science Archives

November 9, 2021November 8, 2021

Role of Elephants in Desert Survival

There are many natural situations where, to a casual observer, an animal or plant appears to be a useless consumer of resources. As conservationists try to solicit funds to protect elephants, others say those animals have no useful function. Elephants consume vegetation which can cause hardships in periods of drought. However, as scientists study the role of elephants in desert survival, the need for these animals has become increasingly understood.

Savannah elephants live in eastern and southern Africa, with the highest densities in Botswana, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Zambia, and South Africa. In those regions, termites build huge mounds, and they bring a large number of elements and compounds to the surface as they dig. Eventually, the mounds flatten, creating depressions that fill with water during the rainy season. At that time, elephants come and dig up the nutrients they need as they wallow in the mud. They leave the area coated with soil which they carry away, leaving a deeper depression that eventually becomes a large water hole.

In addition to enlarging the water hole, the elephants deposit massive amounts of dung. The dung contains plant seeds that grow to become the start of vegetation around the water hole. That vegetation brings insects which, in turn, bring birds. Wading birds carry in fish eggs, bringing a wide variety of life to what was a desert. The oasis this process produces is critically essential to animal and plant life and humans.

The role of elephants in desert survival in Africa makes preserving them a key to the survival of all life in the region. Elephants have unique properties critical to the success of this system. Matriarch elephants remember where previous water holes were and lead their group back to dig and enlarge those holes, eventually making it an oasis. Some plants are correlated to bloom and provide seeds at the proper time for other forms of life. If the water hole dries up, some fish, amphibians, and reptiles can burrow into the soil and survive for up to five years, waiting for the next rain.

Earth’s design automatically produces all kinds of ecosystems, including deserts. God has designed life to adapt and exist, even in extreme environments, and the role of elephants in desert survival is a great example.

Reference: PBS network program on elephants, termites, and life in the dry African desert on November 5, 2021.

November 8, 2021November 7, 2021

Are We in a Matrix or Base Reality?

When speaking on evidence for the existence of God, John Clayton often begins by saying that first, you must believe that you exist. He says, “If you don’t believe that you exist, you have more problems than I want to deal with.” Some people today are suggesting that we do not exist in reality. The question we need to consider is, “Are we in a matrix or base reality?” Let’s examine what that means.

Philosophers have often contemplated the question of whether there is any reality. A philosophy professor I once learned from said that some of his associates begin their philosophy class by suggesting to their students that nothing is real, including the walls of the lecture hall. However, he pointed out that the professor always exits through the doorway at the end of the lecture. Are the walls real? Is anything real? Are we in a matrix or a base reality?

In 1999, there was a movie titled The Matrix in which people were made to believe that they lived in a surreal world where they could have superhuman powers and face life-threatening dangers while all the time being strapped to a chair with electrodes connected to their bodies. The idea must have found a sympathetic audience because it spawned three sequels, with a fourth scheduled for next month.

Now, some scientists are suggesting that we are in a simulation. According to one analysis, the chances that we are living in a “base reality” (meaning not a simulation) are about 50-50, with a slight edge to base reality. So people from scientists such as Neil deGrasse Tyson to entrepreneurs such as Elon Musk have suggested that we could be merely characters in a massive video game. To further that concept, we have quantum theory with its “spooky action at a distance” (Einstein’s quote), such as quantum entanglement and superposition.

In 1948, American mathematician Claude Shannon introduced the concept of the bit as a basic unit of information. Computers work with bits, which can have a value of either 0 or 1. By combining millions, billions, or trillions of bits, we can perform complex calculations and create sounds, images, or even videos. That is how modern cameras, televisions, telephones, and computers work. So the question is, “If the universe is a giant computer simulation, a matrix rather than base reality, how many bits would it take to create the simulation?”

Melvin Vopson, a physicist at the University of Portsmouth, England, estimated that the minimum number of bits of information in the visible universe could be around 10⁸⁰. (That is 10, followed by 80 zeros.) If you include dark matter, which we can’t see or detect, it could be ten-trillion times that number.

So, do we believe we are in a matrix or base reality? If we believe that this universe is a computer simulation and we are only a relatively few bits in that matrix, you would have to believe that an infinite intelligence wrote the code for the program. However, it seems to me that a more reasonable explanation is that we are living in a base reality created by an infinite intelligence. The most incomprehensible thing is that the omniscient Creator cares about each one of us. (Read Matthew 6:25-34.)

