John N Clayton Archives

May 5, 2025May 4, 2025

Migration of Painted Lady Butterflies

Most of us are familiar with the incredible migrations of monarch butterflies. Until recently, scientists could not track a butterfly species migrating distances exceeding the monarchs. It is the migration of painted lady butterflies.

These butterflies weigh less than a gram, so attaching tracking devices to them is impossible. For that reason, the paths traversed by the migration of painted lady butterflies were unknown until researchers developed a tracking system involving hydrogen and strontium isotopes in their wings.

As with monarch butterflies, painted ladies make their migrations over several generations. Unlike monarchs that specialize in milkweed, painted ladies feed on numerous host plants, allowing them to migrate up to 9,300 miles annually. The migration of painted lady butterflies in Europe and Scandinavia involves traveling to Africa and back. In North America, they travel between Canada and Mexico. In Asia, they fly through the Himalayas. Painted ladies are designed to weather cold conditions with yellow fat reserves and by shivering to generate body heat. They can fly up to 30 miles per hour.

Everywhere we look in the natural world, we see examples of design showing wisdom and intelligence. The food chain would be interrupted, and life on Earth would cease to exist without insects designed to withstand all kinds of environmental factors. The migration of Painted lady butterflies is not an accident of nature, but the product of a mind that designed Earth and all that lives on it so we can be here.

Reference: Scientific American May 2025, page 22

May 1, 2025April 29, 2025

Sea Turtles Find Food

Research has answered an interesting question about life in the sea – how do sea turtles find food? They have an extensive diet, including small invertebrates, jellyfish, and fish eggs. The problem is that these food sources are only in small patches scattered across the ocean, so how do sea turtles find them?

The answer relates to Earth’s magnetic field. Sea turtles can create GPS-like magnetic maps of Earth’s oceans. They begin to do this as hatchlings and remember the locations for years or even decades. Loggerhead sea turtles live for about 20 years, and the internal GPS map guides them to food and migration routes for a lifetime. They must begin as hatchlings because many predators can eat a baby turtle. Survival of hatchlings requires that sea turtles find food quickly and grow large enough to escape their predators.

Recent research has shown that sea turtles have two senses for detecting Earth’s magnetic field. One senses the direction of the magnetic field lines, and the other detects magnetic features to locate foraging areas where sea turtles find food and beaches where they can lay their eggs. Research has shown that migrating songbirds also possess these magnetoreception systems.

God has provided all animals with the special equipment they need to survive. We see God’s wisdom and planning everywhere we look in the natural world. As Romans 1:20 says, “We can know there is a God through the things He has made.”

Reference: Scientific American for May 2025, page 21.

April 30, 2025April 29, 2025

The Design of Penguins

Penguins have features unlike any other living thing. The design of penguins allows them to dive over 100 feet to secure their food. National Geographic magazine lists these unique features of penguins:

1) Their wing shape is unique, allowing them to create a strong thrust underwater.

2) The wings have inflexible joints optimized for swimming.

3) The strong chest muscles allow them to lift their wings underwater.

4) They have elongated hip bones for swimming.

5) Their necks are S-shaped and can be retracted for swimming.

6) Salt-filtering glands above their eyes allow them to excrete salt they take in from the ocean.

7) Penguin bones are very dense for swimming and to withstand the stress of moving through water.

8) Their feathers are designed to adjust to temperatures and density. In hot weather, the feathers are raised to release heat. In cold weather, they lie flat to provide insulation. Penguins have patches without feathers in hot weather to decrease their weight and provide good buoyancy. They add feathers in cold weather to increase their body weight by 30%, making it easier to dive deep.

Realize that all these features are essential for living in their cold climate. To suggest that the penguins evolved from ordinary birds would require all these changes to happen simultaneously. In evolution, Dollo’s Law of Irreversibility states that once a feature is lost it cannot be retrieved. For a bird to become a penguin, Dollo’s Law would have to be broken multiple times.

The design of penguins demands an intelligent Designer to create these eight features in addition to several others. By studying the design of penguins, we can truly “know there is a God through the things that He has made” (Romans 1:20).

Reference: “Secrets of the Penguins” in the May 2025 issue of National Geographic, pages 16 to 57

April 29, 2025April 29, 2025

Why Did God Create Snakes?

