Chapter Three

What Is the Origin of Life?

OUR earth teems with life. From the snowy Arctic to the Amazon rain forest, from the Sahara Desert to the Everglades swamp, from the dark ocean floor to bright mountain peaks—life abounds. And it is loaded with the potential to amaze us.

It comes in types, sizes, and quantities that stagger the imagination. A million species of insects hum and wiggle on our planet. In the waters around us swim over 20,000 species of fish—some the size of a grain of rice, others as long as a truck. At least 350,000 plant species—some weird, most wonderful—embellish the land. And over 9,000 species of birds fly overhead. These creatures, including man, form the panorama and symphony that we refer to as life.

But more amazing than the delightful variety around us is the profound unity linking them. Biochemists, who peek beneath the skin of earth’s creatures, explain that all living things—be they amoebas or humans—depend on an awesome interaction: the teamwork between nucleic acids (DNA and RNA) and protein molecules. The intricate processes involving these components occur in virtually all our body cells, as it does in the cells of hummingbirds, lions, and whales. This uniform interaction produces a beautiful mosaic of life. How did this orchestration of life come about? In fact, what is the origin of life?

Likely you accept that at one time the earth had no life on it. Scientific opinion agrees, and so do many religious books. Still, you may realize that those two sources—science and religion—differ in explaining how life began on earth.

Millions of people of all educational levels believe that an intelligent Creator, the original Designer, produced life on earth. In contrast, many scientists say that life arose from nonliving matter, one chemical step after another, merely by chance. Is it one, or is it the other?

We should not think that this issue is rather remote from us and from our finding a more meaningful life. As already noted, one of the very fundamental questions humans have sought to answer is, Where did we as living humans come from?

Most science courses focus on the adaptation and survival of life-forms instead of on the more central question of the very origin of life. You may have noted that attempts to explain where life came from are usually presented in generalizations such as: ‘Over millions of years, molecules in collision somehow produced life.’ Yet, is that really satisfying? It would mean that in the presence of energy from the sun, lightning, or volcanoes, some lifeless matter moved, became organized, and eventually started living—all of this without directed assistance. What a huge leap that would have been! From nonliving matter to living! Could it have occurred that way?

Back in the Middle Ages, accepting such a concept might not have seemed a problem because spontaneous generation—the notion that life could arise spontaneously from nonliving matter—was a prevailing belief. Finally, in the 17th century, Italian physician Francesco Redi proved that maggots appeared in rotten meat only after flies had laid eggs on it. No maggots developed on meat that flies could not reach. If animals as big as flies did not just appear on their own, what about the microbes that kept appearing in food—covered or not? Although later experiments indicated that microbes did not arise spontaneously, the issue remained controversial. Then came the work of Louis Pasteur.

Many people recall Pasteur’s work in solving problems related to fermentation and to infectious disease. He also performed experiments to determine whether tiny life-forms could arise by themselves. As you may have read, Pasteur demonstrated that even minute bacteria did not form in sterilized water protected from contamination. In 1864 he announced: “Never will the doctrine of spontaneous generation recover from the mortal blow struck by this simple experiment.” That statement remains true. No experiment has ever produced life from nonliving matter.

How then could life come to be on earth? Modern efforts to answer that question might be dated to the 1920’s, to the work of Russian biochemist Alexander I. Oparin. He and other scientists since then have offered something like the script of a three-act drama that depicts what is claimed to have occurred on the stage of planet Earth. The first act portrays earth’s elements, or raw materials, being transformed into groups of molecules. Then comes the jump to large molecules. And the last act of this drama presents the leap to the first living cell. But did it really happen that way?

Fundamental to that drama is explaining that earth’s early atmosphere was much different from what it is today. One theory assumes that free oxygen was virtually absent and that the elements nitrogen, hydrogen, and carbon formed ammonia and methane. The concept is that when lightning and ultraviolet light struck an atmosphere of these gases and water vapor, sugars and amino acids developed. Bear in mind, though, that this is theory.

According to this theoretical drama, such molecular forms washed into the oceans or other bodies of water. Over time, sugars, acids, and other compounds concentrated into a broth of “prebiotic soup” where amino acids, for instance, joined to become proteins. Extending this theoretical progression, other compounds called nucleotides formed chains and became a nucleic acid, such as DNA. All of this supposedly set the stage for the final act of the molecular drama.

