#72 The Superb Lyrebird

Most birds have one or two sounds that they can make or “songs” that they “sing”. The fact that any animal can make sounds like the birds do at all is a phenomenally complex accomplishment involving their ears, brain, syrinx, beak, mouth, and lungs all working simultaneously. It is so amazing that it would “impress the great composers”. [a] [b] (I highly recommend this webpage as an introduction about bird sounds and the messages they are communicating, and the many intricate ways they do it.)

“The vocal skill of birds derive from the unusual structure of their powerful vocal equipment. The syrinx is the sound-producing organ in birds. It is the equivalent of the human sound box. The syrinx contains membranes which vibrate and generate sound waves when air from the lungs is passed over them. The muscles of the syrinx control the details of song production; birds with more elaborate system of vocal muscles produce more complex songs.”[c]

The Lyrebird in Australia gets even more complicated by a whole new order of magnitude. Not only is it considered by many to be the loudest bird in the world, but it can hear, remember, and then somehow imitate extraordinarily complex sounds and sequences. Following are some links to videos on YouTube where Lyrebirds are videotaped reproducing sounds such as a chainsaw, hammering in a nail, sawing on wood, a camera shutter, a motorized drive on a camera shutter, a radio broadcast, and even a man swearing.

Superb Lyrebird imitating construction work - Adelaide Zoo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeQjkQpeJwY#t

David Attenborough, Amazing! Bird sounds from the lyre bird - BBC wildlife

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjE0Kdfos4Y#t

National Geographic, World's Weirdest - Bird Mimics Chainsaw, Car Alarm and More

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjAcyTXRunY

This excerpt is from an article in Wikipedia that I highly recommend for more information.

“The lyrebird's syrinx is the most complexly-muscled of the Passerines (songbirds), giving the lyrebird extraordinary ability, unmatched in vocal repertoire and mimicry. Lyrebirds render with great fidelity the individual songs of other birds and the chatter of flocks of birds, and also mimic other animals such as koalas and dingos. The lyrebird is capable of imitating almost any sound and they have been recorded mimicking human caused sounds such as a mill whistle to a cross-cut saw, chainsaws, car engines and car alarms, fire alarms, rifle-shots, camera shutters, dogs barking, crying babies, music, and even the human voice.”[d]

Begging for Love, by Bernd Amesreiter

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2UcKFtwS5o

Awesome bird, the Lyre Bird mimicking like crazy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCKxbJA3KpM

Amazing Lyre Bird can imitate Dubstep and Drum n Bass! (WARNING - expletive coming)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJAIkSPK3DI

Check in the footnotes below for some additional videos on YouTube. [e]

“In the wild, males will not only flawlessly imitate some 20 different species of birds, but multiple calls from each. They’re particularly fond of imitating Australia’s famous laughing kookaburras, and Dalziell has heard them mimicking the wing beats of small birds jetting through the forest understory. Up to 80 percent of a lyrebird’s song can consist of such mimicry, according to Dalziell…” [f]

The Superb Lyrebird can imitate other birds so well that they are completely deceived into believing it is one of their own. [g]

Scientists who study the Lyrebirds say they have fossils dating back 15 million years ago.[h]

The Lyrebirds get their name from the beautiful tail feathers on the male that grow when he is 3 or 4 years old.[i] There are 2 species of Lyrebirds (Superb and Albert’s), but only the Superb species has these amazing tail feathers.

Evolutionists have quite a number of problems trying to explain how this ability could have developed slowly and gradually in the Lyrebird. They never actually discuss how changes in the brain or vocal mechanisms take place. They refer to some generalized explanation of sex appeal in the male making him more attractive to the female AFTER he has evolved. That's just a “red herring” because there is no evidence of HOW he could anatomically change.

One big problem for evolutionists is, “What was the order of development of the needed parts?” Imagine the brain of a Lyrebird and how it evolved.  Did it first evolve the ability to hear, record, and remember a very complex sequence of sounds slowly and gradually? How would that be a benefit to survival? Then many generations later its lungs, syrinx, and beak changed so it could make all those sounds it could remember.

What about the other way around? Did the mouth, throat, syrinx, and lungs slowly and gradually evolve to this level of specialization and then the brain evolved after that? Could all these complex mechanisms have evolved all on their own without the brain? Note that the anatomical mechanisms evolving slowly over many generations would have to conveniently evolve piece by piece without any designer until the whole thing would suddenly work. Once the “musical instrument” existed, then the brain has to be able to “play” it. The brain would have to evolve so it could eventually learn how to take the stored memory of a sound and reproduce it. Did this take many generations?

