor design” here at all. In fact, the design is so magnificent it is beyond our understanding.

There must be God.

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[a] Stephens, James, Proof for God #45 The EYE, http://101proofsforgod.blogspot.com/2013/11/45-eye.html

[b] Stevens, John K., Associate Professor of physiology and biomedical engineering, “Reverse Engineering the Brain,” Byte, April 1985, p. 287. http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=3384

[c] Sanders, Robert, Media Relations, UC Berkeley, March 2001, "Eye strips images of all but bare essentials before sending visual information to brain", http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2001/03/28_wers1.html

[d] Calkins, Joseph, “Design in the Human Eye”, http://www.creationmoments.com/content/design-human-eye

[e] Wikipedia, "Choroid", https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choroid

[f] Bergman, Jerry and Calkins, Joseph, Creation Research Society Quarterly, "Why the Inverted Human Retina Is a Superior Design", https://www.creationresearch.org/crsq/articles/45/45_3/CRSQ%20Winter%2009%20Retina.pdf

[g] Bergman, Jerry and Calkins, Joseph, Creation Research Society Quarterly, "Why the Inverted Human Retina Is a Superior Design", https://www.creationresearch.org/crsq/articles/45/45_3/CRSQ%20Winter%2009%20Retina.pdf

[h] Bergman, Jerry and Calkins, Joseph, Creation Research Society Quarterly, "Why the Inverted Human Retina Is a Superior Design", https://www.creationresearch.org/crsq/articles/45/45_3/CRSQ%20Winter%2009%20Retina.pdf

#96 Blood

I have been reading numerous scientific articles about blood. This information is astounding. There is only one rational conclusion, your body is a walking miracle.

I recommend that those who believe that random chance and "survival of the fittest" can result in such a miracle need to take a step back and examine their motivations. They might ask themselves honestly why they want so badly that evolution be true.

The best current estimate of scientists is that there are 37.2 trillion cells in your body, not counting all the microbes. [1] Inside each and every one of those cells there are approximately 10 million chemical reactions taking place every second of your life. [2] Every chemical reaction requires oxygen and fuel, and then removal of any waste. Let’s thank God for our blood, otherwise every cell that does not come in contact with it would die.

And just how does blood get near enough to every cell. It travels through an incredible network of capillaries. Capillaries are so thin that about 40 of them equals the width of a human hair. If you lined up all the capillaries in your body, it would reach 60,000 miles, ¼ of the way to the Moon. [3]

If you believe that life developed slowly and gradually over many generations, which came first blood or capillaries. If blood developed first, was it just sitting there in a pool? If capillaries developed first, what was their purpose if there was no blood to circulate?

The story of blood is phenomenal. About two weeks after a sperm fertilizes an egg, the zygote has gotten so big that the growing number of cells cannot survive. They need a transport system to get oxygen and nutrients. Perfectly on time, some of the developing cells form into tubes that start pumping. (See Proof for God #79 The Heart) Simultaneously, capillaries start forming as well as blood.

Red Blood Cells start forming in a temporary “blood forming sac” that grows on the outside of the embryo. By the middle of month two, RBC production will now be taken over by the fetal liver and spleen. By month number five, RBC production is now taking place in the bone marrow of the fetal upper legs and shins. It continues to be made there in children, but eventually it moves again. In adults, most RBCs are produced in the bone marrow of the pelvis, cranium, vertebrae, and sternum.

The fine-tuning of this whole process screams out that it was intelligently designed. Even the few things that I have pointed out so far could not have developed in a slow and linear process over many generations. The organism would never survive.

And this is just the beginning.