One might depict this last act, which is undocumented, as a love story. Protein molecules and DNA molecules happen to meet, recognize each other, and embrace. Then, just before the curtain rings down, the first living cell is born. If you were following this drama, you might wonder, ‘Is this real life or fiction? Could life on earth really have originated in this way?’

Genesis in the Laboratory?

In the early 1950’s, scientists set out to test Alexander Oparin’s theory. It was an established fact that life comes only from life, yet scientists theorized that if conditions differed in the past, life might have come slowly from nonlife. Could that be demonstrated? Scientist Stanley L. Miller, working in the laboratory of Harold Urey, took hydrogen, ammonia, methane, and water vapor (assuming that this had been the primitive atmosphere), sealed these in a flask with boiling water at the bottom (to represent an ocean), and zapped electric sparks (like lightning) through the vapors. Within a week, there were traces of reddish goo, which Miller analyzed and found to be rich in amino acids—the essence of proteins. You may well have heard of this experiment because for years it has been cited in science textbooks and school courses as if it explains how life on earth began. But does it?

Actually, the value of Miller’s experiment is seriously questioned today. (See “Classic but Questionable,” pages 36-7.) Nevertheless, its apparent success led to other tests that even produced components found in nucleic acids (DNA or RNA). Specialists in the field (sometimes called origin-of-life scientists) felt optimistic, for they had seemingly replicated the first act of the molecular drama. And it seemed as though laboratory versions of the remaining two acts would follow. One chemistry professor claimed: “The explanation of the origin of a primitive living system by evolutionary mechanisms is well within sight.” And a science writer observed: “Pundits speculated that scientists, like Mary Shelley’s Dr. Frankenstein, would shortly conjure up living organisms in their laboratories and thereby demonstrate in detail how genesis unfolded.” The mystery of the spontaneous origin of life, many thought, was solved.—See “Right Hand, Left Hand,” page 38.

Moods Change—Riddles Remain

In the years since, however, that optimism has evaporated. Decades have passed, and life’s secrets remain elusive. Some 40 years after his experiment, Professor Miller told Scientific American: “The problem of the origin of life has turned out to be much more difficult than I, and most other people, envisioned.” Other scientists share this change of mood. For example, back in 1969, Professor of Biology Dean H. Kenyon coauthored Biochemical Predestination. But more recently he concluded that it is “fundamentally implausible that unassisted matter and energy organized themselves into living systems.”

Indeed, laboratory work bears out Kenyon’s assessment that there is “a fundamental flaw in all current theories of the chemical origins of life.” After Miller and others had synthesized amino acids, scientists set out to make proteins and DNA, both of which are necessary for life on earth. After thousands of experiments with so-called prebiotic conditions, what was the outcome? The Mystery of Life’s Origin: Reassessing Current Theories notes: “There is an impressive contrast between the considerable success in synthesizing amino acids and the consistent failure to synthesize protein and DNA.” The latter efforts are characterized by “uniform failure.”

Realistically, the mystery encompasses more than how the first protein and nucleic acid (DNA or RNA) molecules came into existence. It includes how they work together. “It is only the partnership of the two molecules that makes contemporary life on Earth possible,” says The New Encyclopædia Britannica. Yet the encyclopedia notes that how that partnership could come about remains “a critical and unsolved problem in the origin of life.” True, indeed.

Appendix A, “Teamwork for Life” (pages 45-7), reviews some basic details of the intriguing teamwork between protein and nucleic acids in our cells. Even such a glimpse into the realm of our body cells elicits admiration for the work of scientists in this field. They have shed light on extraordinarily complex processes that few of us even think about but that operate every moment of our lives. From another standpoint, however, the staggering complexity and precision required returns us to the question, How did all of this come about?

You may know that origin-of-life scientists have not ceased trying to formulate a plausible scenario for the drama about the first appearance of life. Nevertheless, their new scripts are not proving to be convincing. (See Appendix B, “From ‘the RNA World’ or Another World?” page 48.) For example, Klaus Dose of the Institute for Biochemistry in Mainz, Germany, observed: “At present all discussions on principal theories and experiments in the field either end in stalemate or in a confession of ignorance.”

Even at the 1996 International Conference on the Origin of Life, no solutions were forthcoming. Instead, the journal Science reported that the nearly 300 scientists who convened had “grappled with the riddle of how [DNA and RNA] molecules first appeared and how they evolved into self-reproducing cells.”

Intelligence and advanced education were required to study and even begin to explain what occurs at the molecular level in our cells. Is it reasonable to believe that complicated steps occurred first in a “prebiotic soup,” undirected, spontaneously, and by chance? Or was more involved?

