John N Clayton Archives - Page 113 of 115

May 20, 2020May 19, 2020

Evidence for Design in Symbiosis

The natural world is full of examples of two species living together in a way that each benefits the other. This mutualistic relationship is known as symbiosis. In some cases, the species are totally dependent on the relationship for their survival. In many plant/animal relationships, the animal depends on a plant for food, and the plant depends on the animal for pollination or the spreading of seeds. We see evidence for design in symbiosis.

One of the most interesting symbiotic relationships is between ants and butterflies. Scientists refer to the caterpillar in this relationship as being myrmecophilous, which means “ant-loving.” Dr. Philip Devries has written several articles in scientific journals about the caterpillars of certain butterfly species and their symbiosis with ants. The caterpillars feed on the nectar of croton trees, but they have a mortal enemy in the form of wasps. The wasp will find a caterpillar, kill it by stinging and then eat it. If ants are present, they will drive off the wasp and protect the caterpillar. Devries has covered some croton trees with ants, and they will have many caterpillars, but trees without ants will have very few caterpillars.

So the ants benefit the caterpillars, but what do the ants gain from this relationship? The caterpillars have organs on their posterior which extrude a clear liquid containing amino acids but virtually no sugar. The croton tree has a secretion that is 33% sugar but has very little nutritional value. The ants get vital nutrition from the caterpillar even though what they get is not sweet.

The caterpillar has other ways of attracting ants, including an organ on its back that secretes an ant pheromone that chemically attracts them. The caterpillar also has an organ that attracts ants by sending sound vibrations through the wood of the tree. Because of this feature, Dr. Devries coined the term “singing caterpillars.”

One of the great challenges to evolutionists is explaining how such a complex system of symbiosis happened by chance mutations. The more we study such relationships, the more different systems of design we see in the natural world. The more relationships we see, the more difficult it is not to recognize evidence for design in symbiosis. It speaks to us about God’s wisdom and design that allows the biological world to exist.

An article by Dr. Devries appeared in Scientific American, October 1992, pages 76-82.

May 19, 2020May 18, 2020

Nitrogen Fixation and Life

There are many chemical wonders in our world, but few are as important and complex as the chemistry of nitrogen. Nitrogen makes up 78% of our atmosphere. It combines with oxygen to form nitrates and with hydrogen to produce ammonia, both of which are essential for growing our food. Nitrogen fixation, which is how nitrogen gets from what we breathe to what we eat, is an amazing demonstration of design.

First, let us review a little high school chemistry. The atoms of all elements have electrons which give them their properties for forming compounds. The electrons are arranged in pairs with their magnetic poles designed so that in a stable arrangement, one electron’s north pole is matched with its neighboring electron’s south pole. The electrons have various orbitals with different energy levels. The atom is stable and chemically inert if an orbital is filled with all the paired electrons it can hold. For example, neon has 10 electrons. The first two orbitals each have two paired electrons, and the last orbital has six electrons in three pairs. This pairing of electrons makes neon an inert gas which does not combine chemically with other elements.

Nitrogen has an uneven number of seven electrons. So how does nitrogen become chemically stable? The answer is that two nitrogen atoms share three electrons, giving them stability. The two nitrogen atoms bond together to form a diatomic molecule that cannot be easily pulled apart to bond with other elements. How strong is the bonding? To break up a nitrogen molecule into two nitrogen atoms requires temperatures of 400 to 500 degrees Celsius and pressures of 200 atmospheres. So with nitrogen as the dominant element in our atmosphere, the atmospheric gases are stable and inert. Also, nitrogen is not a greenhouse gas that could threaten our temperatures on Earth. How then has God built a system that takes these stable nitrogen molecules and breaks their triple bonds to produce nitrates and ammonia?

If you think this isn’t an important subject, ask yourself where your food comes from? The answer is that 50% of the American diet is produced using artificial fertilizers containing nitrogen, which has been “fixed.” Nitrogen fixation combines that inert gas with oxygen and/or hydrogen to supply the soil with the chemical needed to grow the plants we eat, and which the livestock eat to provide us with meat.

Bacteria accomplish God’s method of nitrogen fixation. The bacteria turn nitrogen into ammonia, which is a nitrogen atom sharing electrons with three hydrogen atoms instead of with another nitrogen atom. Plants known as legumes such as soybeans and peas, as well as bayberry and alder trees, attract bacteria which concentrate in nodules on the plant’s roots. The bacteria turn nitrogen gas into ammonia and nitrates the plants can use. Cyanobacteria in the ocean and cycad plants on the land are also major nitrogen fixers. Scientists are also discovering tropical plants that contribute to the wealth of nitrogen compounds in the soil.