References: LiveScience.com and Inverse.com

November 5, 2021November 4, 2021

Architectural Abilities of Honeybees

One of the evidences of design in the natural world is honeycomb construction by bees. For many years, engineers have noted that the hexagon is the strongest geometric shape. In geology, we see six-sided columns of basalt produced under ideal conditions inside the Earth. Visible examples of that appear in areas worldwide, such as Devils Tower in Wyoming, where erosion has exposed those columns. Scientists using automated measurements of thousands of honeycomb cells discovered the extraordinary architectural abilities of honeybees.

Many years ago, biologists questioned how bees learned to construct their honeycombs with a six-sided geometry. That shape gives the most storage space with efficient use of building materials. Any other geometric shape would collapse under the weight of the honey. Since a mistake would be lethal, trial and error seems to be an unsatisfactory explanation. Therefore, the genetic makeup of bees must include instructions to build their honeycombs with hexagons.

New studies show the architectural abilities of honeybees to be even more impressive. That is because the structure of the honeycomb is even more complicated than fitting hexagons together. The problem is that not all of the hexagons in a honeycomb can be the same size. Worker bees require a small six-sided structure, but drones require larger cells. However, all of these have to be fitted together into a single sheet in the hive. Researchers have found that bees create intermediate size hexagons to transition from one size to the other.

Also, the bees have to merge combs that are constructed from different starting points. Then, to align them, the bees build special cells with 4, 5, or even 7 sides. The writers of the research report said, “Unlike automatons building perfectly replicated hexagons, these building irregularities showcase the active role that workers take in shaping their nest and the true architectural abilities of honeybees.”

Queen Mary University entomologist Lars Chittka commented, “The hexagonal grid structure of a honeycomb–constructed by a leaderless collective of hundreds of bees–lends itself to speculation that robotic, innate behavior must be at work. But a simple robot does not have such a level of adaptability and rate of error recovery.”

Building even a simple robot is a real challenge to modern-day scientists and engineers. Building the bee’s genetic structure to include the ability to adapt the honeycomb to different needs is incredibly complex. The design of the genetic code for the architectural abilities of honeybees is an excellent testimony to God’s handiwork. God is a creator-engineer giving bees the ability to build honeycombs to accommodate their needs.

References: Scientific American November 2021 (page 19), and the original scientific report published in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

November 4, 2021November 3, 2021

Anole Lizards Can Breathe Underwater

Researchers from the University of Toronto wanted to know how anole lizards could stay underwater for up to 18 minutes. To study them, the scientists went to Costa Rica and captured lizards in 32 species of the Anolis genus. They found that anole lizards can breathe underwater.

Their study showed that all species of anole lizards breathe air trapped around their snouts while submerged. The skin of these lizards is hydrophobic (water repellent) and traps a thin film of air between the water and the skin. Because of the lizard’s design, the trapped air ends up in a bubble over its nose. When the lizard inhales, the air bubble deflates. When the lizard exhales, the film traps the air around its nose until the anole breathes in again. You could say the lizard has a built-in “scuba-diving” system allowing it to breathe underwater.

This is another example of very specialized equipment built into living things allowing life to exist in challenging environments. The more we learn about the creation, the more we see specialized systems that enable planet Earth to support an incredible variety of life.

Anole lizards can breathe underwater, and the various species share this survival design. The researchers call it “macroevolutionary convergence.” We call it a shared body design for survival with a built-in design for knowing how to use it. Specialized equipment and behavior show evidence of intelligence in the design of the different varieties of life we see around us. As Romans 1:20 says, “We can know there is a God through the things He has made.”

Reference: American Scientist, November/December 2021, page 336. The scientific article is published in the journal Current Biology.

November 3, 2021November 2, 2021

Human Evolution from Lower Life Forms

According to new research, a majority of Americans accept human evolution from lower life forms. Researchers asked people whether they believed that “human beings as we know them today, developed from earlier species of animals.” The result was that 52% of the people questioned said yes, 36% said no, and 12% said they didn’t know.

The data also shows that only 34% of Republicans accepted human evolution as opposed to 83% of Democrats. The study’s authors say that “religious fundamentalism” is the primary factor obstructing belief in human evolution from lower life forms. They went on to qualify who is a religious fundamentalist by five criteria. They include whether a person believes in a personal God and accepts a literal reading of the Bible. It was also based on how often they attended religious services in a typical week and how frequently they prayed. Finally, the definition involved whether they agreed with this statement: “We depend too much on science and not enough on faith.” Obviously, this is broader than the typical definition of “fundamentalist.”

It would be interesting to see someone study how these numbers correlate with moral conduct, cases of abuse, and other social ills that are increasing in our culture. The survey supposedly used “a representative national sample,” but any study like this would likely have difficulty finding a truly representative sample. For example, data from the Bible Belt would be different from New England, and the nature of the people doing the sampling can skew the data.