Maybe when you were a kid someone made for you a flute out of a hollow bamboo reed. [j] You blew in one end and were shown that by covering different holes you could make different sounds. So far so good.  But how long was it before you could play a song on that flute? Not easy was it? And you were a pretty smart kid! Learning to play even a simple musical instrument is not easy.

The other possibility for evolution is that all these complicated, interconnected systems developed simultaneously. First they were one tenth developed, then one quarter developed, then one half developed, and so on. In this case, it doesn’t seem like anything will work very well until it is all finished. There seems to be very little survival benefit at each of the intermediate stages along the way. So how could evolution like this be realistic? Besides that, the chances of many interconnected mutations happening nearly simultaneously is non-existent. 

Evolutionists believe that the Lyrebird accidentally developed a very sophisticated vocal mechanism (way more complicated than a flute). The Lyrebird can create thousands of sounds compared to a few on your flute. That bird brain also accidentally figured out how to instantly remember various complicated sounds that it hears and then somehow learned to reproduce the exact sounds and sequences using its amazing vocal apparatus (way beyond some simple flute).

That bird brain had to have accidentally developed not only “perfect pitch” [k] and “perfect rhythm/timing/beat”, but also something similar to a photographic memory for sound. If a human being could accomplish something like this, he/she would be considered one of the “wonders of the world”.

The Lyrebird could not have evolved. It was designed.

There must be God.

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

[a] Gareth Huw Davies, Bird Songs, PBS, http://www.pbs.org/lifeofbirds/songs/

            “The musical detail would have impressed the great composers. The nightingale, for example, holds up to 300 different love songs in his repertoire. The canary may take 30 mini-breaths a second to replenish its air supply. The cowbird uses 40 different notes, some so high we can't hear them. The chaffinch may sing his song half a million times in a season.

            “Indeed, British musician David Hindley slowed bird song down and discovered parallels between the skylark's blizzard of notes and Beethoven's Fifth Symphony; between the woodlark's mind-numbingly complex song and J.S.Bach's 48 Preludes and Fugues. It changes its tune according to the rules of classical sonata form.”

 [b] Gareth Huw Davies, Bird Songs, PBS, http://www.pbs.org/lifeofbirds/songs/

            “In most species, a male bird owning a territory is essential for attracting a female and breeding successfully. Males claim a territory by singing in it. They generally use shorter, simpler songs for territorial defense. They are addressing their songs to rival males. These territorial songs carry over long distances and convey detailed information about the location and identity of the singer. Gaps in the song enable the singer to listen for replies, and determine where their rival is and how far off.

Birds can distinguish neighbors from strangers by individual differences in their songs. Males use this information to concentrate their defense efforts. They will not react aggressively against a neighbor as long as he stays on his own territory. But a singing stranger could mean a threat to the territory; a strong response is required to see this potential invader off.

When they are trying to attract females onto their territory, males become operatic. They sing longer and more complex songs.”

[c] Gareth Huw Davies, Bird Songs, PBS, http://www.pbs.org/lifeofbirds/songs/

[h] Wikipedia, Lyrebird, Taxonomy and systematics, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyrebird

[d] Wikipedia, Lyrebird, Vocalizations and mimicry, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyrebird

[i] New South Wales, Australia, Government website, Lyrebirds, http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/animals/Lyrebirds.htm

[f] Matt Simon, Wired.Com, Absurd Creature of the Week: The Bird That Does Unbelievable Impressions of Chainsaws, Car Alarms, http://www.wired.com/2014/02/absurd-creature-week-lyrebird/

[e] Additional YouTube videos

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Js9DTOoYEM, Australian National University

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2f_7tdOgiQ, Adelaide Zoo Lyrebird "Chook"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xr-o7Cw9zA0, Is It Possible

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAwiFMKPHmY#t, David Attenborough

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WA0tP-p7m40, Lyrebird: The Best Songbird Ever

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocCPvl6mUmo, This Bird can TALK in 20 different voices!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSZtoXIb7do, Healesville Sanctuary, Australia

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBhTyHIBGU8, Medusa Media, Superb Lyrebird - performing repertoire of local birdcalls and courtship dance

[g] Abbie Thomas, Winter call of the lyrebirds, ABC Science, http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2011/08/04/3284076.htm

[j] Marc Bristol, How to Carve a Homemade Bamboo Flute, http://www.motherearthnews.com/diy/how-to-carve-a-homemade-bamboo-flute-zmaz82ndzgoe.aspx#axzz3JAI6aOBd

[k] Google. Definition: Absolute Pitch or Perfect Pitch is a rare auditory phenomenon characterized by the ability of a person to identify or re-create a given musical note without the benefit of a reference tone.

