Evidence for God in Life Design Archives - Page 9 of 127

March 6, 2024March 5, 2024

The Beautiful Ugly Opossum

Perhaps you have seen this animal prowling your neighborhood and looked at the ugly opossum with disdain. When Captain John Smith of the Jamestown Colony in Virginia first saw an opossum in 1611, he described it as a cross between a pig, a rat, and a cat. Although people often consider them unattractive, we appreciate the beautiful, ugly opossum design as they serve a unique purpose in America.

Opossums are the only marsupials in North America. Like kangaroos and other Australian marsupials, opossums birth their young shortly after conception. The newborn must find its way into the pouch, where it will nurse for up to four months before emerging.

Opossums have 50 teeth, allowing them to eat just about anything. Their omnivorous diet includes rodents, frogs, birds, eggs, insects, fruit, and grain. They will eat dead animals, including the bones, and they remove pests from our gardens. They don’t burrow, and unlike raccoons, they are not dexterous enough to get into trash bins or your house or garage by digging into a wall or roof. Although people often describe opossums as ugly, they are among our best animal friends.

Opossums are nocturnal, so we rarely see them except when they get hit by a car. They are not aggressive, and when frightened, they often play dead. Their low body temperature of 94 degrees (F) prevents them from getting rabies and other viruses, and they are not affected by snake venom.

The beautiful, ugly opossum is part of God’s design for life on this planet. All animals serve a purpose in the natural world, but we often vilify opossums because of their appearance, not realizing the ways they benefit us.

References: Wikipedia and Saturday Evening Post for March/April 2024, page 21.

February 29, 2024February 28, 2024

Should Only the Fit and Wanted Be Allowed to Survive?

People in the abortion debate avoid the question of when a baby in the mother’s womb should be called a human. The scientific facts do not support attempts by abortion supporters to say that the baby is just an extension of the mother’s body and, like hair or fingernails, can be removed at the discretion of the mother. Should only the fit and wanted be allowed to survive?

One of the many evidences that the baby is a human and not an extension of the mother’s body is the issue of morning sickness. A new study reveals that the nausea may be caused by a protein called GDF15 produced by the fetus. The mother’s body rejects the protein as coming from a foreign object. Claims that morning sickness is psychological have been disproven and are “widely refuted.”

It is not hard to understand why a woman with an unwanted pregnancy would choose abortion. However, from a scientific sta n dpoint, the fetus is a human. We need to emphasize the alternatives to killing an inconvenient child. Our culture must understand the value of human life. If we accept the idea of destroying anyone who places a burden on others, then killing Alzheimer patients, cancer patients, elderly people with limited life expectancy, and people with severe mental illness will be acceptable.

The Bible makes it clear that we are created in God’s image. All human life is precious, and each person has a purpose for existing. On the other hand, should only the fit and wanted be allowed to survive? Evolution says “yes.” While that may work for raising chickens, it is not what we want for the future of our children and grandchildren.

Reference: “Fetuses make a protein that causes morning sickness in pregnancy” in Science News magazine’s January 27, 2024 issue.

February 28, 2024February 26, 2024

Ice Worms and Ooligans

The National Park Service website has a page on ice worms that live in the glaciers of the Pacific coast of North America. This reminds me of a children’s book by Charlsey Ford that we published in 2005. Charlsey worked with us for many years in our efforts to show that science and faith are symbiotic and not adversarial. Charlsey’s book Animals of the Cold was illustrated by John W. Davis III and Alyssa Cain. It shows that God has placed life, such as ice worms and ooligans, even in the most hostile locations on Earth.

Tiny ice worms live in colonies of thousands in a square meter of a glacier. According to the National Park Service, they are so well suited for the cold that they will “melt” at room temperature as their cells become liquified. Ice worms live in tunnels in the glacier ice and eat algae, bacteria, pollen, and dust that falls on the glacier. Ice worms produce soil that allows plants to grow in a desolate place. Birds such as the snow bunting feed on the worms. Being at the bottom of the food chain, ice worms provide the basis for life in glaciated areas.