Why the Riddles?

A person today can look back over nearly half a century of speculation and thousands of attempts to prove that life originated on its own. If one does that, it would be hard to disagree with Nobel laureate Francis Crick. Speaking about origin-of-life theories, Crick observed that there is “too much speculation running after too few facts.” It is thus understandable that some scientists who examine the facts conclude that life is much too complex to pop up even in an organized laboratory, let alone in an uncontrolled environment.

If advanced science cannot prove that life could arise by itself, why do some scientists continue to hold to such theories? A few decades ago, Professor J. D. Bernal offered some insight in the book The Origin of Life: “By applying the strict canons of scientific method to this subject [the spontaneous generation of life], it is possible to demonstrate effectively at several places in the story, how life could not have arisen; the improbabilities are too great, the chances of the emergence of life too small.” He added: “Regrettably from this point of view, life is here on Earth in all its multiplicity of forms and activities and the arguments have to be bent round to support its existence.” And the picture has not improved.

Consider the underlying import of such reasoning. It is as much as saying: ‘Scientifically it is correct to state that life cannot have begun by itself. But spontaneously arising life is the only possibility that we will consider. So it is necessary to bend the arguments to support the hypothesis that life arose spontaneously.’ Are you comfortable with such logic? Does not such reasoning call for a lot of ‘bending’ of the facts?

There are, however, knowledgeable, respected scientists who do not see a need to bend facts to fit a prevailing philosophy on the origin of life. Rather, they permit the facts to point to a reasonable conclusion. What facts and what conclusion?

Information and Intelligence

Interviewed in a documentary film, Professor Maciej Giertych, a noted geneticist from the Institute of Dendrology of the Polish Academy of Sciences, answered:

“We have become aware of the massive information contained in the genes. There is no known way to science how that information can arise spontaneously. It requires an intelligence; it cannot arise from chance events. Just mixing letters does not produce words.” He added: “For example, the very complex DNA, RNA, protein replicating system in the cell must have been perfect from the very start. If not, life systems could not exist. The only logical explanation is that this vast quantity of information came from an intelligence.”

The more you learn about the wonders of life, the more logical it is to agree with that conclusion: The origin of life requires an intelligent source. What source?

As noted earlier, millions of educated individuals conclude that life on earth must have been produced by a higher intelligence, a designer. Yes, after examining the matter fairly, they have accepted that even in our scientific age, it is reasonable to agree with the Biblical poet who long ago said about God: “For with you is the source of life.”—Psalm 36:9.

Whether you have yet reached a firm conclusion about that or not, let us turn our attention to some wonders that involve you personally. Doing so is most satisfying and may shed considerable light on this matter that touches our lives.

[Box on page 30]

How Much Chance for Chance?

“Chance, and chance alone, did it all, from the primeval soup to man,” said Nobel laureate Christian de Duve, speaking about the origin of life. Is chance, though, a rational explanation for the cause of life?

What is chance? Some think in terms of a mathematical probability, such as the chance involved in flipping a coin. However, that is not how many scientists use “chance” regarding the origin of life. The vague word “chance” is used as a substitute for a more precise word such as “cause,” especially when the cause is not known.

“To personify ‘chance’ as if we were talking about a causal agent,” notes biophysicist Donald M. MacKay, “is to make an illegitimate switch from a scientific to a quasi-religious mythological concept.” Similarly, Robert C. Sproul points out: “By calling the unknown cause ‘chance’ for so long, people begin to forget that a substitution was made. . . . The assumption that ‘chance equals an unknown cause’ has come to mean for many that ‘chance equals cause.’”

Nobel laureate Jacques L. Monod, for one, used this chance-equals-cause line of reasoning. “Pure chance, absolutely free but blind, [is] at the very root of the stupendous edifice of evolution,” he wrote. “Man knows at last that he is alone in the universe’s unfeeling immensity, out of which he emerged only by chance.” Note he says: ‘BY chance.’ Monod does what many others do—he elevates chance to a creative principle. Chance is offered as the means by which life came to be on earth.

In fact, dictionaries show that “chance” is “the assumed impersonal purposeless determiner of unaccountable happenings.” Thus, if one speaks about life coming about by chance, he is saying that it came about by a causal power that is not known. Could it be that some are virtually spelling “Chance” with a capital letter—in effect saying, Creator?

