Plants Archives

June 30, 2026June 26, 2026

The Amino Acid Set Was Fine-Tuned for Life

Organic compounds are large molecules containing carbon and having carbon-hydrogen or carbon-carbon bonds. Many organic compounds are involved in life, and life as we know it could not exist without carbon. One group of organic compounds, known as amino acids, numbers at least 500. Of those, only 20 (or, in some cases, 22) are used in plants and animals. Why and how were these amino acids selected to make living things? Amazingly, the amino acid set was fine-tuned for life.

There are three possibilities for how they could have been “selected.” The selection could have been due to chance, with no intelligent agent involved. It could have been because of necessity, meaning that some kind of law could allow only those amino acids to be selected. The third possibility is selection by an intelligent agent with a purpose. Did this apparent choice happen because of mere chance or because of laws that required no other choice? No known laws required this selection, and chance seems questionable since the choice appears to be perfect.

With many alternatives, why this 20? Would any 20 out of the 500 work just as well? The answer is “No,” according to a research paper published in the journal Astrobiology, titled “Did Evolution Select a Nonrandom Alphabet of Amino Acids?” by Gayle K. Philip and Stephen J. Freeland. They wrote, “Random chance would be highly unlikely to represent the chemical space of possible amino acids with such breadth and evenness in charge, size, and hydrophobicity (properties that define what protein structures and functions can be built).” In other words, these 20 amino acids represent the best choice. You can say that the amino acid set was fine-tuned for life.

We have often talked about the cosmic creation event (“big bang”), the laws of physics, the physical constants, and the fundamental forces of nature as having been fine-tuned for life. It appears that the amino acid set was fine-tuned for life. The amino acids that make up the proteins in our bodies seem to be optimally selected. They must have been selected by an agent with the wisdom and power to design a complex, finely tuned, information-rich system, which we call life. We suggest that the agent is the God of the Bible. Tomorrow, we will examine more fine-tuning within our DNA.

References: scienceandculture.com

June 25, 2026June 22, 2026

Underground Fungal Networks

We often take for granted that plants grow just about anywhere. However, as more research is done on our planet’s fauna, we get a clearer picture of what plant growth requires. Underground fungal networks sustain virtually all plant life on our planet.

Scientists have discovered gigantic underground fungal networks that connect plants and store vast amounts of carbon in the soil. Known as mycorrh i zal fungi, they partner with the world’s plants, supplying water and nutrients in exchange for sugars produced through photosynthesis. These networks span some 68 quadrillion miles underground and make the plant life we depend on possible.

The Genesis account simply says that God created vegetation (Genesis 1:11). It does not explain the complexity of plants and their networks that enable them to survive the variations in climate and soils on planet Earth. We know more about what it took to create the conditions for the plants that supply us with food. The magnitude of mycorrhizal fungi is hard to comprehend and beyond any chance explanation. God’s wisdom, power, and intelligence are a testimony to our Creator.

Reference: earthweek.com

June 23, 2026June 22, 2026

Seed Dispersal by Ants

Myrmecochory is the term for seed dispersal by ants. Scientists estimate that as many as 11,000 to 23,000 plant species worldwide use myrmecochory to disperse their seeds. Most of the plants that use myrmecochory attach food bodies rich in lipids, amino acids, and other nutrients to their seeds. These food bodies are called elaiosomes, and they exist only to entice ants to take the seeds.

The seed with an elaiosome attached is called a diaspore. When ant workers forage for food, they collect diaspores and carry them back to the colony, where they remove the elaiosome and feed it to their larvae. Then the ants dispose of the seed underground. In this way, the ants move the seeds some distance away from the original plant and leave them where they can germinate and grow into new plants.

This is a mutual arrangement, a symbiosis, between the plants and the ants. The plants gain greater seed dispersal distance. They also get directed dispersal, with seeds underground, where they can germinate and grow, safe from seed predators. The ants get nutritious food as their part of the deal. The plant gives up some vital nutrients in exchange for seed dispersal by ants.