Most of our fertilizers have nitrogen fixed by a method called the Haber-Bosch process. It uses massive amounts of energy to break the triple bonds of nitrogen gas. Producing 500 degrees and 200 atmospheres is expensive, and that is why you pay so much for the fertilizer you use in your garden. God’s methods are free. Scientists are trying to figure out how to recreate God’s nitrogen fixation method to save energy and produce more food.

Many bacteria are beneficial in various ways, and nitrogen fixation is only one of them. This is a great apologetic for God’s wisdom and design in preparing the Earth to provide food for us to eat.

An excellent article on this topic titled “Out of Thin Air” was published in Science News, April 12, 2008. It is available online at THIS LINK, but a subscription is required to read it.

May 18, 2020May 17, 2020

Origin of Our Microbiome

The microbiome consists of trillions of beneficial bacteria that support our bodies in many ways. Some bacteria play an essential role in digestion and in separating the waste and processing it so that it can be excreted. Other bacteria play a role in our reproductive system. When I was a student at Notre Dame, there was a germ-free laboratory on campus where researchers raised animals with no bacteria. One of the complications of doing that was that even rabbits could not conceive if they were germ-free. For years, scientists have debated the question of the origin of our microbiome.

One interesting discovery that has come from prenatal research is that pre-born babies have their own microbiome separate from their mothers. For the past century, medical experts believed that babies acquired their microbiome at or shortly after birth. Research like that done at Notre Dame was thought to support the” sterile womb paradigm” hypothesis. Recent research has suggested that the origin of our microbiome may be from small amounts of bacteria built into the placenta. Discover magazine (June 2020, page 16) reviews the debate over when babies get their microbiome. Part of the problem is that it is very easy for contamination to get into the research specimens creating confusion over whether the bacteria were natural or if they came from contamination.

Our interest in this subject is not so much about the origin of our microbiome as to look at the implications of the data. Everyone agrees that the baby does not have its mother’s microbiome. Some microbes like E. coli are so common that they are found in all microbiomes. Beyond those, there is a unique makeup to each person’s microbiome, including newborns and pre-born babies.

Maintaining that a baby is an extension of the mother and therefore has no rights is to ignore the evidence. Morning sickness is caused by the mother’s immune system not recognizing a foreign object, the baby, and going into defensive mode. The baby growing inside the mother is a unique person with its own genetic makeup, awareness, and microbiome.

The abortion issue ignores the evidence and attempts to create a new vocabulary to make it seem less brutal, but taking a baby out of the womb and killing it is still infanticide. As tough as this issue is, we need to not shield the vile nature of this process by ignoring the evidence. Instead, we should look for solutions that recognize the value of life and the worth of every human being.

May 16, 2020May 15, 2020

Frog Reproduction Variations

We tend to think of frogs and toads as fairly common creatures, varying only in color and size. Dr. William Duellman has done extensive studies of the amphibian order Anura which includes more than 3800 separate species of frogs. His studies show enormous frog reproduction variations.

Some frogs lay eggs in clutches near, but not in, the water. They glue the eggs to vegetation or rocks where the tadpoles drop into the water when the eggs hatch. Other frogs lay eggs in a protective foam that protects the eggs and provides food and water that can last for up to ten days. One-fifth of all frog species hatch into froglets instead of tadpoles. Each four-legged froglet has an attached yolk to supply nutrition until it can catch its own food. The males of one frog species glue themselves to the back of the larger females. The female digs a burrow in the ground to lay the eggs. She then wets the eggs with water from her bladder, and the male fertilizes the eggs.

The males of the African hairy frog develop rigid hairlike extensions of their skin during breeding, so when the male sits on the eggs, he protects them from predation. In the poison dart frog of Costa Rica, both sexes guard the eggs. When they hatch, the female brings unfertilized eggs to the tadpoles to eat until they can find food on their own. The females of the Jamaican tree frog lays water-filled capsules along with the eggs to provide adequate water for the tadpoles. In some species, the tadpoles crawl onto the back of either parent. Some frogs have pouches on their backs that hold eggs that have gill-like structures that enable the embryos to breathe.