[Box on page 35]

“[The smallest bacterium] is so much more like people than Stanley Miller’s mixtures of chemicals, because it already has these system properties. So to go from a bacterium to people is less of a step than to go from a mixture of amino acids to that bacterium.”—Professor of Biology Lynn Margulis

[Box/Picture on page 36, 37]

Classic but Questionable

Stanley Miller’s experiment in 1953 is often cited as evidence that spontaneous generation could have happened in the past. The validity of his explanation, however, rests on the presumption that the earth’s primordial atmosphere was “reducing.” That means it contained only the smallest amount of free (chemically uncombined) oxygen. Why?

The Mystery of Life’s Origin: Reassessing Current Theories points out that if much free oxygen was present, ‘none of the amino acids could even be formed, and if by some chance they were, they would decompose quickly.’a How solid was Miller’s presumption about the so-called primitive atmosphere?

In a classic paper published two years after his experiment, Miller wrote: “These ideas are of course speculation, for we do not know that the Earth had a reducing atmosphere when it was formed. . . . No direct evidence has yet been found.”—Journal of the American Chemical Society, May 12, 1955.

Was evidence ever found? Some 25 years later, science writer Robert C. Cowen reported: “Scientists are having to rethink some of their assumptions. . . . Little evidence has emerged to support the notion of a hydrogen-rich, highly reducing atmosphere, but some evidence speaks against it.”—Technology Review, April 1981.

And since then? In 1991, John Horgan wrote in Scientific American: “Over the past decade or so, doubts have grown about Urey and Miller’s assumptions regarding the atmosphere. Laboratory experiments and computerized reconstructions of the atmosphere . . . suggest that ultraviolet radiation from the sun, which today is blocked by atmospheric ozone, would have destroyed hydrogen-based molecules in the atmosphere. . . . Such an atmosphere [carbon dioxide and nitrogen] would not have been conducive to the synthesis of amino acids and other precursors of life.”

Why, then, do many still hold that earth’s early atmosphere was reducing, containing little oxygen? In Molecular Evolution and the Origin of Life, Sidney W. Fox and Klaus Dose answer: The atmosphere must have lacked oxygen because, for one thing, “laboratory experiments show that chemical evolution . . . would be largely inhibited by oxygen” and because compounds such as amino acids “are not stable over geological times in the presence of oxygen.”

Is this not circular reasoning? The early atmosphere was a reducing one, it is said, because spontaneous generation of life could otherwise not have taken place. But there actually is no assurance that it was reducing.

There is another telling detail: If the gas mixture represents the atmosphere, the electric spark mimics lightning, and boiling water stands in for the sea, what or who does the scientist arranging and carrying out of the experiment represent?

[Footnote]

[Box on page 38]

Right Hand, Left Hand

We know that there are right-handed and left-handed gloves. This is also true of amino acid molecules. Of some 100 known amino acids, only 20 are used in proteins, and all are left-handed ones. When scientists make amino acids in laboratories, in imitation of what they feel possibly occurred in a prebiotic soup, they find an equal number of right-handed and left-handed molecules. “This kind of 50-50 distribution,” reports The New York Times, is “not characteristic of life, which depends on left-handed amino acids alone.” Why living organisms are made up of only left-handed amino acids is “a great mystery.” Even amino acids found in meteorites “showed excesses of left-handed forms.” Dr. Jeffrey L. Bada, who studies problems involving the origin of life, said that “some influence outside the earth might have played some role in determining the handedness of biological amino acids.”

[Box on page 40]

“These experiments . . . claim abiotic synthesis for what has in fact been produced and designed by highly intelligent and very much biotic man in an attempt to confirm ideas to which he was largely committed.” —Origin and Development of Living Systems.

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“A Deliberate Intellectual Act”

British astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle has spent decades studying the universe and life in it, even espousing that life on earth arrived from outer space. Lecturing at the California Institute of Technology, he discussed the order of amino acids in proteins.

“The big problem in biology,” Hoyle said, “isn’t so much the rather crude fact that a protein consists of a chain of amino acids linked together in a certain way, but that the explicit ordering of the amino acids endows the chain with remarkable properties . . . If amino acids were linked at random, there would be a vast number of arrangements that would be useless in serving the purposes of a living cell. When you consider that a typical enzyme has a chain of perhaps 200 links and that there are 20 possibilities for each link, it’s easy to see that the number of useless arrangements is enormous, more than the number of atoms in all the galaxies visible in the largest telescopes. This is for one enzyme, and there are upwards of 2000 of them, mainly serving very different purposes. So how did the situation get to where we find it to be?”