#71 Fruit

Everybody loves fruit. But have you ever done any research on “fruits”? I tried to find out how many different kinds of fruits there are in the world, but I could not find an answer. Nobody knows. Clearly there are thousands. (For fun go to Top 20 Fruits You Probably Don’t Know [1] or 20 More Fruits You Probably Don’t Know [2].)

“Although it is not known exactly how many types of fruits exist in the world, the answer numbers in the thousands. Agriculturalists constantly cultivate new varieties of fruits; for instance, at least 1,600 varieties of bananas exist as of 2014.” [3]

Imagine a life without fruits. Eating would be much more boring, but we would be much more sickly as a human race, maybe even extinct.

What do evolutionists say about where fruits came from? Not much actually, I googled it. They say of course that slowly over great lengths of time, random mutations somehow produced a sweet fruit. Animals and insects liked them so much more than other plants that they ate a lot of them and spread their seeds all over the place by pooping.

Let’s think about this a little more seriously and try to imagine the step by step processes that would have had to be involved.

I want to discuss particularly two of the most astounding features of fruits: (1) they taste so great and (2) they carry many, many health benefits for humans. There are others, but I think these two will show that fruits clearly defy the concepts of evolution.

Even with all of our creative genius and intelligence as human beings, we cannot create even one fruit that is better than the ones in nature. Doesn’t that tell you something? Not just a few, but all these thousands of wonderful fruits just accidentally happened without any intelligence involved. That means that random accidents are smarter than all the combined human intelligence because randomness comes up with better food for us than we can make on our own. Not only did it happen one time, but it happened over and over again thousands of times. So the smartest scientists are like dummies compared to random mutations.

Evolutionists have a faith in randomness that goes beyond blind faith if you ask me.

So in the course of historical time, what came first, the fruits evolving on the plants or the animals to eat them? Evolutionists say animals spread the seeds that grew in the fruits. So that means that fruits came into existence after there were already animals. But if there were no fruits for the animals to eat, how did they get all the nutrition that they needed to survive. It’s kind of a catch 22. So they would have had to evolve simultaneously, right? But that doesn’t make so much sense either, because if the fruit were only partially developed, why would the animal eat it?

Think for a minute of what is necessary in the way of changes in a plant for it to go from a plant that has no fruit to one that bears fruit. There would have to be thousands of chemical and biological changes in the plant. Usually the fruit is an integral part of the reproductive organs of a plant. This means that the male and female parts of the plant or else the male plant and female plant would both have to make evolutionary changes that completely corresponded to each other simultaneously. If not, then the plant would not be fertilized correctly and there would be no next generation.

Apple seedling

Plants have a life cycle. Starting from a seed, it can take many years for a plant (fruit tree) to reach maturity and be able to bear seeds of its own. Standard apple trees take at least 5 to 8 years to bear fruit and cherry trees take longer.[4] So if a tree is one that does not bear fruit and begins a simple mutation, it is probably going to take some 5 years before that mutation could be passed on to another generation of trees. Remember also that scientists tell us that most mutations are detrimental or neutral and very few are positive.[5] How many of the seeds would actually carry the mutation when it happens? Certainly only a tiny, tiny fraction of the seeds would have any mutation at all, but an even much tinier fraction of those would have a mutation going toward producing a partial fruit. Now among all the seeds that a tree produces each year, what percentage do you think will grow up into another mature tree? I’d be willing to bet that percentage is very low. I remember my aunt and uncle had this huge old cherry tree that used to produce so many cherries that the ground would be covered with them. But not many new trees sprung up.

If a plant somehow mutated enough to make a fruit, (a big if) how did it get the taste just right to be so satisfying to humans, or even animals? How many possible mutations are there that taste terrible? There isn’t enough time since the Big Bang for a plant to mutate all the combinations of tastes in order to get just the right one. And you can’t please all the people all the time. Some people like apples and some don’t. Some people who love apples love the Delicious but not the Granny Smith. The seeds of the apple won’t get spread for the evolutionist if the people (or local animals) don’t like the taste.