Other unconventional frog reproduction variations include Darwin’s frog in Chile. The male scoops up the newly hatched tadpoles into his mouth and broods them there for several weeks until they mature. Even more bizarre is an Australian frog in which the female swallows the eggs after fertilization and incubates them in her stomach. This process, called gastric-brooding, usually takes six weeks in which the female does not eat. The tadpoles secrete a substance called prostaglandin E-2, which neutralizes the hydrochloric acid and pepsin normally used for digestion.

All of these reproductive strategies are designed to cope with different environments. Frogs can exist in a desert or a tropical rain forest or even a polar area. Survival is only possible because their reproductive systems are designed to fit the environment in which they live. The intricacy of frog reproduction variations is an excellent example of the intelligence and design God has built into the simplest of living things.

To read more, you can find it in Scientific American, July 1992, pages 80-87. Available digitally HERE.

May 15, 2020May 14, 2020

God Will Provide a Way Out

We hear it all the time, statements like “I can’t take much more.” “I can’t handle this!” “This is too much!” and “I can’t stand it!!” We all have expressions of frustration and exasperation, and in the middle of this current pandemic like all previous major problems, we hear some wild ones. “I’m going to blow my top,” “I’m going to pull my hair,” “I’m going to the lake and make a hole in it.” There is a theological issue involved here. If God exists, why does He allow things to happen that push us beyond what we can stand? Or does He provide a way out? I maintain that 1 Corinthians 10:13 is true.

“No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, He will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.” -1 Corinthians 10:13.

Before going further, please do not interpret this discussion to trivialize anyone’s crisis. I just watched my daughter nurse her husband, the father of her three children, through six months of terminal cancer. She is now not only left with no husband and three boys to raise and also with no financial resources and her own health issues. My students in our correspondence courses who are in prison frequently say, “You can not imagine what it is like to be locked up in this hell hole.”

This Corinthian passage was written to Christians and offers unique help. One of the miseries that atheism produces is that it provides no hope of any kind when problems like this pandemic happen. When I was young and fit, I maintained that God was a crutch that I didn’t need. Very quickly, things happened to me that made me not so young or so fit. It wasn’t that I looked for a crutch because I continued to be a vocal atheist. But I was miserable in not always dominating others and getting my way. I was not able to overpower circumstances in life because I simply wasn’t fit.

First Corinthians 10:13 and similar passages don’t tell us that God will shield us from bad things. They don’t tell us that Christians will not face tragedy and frustration and even death. The passage says that God will “provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.” That way out is rarely a miraculous zapping of whatever is afflicting us. It is usually God using Christians, His workers on Earth, to help us through it.

Read Matthew 25:31-40, and what do you see Jesus saying to His workers at the end of time? They were those who provided a way out for those in misery. The very nature of Christianity is to relieve the afflicted, and Jesus did that and taught His followers to do it. That is why Christians do the prison ministries, the correspondence course programs, our seniors outreaches, our food banks, our water well diggings, our hospitals, our schools, and many other things.

There are those times when the way out is death. I have lost a wife, a son-in-law, a brother, and dozens of dear friends who were in such pain that death was a blessing. I can only say that with confidence about those who died as Christians. The way out for me is coming, and it will be a blessing, not a curse.

May 14, 2020May 13, 2020

Religious Anti-Science Rhetoric

For the 51 years of this ministry, we have confronted religious anti-science rhetoric. Our critics are those who feel that science is an enemy and that you can’t be a good Christian and embrace science. We are now in a period when the issue of whether people can meet together for worship services has become an issue of science and politics. Some politicians oppose churches resuming worship services saying there is strong scientific evidence that it will expose participants to the COVID-19 virus. Many religious leaders insist that this is an attempt by the government to restrict religion. They say that this scientifically-based objection is destroying the right of people to worship together.

In previous articles, we have pointed out that a great deal of ignorance is involved in rejecting science. According to the dictionary, science is knowledge. Knowledge is always neutral. The critical thing is how we use it. When new scientific knowledge gave us lasers, the question was how we would use lasers. Would they be weapons that cause massive destruction, or would they be medical tools to heal eyes?

We now understand how the COVID-19 virus spreads from one person to another. Will we use this knowledge to stop the progression of the illness, or will we use this virus to destroy whole masses of people? The bubonic plague from 1347-1351 killed 200 million people, which was nearly half of Europe’s population. Religious anti-science rhetoric today has the potential to create a catastrophe.

