Animals Archives - Page 16 of 56 - DOES GOD EXIST? TODAY

July 6, 2022July 9, 2022

Flies Provide Useful Functions

We are all familiar with houseflies except those readers in Iceland, where they don’t have any. We may not realize that, like all living things, flies provide useful functions and demonstrate incredible design.

Most of us know that flies can spread diseases such as salmonella, E.coli, chlamydia, typhoid fever, dysentery, cholera, polio, anthrax, leprosy, and tuberculosis. That’s because by using chemical receptors in their foot pads, flies can smell rotting organic waste. They land on garbage or dead animals, vomit digestive enzymes onto them, and lap up the liquified remains with a sponge-like tongue. In this way, they help to decompose and remove organic waste. However, they can pick up bacteria and carry them to humans.

Flies have glandular pads on the soles of their feet that secret a fluid that adheres to any solid surface. That adhesion is greater than the force of gravity, allowing the fly to walk up a wall or upside down on a ceiling. Flies can only fly about 4 miles per hour, so they become food for other life forms.

Flies in their larval stage are called maggots. Because they are sterile, green bottle fly maggots (Lucilia sericata) are used to treat wounds that don’t respond to antibiotics. The fly larvae also promote the healing of diabetic ulcers, gangrene, and burns by stimulating blood flow to the injured areas. In addition, they have been used to treat MRSA (a bacterial infection resistant to antibiotics) because they eat the dead and decaying flesh caused by the bacteria.

There is no question that humans need to restrict fly numbers and avoid contact with them. At the same time, flies provide useful functions and demonstrate incredible design. They are an important food for frogs and other animals and helpful in treating the medical problems of humans. Nothing in nature is evil or malicious because God created all of life with a purpose and function. That is even true of the housefly.

Reference: Sheryl Myers, founding director of Heart of the River Coalition in Anderson, Indiana.

June 30, 2022June 28, 2022

Virus-Carrying Animals and Pandemics

Virus-Carrying Animals - Whitetail Deer Fawn — Whitetail Deer Fawn

When you read the hygienic rules for the nation of Israel in the Bible, you might think they are restrictive and unnecessary. However, we now understand that some 60% of known infectious diseases in humans came from animals, and over 250 known diseases have come directly to humans from virus-carrying animals.

We also know that 850,000 viruses exist within the bodies of mammals and birds, and 10% of rodent species host pathogens that can infect people. Seventy-seven known viruses can come from primates to humans, and bats are well-equipped to carry viruses to humans. For example, the SARS-CoV-2 virus in bats probably initiated the COVID virus in humans.

We are seeing significant increases in diseases carried by animals and spread by mosquitos, ticks, and a variety of parasites. The Lyme disease incidence rate has doubled in the past ten years, and scientists have identified two new tick-carried diseases. Dengue fever has increased 30-fold in recent years. In addition, researchers have identified white-tailed deer as carriers of the Omicron variant of the COVID virus.

God gave ancient Israel restrictions and rules of contact with animals that reduced the probability of transmitting diseases to humans from virus-carrying animals. Likewise, we need to reduce the use of animals as pets and educate hunters and farmers about how to care for animals we use for food. In addition, avoiding extensive contact with animals by leaving them in their natural habitat and not raising animals that may carry harmful viruses can help protect us from diseases.

Massive vaccination is never going to eradicate the agents of pandemics. However, careful understanding of the creation’s design and maintaining separation between humans and virus-carrying animals can make a huge difference.

Reference: The Week for July 1, 2022 page 11.

June 28, 2022June 27, 2022

Evolution Has Multiple Meanings

Yesterday, I mentioned that I sometimes get people to think by saying that I believe in evolution. For some, the word only brings to mind the concept of “man from monkey.” However, evolution has multiple meanings. We looked at three of them yesterday, and none of the definitions say anything about the existence of God. So here are two more evolution concepts.

#4. MICROEVOLUTIONARY CHANGE. These are changes in a biological population over time, usually in response to environmental factors. We see this in viruses evolving to become resistant to drugs. Humans have created new breeds of dogs and cattle through microevolution. In the Bible, Jacob used microevolution in dealing with Laban’s flocks. (See Genesis 30:31-42.) Microevolution, change within a species, is the basis of modern agriculture.

