Transcript Unexplained Biological Mysteries

Unexplained Mysteries
1
Leap of Faith
 Spontaneous generation - that life arose
from non-living things, intelligence from
non-intelligence
? Is it reasonable to ask that one believes this
can happen, and to take it as a scientific fact,
without scientific proof?
 Spontaneous generation occurred only once in
the history of the universe
? Why only once in all these billions of years?
2
Leap of Faith
 Natural selection ensures survival of
a species - God’s law for preservation
? But never has natural selection been
observed where one species evolved into
another. Why?
 The link between man and apes still missing
? Why still missing after all these years?
Looks like it never existed in the first place?
 Requires
3
more faith than believing in the
Creation account!
im-Probabilities
4
Appreciating Orders of Probability
#
3
10
20
100
Probability for Coins Probability for Dice
8
216
103
6 x 107
106
4 x 1015
1030
7 x 1077
Order of Probability
1050
10110
10260
5
# of Coins
167
366
865
# of Dice
65
142
335
Appreciation of Large Numbers
 Distance across the universe in
centimetres: 1026
 Weight of the universe in tons: 1049
 Number of grains of dust in the
Milky Way: 1053
 Number of protons, neutrons and electrons
in the whole universe: 1080
Yet, above numbers are small when compared
with probabilities in evolution!
6
The Lower Limits
Borel’s Basic Law of Chance, Corollary 3:
“Any cosmic event whose probability
of occurrence is less than 1 chance in
1050 can never happen, regardless of
the time allowed for the event to take place
or the number of opportunities for the event to
take place.” (Emile Borel, “Probabilities and Life”,
1962)
7
Hence, lower limit of probability for events to
be possible is 1 in 1050
The Lower Limits
Astrophysics Particle-Event Law
Maximum number of microscopic
particles within the universe is 1080
Universe is no older than 30 billion years old
Hence, maximum total of trials that could possibly
occur in the history of the universe is 10110
Any event whose probability of occurrence is less
than 1 chance in 10110 cannot occur in the
universe.
8
(Henry Morris, Impact No. 73, 1979)
Chance of Spontaneous Generation
 Probability of a single living cell arising
spontaneously (abiogenesis) calculated over and
over again by scientists
 Unable to come up with a probability
which falls above Borel's limit!
 Sir Fred Hoyle, astronomer and physicist,
calculated this to be 1 in 1040,000, far
smaller than the lower limits of probable events
 Recent computation puts this at 1 in 101,000 - still
9
significantly below Borel’s limit
Chance of Spontaneous Generation
Hence, the supposed spontaneous origin of
life is an impossibility!
Probability considerations played
a large role in changing
Hoyle’s belief from a purely
evolutionary origin of life to
believing in a Creator.
10
(Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe,
“Evolution from Space”, 1981)
Probability of Protein Synthesis
 Computed by Francis Crick, a non-creationist
who shared the Nobel Prize in 1962 with James
Watson and Maurice Wilkins for their discovery
of the molecular structure of the DNA
(“Life Itself, its origin and nature”, 1981)
 Consider a protein with 200 amino acids (less
than what the average protein has)
11

Molecular construction of a cell require amino acids
to be strung in correct order

Normally a complicated biochemical process, using
instructions from the RNA - not a random process!
Probability of Protein Synthesis
 Probability that the correct order of amino
acids is formed is 1 in 10260 - again below
the Borel limit

Estimated number of fundamental
particles in the entire Universe is only 1080!
 Probability would be much worse for longer
proteins
12
 Consider for the many possible proteins - can
a particular amino acid sequence be selected
by chance? Impossible
The Wonders of
the Human Body
13
Embryonic Recapitulation
 Ernst Heinrich Haeckel’s theory (1834-1919)

A German biologist and philosopher

Dubbed “the apostle of Darwinism in Germany”

Self-taught knowledge in embryology
 Claimed that successive stages of individual
embryonic development repeat the evolutionary
stages of one’s animal ancestry

14
Claimed human embryo shows that man descended
from the fish, the reptile, and the monkey
Vestiges of Human Ancestors
Human Ancestry
“Gill Slits”
“Yolk Sac”
“Tail”
15
Now a Defunct Theory
 “It is now firmly established that
ontogeny does not repeat phylogeny”
(George Gaylord Simpson, famed Harvard
evolutionist, An Introduction to Biology, 1957)
 None are vestigial; all have functional purposes