It isn’t our knowledge about the COVID-19 virus that is a threat to freedom or to worship. The reality is that science will eventually develop a vaccine that will allow everyone to worship together. Smallpox was killing 400,000 people a year in Europe, and it only stopped when scientists developed a vaccine. It is hypocritical for religious people to vilify science while they: 1) enjoy modern technology in their entertainment 2) go to medical facilities for treatment of disease, 3) use scientific advancements to grow and prepare their food, 4) use new scientific discoveries in their businesses, and 5) use science in their homes to improve their standard of living.

Proverbs 8 makes it clear that God has used science (wisdom) in all He has done. Psalms 19 and 139 refer to God’s creation, and Romans 1:19-20 points out that science reveals God’s existence through the things He has made. The following verses, Romans 1:21-32, point out that human moral and political choices cause the pain and destruction we see in our world.

Christianity doesn’t need to violate social distancing to worship and to practice our faith. James 1:27 defines true religion, and Jesus made it clear that He is there when just two people come together in His name (Matthew 18:20). First Timothy 6:20 tells Christians to avoid scams and religious claims called science. Ignore the religious anti-science rhetoric and know that God and science are friends. Don’t listen to politicians and religious hucksters and rely on evidence and the message of proven researchers. Join together in prayer and worship in our homes on Zoom, YouTube, Facebook, or whatever method you choose. Rejoice that, through science, God has given us new ways to come together, encourage each other, and glorify Him even in the middle of a pandemic.

Data from Discover magazine, June 2020, page 11.

May 13, 2020May 12, 2020

Strong Enough to Bend

In 1988 Tanya Tucker had a country song titled “Strong Enough to Bend” that had a great message. In the song, she compared a willow tree to human relationships. She pointed out that willows can survive because their limbs can bend instead of breaking.

Interestingly enough, that concept is present in most living things in the creation. God rarely uses stiff materials in what He creates. On the other hand, humans tend to use rigid materials such as metals, ceramics, dry wood, etc. In your own body, how many stiff materials are there? Bones and teeth are about it. These are components designed for a specific purpose where hardness and stiffness are required. Most things in the biological world are soft, not brittle.

A classic example of the benefit of being soft and not hard is kelp and other marine algae. Those plants live in the violent world of surf. If you have ever surfed, you know the power of waves. I have seen surfboards thrown against rocks, pounded by the waves, and turned into a pile of shredded plastic in a matter of minutes. Kelp live in the surf with one end attached to rocks and the surface of the plant exposed to sunlight for photosynthesis. Kelp can survive because they are strong enough to bend.

Waves produce flows that reverse direction every few seconds. As soon as the plant grows longer than the distance the local water travels between reversals, the additional length of plant material is swept back and forth with the water. The plant literally goes with the flow. Since it moves the same direction as the water and at the same speed, there is no friction between the plant and the water. Kelp can grow to lengths well over 130 feet (40 m). A rigid plant like an oak tree in the surf would be pounded to splinters in a few hours.

Closer to home for most of us, are the leaves of land plants. Take a cardboard tube like a paper towel tube and try to bend and twist it. Then make a lengthwise slit in the tube and try it again. Notice how much easier it is after you cut the tube. The reason leaves have exotic shapes is to allow them to bend and twist rather than breaking in high winds or creating wind resistance that would take down the tree.

This design shows highly complex engineering, and our lives exist because of it. Imagine what would happen if our skin, eyes, ears, stomach, blood vessels, hair, etc. were not made of soft, pliable material. A good sneeze could shatter our face! Our Creator knew that being strong enough to bend was critical for our existence.

May 12, 2020May 11, 2020

How Do Sea Animals Drink Water?

Yesterday we discussed how fish drink water. In the ocean, the problem isn’t water but salt. Ocean fish are designed with specialized gills that support the kidneys in getting rid of salt accumulations that would otherwise pickle the fish. Obviously, not all animals that live in the ocean have gills. How do sea animals drink water?

Albatrosses and petrels are birds that can spend a year or more in the open ocean, but they need to drink water. Whales and seals also do not have land-based water supplies, and yet, like all mammals, they need water to survive. So how do sea animals drink water when ocean water is salty? God’s design of living creatures always includes unusual equipment to enable them to deal with their environment.

In the case of sea birds, they have a set of salt glands in their heads that connect to the bird’s nostrils. The birds drink seawater, but the glands are so efficient that within three hours, all of the salt is removed through the nostrils.