#5. MACROEVOLUTION. This is a process of change from common descent. The key word is “process” and describes how, over time, it can lead to a new species. In microbiology, a microbe may get its DNA mixed up with the DNA of another microbe and produce a new species. Farmers in California can tell you about insects that evolved with the ability to cause damage to crops. Some plants have changed to the point where they are no longer fertile with the original plant from which they came. Fish have also speciated.

Is macroevolution a tool God uses to produce the massive numbers of new species in the world today? To suggest that macroevolution happens only by chance requires more faith than believing that God built a system allowing new plants and animals to exist on a changing Earth.

So, we see that evolution has multiple meanings. But, no matter what definition we use, it simply describes how God has operated and continues to operate. So, when I say that I believe in evolution, you must know what I mean by that. As we noted yesterday, everyone believes in some form of evolution, but that does not disprove God’s existence.

June 24, 2022June 23, 2022

Twigs Randomly Thrown Together?

You may look at a bird’s nest and assume that it is just a pile of twigs randomly thrown together. However, physicist Hunter King of the University of Akron says birds use the twigs in a way that is “totally mystifying.”

Dr. King has done an interesting experiment with the design of bird nests. He took a piston and compressed 460 bamboo rods arranged inside a cylinder in a form similar to the construction of an ordinary bird nest. As the piston applied more force, the sticks slid against each other, rearranging the contact points. As a result, the rods acted as a group and became stiffer and more resistant to deforming.

The new contact points stiffened the “nest,” preventing the twigs from further flexing. King says the fact that birds seem to have a sense of how individual twigs will make a nest with the right characteristics is “something we don’t know the first thing about predicting.”

So a bird’s nest is more than twigs randomly thrown together. Birds construct them to protect what they value—eggs and chicks. From an engineering standpoint, this research will allow scientists to create new structures designed to protect things that humans value. From an apologetic perspective, this is one more example of the design built into the DNA of living things to allow them to survive in the natural world.

References: Science News for June 18, 2022 page 5, and Physical Review Letters

June 22, 2022June 20, 2022

Whale and Krill Ecology in the Ocean

Now that people are harvesting krill from the ocean for human consumption, ecologists are concerned that we are competing with the whales that eat massive amounts of krill. For example, a blue whale will consume 35,000 pounds of krill in a day, and that would feed a lot of humans. This development requires a better understanding of whale and krill ecology and its effect on other ocean creatures.

Recent studies by Stanford University ecologists have shown that the oceans’ ecosystems are far more complex than we previously understood. For example, the whale consumption of krill is a significant part of the open ocean ecology. Krill contain large amounts of iron. When whales eat the krill, they defecate the iron back into the ocean, releasing it for other life forms.

Phytoplankton must have iron to survive, and they would die without the whales eating the krill. In turn, phytoplankton are critical to many other living things in the ocean, including the krill. For that reason, researchers concluded that more krill existed in the Antarctic Ocean before whaling killed 1.5 million baleen whales between 1910 and 1970. Whales are not just massive food consumers but also a significant factor in preserving life in the sea.

Feeding the human population requires an understanding that every creature has a role in the creation. As we understand whale and krill ecology, we see the delicate balance in the natural world. That evidence of God’s design work reminds us of the importance of biblically-based stewardship of the creation. That biblical perspective is vital to good science and applying science to solve human problems. It’s another example of the compatibility of science and faith. They are friends, not enemies, and must work together to benefit us all.

Reference: National Wildlife magazine, June-July 2022, page 10 and Stanford.edu

June 20, 2022June 19, 2022

Happy the Elephant Is Denied Personhood

Atheists claim that humans are just animals, so animals should have the same rights as humans. On June 14, 2022, the New York Court of Appeals denied a claim by a Florida-based animal rights group called “The Nonhuman Rights Project.” The group had claimed that an elephant named “Happy” in the Bronx Zoo was in illegal custody and should be released because the elephant was equal to humans. After four years of litigation, Happy the elephant is denied personhood by the New York Court of Appeals.

There have been stories by animal protection groups of elephants displaying emotions that they interpret as typical human responses to the death of a family member. Other people have ascribed similar arguments for humanizing a pet dog or cat. We call this anthropomorphism, and we have dealt with it before.

