Evidence for God in Life Design Archives

April 21, 2025April 20, 2025

Unique Design of the Peregrine Falcon

Peregrine falcons have a unique design. This bird can dive at speeds up to 240 miles per hour to catch prey. The speed is totally vertical, which means there is a rapid, violent change in air pressure. Those who enjoy hot air balloons must be careful to compensate for the change in air pressure. Even though their assent is slow, the pressure change from ground level to even 1000 feet is significant. The peregrine falcon goes through a much greater air pressure change at a faster rate. Why don’t their lungs explode? The answer is the unique design of the peregrine falcon.

Peregrine Falcons have a bony structure in their nostrils called a tubercle. It acts as a baffle, deflecting strong shockwaves of air and allowing controlled breathing during their high-speed dives. Studies have shown that this design is unique to the peregrine falcon.

It is important to understand why raptors such as peregrine falcons exist. Some birds, such as pigeons, can reproduce in large numbers, exceeding their food supply. The creation always has a balance between the food supply and the population. When I was a teenager, laws protected the deer in Indiana’s Brown County State Park to the extent that they did not have an adequate food supply. The normal predators of deer had been killed off by humans, allowing the population to grow so large that the deer were destroying the vegetation but were still undernourished. When the authorities finally allowed hunting, the harvested deer were vastly underweight. A full-grown deer could weigh less than 60 pounds.

God designed peregrine falcons to control bird populations to avoid the same suffering caused by overpopulation. There is no evolutionary model that adequately explains the unique design of the peregrine falcon and its bony tubercle. Science strongly supports design in the natural world. “We can know there is a God through the things He has made” (Romans 1:20).

References: Wikipedia and the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.

April 10, 2025April 8, 2025

Changing Climate Nonsense

It is amazing to see that some people in the religious community are making climate change an issue. As a public school teacher, I can attest that this destructive attitude is often a result of ignorance. Is climate change happening? The answer is yes! Is this the first time humans have had to deal with changing climate nonsense? The answer is no! It would help if religious people would read their Bibles and not rely on religious con artists for their belief systems.

In Genesis 41:53-57, we read about Joseph and the drought that led to famine in Egypt and its neighboring countries. This was not due to insects or war but to climate change. Second Samuel 21:1 and Jeremiah 14:1-6 recount droughts that significantly impacted the history of Israel. Those of us who are older will recall the Dust Bowl era in the United States, which drove many farmers to California due to the changing climate affecting the central part of the Country.

The public schools need to educate young people on the history of climate change in America’s past because we are entering a period of intense changing climate. It is a scientific fact that the climate is changing worldwide. Areas of the United States that were once deserts are now receiving rain, which alters the animal and plant life in those regions.

The water levels in Lake Michigan have changed dramatically over the course of my lifetime. I used to take my earth science classes on field trips to Lake Michigan. We had been experiencing climate change in those days, which produced unusual amounts of moisture, and the lake was higher than at any time in recent history. Houses built along the lake when the water was low were being threatened by erosion. One place I took my classes to was Michigan City, Indiana, where I knew property owners were battling the higher water levels. As we stopped to look at the beach, a more expensive house than any of my students lived in suddenly slid into the Lake right in front of us.

The causes of climate change are very complex. The extent to which human activity contributes to climate change is a subject of debate, but it is certainly not the only cause. When today’s children face a changing climate, we hope they will be better prepared to adapt to it than their parents were. We all must be prepared in advance for a changing climate.

March 27, 2025March 26, 2025

What It Means to Be Human

One way to trace the history of humans, apes, and monkeys is by studying the footprints they left in various earth materials. Footprints can be preserved if an animal walks across mud or volcanic ash and that material hardens. Some denominational creationists have claimed to see footprints in granite or limestone. Granite is formed deep underground and is only exposed when the overburden is eroded away. Limestone is a chemically precipitated rock that is never soft enough for an animal to sink into, leaving footprints. Sometimes, natural erosion can leave a shape that resembles a human footprint. However, a knowledge of petrology (the study of rocks) is required to determine animal footprints, and what it means to be human is more than footprints.

Researchers found Homo erectus (“erect man”) and Paranthropus boisei, a species of australopithecine hominid. The word “australopithecine” is a combination of the Latin “australis,” meaning “south,” and “pithekos,” a Greek word meaning “ape.” In other words, Paranthropus was an ape from the south. The evidence is that Paranthropus boisei was a plant eater, and Homo erectus was a hunter-gatherer. The tracks are in mud in a lakeshore deposit, so both of them would have been walking along the lake but looking for different things.