Now here’s another incredible difficulty for evolutionists. They may talk about the great taste of fruits as the reason they are here according to natural selection, but they still have to take into account that fruits each have many, many health benefits. How did that come about? People might eat the fruit because it tastes so great, but what if it poisoned them. No more evolution. How can evolutionists explain that fruits contain many wonderful nutrients for humans? The nutrients don’t particularly help the plant or tree itself. Did the plants mutate again and again until it somehow got exactly the right combination of nutrients for humans (animals, or insects, etc.) and also the right taste too? That would mean thousands of millions of new chemical and biological processes. That doesn’t make much sense because there are so many other plants and trees that are doing just fine and they don’t make any fruits that are edible.

“The total number of plant species in the world is estimated at 270,000. Approximately 1,000 to 2,000 species of plants are edible by humans. About 100 to 200 species of plants play an important role in world commerce, and about 15 species provide the majority of food crops.” [6]

What is more difficult to evolve, a great taste or great nutritional benefits for humans? It seems to me that the chemical and biological processes to produce great taste would be easier and also more likely to get the fruit eaten and the seeds spread. But it is going to be way more complicated for the fruit to become full of healthy nutrients. Even if the plant had wonderful nutrients, humans and animals won’t eat it if it tastes terrible.

     25 Powerful Reasons to Eat Bananas [7]
     Bananas: Health Benefits, Risks & Nutrition Facts [8]
     The Health Benefits Of Bananas Are Numerous [9]
     5 Health Benefits of Apples [10]
     15 health benefits of eating apples [11]
     10 Reasons To Eat Pineapple [12]
     13 Health Benefits of Oranges [13]
     Etc., etc., etc.

Once again we could ask, which came first, the nutrients in the fruit or the animal to eat the fruit. If the animals are not there to eat and then spread the fruit seeds, how do the seeds get spread? If the nutritional fruits are not there for the animals, how do they survive without it? If they evolve side by side at the same time, matching each other step by step, you have a scenario that takes more blind faith to believe than any religious person has.

Here’s another very interesting point. You have surely noticed that oranges come in segments inside the peal, usually 10. Another fruit like bananas however grow in a totally different way, on a huge stalk in a big bunch. 

The banana peal comes off rather easily and the banana can actually be divided into 3 sections. What does evolution have to say about fruit being conveniently packaged for human and animal consumption? Could 10 segments in an orange have developed by some slow and gradual process of natural selection? And why is that feature selected for over some other simpler system?

I love fruit. Because there is fruit, I conclude there must be God.

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

[1] Christine Vrey, Top 20 Fruits You Probably Don’t Know, http://listverse.com/2011/07/08/top-20-fruits-you-probably-dont-know/

[2] Christine Vrey, 20 More Fruits You Probably Don’t Know, http://listverse.com/2011/07/23/20-more-fruits-you-probably-dont-know/

[3] Ask.Com, How many types of fruits are there in the world?, http://www.ask.com/food/many-types-fruits-world-ef78fe775fd75a9b

[4] How Many Years Until Your Tree Bears Fruit?, by Stark Bro's, http://www.starkbros.com/blog/how-many-years/

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

[6] Ask.Com, How many types of fruits are there in the world?, http://www.ask.com/food/many-types-fruits-world-ef78fe775fd75a9b

[7] 25 Powerful Reasons to Eat Bananas, http://foodmatters.tv/articles-1/25-powerful-reasons-to-eat-bananas

[8] Jessie Szalay, Live Science Contributor, Bananas: Health Benefits, Risks & Nutrition Facts, http://www.livescience.com/45005-banana-nutrition-facts.html

[9] Chad Hagy, 14 Banana Health Benefits You Might Not Know About, The Health Benefits Of Bananas Are Numerous, http://www.lifescript.com/food/articles/0/14_banana_health_benefits_you_might_not_know_about.aspx

[10] Matthew Kayser, 5 Health Benefits of Apples, http://www.lifescript.com/food/articles/0/5_health_benefits_of_apples.aspx

[11] 15 health benefits of eating apples, http://www.besthealthmag.ca/eat-well/nutrition/15-health-benefits-of-eating-apples

[12] Rose Alexander, 10 Reasons To Eat Pineapple, The Health Benefits And Convenience Of Pineapple, http://www.lifescript.com/food/articles/0/10_reasons_to_eat_pineapple.aspx

[13] Diana Herrington, 13 Health Benefits of Oranges, http://www.care2.com/greenliving/13-health-benefits-of-oranges.html

#70 Healing

A couple weeks ago I was working in the garage and I scraped my arm on the corner of a sheet of wood. As would be expected, I started to bleed because I had scraped off the surface layer of skin about 3/8 inch across. For the next couple of weeks, I have been watching my arm heal, which is one of the most amazing abilities inherent in all living organisms. Living beings can repair themselves from damage. 