The ooligan is another life form uniquely designed to live in very cold climates. Ooligans are sometimes called “candlefish” because they contain so much oil that if you dry the fish and light a wick in its mouth, it will burn like a candle. Native people in the Bering Sea area have used ooligans for centuries as food and medicine. Ice worms and ooligans are two of the beautifully designed organisms that allow life to exist in extreme environments.

Life on planet Earth fits well with the words of Romans 1:19-22 which tells us we can know there is a God through the things He has made. From deserts to dark, deep ocean habitats, we can see that a wonder-working hand has gone before.

Reference: “Glacier Ice Worms” on the National Park Service website.

Note: Copies of Animals of the Cold are available for $2.00 to cover postage from the Does God Exist? Ministry, 1555 Echo Valley Drive, Niles, MI 49120, or you can purchase the entire set of Does God Exist? children’s books from the PowerVine.store website.

February 27, 2024February 26, 2024

The IVF War is Not Nearing a Solution

In-vitro fertilization has become the latest issue in the political battle. In IVF, multiple eggs are harvested from a woman and then are fertilized and implanted to create a pregnancy. The usual method is to freeze the embryo produced for later implantation. The National Embryo Donation Center says that the number of frozen embryos nationwide is around a million, and nearly 100,000 babies are born annually by IVF, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The IVF war has become a problematic political issue.

After Roe v Wade was made law in 1973, frozen embryos were treated by the courts as private property, and donors could implant them, give them away, or have them destroyed. In February 2024, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that embryos created during the IVF process are “extrauterine children” and have the same rights as any other child.

This issue has produced massive legal hassles. Two couples have sued the company that accidentally destroyed their frozen embryos. Vice President Kamala Harris has been giving speeches that she calls “The Reproductive Rights Tour.” The Democratic party has brought back the overturning of Roe v Wade to make this issue a major one for their 2014 campaign. Various Republicans have taken the view that embryos are babies, but the leaders are in favor of IVF. The IVF war is not nearing a solution.

In the IVF procedure, multiple eggs are taken from the woman, fertilized, and then implanted in the woman’s uterus. The medical experts pick the one or two that look the most promising to implant in the womb and often discard the others. If there are ten eggs and eight are discarded, have eight people been murdered? Advancements in IVF technology have reduced the number of errors in this process, but there are still mistakes.

Any time humans try to take over what God has created, the result is complicated. IVF is one of many issues that resulted from advancements in medical technology. Christians need to be aware of the IVF war and try to help find solutions, not just engage in a battle of words with unbelievers.

References: National Embryo Donation Center, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, and USA Today for 2/23/24 and 2/21/24.

February 23, 2024February 19, 2024

Singing In Praise to God

The dictionary defines “anthropomorphize” as attributing human characteristics or behavior to an animal or object, such as people’s tendency to anthropomorphize their dogs. We can probably blame Disney for much of this. Beginning with Micky Mouse in “Steamboat Willie,” numerous cartoons have presented animals with human actions, including singing. Even scientific articles tell about whales and birds singing. The fact is that only humans have the unique capacity to compose songs and use them in a variety of human experiences, including singing in praise to God.

When a cardinal “sings” his song outside your window, he is really warning other cardinals to stay out of his territory. Whale songs are communication devices to locate food sources and attract mates. When Penny Patterson taught Koko the gorilla to use the sign language of the deaf, he learned that he would receive a reward. One of my favorite stories about Koko was that when Patterson taught him to recognize a yellow streak on a canvas as a banana, he identified yellow hats and yellow ties as bananas. Only humans could compose a song such as “Yes! We Have No Bananas.”

Humans use singing in many ways. The Psalms in the Bible are creative songs useful for memorizing and conveying spiritual values. The Genesis account of creation is actually a song. Being a song doesn’t make it untrue, but it is a uniquely human way to express and memorize history and values. Have you ever wondered why each military service has its own song? Why do we sing songs at weddings, funerals, and when camping? Singing is a way to express love and praise for others or God, and it can create unity. Most of us remember “We Shall Overcome,” and some will recall the protest song “Abraham, Martin and John,” referring to Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, and John F. Kennedy.

Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 14:15, “I will pray with my spirit, and I will also pray with my understanding. I will sing praise with the spirit, and I will also sing praise with my understanding (CSB).” Only humans can do these things, and no evolutionary explanation is supported by evidence. We are created in the image of God, and singing in praise to God is an expression of that unique creation.