Men on average have about a gallon and a half of blood and women a little over a gallon. It is about 45 percent blood cells (nearly half) and 55 percent plasma. Blood makes up about 7 to 8 percent of your weight. [4]

“The liquid component of blood is called plasma, a mixture of water, sugar, fat, protein, and salts. The main job of the plasma is to transport blood cells throughout your body along with nutrients, waste products, antibodies, clotting proteins, chemical messengers such as hormones, and proteins that help maintain the body's fluid balance.” [5]

If you think that is complicated, we are just scratching the surface. But stop and think how a slow and gradual process based on mutation and natural selection over many generations could produce all of those absolutely essential functions of blood one by one and not have the organism die off somewhere along the way, probably at the very beginning. There are too many limiting factors that kill a cell if all those processes are not in place from the beginning. These are mind-boggling chemical reactions. For just a taste, read Proof for God #74 Proteins.

Now we’ll start to get extremely complicated. There are three more basic components in blood that I want to discuss briefly (if possible).

1. Red Blood Cells (also called erythrocytes or RBCs) which carry oxygen to the tissues.

2. White Blood Cells (also called leukocytes) which fight infections.
3. Platelets (also called thrombocytes), smaller cells that help blood to clot. [6]

Red Blood Cells

RBCs are produced in bone marrow and develop from a generic type of cell (pluripotential hematopoietic stem cells) that could also have become a White Blood Cell or even Platelets. It is very difficult to imagine how complicated this is. There are sensors in the body that turn on or off switches that control how much of each type of cell is made. There is a hormone (called erythropoietin) which comes primarily from the kidneys and that is what controls the production of Red Blood Cells. Think about that. A hormone from the kidneys controls production of RBCs in the bone marrow. How many generations does it take to “evolve” that process?

RBCs are really, really unique. They have no nucleus because the cell loses it during growth along with other organelles. [7] They are shaped somewhat like a donut which just happens to be the best design of surface area for absorbing a full load of oxygen in a fraction of a second. They are made from five very specialized proteins that are very flexible. This is vitally important because they are about twice as big as a capillary and need to bend nearly in half to travel down the capillary and then spring back into shape on their way back to the heart.

RBCs are loaded with a protein called hemoglobin that is a fantastic carrier of oxygen and carbon dioxide. There are 250 million hemoglobin molecules in each of your billions of RBCs. [8]

Your body makes about 2 million RBCs every second to replace those that die off. [9] In men, there are an average of 5,200,000 RBCs per cubic millimeter and in women there are an average of 4,600,000 RBCs per cubic millimeter. The ratio of cells in normal blood is 600 RBCs to 1 White Blood Cell and 40 platelets.

Amazingly, RBCs do not eat up any of the oxygen themselves as they carry it out to all your cells. Special enzymes provide the power they need. This is another process that precludes evolution and necessitates a master designer.

Thankfully, the RBCs also remove Carbon Dioxide from our cells. The RBCs carry a certain enzyme (called carbonic anhydrase) which processes most of the CO₂ (70%) and takes it back to the lungs for elimination. [10] That sure looks like a designed plan also. Enzymes don’t form by accident and even if they did, you would still have to get the exact right one in the right place.

White Blood Cells

These are the amazing cells that circulate throughout our bodies to fight disease. They are made in the bone marrow from the same original cells as the Red Blood Cells. WBCs come in the following six main types, with their average percentages:

• Neutrophils - 58 percent. Have faintly blue-pink granules with digestive enzymes to eat bacteria.

• Eosinophils - 2 percent. Have orange-red granules. They kill parasites and have a role in allergic reactions..

• Basophils - 1 percent. Have purple granules. They are not well understood, but they release histamine.

• Bands - 3 percent. These are immature Neutrophils.

• Monocytes - 4 percent. They kill bacteria and also destroy old, damaged and dead cells in the body.

• Lymphocytes - 4 percent.

“Neutrophils and monocytes use several mechanisms to get to and kill invading organisms. They can squeeze through openings in blood vessels by a process called diapedesis. They move around using ameboid motion. They are attracted to certain chemicals produced by the immune system or by bacteria and migrate toward areas of higher concentrations of these chemicals. This is called chemotaxis. They kill bacteria by a process called phagocytosis, in which they completely surround the bacteria and digest them with digestive enzymes.” [11]

Our disease fighting immune system is phenomenal, to say the least. The smartest scientists can't come close to copying it, let alone making a better one. 