Healing is such an amazing process, even more astounding when you research all the stages that your body goes through in the process. There are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of processes involved for a healing to take place. The ability to heal could not have developed in a Darwinian process that is slow and gradual. Half stopping the bleeding is not enough.

Let me share just a summary of a few of those processes with you, but first, here is a quote that I found that shows scientists really can't explain the whole process very well at all.

"Despite the advances in understanding the science of wound healing, many more steps have yet to be discovered and elucidated. 

"Although seemingly basic in concept, advances in molecular science have allowed modern medicine to gain a true appreciation of the complex interplay between the cells involved in the phases of wound healing."[1]

Note that it is still too complicated for them to understand. How can they believe it happened by chance? They just assume no God and make up theories from there.

To continue, scientists vary as to whether there are 3 or 4 phases to the healing process, but regardless of how many, they agree that there are distinct things that happen.

"When your skin gets cut, your body springs into action to heal the wound. First, the body works to limit blood loss by reducing the amount of blood flowing to the wounded area. Proteins in blood, such as fibrin, work with the blood platelets already in place and plasma to form a protective covering called a scab. While your skin regenerates underneath the protective layer, the scab protects the wound from outside infection."[2] 

Notice that your blood vessels leading to the wound constrict at first to limit the blood loss. Wounded cells release thromboxane A2 and prostaglandin 2-alpha which cause the vessel constriction. Once blood loss stops, then the blood vessels expand to allow more white blood cells to accumulate and get rid of infection, bacteria and debris. They do the opposite of what they did before. How is that possible?

"Platelets (triggered by enzymes leaked from the torn blood vessel) rush to the scene. These sticky blood cells clump to each other and then adhere to the sides of the torn blood vessel, making a plug. Clotting proteins in the blood join forces to form a fibrin net that holds the platelet plug in place over the tear, and in just a few seconds or minutes (depending on how bad the scrape is), BLEEDING STOPS, thanks to coagulation! The fibrin plug becomes a scab that will eventually fall off or be reabsorbed into the body once healing is complete."[3]

The scab makes a dry, temporary crust which protects the damaged area during healing. 

The blood contains lots of platelets for just this purpose. Platelets only exist in animals. They are produced in a totally different location in your body, namely the bone marrow. A healthy adult produces about 1,000,000,000,000 platelets a day and they only circulate for about 8 to 9 days before being removed by the spleen and liver. Platelets are so tiny they are only 1/5th the size of red blood cells. Note carefully this quote: "Complicating any verbal description is the fact that at least 193 proteins and 301 interactions are involved in platelet dynamics." i.e. the making of platelets.[4]

If this process evolved in a slow and gradual way, the body would bleed to death and die before it could reproduce. Think of all the times you get injured and bleed during your lifetime.

Of course evolutionists would probably say that the healing ability was developed long before humans came along. But the problem for simpler organisms is even more complicated. They are much more likely to die from a simple wound than we are. The odds are less they could ever reproduce. The healing process is extremely complicated. Therefore, it could never evolve in one generation according to the Theory of Evolution. And what about platelets only existing in animals? They must have been created by God or the first animals would have bled to death before they could "evolve".

The next phase of healing is Inflamation. The blood vessels that previously constricted to stop blood loss now dilate to bring more blood to the area. The area swells up and the extra blood brings the white blood cells which engulf and kill bacteria and remove debris. Fibroblast cells also gather at the site and start producing collagen which gradually fills up the wound under the scab and creates new capillaries.

Skin cells around the edges of the wound thicken up and gradually stretch under the scab into the center of the wound, meeting skin from the other side. This takes about 3 weeks. This tissue forms a scar which gradually becomes stronger as more collagen is added, taking up to 3 years to complete the healing.