Whales and other aquatic mammals produce urine that has extremely concentrated salt content. By allowing high salt concentrations in the urine to diffuse into the ocean, the salt never reaches toxic levels inside the animal. An interesting sidelight to this is that the milk of these sea mammals is very low in water content. In that way, they conserve water. Milk from seals has only half the water content of lean hamburger.

Everywhere we look in the natural world, we see that a wonder-working hand has gone before. These marvelous designs are not the product of mindless chance. They show an Intelligence who created with purpose and wisdom. When we realize that ocean water has high salt content, we question, “how do sea animals drink water?” God already took care of that.

In Job 38-40, God challenged Job to advance his understanding of God’s power and wisdom by considering the natural things of creation. When Job questioned God’s wisdom and purpose in his personal struggles, he did not recognize the wisdom shown in creation’s design. We too need to look at what God has done and “know there is a God through the things He has made” (Romans 1:18-20).

Data from National Wildlife magazine, June/July 1995, pages 30-34.

May 11, 2020May 17, 2020

How a Fish Drinks Water

Have you ever wondered how a fish drinks water? Your first reaction is probably something like, “It opens its mouth.” Like most things in life, it isn’t that simple.

All living things necessarily have some saltwater content in their bodies to keep chemical balance allowing life to exist. The fluids inside an ocean-dwelling fish are only about a third as salty as the ocean itself. The water inside the fish’s body tends to leave by osmotic pressure, which is the tendency of fluids to move through membranes toward higher concentrations. To avoid this loss of water, the fish does simply open its mouth and drink seawater. But that brings large amounts of salt into the fish’s body. The salt concentration would be more than the fish’s kidneys could handle. To aid the kidneys, the gills of ocean fish are designed to expel salt, so the fish isn’t pickled by it.

In freshwater fish, the osmotic pressure is reversed, so the fluids inside the fish are saltier than the water outside. The skin of a freshwater fish is designed so that water seeps in through its skin and gills. Therefore, the fish doesn’t have to drink at all. When a salmon leaves the ocean and enters a freshwater stream, it merely stops drinking. Like freshwater fish, it depends on its skin to bring in its water needs.

Now that you know how a fish drinks water, the next question would be about other creatures that spend their time in the sea. Birds like albatrosses and petrels can spend more than a year at sea, and whales and seals live in the ocean 24/7/365. How can they avoid being poisoned by the salt? We’ll discuss that tomorrow.

God’s design of life includes fitting living things with specialized equipment to survive in every environment. Fish are remarkable creatures specially equipped for the waterworld in which they live.

Data from National Wildlife magazine June/July 1995, pages 30-34.

May 9, 2020May 8, 2020

Complex Human Brain and a 1948 Dodge

When I was a kid, I had a classmate who could take his 1948 car apart so that every part was lying on the garage floor. He could then put them all back together and have the car working in one afternoon. I bought that 1948 Dodge from him, thinking I could do the same thing. However, he understood the design of the engine, and I didn’t. No car can compare to the complex human brain.

As scientists learn about how the brain operates and the magnitude of its component parts, the complex human brain becomes even more amazing. Different parts of the body allow signals to travel at different speeds. Signals travel through your skin at a modest rate of one mile (1.6 km) per hour. Your spinal cord has alpha motor neurons that allow signals to travel at 268 miles (431 km) per hour. That means signals from the extremities of your body can get to the brain almost instantaneously.

The design of this system is hard to fathom. There are roughly 100,000 miles ( km) of nerve fibers in your brain. The minimum number of neural connections (or synapses) in the human brain is 100-trillion. That is about 1,000 times the number of stars in our galaxy. The number of neurons in the human brain is 100-billion. Those statistics only begin to describe the complex human brain.

At our 50-year class reunion, I asked my friend if he could still tear down his car and put it back together in one afternoon. He said that he couldn’t. What’s more, he said that with the complex design of modern cars that enables them to do much more than the 1948 Dodge, he didn’t want to. As I started my 2018 car and looked at all the buttons and sensors on the dash, I understood what he was saying. That old Dodge got me from point A to point B, but it offered none of the creature comforts of today’s cars.

People talk about “artificial intelligence” taking over for human brains. But the brain does far more than just run through a simple path of mathematical logic. Your brain is a complex creation of an ultimate Engineer who built it to do an amazing number of things that we call “living.”