Thousands of different plant species are willing to sacrifice some of their nutrition to entice ants to disperse their seeds to places where they are likely to grow. Evolutionary scientists suggest that these plants independently evolved this trait for survival. The term they use for unrelated species independently evolving similar characteristics is “convergent evolution.” The living system involves many cases of so-called convergent evolution.

We could believe that thousands of unrelated species independently evolved the same technique for seed dispersal by ants. We could also see this as evidence that the Designer of all living things designed this system. Which explanation seems more reasonable?

Reference: Wikipedia.com

June 17, 2026June 16, 2026

Sensing Up and Down

How do you tell the difference between up and down? Vision helps, but blind people still know up from down. We sense gravity mostly through our inner ear. Sensory hairs inside the inner ear are stimulated by small calcium carbonate crystals. As we move, those crystals brush against the hairs, sending electrical signals through our nervous system to the brain. The brain interprets the signals, thus sensing up and down.

We know that plants can determine up and down because, no matter which direction you plant the seed, the roots grow down as the stalk goes up. How does the plant know which direction to grow without a brain or nervous system?

Since ancient times, people have known that plants grow upward while their roots grow downward, but they didn’t know why. Plant growth is controlled by hormones, and the primary one affecting growth is auxin. Plants have specialized organelles known as amyloplasts that enable gravitropism, the ability to sense up and down.

Most plants have heavy amyloplasts at the tips of their roots, where they settle in response to gravity. The amyloplasts trigger the production of auxin. When higher levels of auxin are produced on the lower side of plant roots, the lower side grows downward in the direction of gravity.

A mysterious part of this system is that amyloplasts do not produce auxin. It is produced in another set of cells that are physically distant from the amyloplasts. Without a system of nerves connecting the amyloplasts and the auxin-producing cells, how does the directional information get to the auxin-producing cells? Scientists have not fully answered that question, but they are working on it. The Creator knows.

Auxin is also the major hormone causing plants to grow upward toward light. Phototropins are pigments that sense light and trigger the production of auxin at the tips of the shoots. The auxin is transported to the bottom side of the stem, where it stimulates growth and causes the stem to grow upward toward the light.

Sensing up and down, and many other functions of plants, are carried out without the benefit of a brain or central nervous system. We may think of plants as simple compared to animals, but they must be very complex to accomplish what animals do (including taking in nourishment, defending themselves, and reproducing) without being able to move from where they are planted. The design of living things, both animals and plants, shows that there is an intelligent Designer.

June 15, 2026June 14, 2026

Sunflowers Are Amazing

When we stock our bird feeders with sunflower seeds, many birds come and crack open the hard shells to reach the nutritious kernels inside. Humans do the same, though we prefer them already shelled. When you look at the sunflower head, with its center surrounded by petals, you are actually seeing a cluster of flowers surrounding a cluster of seeds. Sunflowers are amazing not only for the nutritious seeds they produce but also for the way they track sunlight.

Phytochromes are pigments within plant cells that sense light and help maintain a plant’s biological clock. This “circadian rhythm” helps a plant determine the passage of 24-hour periods. It can persist for days, even when sunlight isn’t present. The sunflower head moves during the day to track the Sun. On a cloudy day, it may even “see” the Sun using wavelengths outside the visible light spectrum. Because of the circadian rhythm, the sunflower head turns to the east to await the morning sunrise.

It is hard to believe that this incredible design is a product of blind chance. It seems that the sunflower design is not the result of any fortuitous accident. Sunflowers are amazing, with their nutritious seeds and the plant’s relationship to the Sun exemplifying God’s design.

May 29, 2026May 27, 2026

Intelligent or Unintelligent?

Causes can be of two types: intelligent or unintelligent. As we look for what caused the universe to come into existence or what caused life to appear on this planet, we should ask whether it was an intelligent cause or an unintelligent one, meaning chance. When you see the Grand Canyon, you can conclude that it was the result of natural forces and therefore not a direct intelligent cause. When you see Mount Rushmore, the mountain itself can be attributed to natural causes, but the faces of four presidents carved into that mountain testify to an intelligent cause.