February 20, 2024February 19, 2024

Removal of the Useless Appendix

When I was a teenager, I had a severe gastrointestinal problem that eventually resulted in the removal of my appendix. Doctors told me the appendix was a vestigial organ left over from my evolutionary past. The narrative was that while my hominid ancestors needed an appendix, I didn’t. In my college class on evolution, the professors told us the appendix was essentially a second stomach that animals needed to process coarse food. As humans evolved, we didn’t eat those foods, so removal of the useless appendix would not cause any problems.

Like many evolutionary arguments, this discussion of the appendix is rooted in ignorance. The appendix is a small worm-like organ that projects from the cecum, which is the first part of the large intestine. Charles Darwin identified the appendix as vestigial because people could live without it. With the information available to him at the time, Darwin’s view seemed reasonable and went unchallenged for a very long time. We now know better.

In contrast to the former call for removal of the useless appendix, we now know that it has at least two beneficial uses. The first is that it helps to support the immune system. The appendix has a high concentration of tissue that fights any bad things that might get into our gut. The second function, brought forward by Duke University researchers in 2007, is what they called a “safe house.” The appendix serves as a safe reservoir for our beneficial gut bacteria. A gastrointestinal problem resulting in diarrhea can flush out all of your good gut bacteria. The appendix repopulates the gut with bacteria after gastrointestinal issues.

People who have had their appendix removed tend to have more nasty bacteria in their gut than people who have not had that surgery. There is much about the human body that we don’t understand. In my lifetime, I have seen tonsils, gallbladders, and the appendix removed because medical science felt they served no purpose. We now know better as we see that God’s design of the human body is incredible. There may be a few things, such as body hair, that are unnecessary, but there are aesthetic reasons to retain even most of those.

Reference: “Your appendix is not, in fact, useless. This anatomy professor explains” in NPR Health News for 2/2/2024.

February 15, 2024February 13, 2024

Plants Use Frogs to Spread Their Seeds

One evidence that God and not chance created all living things is the varied ways plants get their seeds into new places. A recent study of frogs at the University of Newcastle in Australia has shown that plants use frogs to spread their seeds. This comes as a surprise since frogs are primarily carnivorous, but frog skins attract seeds and can carry them considerable distances.

The researchers found that tree frogs can carry as many as 14 seeds on their legs, feet, bellies, and backs. Some of the seeds found on the frogs they studied did not grow in the area where the frogs live, so they were picked up somewhere else. We have pointed out that birds spread seeds. Wading birds will have fish eggs stuck to their feet and legs, so fish will appear in recently dug ponds where humans have not placed them.

The studies in Australia have raised concerns over the loss of amphibians due to pollution and habitat destruction. It isn’t just losing the frogs at issue, but also the function of frogs in supporting plant life. Plants use frogs to spread their seeds, allowing plants to move into areas that need plant cover.

Everywhere we look, we see multiple designs offering complexity that cannot be produced by chance. There is intelligence in the creation, and one place we see it is in the role of all life on Earth.

Reference: American Scientist magazine, March/April 2024, page 72.

February 13, 2024February 12, 2024

Incredible Accuracy of the Biblical Creation Account

As a person with a background in paleontology and a Bible student, any new discovery is of great interest to me. One of the things that led me to become a Christian was the incredible accuracy of the biblical creation account. The establishment of “signs, seasons, days, and years,” as we know them, did not occur until verses 14-19, yet Genesis describes plant life in verses 11 and 12.

In Genesis 1:11-12, we see a sequence:
1- “deshe” -This Hebrew refers to an elementary plant and is translated as “grass” in older translations.
2- “eseb” -This means a naked seed or gymnosperm and is translated as “herb” in many older translations.
3- “zera” -This refers to fruit trees – angiosperms in modern taxonomy.

This sequence is precisely what the fossil record shows. According to fossil records, the first life forms on Earth were algae, known as stromatolites. In more recent rocks, we find the fossil remains of ferns and conifers (spore-bearing plants). In a New Brunswick, Canada quarry, researchers recently discovered fossils of ancient trees so well preserved that the branches had attached leaves. Dr. Robert Gastaldo led the study and described the finding as “literally little windows into deep-time landscapes and ecosystems.”