An interesting question we receive is, “Why did God create snakes?” Bible students refer to the serpent in the Garden of Eden, but that was a one-time event and actually dealt with Satan, not with an animal. Why should we, living thousands of years after Adam and Eve, have to deal with venomous snakes? Why do many people have a fear of snakes and even find them repulsive?

The fact is that snakes offer some real benefits to humans, and their creation was not some kind of vindictive act by God. Scientists derived the first ACE inhibitor, a drug to lower blood pressure, from a South American pit viper. By studying sidewinder snakes, engineers have built robots that can wriggle into tight spaces to search for survivors after a disaster. Some people use snakes for food. Rattlesnake meat is a staple in Texas, and every year in March, Sweetwater, Texas, holds the “World’s Largest Rattlesnake Roundup.”

Like all animals, snakes are part of the balance of the populations of various creatures. Rodents are a major food source for snakes, and snakes also eat many insects and animals that threaten humans. Moving snakes into an area where they are not native has caused problems. That is the case with Burmese pythons that were brought into Florida as part of the pet trade and then released into the wild, where they reproduce without predators to control them. In their native environment, they eat large rodents and reptiles.

When people ask, “Why did God create snakes?” they should be reminded that they are not evil or a threat to humans in their natural environment. They have a purpose for existing and are not a negative commentary on God’s creation.

Reference: Science News for May 2025, pages 77-79.

April 28, 2025April 27, 2025

The Mantis Shrimp’s Design

Naturalistic evolution cannot explain many things in nature. For example, why do various birds display colors that offer no purpose and may make them vulnerable to predators? We see one of the most interesting examples that doesn’t fit blind mechanistic chance in the mantis shrimp’s design feature that can exert a blow 1000 times its body weight.

The mantis shrimp uses a club-like feature to strike its prey with a force so extreme that it creates imploding bubbles that increase the force. The question is how the design of the mantis shrimp’s club-like feature doesn’t harm the shrimp. Dr Horacio Espinosa at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, has published a study explaining the mantis shrimp’s design.

Mantis shrimps have layers of mineral-hardened chitin arranged in bundles, with each layer rotated slightly with respect to the layers above and below. You might compare it to a stack of papers that have been twisted, creating a helix-like corkscrewing shape. This arrangement dissipates the strike’s energy and prevents shear waves from damaging the soft tissue of the shrimp.

Engineers are trying to copy this design to increase the toughness of airplane wings and wind turbine blades. They are sure to find more uses in future high-performance materials. We have previously highlighted the mantis shrimp’s design features, including its club, eyes, and visual system. The shrimp’s protective layer is one more example of a design scientists discovered in the natural world that can aid the design of objects beneficial to humans. God thought of these features first, and they are the product of intelligence – not mechanistic, opportunistic chance.

Reference: sciencenews.org

April 24, 2025April 22, 2025

Martian Surface Is Inhospitable for Life

As we have reported on this website, the Martian surface is inhospitable for life. New discoveries show that no life exists there now, and the chemistry of material reached by drilling into Mars’ surface does not show that life has ever existed on that planet.

The media suggest that life on Earth is not exceptional while the scientific data shows that our planet is the only place in the solar system where life can exist. Skeptics would like to find life beyond Earth because they feel it would show that God did not create and design Earth for the existence of humans. Unfortunately, the media often cherry-picks previous data while ignoring more recent findings.

In a USA Today article, Erik Lagatta reported that the Curiosity rover detected some strange spheres in the past. At that time the media claimed that biological processes could have produced these spheres. Further tests showed they were mineral deposits that had nothing to do with life. They were probably formed by groundwater circulating through rock pores.

NASA is interested in the rocks on Mars because they can tell us much about the planet’s geological history. Taking a fresh look at a previously collected sample, NASA scientists found fragments of fatty acids, the largest organic molecules so far discovered on Mars. However, fatty acids do not necessarily indicate life because they can be generated by chemical reactions related to geological processes.

The Martian surface is inhospitable for life, but as we have pointed out before, whether life exists elsewhere in the cosmos is not an issue for the biblical account of life on Earth. If there is life elsewhere, God created it. However, we will probably never know because the distances to other galaxies are so vast that we can never travel there to find out.