If you deny that humans are created in the image of God, then any animal can be considered equal to humans. However, because we are in God’s image, humans have spiritual characteristics that animals don’t have. For example, we can express creativity in art and music, feel guilt and sympathy, have a complete self-concept, appreciate beauty, and worship God. Some people may ascribe human characteristics to a loved animal, suggesting that it can do one of these things, but they would not argue that the animal can do all of them.

Chief Judge Janet DiFiore wrote, “While no one disputes that elephants are intelligent beings deserving of proper care and compassion, Happy, as a nonhuman animal, does not have a legally cognizable right to be at liberty under New York law.” She said that the legislature would have to decide to grant nonhuman animals the same legal rights as humans.

The court’s decision was five to two, with the two jurists strongly dissenting. So, at least for now, Happy the elephant is denied personhood unless the legislature decides to change the law. Interestingly, the New York legislature denies personhood for a human baby up to the moment of birth.

Reference: AOL News

June 13, 2022June 12, 2022

Ancient Trilobites Had the Solution to Focusing Problems

Most of us have faced the problem of focus when taking a picture or looking through binoculars. If you focus on something close to you, things in the distance are out of focus and visa-versa. Historians credit Benjamin Franklin with inventing bifocals to solve this problem, but researchers have found that ancient trilobites had the solution to focusing problems long before him.

Trilobites were sea creatures that needed to focus on prey up close without losing sight of predators approaching. Studies of fossils of a trilobite known as Dalmanitina socialis have led scientists to create a new camera lens. The trilobite’s eye was so well-designed that an object an inch away and another a mile away would both be in perfect focus. Amit Agrawal of the National Institute of Standards and Technology wrote, “To the best of our knowledge, this type of compound-eye visual system is unique…in contrast to the single focal vision system present in all-known living arthropods that exist today.”

The trilobite eye had two concentric lenses that could focus near and far at the same time. Based on that design, Agrawal and his team developed a “spin-multiplexed bifocal metalens array capable of capturing high-resolution light-field images over a record depth-of-field ranging from centimeter to kilometer scale.” The metalens is a flat lens made up of millions of rectangular nanopillars that bend light differently depending on their shape, size, and arrangement. A computer algorithm brings these multiple images into a single picture with all objects in focus.

Potential applications of this new technology are many and varied. For example, Metalenses could be used for 3-D photography, self-driving cars, and Mars rovers. Ancient trilobites had the solution to focusing problems, and scientists date these creatures to some 400 million years ago. Human technology and engineering are just now learning to mimic what the Creator did in forming the trilobite eye. Everywhere we look in the natural world, we see that a wonder-working hand has gone before, and the trilobite is one more example.

References: Science News for June 4, 2022 page 12 and Nature Communications April 19, 2022.

June 1, 2022May 31, 2022

Where Do We Find Dinosaurs Mentioned in the Bible?

Yesterday, we pointed out that words like “behemoth” in the original language of Genesis 1 would not have included animals like dinosaurs but referred to animals the ancient Israelites knew. So the next logical question would be, “Where do we find dinosaurs mentioned in the Bible?” The answer to that question is “nowhere.”

Why would the Bible mention dinosaurs? Consider how you would explain bacteria to a man with no microscope, or how could a person living in the jungle make sense of an octopus? When an explorer brought a stuffed platypus back to England for the first time, people thought it was a fake. Millions of different plants and animals have lived on Earth, and many of those still exist today. The purpose of the Genesis account is to say that God created everything, not to identify the millions of species that have lived on Earth. Genesis mentions only the animals the Israelites could identify and name.

So from today’s perspective, when did those animals exist? Some fundamentalists have suggested that we don’t find dinosaurs mentioned in the Bible because they didn’t exist. They say that God miraculously created dinosaur fossils to give the appearance that the animals lived when they did not. That explanation makes God a liar trying to fool us into a false conclusion.

Others suggest that dinosaurs were there but simply weren’t mentioned in the Bible. There is no evidence that animals like T-rex lived at the time of Adam and Eve. In reality, the atmosphere and temperatures necessary for such an animal to survive would be detrimental to humans.