When the WBCs release the granules into the blood stream to fight disease, they last for about 4 to 8 hours before being absorbed into body tissues and sticking around another 4 or 5 days. What an amazing system for fighting disease for you. How can anyone conceptualize how this could have evolved?

Platelets

When you cut yourself, your blood will clot and form a scab. Did you ever ask yourself why your blood does not clot inside your body and turn you into a statue? The smooth inner surface of the blood vessels and a finely tuned balance of chemicals or “clotting factors” keeps that from happening. [12] Evolutionists must believe that we are really lucky that blood clotting worked perfectly the very first time. Otherwise we would have bled out completely on the ground or else frozen solid from internal clotting.

“…platelets are not actually cells but rather small fragments of cells. Platelets help the blood clotting process (or coagulation) by gathering at the site of an injury, sticking to the lining of the injured blood vessel, and forming a platform on which blood coagulation can occur. This results in the formation of a fibrin clot, which covers the wound and prevents blood from leaking out. Fibrin also forms the initial scaffolding upon which new tissue forms, thus promoting healing.” [13]

The number of platelets also has to have a controlling chemical process so there is just the right number in your body. Too many platelets and people would be getting strokes and heart attacks. Too few and we’d lose a lot of blood to excessive bleeding. Here again it looks like there must have been a very intelligent designer.

Okay, I’m sure you are getting the idea and are probably tired of reading so I’m going to wrap it up now.

There are different types of Platelets: T-cells and B-cells. The T-cells come in 4 types: (1) Helper T cells, (2) Cytotoxic T cells, (3) Memory T cells, and (4) Suppressor T cells. Each of them has their own unique chemicals and very complex purposes.

And I haven’t even talked about the Plasma, which makes up 55% of your blood.

In conclusion, there must be God.

___________________________________

[1] Smithsonian.com, "There are 37.2 Trillion Cells in Your Body", http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/there-are-372-trillion-cells-in-your-body-4941473/?no-ist

[2] Guliuzza, Randy J., "Life-Giving Blood", http://www.icr.org/article/4823

[3] Guliuzza, Randy J., "Life-Giving Blood", http://www.icr.org/article/4823

[4] American Society of Hematology, "Blood Basics", http://www.hematology.org/Patients/Basics/

(Excellent 52 sec video: https://youtu.be/R-sKZWqsUpw )

[5] American Society of Hematology, "Blood Basics", http://www.hematology.org/Patients/Basics/

[6] WebMD article, “Heart Health Center”, http://www.webmd.com/heart/anatomy-picture-of-blood

[7] Bianco, Carl, "How Blood Works", http://health.howstuffworks.com/human-body/systems/circulatory/blood.htm/printable

[8] Guliuzza, Randy J., "Life-Giving Blood", http://www.icr.org/article/4823

[9] U. S. National Library of Medicine, "Red blood cell production",

https://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/anatomyvideos/000104.htm

[10] Bianco, Carl, "How Blood Works", http://health.howstuffworks.com/human-body/systems/circulatory/blood.htm/printable

[11] Bianco, Carl, "How Blood Works", http://health.howstuffworks.com/human-body/systems/circulatory/blood.htm/printable

[12] WebMD article, “Heart Health Center”, http://www.webmd.com/heart/anatomy-picture-of-blood

[13] American Society of Hematology, "Blood Basics", http://www.hematology.org/Patients/Basics/

#95 Archaea

Probably most of you have never heard of Archaea. I had never heard of them either until just recently. In fact, the world had never heard of them until they were discovered in 1977.

The Archaea constitute a domain or kingdom of single-celled microorganisms. These microbes are prokaryotes, meaning that they have no cell nucleus or any other membrane-bound organelles in their cells.