16
“Yolk-sac” – blood forming sac supplying first
blood before formation of bone marrow
“Gill slits” – throat pouches that develop into lower
jaw, tongue, thymus gland, middle ear, etc
“Tail (coccyx)” – muscle attachment for upright
posture
Vestiges of Defunct Theory
 Darwin said that embryological evidence
was “second to none in importance”
 Once termed “the fundamental biogenetic
law”
 Hence, still quite frequently used and
quoted as “proof” of the accuracy of the
theory of evolution in modern writings (eg
Isaac Asimov, The Genesis War, 1981)
17
 But, not only rejected by evolutionists, also
turned out this was . . . . . .
. . . . nothing but a bad hoax
 Haeckel had passion for promoting the
recapitulation theory
 Faked some of his evidence
18

Altered his illustrations of embryos

Printed the same plate of an embryo three times,
and labeled one a human, the second a dog and
the third a rabbit “to show their similarity”

Went so far as to alter pictures of embryos drawn
by others
A Bad Hoax
 Exposed by professor L. Rutimeyer of Basle
University.
 Charged with fraud by five professors, and
ultimately convicted in a university court
 During trial, Haeckel admitted that
he had altered his drawings, but
interesting what he said in his own
defence:
19
A Bad Hoax
“I should feel utterly condemned and
annihilated by the admission, were it not that
hundreds of the best observers and biologists
lie under the same charge. The great majority
of all morphological, anatomical, histological,
and embryological diagrams are not true to
nature, but are
more or less
doctored,
schematized and
reconstructed.”
20
Common Sense Test
The “image of God” contains several
features of awesome beauty and highly
sophisticated and ingenious design.
 Can a thing of beauty result from disorder?
 Can these evolve – naturally – from the lower
life forms?
 Can these just happen?
21
Above violates not just the common sense test
but against scientific observations in nature –
2nd law of thermodynamics
DNA
 Huge amount of information contained
in human DNA

Instructions for building the material of life

DNA in genes from one human cell contains a
billion bio-chemical steps

If all DNA in a human were placed end-to-end it
would reach the sun and back 400 times
 Highly complex - molecules can unite in
102,400,000,000 ways
22
 Ingenious algorithm to compress all that
information
The Human Genome
Human Genome Project
 15 year international project since
1990 to map the “letters” (molecular
structure) of the human genetic code in the
DNA in the 23 pairs of human chromosomes

Race between US government led project and
privately funded project
 Important applications in the field of genetics
and medicine
23

But also possible abuses
The Human Genome
 3.4 billion “letters” in ~80,000 genes in the
human genome to be decoded

Identifying all the letters in the genome very near
completion (Time, April 17, 2000)
 Only Chromosome 22 has
been fully decoded by Dec 99
– first to be deciphered
because of its small size
 Expect another 50 years before can fully decode all the chromosomes of the genome
24
Chromosome 22
 Close to 700 genes with 200-300
additional ones likely to be identified
 Gene size vary from 1,000 to 583,000 bases of
DNA – average 190,000
 34 million letters in the DNA sequence in this!
 Yet 11 gaps could not be deciphered because of
limitations in current technology!
25
 A number of unexpected findings including
even more complexity with repeat sequences of
DNA
Im-Probability of Evolution
 Laws of mathematical probability rule out
that the DNA, or the gene, or the human
chromosome, or the human genome can
possibly evolve randomly
 Neither can such complex ingenious design
simply “happen”
26
Cells
 Human body has 100 trillion cells

All the cells in the human body lined up
side-by-side would encircle the earth 200 times.
 Each cell contains enough information to fill
10 million volumes.
27
 Probability of a single bacteria evolving
calculated by Yale physicist Harold Morowitz
to be 1 in 10100,000,000,000! Yet another
impossibility! Let alone the different types
of sophisticated human cells.
The Eye
 The human eye can handle 1.5 million
simultaneous messages.
 In a day, the eye moves 100,000 times

The body would have to walk 50 miles to
exercise the leg muscles at an equal amount.
 137 million nerve endings
pick up every message the eye
sends to the brain.
28
The Eye
“To suppose that the eye with all its
inimitable contrivances for adjusting the
focus to different distances, for admitting
different amounts of light, and for the
correction of spherical and chromatic
aberration, could have been formed by natural
selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in
the highest sense.”
29
(Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species)
The Heart
 The human heart beats about
40 million times a year
 In a lifetime, the heart will pump 600,000
metric tons of blood
 All veins, arteries and capillaries lined endto-end would travel 80,000 miles.
 The entire circulatory system can be
serviced in 20 seconds
30
The Brain
 The brain has 10 billion circuits,
each one being 5-10 times more complex
than any computer ever built
 Has a memory of 1021 bits with information
capacity of nearly 20 million books