Since we don’t find dinosaurs mentioned in the Bible, what was God’s reason for creating these huge animals? God knew that humans would need an environment optimized for their survival. In Alaska today, the survival of various life forms depends on salmon bringing nutrients into an environment lacking those essentials to support life. Like the salmon, the dinosaurs were the vehicles that provided resources needed for humans to exist and flourish later. The plant-eating dinosaurs consumed massive amounts of vegetation and excreted processed plant materials and seeds. They spread the vegetation and produced topsoil and critical elements necessary for human life. No animal living today could accomplish that task.

When Genesis 1:1 tells us that God created the heavens and the earth, the result would be a functioning universe and a dynamic planet where humans could eventually live. Earth was not a blob of molten rock or hydrocarbons but a functional planet, and dinosaurs were one of the tools God used to prepare it for humans. The big animals and plants helped create topsoil, coal, and a variety of trace elements human life would need. The oceans nurtured diatoms that produced the massive amounts of hydrocarbons humans would need for oil and gas. We don’t find bacteria, diatoms, or dinosaurs mentioned in the Bible because they are included in Genesis 1:1.

God could have zapped the hydrocarbons into existence, but if He had done it that way, humans could never have located them. God not only created the resources we would need, but He did it in a way that we could find them. He gave us the intelligence to study His methods to find the resources and obtain them for our use.

The wisdom of God in designing Earth to sustain human life is incredible. Every day, science finds new clues about how the planet was designed and how things we might consider insignificant are critical to our existence.

For more information about Barosaurus click HERE.

May 25, 2022May 24, 2022

Carrion Beetles – Carcass Recyclers

American burying beetles (Nicrophorus americanus) are among nature’s most efficient and fascinating carcass recyclers. These largest carrion beetles in North America can be up to 1.77 inches (45 mm) long. Unfortunately, they are “critically threatened.”

American burying beetles have a unique appearance, with two bright orange patches on the covers of each of their shiny black wings. Their pronotum, a shield-like area just behind the head covering the thorax, also has an orange patch. In addition, an orange patch between their eyes is rounded on males but smaller and more triangular on females.

Carrion beetles such as American burying beetles play a vital role in returning valuable nutrients to the soil. Dead things would accumulate if tiny insects and microorganisms didn’t do that job. These carcass recyclers fly at night and use chemical receptors on their antennae to detect dead or decaying flesh.

It is unusual in the insect world for both the males and females to participate in raising the young, but American carrion beetles are involved parents. The male will find a carcass about the size of a small bird or chipmunk and attract a female. The two beetles bury the carcass, and the female will lay up to 30 eggs. When the larvae hatch, both parents feed the young from the decaying carcass while keeping them safe underground. After about a week, the larvae go into a pupal stage and eventually emerge as adults that live for about 12 months. When the temperature drops, they bury themselves for the winter and re-emerge in the spring.

We seldom think about the importance of carrion beetles as carcass recyclers, but they play an essential ecological role. Each living species is designed to serve a function in nature, and every loss destabilizes the fragile balance God gave us to enjoy and protect. We can know there is a God by the things He has made (Romans 1:20).

May 23, 2022May 21, 2022

Disease Spillback from Humans to Animals

Many times animals pass diseases on to humans. However, recent research by scientists at Georgetown University shows disease spillback from humans to animals. In nearly 100 documented cases, humans have given wild animals a disease.

This discovery has implications for the spread of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. This virus has shown up in wild white-tailed deer populations in the United States and Canada. Medical researchers are concerned that the virus may mutate in these animal populations providing a reservoir of variants that can spread back to humans.

In addition to the deer, researchers have found the SARS-CoV-2 virus in mink farms, lions and tigers in zoos, and various primates. The “cute” animals seem to be the primary source of viruses because of their proximity to humans. Taking care of the creation involves allowing wild animals to be wild. When animals are domesticated, they can bring their pathogens with them into human homes.

We cannot blame God when a disease occurs in humans that was contracted by improper management of the animals that live around us. The exotic animal business has brought with it some extreme risks to humans. Not only can animals pass diseases to us, but disease spillback from humans to animals is possible and dangerous.

As our knowledge of disease and genetics increases, we learn to prevent ailments in the human population. Understanding the uniqueness of the human genome has become increasingly important in the medical field. Limiting contact with wild animals may help to avoid possible future pandemics.

References: National Science Foundation posting for April 7, 2022, and the National Laboratory of Medicine