Classification is difficult because the majority have not been studied in the laboratory and have only been detected by analysis of their nucleic acids in samples from their environment. [1]

Before 1977 they had always been considered a type of bacteria. But then microbiologist Carl Woese was able to recognize that they were very different from bacteria.

"He had stumbled on a brave new world of microbes that looked like bacteria to our eyes, but were in fact so unique biochemically and physically that they have ultimately proved to be more closely related to us than to them. He had stumbled on an entirely new form of life, right here on Earth." [2]

Being a believer in the Theory of Evolution, he concluded that back at the beginning of Darwin’s Tree of Life, there must have been an early split. Bacteria went one way and Archaea and all other life went the other way. Of course Archaea was so primitive, not even having a cell nuclei, it had to have branched off from the Tree of Life itself at the very beginning.

So Woese came up with an all new branch and thus there are now three major branches off of Darwin’s Tree of Life. Evolutionists don’t really give an explanation for whatever it was that came before these three branches.

To get a better idea of some of the differences between Archaea and bacteria, one good website is WiseGeek. Here is just one point of many.

“Archaea and bacteria are both single-celled microorganisms known as prokaryotes but this is one of the few things they have in common. Even though they both look vaguely similar when viewed through a microscope, each represents a completely different group of creatures. In fact, archaea differ from bacteria as much as humans do, in terms of their biochemistry and genetic structure. Archaea and bacteria have different cell membranes and cell structures, and archaea are found in extreme environments where most bacteria could not survive.” [3]

It turns out that Archaea are totally everywhere on the earth. In fact they make up as much as 20% of the biomass of all living things even though they are microscopic in size. “Archaea are particularly numerous in the oceans, and the archaea in plankton may be one of the most abundant groups of organisms on the planet.” [4]

They come in all shapes and sizes. Some are totally different from each other and do the exact opposite thing biochemically. Here is an example.

“Archaea carry out many steps in the nitrogen cycle. This includes both reactions that remove nitrogen from ecosystems (such as nitrate-based respiration and denitrification) as well as processes that introduce nitrogen (such as nitrate assimilation and nitrogen fixation).” [5]

See my Proof for God #48 Nitrogen Cycle for more information on that.

"To our surprise, we have found super-sized filamentous archaea almost big enough to see with the naked eye living on mangrove roots. We have found methanogenic archaea that interact with protozoa in the guts of cows and termites to help these organisms break cellulose down for energy. We've even found an archaeon that lives symbiotically with -- of all things -- a sponge." [6]

Here are four excerpts from Wikipedia that show the extremely important roles that Archaea play in maintaining all life on earth.

“Researchers recently discovered Archaean involvement in ammonia oxidation reactions. These reactions are particularly important in the oceans.

“The archaea also appear crucial for ammonia oxidation in soils. They produce nitrite, which other microbes then oxidize to nitrate. Plants and other organisms consume the latter.

“In the carbon cycle, methanogen archaea remove hydrogen and play an important role in the decay of organic matter by the populations of microorganisms that act as decomposers in anaerobic ecosystems, such as sediments, marshes and sewage-treatment works.

“In the sulfur cycle, archaea that grow by oxidizing sulfur compounds release this element from rocks, making it available to other organisms.” [7]

Some researchers believe that we would never have been able to come to exist on the earth without Archaea. Millions of years ago, the earth was covered with methane gas. They think it was the type of Archaea that digests methane that ate it all up or we could never have come along. Even today some scientists estimate that Archaea convert 300 million tons of methane per year into more life friendly chemicals.

"Scientists have discovered a methane metabolizing Archea in the extreme pressures of deep sea sediments. It is estimated that these bacteria-like organisms consume 300 million tons of methane each year, which prevent the Earth from turning into a furnace. According to Kai-Uwe Hinrichs, a biogeochemist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts and one of the authors of the study, 'If they hadn't been established at some point in Earth's history, we probably wouldn't be here.'" [8]

A tremendous amount is NOT known about Archaea. “Current knowledge on genetic diversity is fragmentary and the total number of archaeal species cannot be estimated with any accuracy. Estimates of the number of phyla range from 18 to 23, of which only 8 have representatives that have been cultured and studied directly.” [9] Here is another such statement. "Consequently, our understanding of the role of archaea in ocean ecology is rudimentary, so their full influence on global biogeochemical cycles remains largely unexplored." [10]

But scientists have been able to learn some things about their internal makeup, replication, and the biochemical processes they exhibit.