Hoyle added: “Rather than accept the fantastically small probability of life having arisen through the blind forces of nature, it seemed better to suppose that the origin of life was a deliberate intellectual act.”

[Box on page 44]

Professor Michael J. Behe stated: “To a person who does not feel obliged to restrict his search to unintelligent causes, the straightforward conclusion is that many biochemical systems were designed. They were designed not by the laws of nature, not by chance and necessity; rather, they were planned. . . . Life on earth at its most fundamental level, in its most critical components, is the product of intelligent activity.”

[Diagram/Picture on page 42]

(For fully formatted text, see publication)

Even a glimpse into the complex world and intricate functions in each body cell leads to the question, How did all of this come about?

• Cell membrane

Controls what enters and leaves the cell

• Nucleus

The cell’s control center

• Chromosomes

Contain the DNA, the genetic master plan

• Ribosomes

Place where proteins are made

• Nucleolus

Site where ribosomes are assembled

• Mitochondrion

Production center for the molecules that supply energy for the cell

[Picture on page 33]

Many scientists now acknowledge that the complex molecules basic to life could not have been spontaneously generated in some prebiotic soup

Chapter Four

How Unique You Are!

BEFORE starting your activities each morning, do you glance in a mirror to check your appearance? You may not have time to be contemplative then. But take a moment now to marvel at what is involved as you take such a simple glance.

Your eyes enable you to view yourself in full color, even though color vision is not vital to life. The position of your ears gives you stereophonic hearing; thus you can locate the source of sounds, such as the voice of a loved one. We may take that for granted, yet a book for sound engineers comments: “In considering the human hearing system in any depth, however, it is difficult to escape the conclusion that its intricate functions and structures indicate some beneficent hand in its design.”

Your nose also manifests marvelous design. Through it you can breathe air, which keeps you alive. Also, it has millions of sense receptors, enabling you to discern some 10,000 nuances of smell. As you enjoy a meal, another sense comes into play. Thousands of taste buds convey flavors to you. Other receptors on your tongue help you to feel if your teeth are clean.

Yes, you have five senses—sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. Granted, some animals have keener night vision, more sensitive smell, or more acute hearing, but man’s balance of these senses certainly allows him to excel in many ways.

Let us, though, consider why we can benefit from these abilities and capacities. All of them depend on the three-pound [1.4 kg] organ inside our head—our brain. Animals have functioning brains. Still, the human brain is in a class by itself, making us undeniably unique. How so? And how does this uniqueness relate to our interest in having a meaningful, lasting life?

Your Marvelous Brain

For years man’s brain has been likened to a computer, yet recent discoveries show that the comparison falls far short. “How does one begin to comprehend the functioning of an organ with somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 billion neurons with a million billion synapses (connections), and with an overall firing rate of perhaps 10 million billion times per second?” asked Dr. Richard M. Restak. His answer? “The performance of even the most advanced of the neural-network computers . . . has about one ten-thousandth the mental capacity of a housefly.” Consider, then, how much a computer fails to measure up to a human brain, which is so remarkably superior.

What man-made computer can repair itself, rewrite its program, or improve over the years? When a computer system needs to be adjusted, a programmer must write and enter new coded instructions. Our brain does such work automatically, both in the early years of life and in old age. You would not be exaggerating to say that the most advanced computers are very primitive compared to the brain. Scientists have called it “the most complicated structure known” and “the most complex object in the universe.” Consider some discoveries that have led many to conclude that the human brain is the product of a caring Creator.

Use It or Lose It

Useful inventions such as cars and jet planes are basically limited by the fixed mechanisms and electrical systems that men design and install. By contrast, our brain is, at the very least, a highly flexible biological mechanism or system. It can keep changing according to the way it is used—or abused. Two main factors seem responsible for how our brain develops throughout our lifetime—what we allow to enter it through our senses and what we choose to think about.

Although hereditary factors may have a role in mental performance, modern research shows that our brain is not fixed by our genes at the time of conception. “No one suspected that the brain was as changeable as science now knows it to be,” writes Pulitzer prize-winning author Ronald Kotulak. After interviewing more than 300 researchers, he concluded: “The brain is not a static organ; it is a constantly changing mass of cell connections that are deeply affected by experience.”—Inside the Brain.

