John N Clayton Archives

July 8, 2024July 7, 2024

Just Right for Life to Exist

Since astronomers have discovered more than 5,000 exoplanets orbiting stars other than our Sun, many insist there must be life elsewhere in the cosmos. For those of us who believe in God, that isn’t really an issue. If there is life out there, God created it, but the Bible only speaks to our planet. However, the evidence is growing that our planet is more unique than most people realize. A “Goldilocks” planet is at the proper distance from its star so that the temperature is “just right” for liquid water to exist on the surface. Some exoplanets appear to be in the habitable zones of their stars, but many other factors must also be just right for life to exist there.

Most known exoplanets are like Jupiter, having no terrestrial surface. To support life, a planet must be the right size, have a stable orbit inside the habitable zone of a stable star, and have the right atmosphere. It must also have working plate tectonics and a large moon to maintain a stable axis tilt. To be just right for life to exist, a planet must also be in the habitable zone of its galaxy – not near the center, exposing it to lethal gamma-ray bursts.

Our Sun is a G spectral star, but only 9% of the stars in our galaxy are that type. M-class dwarf stars are the most common and long-lived stars, but they emit large amounts of radiation that would cook any life on their planets. Also, planets around such a star would become tidal-locked, with one side facing the star being excessively hot while the other remains cold.

Another star system requirement for life would be having outer planets large enough and in the correct position to sweep away asteroids and comets that would bombard an inner planet. To support life, a planet also needs a strong magnetic field to shield the surface from the star’s radiation and cosmic rays.

Our Earth is just right for life to exist. We are defining life as the biology books do: being able to move, breathe, respond to outside stimuli, and reproduce. Any conjecture about fire people or rock people is in science fiction – not scientific fact. The bottom line is that Earth is a special place created by God for a special purpose and is unique among all other objects in the cosmos.

Reference: “Is Earth the Only Goldilocks Panet?” in Discover magazine, July/August 2024, pages 54 -57.

July 5, 2024July 2, 2024

Displaying the Ten Commandments in Schools

A strange collection of special interest groups has challenged a Louisiana law that requires displaying the Ten Commandments in schools. Atheist groups would be expected, and they include Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the Freedom From Religion Foundation. More surprising is that Jewish families have joined in the lawsuit.

The Jewish parents against the new law maintain that it is based on Christianity. The law specifies the required text of the Ten Commandments. They say that in the Jewish version, the first commandment contains a section about God bringing the Israelites out of Egypt. There is also a Jewish complaint that the law’s spelling of the word “God” should be “G-D,” leaving out the “o” to avoid taking the name in vain. Also, Protestants and Catholics number the commandments differently.

Similar laws calling for displaying the Ten Commandments in schools are proposed in Texas, Utah, and Oklahoma. The complaints raised by parents on all sides of the issue show a failure to do what Jesus told His followers to do. In Matthew 22:21, Jesus said, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.” Public education aims to develop secular skills in our young people. That is the work of the state (Caesar). The religious teaching of children is the responsibility God gave to parents.

The real issue here is that people who claim to be Christians want someone else to provide their children’s religious education rather than doing what God told parents to do. The suit argues that the law violates the First Amendment, which prohibits the state from “respecting an establishment of religion” because it specifies a religious text for displaying the Ten Commandments in Schools.

Reference: JTA for June 25, 2024, by Jackie Hajdenberg.

July 4, 2024July 2, 2024

Corn Growing in America

God has blessed us with many different plants for food. In Genesis 3:17-19 we read, “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil, you will eat food from it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow, you will eat your food until you return to the ground since from it you were taken; for dust you are, and to dust you will return.” If you have ever had a large garden or a farm, you know how true these words are. Plants provide food and essential materials for people worldwide, and corn growing is dominant in the United States.

One bushel of corn requires 50 to 60 plants, yielding 91 ears. That boils down to 80,000 kernels, which will produce corn syrup for 400 cans of soda or 2.8 gallons of ethanol. In the United States, farmers use 90 million acres to grow corn, and 40% of it is used to make ethanol. Corn is also used to make sweeteners, starches, oils, medicines, cosmetics, bioplastics, crayons, toothpaste, and salad dressings.