Let’s note here that they do not reproduce sexually. There are no male and female so it is hard to apply the Theory of Evolution. They do not have “parents” to give them two different sets of DNA.

So let’s look at some of the questions that Evolutionists are not going to be able to answer.

If you have read any of my Proofs for God such as #40 Chirality, #21 DNA, #27 The Truth about Mutation, or #35 Natural Selection, then you are probably already asking yourself some good questions.

In the very beginning for Evolutionists, somehow DNA came to exist. In the opinion of many scientists, it would be impossible to come into existence without super-intelligence involved because there is so much order, information, and design to DNA. But let’s skip over that discussion for this proof.

Evolutionists were forced to put Archaea and bacteria and the very bottom of the Tree of Life because they are so primitive. But they are so different it is impossible to explain that one was the ancestor of the other, so they don’t. They make separate branches of the tree and leave the beginning a mystery.

"Molecular handedness -- chirality in chemistry-speak -- is not a thing changed easily by evolution. For instance, the vast majority of protein building blocks called amino acids used by life on Earth are exclusively "left-handed". Why? No one really knows, although some have guesses. Once lefty amino acids took over, though, there was no going back biochemically -- the enzymes were set up a certain way and that was that. Thus, that archaeal and bacterial enzymes use glycerols with opposite handedness implies that bacteria and archaea parted ways long, long ago." [11]

To mutate from bacteria to Archaea or any other living thing is impossible to conceive of based on the different handedness of their enzymes. Remember DNA is a long, long chain of millions, if not billions, of individual amino acids.

Evolutionists have to believe that enzymes of both left-handedness and right-handedness somehow developed, once to produce Archaea and the plant/animal branch and another time to produce bacteria. The odds are astronomical against an enzyme coming to exist by Evolution even one time. But two independent times is not even conceivable. And then another miracle has to happen to produce the third branch of the Tree of Life (plants and animals).

We could stop there, but let’s keep going. Once one Archaea somehow exists as a fully functioning cell, it has to already contain all the necessary DNA to be able to replicate itself. (Please read Proof for God #41 The First Living Cell to learn how difficult that is.)

"The majority of its genes related to energy production, cell division, and metabolism were found to be most similar to those found in bacteria, while those related to transcription, translation, and replication were found to be most similar to those found in eukaryota." [12]

Here’s something else. Archaea hold all the records for being able to survive in the most extreme environments like hot, cold, acidic, or salty.

Then from that one very first Archaea, how do you explain such an extreme diversity of Archaea living in every environment on the earth? They are single celled organisms so when they multiply they do not have two parents from which to inherit different DNA. Their DNA somehow makes a copy of itself and then the cell splits into two “daughter cells” having exactly the same DNA.

"Archaea replicate asexually in a process known as binary fission. Archaea achieve a swimming motility via one or more tail-like flagellae." [13]

They just make a copy of themselves according to their existing DNA. I will concede that there might be some mutations during copying, but this is not a process that leads anywhere toward species development. See my Proof for God # Copying Degradation and my Proof for God # The Truth about Mutation.

Mutation is very rarely beneficial. It usually leads to death. There’s no hope there for growth and development of many different phyla.

Archaea live in many such extreme environments that they could not have evolved there. There are Archaea that are living at 130°C on the ocean floor next to an active volcano.