31
A machine matching the human brain in memory
capacity would consume enough electrical energy
at the rate of 1 billion watts – it would cost $10
billion and fill the Empire State Building.
 Science cannot explain consciousness in the
brain
Probability of Man’s Evolution
 Probability for the evolution of man
calculated by Carl Sagan to be
1 in 102,000,000,000
 Mathematics clearly stand against the
“fact” of spontaneous generation and the
evolution of higher life forms
So why does atheism still persist?
32
An im-Probability
“The more statistically improbable a thing is,
the less we can believe that it just happened
by blind chance. Superficially, the obvious
alternative to chance is an intelligent
Designer.” (Richard Dawkins, Professor
of Zoology, Oxford University, atheist)
That paradigm issue, again
33
More Unexplained
Mysteries
34
The Bombardier Beetle
 Drives away enemies by squirting
very hot (higher than 100o C)
liquid with very bad smell
35

Body contains hydrogen peroxide dissolved in
water, and hydroquinine

Adds inhibitor to prevent reaction inside body

When faced by its enemy, chemicals are mixed in
a combustion chamber

Adds catalysts to start reaction and produce
quinine - bad smell - and heat

Then it opens its valve and squirts at the enemy
The Bombardier Beetle
 How in the evolution path did the B/Beetle
know what chemical is needed as the inhibitor
and what as the catalyst? Cannot be by trial
and error
 Cannot be explained by Darwinism
 Many other species that have unique
capabilities - all cannot be accounted
for by Darwinism
36
?
The Archer Fish
 Feeds on bugs by aiming
and spitting at them from under the water
 Able to spit with great accuracy
 Problem: from under the water, light is
refracted (bent)
 How did this fish evolve its senses to be so
skillful to compensate for the refraction? No room for trial and error to evolve!
37
Other Unique Creatures
 The giraffe

Long neck presents special difficulties for
heart to keep right blood pressure to the brain
- especially when the giraffe lowers its neck
 The bat

How did this blind creature come to
possess its highly accurate sonic radar?
 Others


38

The kangaroo’s reproductive system
Migratory patterns of birds and other animals
Cooling system of the gazelle
Symbiosis
 Greek word meaning “life together”
 “Any mutually beneficial association between
two or more dissimilar organisms”
39
 Example:
The sea anemone protects the
clown fish which is protected
from its sting. The clown fish
attracts predators to the
anemone which stings them
and feeds on them.
Symbiosis
More Examples
 The mimosa girdler (a beetle) and
the mimosa tree

The insect prunes the tree branches and
allows it to scatter its eggs while the
pruning enables the tree to live to 40-50 years
 The Large Blue Butterfly and the Red Ants

40
The ants feed the caterpillar with their
larvae while milking it of a sweet fluid without the larvae the caterpillar
remains a caterpillar!
Symbiosis
 Even more examples:

The honeypod ants and aphids

Figs and wasps

Devilfish and Portuguese man-of-war

Leave bug ad bacteria

Cleaning symbioses to keep free of parasites
and fungi
 Darwinism would have required both
species to evolve in tandem. But if
evolution in random, how can this happen?
41
The Atheist’s Blind Spot
42
The Atheist Response
Darwinism defies logic and reason
 Yet, in spite of recent findings invalidating
Darwinism, the atheist paradigm continues
to be stubbornly held
 One possible rationalisation may be the
“Barrow & Tipler” type of response:


43
“So what? That’s just how things happen to be.
No need for surprises. No need to explain.”
That’s how the river flows
The Atheist Blind Spot
But we need to be amazed:
 Cannot explain the origin or the mechanics
44

Life from non-life, intelligence from nonintelligence

As with some creatures, cannot explain the
sequence by which they acquired their unique
characteristics (eg the bombardier beetle)
The Atheist’s Blind Spot
 Cannot explain order and design
45

Randomness cannot produce any order on any
appreciable scale

Design never arises out of chaos

Not simple designs but highly complex and
ingenious design – look at the Human Genome

Cannot explain the huge gap between man and
the next most intelligent creature
The Atheist’s Blind Spot
 Mechanism can never explain beauty

“Why are there flowers?”, Immanuel Kant,
18th century German philosopher
Above are intuitive and yet consistent with
observations in nature – and verified by recent
scientific discoveries
To deny them is to choose the
atheist paradigm by blind faith
46