Some people interpret the Bible’s account of man’s creation as suggesting that God instantaneously zapped him into an image that looked like modern Western humans. They have used that concept to justify slavery by maintaining that people of a different race were not created in God’s image. Some atheists claimed that their race was superior to others and that survival of the fittest was the rule, meaning that superior ones could exploit inferior races. That is not what it means to be human.

The biblical definition of humans is “those beings created in the image of God” (Genesis 1:26). Since God is a spiritual being, that image cannot be physical. Genesis 2:7 tells us that God “formed man out of the dust of the ground.” It doesn’t say how long that took or what method God used to form the human physical body. The Hebrew word “formed” is “yatsar,” and in other passages, it required a long period of time. In chapter 44, Isaiah uses this word to describe events that occurred over time. (See verses 2, 10, 21, and 24.)

The creation of the human spiritual makeup is unique, giving us the capacity to create art and music or to worship and think beyond death. The fossil record of human history confirms that God formed our bodies from the dust of the Earth (Genesis 2:7). The Bible also tells us that our bodies will return to the dust from which they came (Genesis 3:19). The part of humans that is created in God’s image will live on, being united with Him in eternity. That is what it means to be human.

March 25, 2025March 24, 2025

Alzheimer’s Disease in America

A major health issue in America today is dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease. Alzheimer’s kills more Americans than breast cancer and prostate cancer combined. One in three seniors dies from Alzheimer’s or another form of dementia. Of the total U.S. population age 65 or older, about one in nine is living with Alzheimer’s. A total of seven million Americans have Alzheimer’s, and two-thirds are women.

Your author is 87 years old, and Alzheimer’s has touched my family in several ways. I have several friends and business partners battling with Alzheimer’s. One of the tragedies that I have seen is people who chose to end their lives prematurely when they learned they were facing Alzheimer’s disease. In 1998, an American pathologist named Jack Kevorkian was arrested for participating in 130 physician-assisted suicides. His arrest came when he assisted in the voluntary euthanasia of a man named Thomas Youk, who had ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease). Kevorkian was convicted of second-degree manslaughter and served 8 years in prison. Kevorkian’s records show that many of the 130 suicides were people who found out they had Alzheimer’s and didn’t want to be a burden on their families.

First Corinthians 3:16 tells us, “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit has His home in you? If any man desecrates the Temple of God, God shall ruin him, for the Temple of God is sacred, and so are you.” Nothing in that description says that a person’s mental capacity affects the fact that God’s Spirit is in His temple. My son was born blind and mentally challenged, with cerebral palsy, muscular dystrophy, and schizophrenia. Was God’s Spirit in him? He brought a doctor and several nurses to Christ and was a significant force in the sheltered workshop he attended.

As Christians, we serve God by how we deal with people, no matter their mental state. Alzheimer’s disease can be challenging, but so was raising a young man who didn’t die until he was 50 years old as a victim of COVID. Treat someone who has Alzheimer’s with love and compassion. That is a ministry that will bring its own reward.

Reference: Alzheimer’s Association for February 2025

March 19, 2025March 18, 2025

Snakebite Antivenom and AI

For most of us living in the United States, it is hard to believe that around 100,000 people worldwide die from snakebites every year. Venomous snakes have a blizzard of toxins in their bite, but the most dangerous are the “three-finger toxins,” proteins that can stop a person’s heart and ability to breathe. Snakebite antivenom is produced today by milking snakes to extract their venom.

Technicians inject a small dose of venom into a horse or other large animal and harvest antibodies later to make snakebite antivenom. When medical personnel inject the antibodies into a snakebite victim, they bind to venom toxins, shutting them down. This process is expensive and time-consuming, so researchers want to find a better answer. The 2024 Nobel Prize in chemistry went to three chemists who used artificial intelligence (AI) to design proteins that can dampen and neutralize snake venom.

People have asked us, “Why would God create snakes with venom?” It is essential to understand that snakes control the populations of rats, mice, and other disease-carrying animals. What would happen if there was no predator to eat rodents when they go underground? Rodents above ground are preyed on by foxes, bears, hawks, and eagles and killed by humans. When they retreat underground, they are safe from all of those, but snakes can go after and kill rodents even there.