Corn growing is a major farming activity in Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, and neighboring states. The history of corn cultivation is fascinating. A wild grass called teosinte produced small ears of a material called maize. Through selective breeding, Mexican farmers produced some 250 kinds of corn. Modern agricultural science has continued to produce larger ears with greater nutritional content. Corn, as we know it, was not available to the ancient Hebrews, but other grains were.

Today, many are rightfully concerned about the increasing conversion of grasslands into cornfields. Corn cultivation, with its substantial water requirements and potential impact on climate and water pollution, raises important environmental issues. As stewards of God’s creation, we are entrusted with the responsibility to ‘take care of the garden’ (Genesis 2:15). We possess the tools and resources to fulfill this duty and must use them wisely, ensuring that we are good stewards of God’s gifts.

Reference: worldwildlife.org

July 3, 2024July 2, 2024

Firefly Frequencies at Work

There are 56 species of flying lightning bugs, or fireflies, and each emits light of a different frequency. The different firefly frequencies cause different colors, such as green, yellow, or red, but science has found that the frequencies are far more precise than the color. The fact that each species has a particular wavelength allows fireflies to find mates, even in an area where other life forms use bioluminescence.

Fireflies have four stages. They begin as eggs but spend most of their 61-day existence as larvae, eating snails, slugs, and worms. They have a pupa stage just before becoming adults. Bioluminescence serves mainly as a way for males and females to find each other, and having the right frequency is essential in that process. Research is continuing on how the frequencies are specified, but 56 species means that the frequency variation has to be carefully created and controlled.

Most living things have methods of communication that serve multiple purposes. Communication allowing males and females to find each other is always risky because it exposes them to predators. Because fireflies’ flashing is sporadic and not a steady glow, they are less likely to be eaten. If you have tried to catch these flying lightning bugs, you know how hard it is because they flash and run, making them hard to locate.

We can learn many things by studying the natrual world, including the chemistry that allows various firefly frequencies of bioluminescence. In the firefly we see another demonstration of God’s wisdom and intelligence.

Reference: PBS “Nature” program on May 16, 2024.

July 1, 2024June 29, 2024

One of the Natural World’s Most Amazing Things

The hummingbird is one of the natural world’s most amazing things. Researchers have compiled new hummingbird data using modern methods, including high-speed photography. An adult hummingbird weighs roughly 4 grams, and to get a handle on that, a penny weighs about 2.5 grams. There are 21 species of hummingbirds in North America, and one species, called the bee hummingbird, weighs less than a penny.

Hummingbirds don’t beat their wings as most birds do; instead, they rotate them in a figure-eight pattern. That allows them to hover and fly backward or even upside down. The rate of wing motion is up to 80 cycles per second. That is within the range of human hearing and explains the humming sound that gives these birds their name. The metabolic rates of hummingbirds are amazing, as their heart rate is around 1,260 beats, and their breathing rate is 250 breaths per minute. These rapid rates mean hummingbirds may find a place to rest as often as every 15 minutes.

One of the natural world’s most amazing things is that hummingbirds can travel non-stop across the Gulf of Mexico in spring and autumn. Before embarking on that trip, they double their body weight with nectar and insects. When the temperature is low, they go into hypothermic torpor to survive.

The hummingbird’s eyes have a dense concentration of cones in their retinas containing pigments that act as filters to heighten color sensitivity to red while muting blue. Pollination is a major purpose of hummingbirds. Ruby-throated hummingbirds deposit ten times as much pollen as bumblebees, and their life expectancy is 3 to 6 years.

It is with great joy that I watch hummingbirds come to the feeder outside my office window. Their various characteristics speak of the wonder of God’s creation, defying chance explanation. Once again, we “can know there is a God through the things He has made” (Romans 1:20). The hummingbird is one of the natural world’s most amazing things.

Reference: “Fascinating Hummingbird Facts” by Tom Warren on Almanac.com

June 28, 2024June 25, 2024

Entropy and Disorder in the Universe

The second law of thermodynamics can be stated in many ways. The usual physics statement is that heat cannot move from a lower-temperature reservoir to a higher-temperature reservoir. With any action involving matter, there is always a loss of energy to a state from which it can not be recovered. Actions involve a loss of energy, and we call that entropy.