Still, our experiences are not the only means of shaping our brain. It is affected also by our thinking. Scientists find that the brains of people who remain mentally active have up to 40 percent more connections (synapses) between nerve cells (neurons) than do the brains of the mentally lazy. Neuroscientists conclude: You have to use it or you lose it. What, though, of the elderly? There seems to be some loss of brain cells as a person ages, and advanced age can bring memory loss. Yet the difference is much less than was once believed. A National Geographic report on the human brain said: “Older people . . . retain capacity to generate new connections and to keep old ones via mental activity.”

Recent findings about our brain’s flexibility accord with advice found in the Bible. That book of wisdom urges readers to be ‘transformed by making their mind over’ or to be “made new” through “accurate knowledge” taken into the mind. (Romans 12:2; Colossians 3:10) Jehovah’s Witnesses have seen this happen as people study the Bible and apply its counsel. Many thousands—from the whole spectrum of social and educational backgrounds—have done so. They remain distinct individuals, but they have become happier and more balanced, displaying what a first-century writer called “soundness of mind.” (Acts 26:24, 25) Improvements like these result largely from one’s making good use of a part of the cerebral cortex located in the front of the head.

Your Frontal Lobe

Most neurons in the outer layer of the brain, the cerebral cortex, are not linked directly to muscles and sensory organs. For example, consider the billions of neurons that make up the frontal lobe. (See drawing, page 56.) Brain scans prove that the frontal lobe becomes active when you think of a word or call up memories. The front part of the brain plays a special role in your being you.

“The prefrontal cortex . . . is most involved with elaboration of thought, intelligence, motivation, and personality. It associates experiences necessary for the production of abstract ideas, judgment, persistence, planning, concern for others, and conscience. . . . It is the elaboration of this region that sets human beings apart from other animals.” (Marieb’s Human Anatomy and Physiology) We certainly see evidence of this distinction in what humans have accomplished in fields such as mathematics, philosophy, and justice, which primarily involve the prefrontal cortex.

Why do humans have a large, flexible prefrontal cortex, which contributes to higher mental functions, whereas in animals this area is rudimentary or nonexistent? The contrast is so great that biologists who claim that we evolved speak of the “mysterious explosion in brain size.” Professor of Biology Richard F. Thompson, noting the extraordinary expansion of our cerebral cortex, admits: “As yet we have no very clear understanding of why this happened.” Could the reason lie in man’s having been created with this peerless brain capacity?

Unequaled Communication Skills

Other parts of the brain also contribute to our uniqueness. Behind our prefrontal cortex is a strip stretching across the head—the motor cortex. It contains billions of neurons that connect with our muscles. It too has features that contribute to our being far different from apes or other animals. The primary motor cortex gives us “(1) an exceptional capability to use the hand, the fingers, and the thumb to perform highly dexterous manual tasks, and (2) use of the mouth, lips, tongue, and facial muscles to talk.”—Guyton’s Textbook of Medical Physiology.

Consider briefly how the motor cortex affects your ability to speak. Over half of it is devoted to the organs of communication. This helps to explain the unparalleled communication skills of humans. Though our hands play a role in communication (in writing, normal gestures, or sign language), the mouth usually plays the major part. Human speech—from a baby’s first word to the voice of an elderly person—is unquestionably a marvel. Some 100 muscles in the tongue, lips, jaw, throat, and chest cooperate to produce countless sounds. Note this contrast: One brain cell can direct 2,000 fibers of an athlete’s calf muscle, but brain cells for the voice box may concentrate on only 2 or 3 muscle fibers. Does that not suggest that our brain is specially equipped for communication?

Each short phrase that you utter requires a specific pattern of muscular movements. The meaning of a single expression can change depending upon the degree of movement and split-second timing of scores of different muscles. “At a comfortable rate,” explains speech expert Dr. William H. Perkins, “we utter about 14 sounds per second. That’s twice as fast as we can control our tongue, lips, jaw or any other parts of our speech mechanism when we move them separately. But put them all together for speech and they work the way fingers of expert typists and concert pianists do. Their movements overlap in a symphony of exquisite timing.”

The actual information needed to ask the simple question, “How are you today?” is stored in a part of your brain’s frontal lobe called Broca’s area, which some consider to be your speech center. Nobel laureate neuroscientist Sir John Eccles wrote: “No area corresponding to the . . . speech area of Broca has been recognized in apes.” Even if some similar areas are found in animals, the fact is that scientists cannot get apes to produce more than a few crude speech sounds. You, though, can produce complicated language. To do so, you put words together according to the grammar of your language. Broca’s area helps you do that, both in speaking and in writing.