When a venomous snake bites a human, it is usually because the human has invaded the snake’s territory and deliberately confronted it. I was hiking into geologically interesting areas in a National Science Foundation workshop in Montana many years ago. As we walked down an old wagon trail, I was in the back with 20 people in front of me. Looking ahead, I saw a diamondback rattlesnake coiled and sitting in the middle of the wagon tracks. It had made no effort to strike any of the people within inches of it, relying totally on its camouflage.

Snakebite antivenom is essential to protect human lives, but non-venomous animals can also cause human deaths. The late Steve Irwin showed many beautiful snakes in his TV show. When he died at age 44 on September 4, 2006, it was not from a snake bite. A ray’s barb on Batt Reef in Australia pierced his heart, causing him to bleed to death. Unlike snakes, rays are not considered to be dangerous animals, but nobody has challenged us on why God created rays.

Reference: Science News magazine for February 2025, pages 14-15 or sciencenews.org.

March 17, 2025March 16, 2025

Baikal Seals Are Unique

The world’s only exclusively freshwater seal is the Baikal seal (Pusa sibirica), which is found only in Lake Baikal in Siberia. This earless seal is relatively small, with a maximum of about 5 feet long. Lake Baikal is the deepest lake on Earth. It has a depth of over 5,000 feet and more freshwater surface area than all of North America’s Great Lakes combined. Lake Baikal is covered with ice most of the year, and the ice thickness can be several feet. Adult Baikal Seals can hold their breaths for up to 30 minutes, but their pups can only go a maximum of 15 minutes.

Researchers are amazed by how the pups survive. Female Baikal seals raise the pups on their own, digging a den under the ice. Some freshwater springs in Lake Baikal maintain holes in the ice. Adult seals use the holes to get air. After breathing in air, the female will go near her pup and blow bubbles to create an airspace under the ice. Pups live and breathe in that airspace and exercise by expanding the den with a maze of tunnels but never breaking the surface.

Lake Baikal is on a geological structure with no connection to any ocean. The primary food source for Baikal seals is golomyanka fish that live only in Lake Baikal. Researchers estimate that 80-100,000 Baikal seals live in the lake, as well as other unique species not found elsewhere. The evidence shows that every nook and cranny of God’s creation has life specifically designed to survive and prosper in that environment.

References: PBS documentary and Baikal seal and Lake Baikal in Wikipedia

March 12, 2025March 11, 2025

Baminornis Zhenghensis Fossil

Baminornis Zhenghensis - Ancestor of Modern Birds?

For many years, the scientific community has held that Archaeopteryx was the first bird. Most textbooks maintain that it was a crow-sized half-bird and half-reptile found in Germany in 1861. Archaeopteryx had a very long tail, teeth, and wing hooks or clawed hands resembling some dinosaurs. Now, researchers in China have announced they found a fossil called Baminornis zhenghensis that is more like modern birds.

The Baminornis zhenghensis fossil was found 5,500 miles away from Archaeopteryx. Dr. Min Yang of the Chinese Academy of Sciences says it had a short tail, which is critical for flight compared to Archaeopteryx’s long tail. The tail’s bone structure is made of fused vertebrae, allowing for fan-shaped feathers, which improve flight.

There are many problems involved in this find. The Baminornis fossil lacks a skull, so researchers are guessing at the tooth structure. Both specimens are morphologically advanced, suggesting a common bird ancestor. In the biblical account, God said, “let birds multiply on the earth” (Genesis 1:22). The Bible doesn’t tell us when God created birds or what they were like. Baminornis zhenghensis was small, only about six inches long, and Archaeopteryx was slightly larger.

Much about the history of life on Earth that the Bible does not tell us has been revealed in the fossil record. The information we find shows agreement between science and the Bible. We maintain that science and faith are friends. The fossil record is incomplete, just as the biblical record is. Birds have a high body temperature and all the equipment they need to fly, but we don’t see that in other life forms. New chapters will be added to the fossil record as more fossils are found, but they will only add to what the Bible has revealed.

Reference: smithsonianmag.com

March 11, 2025March 10, 2025

Polar Bear Design Features

Polar bear design features enable them to live in a region of incredible cold. Previously, we reported that polar bear fur is hollow, providing insulation and creating an optical effect that looks white. New research by Norwegian nanophysicist Bodil Holst has shown how a polar bear can climb out of freezing water and then walk around in temperatures as low as minus 40. It has nothing to do with its fur, but because the polar bear has glands in its skin that secrete a grease resistant to freezing called sebum.