"Strain 121 can survive at temperatures up to 130C and experiments suggest there may be archaeal species that can tolerate temperatures of 140 to 150C. Lest you forget, water boils at 100C." [14]

There is no oxygen there and the heat destroys all other living things. How did they get there in the first place and not get destroyed on the way? How could they adapt to the heat in that environment without being killed first? If the heat didn’t kill them, how did they get oxygen and energy? They would have had to evolve the ability to convert compounds in the environment into oxygen and energy after they arrived there. It’s pretty clear that they had to be able to survive in that environment before they ever got there not after they arrived. Survival of the Fittest is totally out of the realm of possibility.

How about the type of Archaea that can thrive in a totally acidic environment of pH 0 (zero), comparable to sulfuric acid? All plants and animals die in acid. Since Evolutionists put Archaea on the Tree of Life, how do they explain that some type “adapted” into being able to do this? They could not have adapted once they were in the strong acid environment, no survival of the fittest because there are no survivors. Even bacteria which Evolutionists say came earlier on the Tree of Life are killed by acid.

Different types of Archaea also live in extremely alkaline environments. Some can live in extremely cold environments. Others live in the soil, the ocean, marshlands, even sewage. 

There are even Archaea that live in your stomachs that help you digest certain types of molecules. We are really lucky that they are there or we might not survive. That’s a very acidic environment which dissolves almost everything that comes into it. But not your very own Archaea.

“Methogens such as M. Smithii, the most abundant methanogenic archaeon in the human gut is an important player in the digestion of polysaccharides (complex sugars). Methangenic archaea help to remove excess hydrogen.” [15]

Here’s a neat little sentence with gigantic implications. “Like bacteria, archaea cell membranes are usually bounded by a cell wall and they swim using one or more flagella.” [16] How can evolutionists explain one or more working flagellum on an archaea? That means they have a working tail that motors them around. A tail takes a lot of engineering. A half evolved tail does not work. Evolution cannot explain in slow, gradual steps how you get a flagellum.

Archaea are so tiny that we can’t see them and yet there are so many that they make up 20% of living things on the planet. There are so many different kinds of them and they all seem to provide extremely essential chemical processes for our survival. We’d die without them.

There’s still a lot more to be learned about them, but just knowing what we know already makes it impossible to believe that they occurred by random chance or natural selection.

No evolutionary explanation suffices. There must be God.

_________________________

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

[2] Frazer, Jennifer, Scientific American, "Archaea Are More Wonderful Than You Know", January 12, 2013, http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/artful-amoeba/archaea-are-more-wonderful-than-you-know/

[3] WiseGeek, "What Are the Differences between Archaea and Bacteria?", http://www.wisegeek.org/what-are-the-differences-between-archaea-and-bacteria.htm#didyouknowout

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

[5] Frazer, Jennifer, Scientific American, "Archaea Are More Wonderful Than You Know", January 12, 2013, http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/artful-amoeba/archaea-are-more-wonderful-than-you-know/

[6] Frazer, Jennifer, Scientific American, "Archaea Are More Wonderful Than You Know", January 12, 2013, http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/artful-amoeba/archaea-are-more-wonderful-than-you-know/

[7] Wikipedia, “Archaea”, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archaea

[8] Deem, Rich, "The Incredible Design of the Earth and Our Solar System", 

http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/designss.html

[9] Wikipedia, “Archaea”, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archaea

[10] Wikipedia, “Archaea”, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archaea

[11] Frazer, Jennifer, Scientific American, "Archaea Are More Wonderful Than You Know", January 12, 2013, http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/artful-amoeba/archaea-are-more-wonderful-than-you-know/

[12] New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science, "Archaea", http://treeoflife.nmnaturalhistory.org/archaea.html

[13] Encyclopedia of Life, "What are Archaea?", http://eol.org/info/457

[14] Frazer, Jennifer, Scientific American, "Archaea Are More Wonderful Than You Know", January 12, 2013, http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/artful-amoeba/archaea-are-more-wonderful-than-you-know/

[15] New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science, "Archaea", http://treeoflife.nmnaturalhistory.org/archaea.html

[16] Wikipedia, “Archaea”, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archaea