Darwinists agree that the living things we see around us appear to be designed. But those who reject intelligent causation for living things have to keep reminding themselves that what they’re seeing was not designed by an Intelligence, but rather merely happened by chance. Is that attitude intelligent or unintelligent?

The complexity of DNA is certainly a challenge to those who believe that life happened by chance. However, they also have to contend with the fact that DNA relies on proteins for its structure, while proteins require DNA to provide the instructions for how they are to be constructed and folded. Since each requires the other, which comes first: proteins or DNA?

Spontaneous generation of life from non-life was advocated by Aristotle and accepted by science for 2,000 years until Louis Pasteur disproved it. However, those who believe that life came into being without guiding intelligence from purely natural chemicals must accept the concept of spontaneous generation, even though it is not supported by any empirical observation. Francis Crick, an atheist and co-discoverer of the DNA molecule’s structure, said, “Every time I write a paper on the origin of life, I swear I will never write another one, because there is too much speculation running after too few facts.”

Other scientists, such as Fred Hoyle, recognizing the problem of life’s origin, have proposed panspermia (“seeds everywhere”). That idea suggests that life on Earth was seeded by aliens from another star system. Besides having zero evidence for such a thing, it doesn’t explain where the interstellar life came from, stretches the imagination, and requires a great deal of blind faith. When scientists and others stick to their belief in spontaneous generation or panspermia, is that intelligent or unintelligent?

Physicist and information scientist Hubert Yockey, realizing the difficulty of explaining intelligent life without an intelligent cause, wrote, “The belief that life on earth arose spontaneously from nonliving matter is simply a matter of faith in strict reductionism and is based entirely on ideology.” The faith of those who refuse to believe in intelligent design is not based on scientific evidence but on ideological bias. Do you think that believing in creation without a Creator is intelligent or unintelligent?

May 26, 2026May 24, 2026

A Neatly Arranged Tree of Life

According to the Darwinian concept, gradual changes over long periods lead to the development of new traits. The Darwinian tree of life displays branches leading to diverse life forms. Along each branch, we see new traits emerging and then being further developed in subsequent generations of creatures. That means similar traits indicate common ancestry. Over billions of years, the result should be a tree, with each branch showing an obvious progression of similar traits. A neatly arranged tree of life should be the result. However, that is not the case.

Convergent evolution throws the tree into disorder. Scientists use the term “convergent evolution” to explain similar characteristics appearing on different branches of the tree. Those similarities show up not only in obvious physical traits but even at the genetic level. According to the common understanding of the evolutionary tree, a trait should appear in a branch and then be carried forward, further developed, or even lost in the succeeding branches or twigs. For a neatly arranged tree of life, the same trait should not appear in other, unrelated branches.

According to Richard Dawkins, “It is vanishingly improbable that exactly the same evolutionary pathway should ever be traveled twice.” In other words, it is unlikely that evolution would cause the same trait to appear multiple times in different evolutionary lines. That is, two separate branches of the tree should not be marked by the appearance of the same evolved trait.

However, in many instances, the same trait shows up in animals or plants that are not closely related. In other words, the same evolutionary change occurred independently many times. According to a paper published April 30, 2026, by Yacine Ben Chehida and others in the journal PLOS Biology, “Convergent evolution, the repeated evolution of similar phenotypes, is widespread in nature.” (Phenotypes are the sets of observable characteristics or traits of an organism.)

Who is correct, Richard Dawkins or the paper in PLOS Biology? How can it be “vanishingly improbable” and yet “widespread in nature?” Furthermore, Simon Conway Morris, who has held the Chair of Evolutionary Paleobiology in the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Cambridge for more than 30 years, said, “Convergence is ubiquitous.” If by ubiquitous he means present anywhere and everywhere, how can unguided evolution explain that? How can something be “vanishingly improbable” and “ubiquitous” at the same time?