Of course, you cannot exercise the miracle of speech unless you know at least one language and understand what its words mean. This involves another special part of your brain, known as Wernicke’s area. Here, billions of neurons discern the meaning of spoken or written words. Wernicke’s area helps you to make sense of statements and to comprehend what you hear or read; thus you can learn information and can respond sensibly.

There is even more to your fluent speech. To illustrate: A verbal “Hello” can convey a host of meanings. Your tone of voice reflects whether you are happy, excited, bored, rushed, annoyed, sad, or frightened, and it may even reveal degrees of those emotional states. Another area of your brain supplies information for the emotional part of speech. So, various parts of your brain come into play when you communicate.

Chimpanzees have been taught some limited sign language, but their use of it is essentially limited to simple requests for food or other basics. Having worked to teach chimps simple nonverbal communication, Dr. David Premack concluded: “Human language is an embarrassment for evolutionary theory because it is vastly more powerful than one can account for.”

We might ponder: ‘Why do humans have this marvelous skill to communicate thoughts and feelings, to inquire and to respond?’ The Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics states that “[human] speech is special” and admits that “the search for precursors in animal communication does not help much in bridging the enormous gap that separates language and speech from nonhuman behaviors.” Professor Ludwig Koehler summarized the difference: “Human speech is a secret; it is a divine gift, a miracle.”

What a difference there is between an ape’s use of signs and the complex language ability of children! Sir John Eccles referred to what most of us have also observed, an ability “exhibited even by 3-year-old children with their torrent of questions in their desire to understand their world.” He added: “By contrast, apes do not ask questions.” Yes, only humans form questions, including questions about the meaning of life.

Memory and More!

When you glance in a mirror, you may think of how you looked when you were younger, even comparing that with what your appearance could be in the years to come or how you would look after applying cosmetics. These thoughts can arise almost unconsciously, yet something very special is occurring, something that no animal can experience.

Unlike animals, who mainly live and act on present needs, humans can contemplate the past and plan for the future. A key to your doing that is the brain’s almost limitless memory capacity. True, animals have a degree of memory, and thus they can find their way back home or recall where food may be. Human memory is far greater. One scientist estimated that our brain can hold information that “would fill some twenty million volumes, as many as in the world’s largest libraries.” Some neuroscientists estimate that during an average life span, a person uses only 1/100 of 1 percent (.0001) of his potential brain capacity. You might well ask, ‘Why do we have a brain with so much capacity that we hardly test a fraction of it in a normal lifetime?’

Nor is our brain just some vast storage place for information, like a supercomputer. Biology professors Robert Ornstein and Richard F. Thompson wrote: “The ability of the human mind to learn—to store and recall information—is the most remarkable phenomenon in the biological universe. Everything that makes us human—language, thought, knowledge, culture—is the result of this extraordinary capability.”

Moreover, you have a conscious mind. That statement may seem basic, but it sums up something that unquestionably makes you exceptional. The mind has been described as “the elusive entity where intelligence, decision making, perception, awareness and sense of self reside.” As creeks, streams, and rivers feed into a sea, so memories, thoughts, images, sounds, and feelings flow constantly into or through our mind. Consciousness, says one definition, is “the perception of what passes in a man’s own mind.”

Modern researchers have made great strides in understanding the physical makeup of the brain and some of the electrochemical processes that occur in it. They can also explain the circuitry and functioning of an advanced computer. However, there is a vast difference between brain and computer. With your brain you are conscious and are aware of your being, but a computer certainly is not. Why the difference?

Frankly, how and why consciousness arises from physical processes in our brain is a mystery. “I don’t see how any science can explain that,” one neurobiologist commented. Also, Professor James Trefil observed: “What, exactly, it means for a human being to be conscious . . . is the only major question in the sciences that we don’t even know how to ask.” One reason why is that scientists are using the brain to try to understand the brain. And just studying the physiology of the brain may not be enough. Consciousness is “one of the most profound mysteries of existence,” observed Dr. David Chalmers, “but knowledge of the brain alone may not get [scientists] to the bottom of it.”

Nonetheless, each of us experiences consciousness. For example, our vivid memories of past events are not mere stored facts, like computer bits of information. We can reflect on our experiences, draw lessons from them, and use them to shape our future. We are able to consider several future scenarios and evaluate the possible effects of each. We have the capacity to analyze, create, appreciate, and love. We can enjoy pleasant conversations about the past, present, and future. We have ethical values about behavior and can use them in making decisions that may or may not be of immediate benefit. We are attracted to beauty in art and morals. In our mind we can mold and refine our ideas and guess how other people will react if we carry these out.