Heat will move from a warmer area to an area with less heat until the two areas have equal temperatures. Molecules pass from a region of high concentration to a low concentration area until they are equal. A simple illustration is if you spray perfume from a bottle into the air, you will eventually smell it everywhere, but you can’t get it back into the bottle because it will have diffused into the atmosphere.

So, what is the big deal about the second law? Energy drives the cosmos. Stars, galaxies, planets, and objects in space all use energy and are thus subject to the second law of thermodynamics. The first law of thermodynamics says that energy cannot be created or destroyed. The second law tells us that energy is becoming disordered. That means the total amount of energy available for work in the cosmos is decreasing and will end up at zero. The cosmos will eventually experience complete entropy, which scientists call heat death.

The Bible makes it clear that there was a beginning to the creation. (See Genesis 1:1.) Atheists tried to maintain that the cosmos has always existed and oscillates throughout time. There is no evidence to support that. We now know that the expansion of the cosmos is accelerating, so oscillation is impossible. The second law implies that there had to be a beginning to the cosmos when there was perfect order, and no entropy existed. Skeptics continue to try to find a weakness in the biblical account of creation, but all the evidence indicates that there was a beginning.

Even the profound discoveries of quantum mechanics, a branch of physics that deals with the behavior of particles at the smallest scales, have not disproven the second law. In fact, they have revealed that time itself had a beginning, a concept that aligns with biblical passages like Proverbs 8, which refer to God’s wisdom and power. The creation, as it is, speaks of the fact that “we can know there is a God through the things He has made (Romans 1:20).

Reference: “Disorder Reigns” by Tom Siegfried in the June 15, 2024, issue of Science News. The article gives the history of the second law of thermodynamics” citing the work of great past scientists like Lord Kelvin, Rudolf Clausius, and Sadi Carnot.

June 27, 2024June 24, 2024

Brown Bats and Tiger Beetles

One of the challenges in the natural world is keeping a balance between predators and victims. If predators have a foolproof method of locating their prey, they will eventually wipe out their food population, and the predators will die. That means victims must have some method of avoiding predation. Harlan Gough, a conservation entomologist at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, has done some amazing experiments with brown bats and tiger beetles.

When Gough placed brown bats and tiger beetles into a cage together, the bats ate all of the tiger beetles. In the wild, this doesn’t happen because tiger beetles have a way of mimicking an insect known as a tiger moth. Tiger moths live in the same areas as tiger beetles, but bats don’t eat them because they have a foul taste. Dr. Gough found that tiger beetles can emit the same clicks as tiger moths when they sense predatory bats. They pull their forewings into the path of their beating hind wings, creating a high-pitched click similar to the tiger moth’s sound.

In the natural world, all living things have one or more methods to avoid predators. It may be smell or sight, but this may be the first case of using sound to deter predation. Realize that all of this happens at night when ultrasonics are more useful than sight and smell. No prey survival methods are 100% sure, so predators can still survive, especially when the food source is injured or sick.

We suggest that this case of brown bats and tiger beetles is another instance where there are too many variables to assign to chance. Having tiger moths with bad taste living in the same Arizona desert with tiger beetles seems more likely to be a planned and designed system than a series of accidents. The statement in Romans 1:20 that “we can know there is a God through the things He has made” seems to be supported again as we learn more about the functioning of the natural world.

Reference: Science News, June 15, 2024, page 11.

June 26, 2024June 24, 2024

Astrolabe Shows Human Cooperation

The astrolabe, an astronomical instrument of ancient times, is a testament to human ingenuity and cooperation. It is a two-dimensional map of the universe, typically crafted from plates. Astrolabes, with their star charts and analog calculation capabilities, were not just tools but gateways to understanding the cosmos. In mosques, they were used to calculate the time of sunset or sunrise, thus the time of prayer. People also used them to calculate distances, the position of stars, and the location of latitudes and longitudes. With its intricate design and multifaceted functionality, the astrolabe shows human cooperation.