Here is a description of the next phase, called Proliferation. "The proliferation phase is characterized by angiogenesis, collagen deposition, granulation tissue formation, epithelialization, and wound contraction. In angiogenesis, vascular endothelial cells form new blood vessels. In fibroplasia and granulation tissue formation, fibroblasts grow and form a new, provisional extracellular matrix (ECM) by excreting collagen and fibronectin. Concurrently, re-epithelialization of the epidermis occurs, in which epithelial cells proliferate and 'crawl' atop the wound bed, providing cover for the new tissue."[5]

That's a lot of different processes going on involving all kinds of different specialized cells and chemicals. Healing doesn't work if any of these processes are not functioning. So how could evolution by slow and gradual changes possibly create such an intricate system?

We're not done yet. Wound contraction takes place by cells called myofibroblasts contracting like muscles and shrinking the wound. Then unneeded cells die off, somehow knowing they are not needed. 

The last phase is Maturation and Remodeling where cells realign themselves like the original skin and unneeded cells die off. "Increased collagen production and breakdown continue for 6 months to 1 year after injury. The initial type III collagen is replaced by type I collagen until a type I:type II ratio of 4:1 is reached, which is equal to normal skin. Also, fibroblasts differentiate into myofibroblasts, causing tissue contraction during this phase of wound healing. Collagen reorganizes along lines of tension and crosslinks, giving added strength." [6]

How do the cells know what the original skin looked like and then be able to replace it? 

The above article and description are extremely simplified. Read up on it a little if you are interested. If not, take my word for it, healing ability is no accident. 

There is a God.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] Wound Healing and Growth Factors, by Allen Gabriel, MD; http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/1298196-overview

[2] How Your Skin Works, How Skin Heals, by Rachel Oswald, http://health.howstuffworks.com/skin-care/information/anatomy/skin4.htm

[3] How do wounds, cuts, scrapes, lacerations heal? Go Ask Alice, http://goaskalice.columbia.edu/how-do-wounds-cuts-scrapes-lacerations-heal

[4] Wikipedia article on Platelets. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platelet

[5] Wikipedia article on Wound Healing. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wound_healing

[6] Wound Healing and Growth Factors, Phases of Wound Healing by Allen Gabriel, MD;  http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/1298196-overview#aw2aab6b4

#69 The Archerfish

All over the world there are hundreds and thousands of animals, fish, insects, and plants that refute the Theory of Evolution. I’ve already shown that neither mutations nor natural selection is a process that can lead to new species (Proofs #27 and #35). But let’s spend a few minutes talking about a certain fish called the Archerfish that lives in Asia. After I describe its astounding abilities, involving the solutions to complex problems of physics, you’ll be convinced there was an intelligence behind its design and existence. It didn’t come about by accident.

The Archerfish has the amazing ability to shoot a jet of water out of its mouth and knock bugs and lizards off of low hanging branches so it can eat them.

Recent research was completed and published which reveals that its abilities are way more remarkable than they seem at first, although they are very impressive indeed at the beginning.[1], [2]

As I describe what the Archerfish is able to do, please try to imagine what Darwin would say is the process for the development of this species. Remember Darwinian progress is slow and gradual, taking place over many generations.

Researchers measured the distance the Archerfish could shoot its stream of water and it is a maximum of 6 feet 6 inches. Note that the average Archerfish is only about 6 inches long. They have a unique shape to their mouth and tongue and their gills squeeze the water out at high speed. How far can a human spit do you think? How accurate is the human? And remember that the Archerfish is shooting up.

Here is a link to a slow motion video (21 sec.) of an Archerfish in action. There are links to more videos in the footnotes below.[3]

The unique tongue and mouth shape allow the Archerfish to channel the water and control the stream driven by powerful gills. Since no other fish has anything like this ability, there is no clue about another species it could have come from. There are no fossils either to indicate a slow and gradual development. One quarter or one half of this ability is obviously useless. Natural Selection if it were true would not select for any of the intermediate steps.

Even more amazing is that researchers have discovered that the Archerfish can make adjustments according to the target it is shooting at. For example it can judge the distance to the prey and shoot closer or farther bursts of water. Due to the shape of its mouth, the water in the stream tends to gather at the tip of the stream into a glob so there is a greater mass to knock the bug off the branch. The Archerfish seems to be able to adjust the amount of water depending on the size of the bug.

Obviously some bugs are farther away, so the Archerfish has to be able to adjust the distance it shoots. But this presents a very complicated problem of physics. As the water travels through the air, gravity pulls down on it causing it to curve downward. The Archerfish has to be able to aim in a way that gravity is taken into account and perfectly adjust the angle and force to shoot the water over the distance required.