As a majority of Americans accept human evolution from lower life forms, we see the educational programs and materials from DOES GOD EXIST? becoming increasingly important. With our culture becoming more polarized, extremists on both sides make progress increasingly difficult.

Reference: This study was reported by the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan. The journal Public Understanding of Science published the research.

November 2, 2021November 1, 2021

Ducklings Swimming in Single-File – It’s Because of Fluid Dynamics

We live on the riverbank, and many geese, ducks, and swans swim by our house daily. I have always been curious about why waterfowl tend to swim in a line each time I see ducklings swimming in single-file behind their mother. Researchers at the University of Strathclyde in the U.K. have applied a mathematical and numerical model to find an explanation.

For example, the swimming of the mother duck sets up an interference pattern reducing the wave-drag and propelling the trailing duckling forward as it surfs the wave. In this way, the lead duckling swims in the “sweet spot” behind its mother. With the rest of the ducklings swimming in single-file, the “wave-riding” benefit carries further. After the third duckling in line, a “delicate dynamic equilibrium” is reached in which each duckling acts as a “wave passer,” passing on wave energy to the next one behind without loss of energy.

The lead author of the study is Zhiming Yuan, and he gave the researcher’s description of this design by saying, “It’s so beautiful.” He thinks that there could be applications for maritime technology with shipping firms designing their vessels so they can travel like ducks in a row to reduce fuel consumption.

It seems that evolutionary natural selection would have terminated this arrangement. An eagle wanting a duck or goose meal would have little trouble picking off ducklings swimming in single-file behind their mother. If the birds were moving in random arrangement around their mother, it should be far more difficult to focus on and pick off one of them. Survival of the fittest doesn’t seem to apply to the behavior of the birds that use a single file approach to travel.

We see that this design is built into the DNA of these birds to provide conservation of energy which is critical to their survival. When you look anywhere in the natural world, you will see extraordinary design to allow living things to exist and thrive.

Reference: The Week, November 5, 2021 page 21. You can find the original scientific report HERE.

November 1, 2021October 31, 2021

The Overview Effect and What It Can Do

The International Space Station (ISS) has now been actively supporting humans in space for 21 years. Since November 2, 2000, people have continuously resided in that small laboratory looking down on the rest of us, watching sunrises and sunsets sixteen times a day from a different perspective. The experience can be a reminder of how small we are. Astronauts have described a feeling that has been called “the overview effect.”

The overview effect is a change in perspective that many people experience when looking down on Earth from space. We are accustomed to seeing a limited view of our surroundings. However, when a person’s horizon opens to see the circle of the Earth (Isaiah 40:22) hanging on nothing (Job 26:7) surrounded by an extremely thin and fragile atmospheric layer (Job 26:10), the experience can be mind-changing if not life-changing.

The ISS orbits a little over 200 miles (322 km) above Earth’s surface. The Kármán Line at 100 km (62 miles) is the internationally-recognized boundary of space. Recently, commercial space companies have taken private individuals beyond that boundary to view Earth from space and briefly experience microgravity described as weightlessness. Perhaps the most notable was 90-year-old actor William Shatner who played Captain Kirk on the TV series Star Trek. In a tweet he wrote before the flight, he described himself as “a boy playing on the seashore…whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.”

Shatner’s reaction after he returned to Earth’s surface is very interesting. He shed emotional tears, and here is some of what he said:

“I’m so filled with emotion about what just happened. It’s extraordinary, extraordinary. It’s so much larger than me and life… It has to do with the enormity and the quickness and the suddenness of life and death… To see the blue color whip by you, and now you’re staring into backness…everybody in the world needs to do this. Everybody in the world needs to see this.”

I think Shatner is correct that it would be beneficial for each of us to see Earth from that perspective just once in our lifetime. The overview effect could change our attitude toward many things, including life and death. In addition, it would help us realize just how small we are and how amazing it is that God cares about us. (See Matthew 6:25-34.)

October 29, 2021October 28, 2021

What the Brain Allows Us to Do

Of all of the parts of your body that radiate design and complex structure, the brain is probably the most amazing. When we compare what the brain allows us to do and human efforts to build a computer to duplicate those things, we realize the incredible nature of the brain’s creation. No computer can do everything your brain does and probably never will.

A big question in understanding the brain is what controls intelligence. For example, a blue whale has a giant brain, almost five times as big as ours, but there is no evidence that they have superior intelligence. However, brain size is a factor in how much energy it uses. Our brain is about 2% of our body weight, but it consumes 20% of our energy.

Studies have shown large variations in brain size within the bird family. For example, ravens have bigger brains than the much larger ostriches, and they also demonstrate greater intelligence. On the other hand, some fish have tiny brains. For instance, bony-eared assfish have the smallest brain-to-body mass ratio of any vertebrate, but they require only a few simple functions to survive in their deep ocean environment.