Since a neatly arranged tree of life does not seem to exist, perhaps the existence of a common creator God has more explanatory power than mere chance evolution. For more examples of convergent evolution, read our posts HERE and HERE.

References: scienceandculture.com and journals.plos.org

May 19, 2026May 16, 2026

The Sound of Rainfall

Researchers in the U.K. and at MIT have found that seeds sprout faster when exposed to the sound of rainfall on the ground. When raindrops hit the ground, they create vibrations strong enough to jostle microscopic structures called statoliths inside the seeds. That sets off a biological chain reaction that triggers germination. The study shows that seeds can germinate 40% faster when exposed to rainfall sounds.

This new research helps explain why seeds germinate faster in jungle-like environments than in areas with very little rain. Researchers have had great success with rice seeds exposed to rainfall sounds, compared with rice without them. With all other factors identical between the two groups, rice seeds exposed to the sound of rainfall grow 40% faster.

This discovery can be applied to other food crops and should be a valuable tool for addressing food shortages worldwide. It is difficult, if not impossible, to attribute this design characteristic to chance. The extensive design in nature is a strong apologetic for God’s existence.

Reference: The Week for May 15, 2026, page 21.

May 15, 2026May 14, 2026

The Creativity of Chance

I’m sitting by my window, looking out at the beautiful trees, green grass, flowers, birds, groundhog, and squirrels, and I’m thinking about Darwinism. According to Darwinism, all living things have evolved from a common ancestor, a single-celled creature about four billion years ago. I’m thinking that it takes a lot of faith to believe in the creativity of chance.

People often cite similarities among living things as evidence that all life originated from a single common ancestor. In their book I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist, Norman Geisler and Frank Turek consider how much faith it takes to be a Darwinist. To believe in Darwinism, you must be able to explain the dissimilarity among living things. I think that may be more difficult than explaining the similarities.

Think about the variation among the millions of life forms. Geisler and Turek point out that if you believe in Darwinism, you must explain the dissimilarity between “the palm tree, the peacock, the octopus, the locust, the bat, the hippopotamus, the porcupine, the sea horse, the Venus flytrap, the human, and mildew.” The question is, how could those and all other species have descended from the first unicellular life by mere chance and without intelligent intervention?

As you ponder that, you must also realize that if you’re going to leave God out of the picture, how did nonliving chemicals organize into that original single-celled organism from which all life sprang into being? Furthermore, how can you explain the existence of the fine-tuned universe that makes life, and especially advanced life, possible? Could chance and time have created all of this, or does it require an intelligent Designer? Believing in the creativity of chance takes more faith than I have.

April 27, 2026April 27, 2026

Underground Bees in a Cemetery

A cemetery in Ithaca, New York, not only has a large number of graves but also an even greater number of bees. Researchers estimate there are perhaps 5.6 million underground bees in that plot of land. It is the largest known aggregation of ground-nesting solitary bees, known as miner bees or mining bees, in the family Andrenidae.

The Andrenidae family of bees consists of more than 1300 species. They don’t build hives, and they don’t swarm. They are solitary bees that live out their lives, build their nests, and raise their young underground. The species of bees that have found a home in the Ithaca cemetery is Andrena regularis. This particular species pollinates crops such as apples and blueberries.

Bees in the Andrenidae family of underground bees are designed to carry pollen on their legs. Various species within this family tend to pollinate specific plant species. We often think of honeybees as essential pollinators, but we tend not to think about or even know about the bees that don’t make honey but are still important pollinators

These underground bees emerge for a short period in the spring and do their pollination work. As temperatures get warmer, they go back underground. Because of the pollen-carrying features of these solitary bees, they can deposit more pollen than individual honey bees. This cemetery discovery is unusual because of how many of them are concentrated in one area. Researchers estimate that there are more than 800 bees per square meter.

God’s amazing web of life is often overlooked because many creatures are largely out of sight and therefore out of mind. These underground bees remind us that there is a lot of life underground, even in a cemetery.

Reference: Discovermagazine.com