Here’s another problem the Archerfish overcomes. If you have a fishtank, you know that looking from air through the water surface causes “refraction” of the light, making the contents of the fishtank displaced from where it appears.[4] This also occurs looking out of the water. Somehow the Archerfish can account for the refracting property of the surface of the water and still aim accurately enough to hit its target on the tree branch.

How could the brain of the Archerfish ever evolve slowly over many generations to be able to do this without the whole species going extinct from lack of food? Just think of the odds of one single Archerfish mutating and acquiring this ability. That’s astronomical odds already. Then somehow that Archerfish has to mate and produce descendants that can do the same thing. This ability has to work correctly or it is useless. It cannot develop in slow stages over many generations.

The Archerfish somehow uses its tongue and a channel in the roof of its mouth to make a nozzle that gets the stream of water to gather together at the tip of the stream, making a bigger glob to attack the prey. Researchers calculated that the force of the water is about ten times the bug’s ability to hold on to the branch. The Archerfish is able to adjust the size of the glob to the size of the target.

“Furthermore, the time needed until water assembles at the jet tip is not fixed. Rather, it is adjusted so that maximum focusing occurs just before impact. Surprisingly, the fish achieve this by modulating the dynamics of changes in the cross-section of their mouth opening, a mechanism that seems to not have been applied yet in human-built nozzles." [5]

You are an intelligent being. Just imagine what effort and practice it would take you to learn how to spit like this. Could you get good at it? Now can you imagine a fish brain learning to do it all by accident. I can’t.

There must be God.

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

[1] Sumit Passary, No crosshair, no laser but archerfish always hits bull's eye. Guess why?,

http://www.techtimes.com/articles/15027/20140906/no-crosshair-no-laser-but-archerfish-always-hits-the-bulls-eye-heres-how.htm

[2] Peggy Gerullis and Stefan Schuster, Archerfish Actively Control the Hydrodynamics of Their Jets, http://www.cell.com/current-biology/abstract/S0960-9822(14)00922-1

[3] Archer Fish Water Pistol - Weird Nature - BBC, (3min 27sec), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4G_MeUUZlI 

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     World's Deadliest - Fish "Shoots" Prey with Water, NatGeoWild, (1 min 52 sec), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcLLB5vijfk

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     Archer Fish - Our Wild World - Amazing Fish Shoots Water Bullets at Insects, wildvisuals, (1 min 30 sec), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhMi9Hw_wZ0

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     Archer Fish Water Pistol - Weird Nature - BBC, (3min 27sec), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4G_MeUUZlI

[4] Refraction, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refraction

[5] Mary Beth O'Leary, Archerfish target shoot with 'skillfully thrown' water, http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-09/cp-ats082814.php

#68 Symmetry

In this Proof for God, let’s take a look at “Symmetry” and think about all the symmetry in the world and whether or not it could have come about by randomness.

The dictionary definition of Symmetry is “the correspondence in size, form, and arrangement of parts on opposite sides of a plane, line, or point; regularity of form or arrangement in terms of like, reciprocal, or corresponding parts.”[1]

Everywhere you look, there is symmetry. The vast majority of things created by humans (intelligent beings) contain symmetry. Our vehicles, our furniture, our art, even our foods usually contain symmetry. Go into any type of retail store you can find and walk up and down the aisles and calculate the percentage of items that exhibit symmetry. It's clearly a very high percentage.

Nature too is full of symmetry. Almost every animal, bird, fish, insect, and even plant that I can think of contains symmetry.

You have two eyes, two ears, two nostrils, symmetrical teeth, two arms, two hands, two legs, two feet, and on and on. Even you have a lot of symmetry inside your body under your skin. All the way down to the microscopic level of the chemicals in your body, there is symmetry.

So here’s the big question, how could all of this totally dominant and overwhelming amount of symmetry come about if the original cause is random mutation. Start with something like an ameba in your mind and then imagine randomly adding appendages like arms or legs. The odds are very, very small that this process would produce any symmetry. That's by the definition of "random".

Now imagine the odds of getting exactly two arms in exactly symmetrical locations on both sides of the body. The odds are huge against getting just the two arms, but now you have to get two fully symmetrical hands at the end of those arms. Then you have to get two legs in symmetrical positions. That multiplies the odds exponentially. But we are just barely beginning. We still have to get two symmetrical eyes, and ears, and on and on. For each new symmetrical pair, multiply the odds exponentially higher.