Research has shown that different parts of animal brains are different sizes depending on the animal’s needs. For example, owls have a more extensive section of their brains related to sight than other birds that don’t hunt at night. Crows and parrots have the largest brain size compared to the bodyweight of all birds. They are also considered to be the most intelligent of all birds. It is quite clear, however, that brain size is not a primary factor in intelligence. On average, male human brains are larger than female brains, and no one would suggest that males are more intelligent.

The bottom line is that brains are tailor-made to fit what the individual needs to survive. Also, the critical factor isn’t the size of the brain but the size of the brain section the animal requires for survival. In humans, the ability to create art and music does not seem to be related to the brain. Mentally challenged humans frequently create marvelous works of art and compose beautiful music. The human capacity to worship and to believe there is more to existence than this life do not seem to be related to any brain response.

What the brain allows us to do is an incredible demonstration of God’s wisdom and design. However, it is not our brains but our spiritual make-up that makes humans different from other living things. We are created in the image of God, allowing us to do things and understand things that are beyond all other life on Earth.

Reference: American Scientist, November/December 2021 pages 352-359.

October 27, 2021October 26, 2021

Check the Credentials of Online Teachers

It is essential to check the credentials of online teachers in science or religion. Some people can lead you astray with false teaching in areas they don’t really understand.

We have pointed out many times that there is a difference between factual evolution and various theories of evolution. Many evolution theories have to do with humans evolving from lower life forms. However, the facts of evolution are what drive modern agriculture. Scientists have developed cattle that grow faster, get bigger, and have less fat. They have developed new strains of corn with higher protein content. We have a vast variety of roses that growers have developed. Evolution is change over time, and it can be natural or human-caused. For example, we all know today that viruses can mutate naturally as well as by human manipulation.

Some have quoted Sir Johnson Anane of Ghana as a source of proof that evolution is not true. However, when referring to evolution, Johnson Anane makes no distinction in what he means. Furthermore, he claims that the teaching of evolutionary theory has been banned in five states in the United States (which isn’t true). Recently, he filed an unsuccessful lawsuit with the Supreme Court of Ghana to ban the teaching of evolution in the public schools of that country.

When we say to check the credentials of online teachers, that applies to Anane. He claims to be a college professor but is actually an assistant lecturer at Sunyani Technical University with a bachelor of science degree in wood technology and management. He also teaches that the Earth is flat, doesn’t move in space, doesn’t rotate on its axis, and is not a planet.

Johnson Anane is not the only false teacher getting attention from people writing in religious journals. Before you buy into any claim, check the person making the statement. Just as it is easy to find false teachings on the internet, the internet also makes it easy to check the credentials of online teachers. The Bible tells us, “Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God because many false prophets have gone out into the world.” (1 John 4:1)

References: You can find many references to Johnson Anane on the web.

October 25, 2021October 24, 2021

Truth Does Not Grow Old

Truth Does Not Grow Old – by Thayer Salisbury
It has been over 120 years since Spurgeon put these words in print, but they are as true and relevant as this morning’s newspaper. In fact, there may be more truth in this one paragraph than in many full broadsheet newspapers (to say nothing of the tabloids).

“Fontenelle used to say that, if he could only get six philosophers to write in its favour, people could be made to believe that the sun is not the source of light and heat; and I think there is a great deal of truth in the remark. We are told, ‘Well, he is a very learned man, he is a Fellow of Brazenface College, and he has written a book in which he upsets the old dogmas.’ If a learned man writes any nonsense, of course it will have a run, and there is no opinion so insane but, if it has the patronage of so-called scientific men, it will be believed in certain quarters.” –Charles Spurgeon

A whippersnapper told me the other day that a well-established and proven fact could not be true because “that is what people believed in the 1980s.” He offered no evidence that the fact was not a fact. He simply denied it on the basis of its age.

I suppose that fellow does not believe in gravity because it was described and explained in the 1600s. And he must refuse to ride in a car because cars use wheels, and somebody invented the wheel longer ago than anyone can document.

Truth does not grow old. A fact is a fact, even if we do not like it and even if it has been around for centuries. Sadly, falsehood just needs a well-known sponsor or two, and it spreads like wildfire. Stupidity only needs a few to shout it in the popular media, and masses will rush to accept it.

Thayer Salisbury © 2021

We want to thank Thayer Salisbury for allowing us to share this thought with you. Today, many say that faith in God is an old idea, but the new truth is that science explains everything. However, science does not explain the origin of the universe from nothing or the origin of life from non-living matter. “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse (Romans 1:20). Truth does not grow old.

Reference: https://archive.spurgeon.org/misc/aarm05.php