First Peter 3:15 tells us to be ready to “give an answer to anyone who asks about the hope that we have.” There is vast evidence for the existence of God, and it is essential to know why we believe what we believe so we can answer our children’s questions.

Reference: Eric Lagatta in USA Today, April 1, 2025

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April 23, 2025April 22, 2025

Hadley Cells and God’s Design

One of planet Earth’s many unique design features is the atmosphere’s circulation pattern, allowing advanced life to exist on our planet. This pattern was first noticed in 1735 when George Hadley was working with the motions of wind recorded by scientists. Realizing that wind currents were not just accidental, he originated the idea of what we call Hadley cells. We know today that the circulation of the atmosphere is much more critical and complex than anyone understood in Hadley’s day.

A feature designed into Earth’s weather pattern is how the insolation moves daily. Insolation is the amount of solar radiation that reaches the surface of a planet. Of the other planets in our solar system, only Mars has a tilt, which spreads the insolation from one latitude to the next, but Mars does not have enough atmosphere for this to be a significant factor. The other planets don’t change their tilt, so the Sun’s radiation is constantly over one latitude. The temperatures at that latitude climb very high, and everywhere else is unbelievably cold.

On Earth, the Sun’s energy gradually changes daily, moving to 20 degrees north or south latitude and striking at the Earth’s equator only two times a year. The Sun is over the equator at the equinoxes on about March 20 and September 22, and the day and night length is the same. Around June 21, the Sun is as far north as it gets, and around December 22, it reaches its southernmost point.

In the Hadley cells, air rises in tropical zones, where it drops its moisture as it cools. At 30 degrees latitude, the cooler air sinks and has very little moisture. Virtually all of Earth’s major deserts are around 30 degrees latitude north and south. In the western United States, we find the Mohave Desert, but the eastern U.S. does not have a desert even though it is at 30 degrees. Hurricanes and the Atlantic Ocean bring a large amount of water to states located at 30 degrees latitude in the eastern U.S. So many things make advanced life possible on this planet that trying to attribute all of them to chance requires far more faith than believing that God designed and created the weather on Earth so you and I can exist.

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 17, 2025April 17, 2025

Foster Care and Adoption

As the father of three children to whom I am not biologically related, I can appreciate the challenges faced by 369,000 children (2022 data) who find themselves separated from their biological parents. Some have said that the most significant pain a woman has is not the physical pain of giving birth but the psychological pain of raising a child to adulthood. Because of that, 62% of children removed from their homes and placed in foster care are removed because of neglect. Raising a child is difficult, and an overwhelming number of men in our culture are simply too weak to participate in raising a child. That number grows yearly, meaning that single moms raise more and more children.

The other problem involved in the lives of foster kids is that the average length of time a child remains in foster care is two years. Only 7% of foster kids spend five years or more in foster care and only 9% transition from foster care to adulthood. An interesting fact about foster kids is that virtually none of them are raised in homes where atheism dominates the foster parents. If you believe that this life is all you have, why would you give up any of it to raise a child who isn’t yours? I recently raised that point with an atheist couple. They responded that they had a dog, which was all the love they needed.

Jesus Christ had a lot to say about children. In Matthew 18:5, Christ says, “And whosoever gives welcome to one of these little ones receives me, but whosoever corrupts one of these little ones would be better off to have a millstone hung around his neck and be drowned in the sea.”

God has given every human being a way to serve and make their life count for good. Some men and women have the gift of giving children love and care. The biggest problem in foster care is that some people use it solely as a source of income, and the child simply moves from one source of neglect to another. One of my children was in foster care for six months, and the foster parents loved him so much that they asked to adopt him. The state officials did not feel it was in the child’s best interest to be in their care. However, when we came to pick up the baby for adoption, they asked if they could continue to have contact with the child.

It takes incredible strength for a woman who has given birth to a baby to turn that child over to someone else to raise. Many women cannot do it even if they know it is best for the child. As it turned out, this child had multiple congenital disabilities. We had a close relationship with the foster parents and built a house next door to them. Our adopted son lived for 50 years, and we were all blessed by the experience. That is what foster care should be. The details of this story are available in a booklet titled “Timothy, My Son and My Teacher.”