The odds are impossibly high for getting just one eye. (See my Proof for God #45 The Eye  [2]) But in order to get two eyes randomly in exactly symmetrical positions on your face is astronomically more difficult. Why not imagine an eye randomly growing on the palm of one of your hands? Why couldn’t that happen within the principles of the Theory of Evolution? If Natural Selection were really in operation, that might just be a more ideal location than on your face. Evolution says everything developed gradually over great lengths of time. Then that must mean that one eye grew before the second eye grew, right? Two eyes (two arms, whatever) could not have suddenly appeared simultaneously because that is not slow and gradual.

Why not grow 3 or 4 arms? Wouldn’t that allow us to survive better? Why have arms just on the sides? Why not have an arm in the front and an arm in the back too?

Some animals ended up with exactly 4 legs (no arms and hands). Think about the odds of growing one leg, then a second leg, a third leg, and finally a fourth leg over many generations. Slow and gradual would mean one leg at a time and then we would have to wait at least a generation or two (or a hundred) before we could grow another leg. You can’t suddenly get 4 legs in one generation because that would seem to violate the Theory of Evolution. And also remember that the front legs are symmetrical side to side and so are the back legs, but they are usually not symmetrical front to back.

How about all the insects with 6 legs or spiders with 8 legs? How does the slow and gradual process explain 8 legs and the symmetry that is there? Why stop there? What about centipedes and millipedes. The record for most legs is the millipede which has 750 legs, all of them in symmetrical pairs.

Let’s think about birds. In the slow and gradual process of evolution, one arm or leg had to turn into a wing before the other one did, right? Birds could not have gotten two wings at the same time, in the same generation. Maybe it was many generations that birds had one wing and one leg before that leg started to change into a second wing in exactly the symmetrically opposite position on the other side of the body. If that second wing was misplaced by even a little bit, the bird would not be able to fly. It would just flop around generation after generation until both wings could balance each other out and could be coordinated so the bird could figure out how to fly with these two feathered appendages. That’s so silly.

But evolutionists must believe some version of the above scenarios. And they must believe that these impossibly complicated scenarios repeated themselves over and over again in hundreds of thousands of animals’ bodies, birds’ bodies, fish bodies, and insect bodies.

If random mutation were really the process by which all living species came into existence, then we would be looking all around us at way more craziness. There would not be much order at all. There would be very, very little symmetry.

If fact, what we see all around us is order. Thesaurus.com says that order is the opposite of random. Some antonyms (opposites) for the word, random, are “methodical, planned, systematic, definite, particular, and specific.” [3]

As I explained in my article on Mutation [4], (Proof for God #27) intelligent scientists have tried for 40 years to mutate a fairly simple species like a fruit fly into another species and they have not been able to do it. And they were trying on purpose. Smart people have been trying to do it, but without success. Therefore, it seems impossible to believe that mutation which man has never been able to cause on purpose could happen accidentally and end up producing all the incredibly complex species in the world.

The most simple and logical conclusion is that living species were designed by a super intelligence to be exactly the way that they are AND to NOT be able to be changed.

Scientists are constantly discovering new species never before seen and they estimate there are hundreds of thousands more, but never have they observed one species changing into another one. Surely they have been looking long and hard. Doesn’t it tell you something when the evidence is not there? Zip. Nada.

Another aspect of symmetry that needs to be mentioned is the inherent “Beauty”. Humans have an intellectual and spiritual ability to recognize order, harmony, and beauty in the universe. When we design things ourselves, we purposefully invest the qualities of order and beauty. Almost no one designs something on purpose that others would call ugly. It would never sell.

One of the most essential attributes of beauty is symmetry. So when we observe Nature and recognize the awesome symmetry and beauty that exists, it triggers in our mind and heart and appreciation of the creator of that beauty. That is a natural instinctive process.

If a person is unable to appreciate beauty, we would consider them to be handicapped in that way. We would feel sorry for them. Their life would seem dull, grey, sad, joyless, even “lifeless”, and pitiable. That’s what it must be like for those who sense the beauty around them but cannot appreciate the “heart” of the creator behind the beauty. For them everything came from nothing and randomness. There is no meaning and purpose bigger than themselves. How sad.

Symmetry is absolutely everywhere. Randomness is not everywhere; it’s difficult to find.

There has to be God.

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[1] Dictionary.Com. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/symmetry

[2] Stephens, Jim, Proof For God #45 The Eye, http://101proofsforgod.blogspot.com/2013/11/45-eye.html

[3] Thesaurus.Com. Antonyms for “random”, http://www.thesaurus.com/browse/random

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