Federica Gigante, a historian at the University of Cambridge, found the plates of an eleventh-century astrolabe in the vaults of the Museum of the Miniscalchi-Erizzo Foundation in Verona, Italy. The astrolabe she discovered was made of brass and had Arabic engravings. It had a second plate, which meant it had been taken to a different latitude than its Spanish place of origin.

What is interesting about this astrolabe is that it also has Hebrew letters engraved on the plates, indicating their use by Jewish owners, and it was in the archives of a Christian museum. This astrolabe shows human cooperation. It means there was an era in which Muslims, Jews, and Christians built upon one another’s intellectual achievements. All cultures had people with incredible minds who contributed to human knowledge of what the cosmos is about and how we can observe it.

In our day of religious wars between these same groups, it is incredible that humans don’t have the sense to realize the importance of understanding each other and working together to discover Truth. Jesus gave a great answer to this conflict in John 14 when He said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father but by me… If you love me, keep my commandments… even the Spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive because it has not seen Him and does not know Him, for He dwells in you and shall be in you.” Think of the progress the world could make if we could work together and follow the commandments of Jesus given so clearly in Matthew 5:21-25 and 38-48.

Reference: Verona astrolabe on wikipedia.org

June 25, 2024June 24, 2024

Surviving the Heat

We are bracing for the hottest summer on record globally. Humans have interesting ways of surviving the heat, although people do die from it. In the wild, we see ways that animals are designed to withstand heat, drought, and water issues. Here are a few examples:

SAUDI ARABIAN GAZELLES. When the temperature increases, the heart and liver of these animals shrink, and breathing slows, reducing the water lost with each breath.

STORKS and some other birds cool down through urohidrosis. The stork urinates on its scaly legs, and evaporation enables it to lower its body temperature in high heat conditions.

NAMIB LIZARDS AND BEETLES climb a dune to get high enough to be in the early morning fog. The beetle will do a handstand, sending moisture down its back and into its mouth. The lizards simply open their mouths and gulp in the mist. In both cases, they cool their bodies while obtaining water.

JESUS LIZARDS get their name because they walk on water. To accomplish this, they have long toes on their rear feet with fringes of skin that unfurl in the water, increasing their surface area. They slap their splayed feet hard against the water as they rapidly move their legs, creating tiny air pockets to keep them from sinking. This not only lets them escape predation, but it also cools the lizard as the water evaporates from their legs and feet.

We are all familiar with dogs and other animals panting to cool themselves. The point is that animals, and even plants, have methods for surviving the heat. Humans sweat to cool our bodies by evaporation. Humans are also the only ones with the ability to change our environment. We need to learn from the animal life God created and adjust how we live and what we do to protect our climate.

Reference: Natural History magazine November 2007.

June 24, 2024June 23, 2024

Solomon and Gezer

Those who wish to reject the Bible as historically inaccurate are challenged by the growing amount of supporting evidence from the sciences, including archaeology. Some of the archeological discoveries involve Solomon and Gezer.

In 1 Kings 9:15-19, we read about the Egyptian pharaoh attacking and capturing Gezer and setting it on fire. The pharaoh then gave Gezer as a wedding gift to his daughter, Solomon’s wife, and the Bible says that Solomon rebuilt Gezer. In the last ten years, an excavation project at Gezer revealed that it was a well-fortified city with a massive six-chambered gate, a casemate wall, and a large administrative building.

The summer 2024 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review (Volume 50 #2) has an interesting article titled “Solomon’s Powerplay.” The article confirms the story of Solomon and Gezer as we see it in the Bible. It includes numerous pictures and a discussion of Gezer’s history.

Biblical minimalists try to discard these findings, but we deal with evidence in the “Does God Exist?” program. The rate at which discoveries are being made in all scientific disciplines makes it increasingly difficult to be a skeptic of the Bible. Taking the Bible literally means looking at who wrote the section you are reading, why they wrote it, who they wrote it to, and how the people it was written to would have understood it. When you do that, it is easy to see that the Bible is not just a bunch of human myths and fairy tales but is, in fact, the Word of God.

Our newest video series, “Beyond Reasonable Doubt,” explores the archaeological support for the integrity of the Bible. You can view it free online at this LINK. We are in the process of adding four more sessions to that series, but new archaeological discoveries will already need to be added to this wealth of material.