The skin of mammals, including humans, secretes sebum that makes hair greasy. Tests of other forms of sebum have shown that only polar dear sebum has the properties that keep the fur from freezing. At the same time, it lacks squalene that makes ice stick. There is great interest in this discovery not only from scientists but also from industries. It can potentially replace toxic de-icing chemicals used in ski wax and for plane de-icing.

Humans have benefited from many things copied from animals and plants. Common examples include Velcro (thistles), airplane design (bird wings), and synthetic fibers (spider webs). Polar bear design features are among the unique designs we see in the living world. They are not accidents but deliberate designs by a Creator, allowing life to thrive everywhere on planet Earth. As with polar bears, animals and plants usually have more than one specialized design feature.

Reference: science.org Here and Here

March 10, 2025March 10, 2025

The Mystery of Easter Island Moai

The giant moai statues of Easter Island have been a great mystery since their discovery. Easter Island is part of the Pacific triangle called Polynesia, which stretches between Hawaii, New Zealand, and Easter Island. Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen arrived on the island on Easter Sunday in 1722 and named it Easter Island. The average moai statue on Easter Island was 13 feet tall and weighed 14 tons. The largest statue stands 32 feet tall and weighs about 80 tons. The mystery of Easter Island moai has been how the locals moved some 300 giant statues over several miles.

Some finished and unfinished statues remain in the Rano Raraku quarry on Easter Island. The Rapanui people who created the moai had no metal machinery, draft animals, or wheeled carts. Tabloids claimed the mystery of Easter Island moai could only be explained by space aliens carving and transporting them. In his book Chariots of the Gods, Erich von Daniken suggested extraterrestrial beings as the source of the statues.

Researchers have proposed various theories of how the statues were moved from the quarry to their locations. Some suggested they were dragged to the sea and floated to the final locations. Archaeologist Jo Anne Van Tilburg and the Easter Island Statue Project have studied the moai and other Easter Island structures since 1983. Van Tilburg favors the theory that they were placed on sleds and pulled by large teams of workers on a trackway of tree trunks. When the first European explorers arrived on Easter Island, it was almost barren of trees and had a population perhaps in the hundreds. However, botanical studies have shown that palm forests once covered the island, and archaeological studies show that it may have had as many as 15,000 inhabitants at its peak. That would supply an ample workforce and trees to accomplish the task.

The bottom line is that the mystery of Easter Island moai does not involve extraterrestrials. Like humans throughout history, the ancient Rapanui people saw evidence of a higher power and tried to honor what they understood through elaborate works. The moai statues are another demonstration of human attempts to reach God. When Paul spoke to the scholars in Athens (Acts 17), he talked about the fallacy of trying to reach God through human intelligence and artistic ability. So, today, we see the evidence for God in the things He has made (Romans 1:20). We don’t need to impress Him with our intelligence and creativity. He is reaching out to us with His love.

Reference: The booklet “Discovering Easter Island“ from the Archaeological Institute of America

March 3, 2025March 2, 2025

The Origin of Life on Earth Is Not Found on Bennu

One of the great engineering accomplishments of NASA was the OsirisREx spacecraft landing on asteroid Bennu asteroid in October 2020. Not only did it land, but it also took surface samples of the asteroid and returned them samples to Earth. The samples arrived in September of 2023 and examinations of the asteroid material showed that 14 of the 20 known amino acids, the building blocks of life, were present in the asteroid material. The media jumped on that fact and proclaimed that it was now certain that life originated in outer space. The tabloids proclaimed that aliens had clearly seeded space with life forms, explaining the origin of life on Earth.

It is true that we know amino acids are produced in astronomical processes. In fact, scientists have known that for a very long time. They have shown up in certain types of meteorites found on Earth. What the mainstream media has not reported is that amino acids have a shape orientation to them. The molecule arrangement in amino acids causes them to be either right-handed or left-handed. Life as we know it is made up of 100% left-handed amino acids. Science is still looking for the reason, but the amino acids on Bennu are 50% right-handed and 50% left-handed. In other words, They could not explain the origin of life on Earth.

Every discovery made by science raises more questions. An analogy that may be applied is what happens when you put an ordinary key into a lock. If you try to insert the key upside down, it will not work. The wisdom of having only left-handed amino acids doubles life’s food supply, and that may be the answer to why. But one thing is sure: there is a reason for what Bennu teaches us and for the design of life.

Reference: apod.nasa.gov for February 12, 2025.