These ancient trees stood about 15 feet tall with narrow trunks and crowns 18 feet in diameter with more than 250 leaves. The evidence indicates that an earthquake-induced landslide in an ancient rift valley preserved the trees by quickly burying them at the bottom of a lake.

The more we know of the creation, the more we can appreciate the incredible accuracy of the biblical creation account – and its brevity. Problems occur only when religious people force a dispensational timeline theory on the fossil record. For more on that subject, go to the doesgodexist.org website and read the booklet titled “God’s Revelation in His Rocks and His Word.” You can order printed copies of the booklet from the PowerVine.store.

Reference: “Enigmatic fossil plants with three-dimensional, arborescent-growth architecture from the earliest Carboniferous of New Brunswick, Canada” by Robert A. Gastaldo in the journal Current Biology, February 2, 2024

February 12, 2024February 12, 2024

Reindeer Eyes Designed for the Arctic

The eyes of reindeer, also known as caribou, are different from those of any other mammal. The retinal tissue known as tapetum lucidum in reindeer eyes changes color from gold in the summer to vivid blue in the winter. Many nocturnal mammals have this mirror-like layer that reflects light, causing “eye shine” and allowing the photoreceptors to sense dim light. Only in reindeer eyes does it change color with the seasons.

Lichens are a main staple of the reindeer diet and are very common in northern latitudes where reindeer live. A lichen known as “reindeer moss” is an off-white color, making it difficult to see in the snow. However, snow reflects ultraviolet (UV) light, and the lichen absorbs it. The changing color of the retinal tissue is designed to make the lichen stand in dark contrast to the white snow.

UV light damages the eyes, so the cornea and lens suppress the UV radiation in most animals. Some of us have experienced temporary snow blindness caused by UV light, and excessive exposure can lead to cataracts. However, reindeer eyes are designed to admit up to 60% of UV light. Reindeer moss has “impressive antioxidant properties,” which may help prevent UV light damage. Also, reindeer feed on the buds and leaves of Arctic willow and dwarf birch, which have high levels of Vitamin C (ascorbic acid), which helps repair damaged cells.

From September to April, animals such as reindeer living above 70 degrees latitude experience the violet-blue of twilight for 8-11 hours daily. Reindeer eyes display another example of a specialized design unique to one species, giving the animal tools for survival in its environment. Predatory white wolves are well camouflaged in the snow but appear relatively dark to a reindeer detecting UV light.

The color-changing tapetum, unique to the reindeer species, is difficult to explain by gradual chance mutations. We suggest it is another example of how God has produced special equipment to enable an animal to survive in a challenging environment.

Reference: “Reindeer and the quest for Scottish enlichenment” in i-Perception, Sage Journals

February 8, 2024February 5, 2024

Alligator Brumation in Cold Weather

One of the amazing examples of design in the animal world is how alligators survive weather cold enough to cover their ponds with ice. Warm-blooded animals (endotherms), such as bears and groundhogs, hibernate in cold weather. Cold-blooded animals (ectotherms), such as alligators, become dormant using different metabolic processes. It is called alligator brumation.

The Swamp Park in Ocean Isle Beach, North Carolina, has made videos of alligator brumation. The alligators put their snouts out of the water, and their metabolic rate slows as they become lethargic. One park employee said, “We literally have gatercicles.” In Beaumont, Texas, there are some 550 alligators, including one 92-year-old that is 13 feet long and weighs over 1000 pounds. When his pond begins to freeze, he lets the ice freeze around his nose.

The design of the alligators’ body and metabolic structure allows them to survive in a temperate climate. It may not be obvious to most of us that alligators have an essential role in swamp environments. In the swamps in the southeastern part of the United States, they maintain a balance that benefits many other forms of life. As scientists try to understand that balance and how human encroachment affects it, the brumation system is essential.

Every form of life and ecosystem has a design that allows wise engineering. Cases like alligator brumation are amazing and speak of having been created with a particular need in mind. The more we know of the creation, the better we understand the mind and wisdom of God.

Reference: “Social media videos of ‘gatorcicles’ draw big numbers as experts say the reptiles are alive and well” on NBC News Now for January 24, 2024, by Antonio Planas