Such factors produce an awareness that sets humans apart from other life-forms on earth. A dog, a cat, or a bird looks in a mirror and responds as if seeing another of its kind. But when you look in a mirror, you are conscious of yourself as a being with the capacities just mentioned. You can reflect on dilemmas, such as: ‘Why do some turtles live 150 years and some trees live over 1,000 years, but an intelligent human makes the news if he reaches 100?’ Dr. Richard Restak states: “The human brain, and the human brain alone, has the capacity to step back, survey its own operation, and thus achieve some degree of transcendence. Indeed, our capacity for rewriting our own script and redefining ourselves in the world is what distinguishes us from all other creatures in the world.”

Man’s consciousness baffles some. The book Life Ascending, while favoring a mere biological explanation, admits: “When we ask how a process [evolution] that resembles a game of chance, with dreadful penalties for the losers, could have generated such qualities as love of beauty and truth, compassion, freedom, and, above all, the expansiveness of the human spirit, we are perplexed. The more we ponder our spiritual resources, the more our wonder deepens.” Very true. Thus, we might round out our view of human uniqueness by a few evidences of our consciousness that illustrate why many are convinced that there must be an intelligent Designer, a Creator, who cares for us.

Art and Beauty

“Why do people pursue art so passionately?” asked Professor Michael Leyton in Symmetry, Causality, Mind. As he pointed out, some might say that mental activity such as mathematics confers clear benefits to humans, but why art? Leyton illustrated his point by saying that people travel great distances to art exhibits and concerts. What inner sense is involved? Similarly, people around the globe put attractive pictures or paintings on the walls of their home or office. Or consider music. Most people like to listen to some style of music at home and in their cars. Why? It certainly is not because music once contributed to the survival of the fittest. Says Leyton: “Art is perhaps the most inexplicable phenomenon of the human species.”

Still, we all know that enjoying art and beauty is part of what makes us feel “human.” An animal might sit on a hill and look at a colorful sky, but is it drawn to beauty as such? We look at a mountain torrent shimmering in the sunshine, stare at the dazzling diversity in a tropical rain forest, gaze at a palm-lined beach, or admire the stars sprinkled across the black velvety sky. Often we feel awed, do we not? Beauty of that sort makes our hearts glow, our spirits soar. Why?

Why do we have an innate craving for things that, in reality, contribute little materially to our survival? From where do our aesthetic values come? If we do not take into account a Maker who shaped these values at man’s creation, these questions lack satisfying answers. This is also true regarding beauty in morals.

Moral Values

Many recognize the highest form of beauty to be fine deeds. For instance, being loyal to principles in the face of persecution, acting unselfishly to relieve others’ suffering, and forgiving someone who hurt us are actions that appeal to the moral sense of thinking people everywhere. This is the kind of beauty mentioned in the ancient Biblical proverb: “The insight of a man certainly slows down his anger, and it is beauty on his part to pass over transgression.” Or as another proverb observes: “The desirable thing in earthling man is his loving-kindness.”—Proverbs 19:11, 22.

We all know that some people, and even groups, ignore or trample on elevated morals, but the majority do not. From what source do the moral values found in virtually all areas and in all periods come? If there is no Source of morality, no Creator, did right and wrong simply originate with people, human society? Consider an example: Most individuals and groups hold murder to be wrong. But one could ask, ‘Wrong in comparison to what?’ Obviously there is some sense of morality that underlies human society in general and that has been incorporated into the laws of many lands. What is the source of this standard of morality? Could it not be an intelligent Creator who has moral values and who placed the faculty of conscience, or ethical sense, in humans?—Compare Romans 2:14, 15.

You Can Contemplate the Future and Plan for It

Another facet of human consciousness is our ability to consider the future. When asked whether humans have traits that distinguish them from animals, Professor Richard Dawkins acknowledged that man has, indeed, unique qualities. After mentioning “the ability to plan ahead using conscious, imagined foresight,” Dawkins added: “Short-term benefit has always been the only thing that counts in evolution; long-term benefit has never counted. It has never been possible for something to evolve in spite of being bad for the immediate short-term good of the individual. For the first time ever, it’s possible for at least some people to say, ‘Forget about the fact that you can make a short-term profit by chopping down this forest; what about the long-term benefit?’ Now I think that’s genuinely new and unique.”

Other researchers confirm that humans’ ability for conscious, long-term planning is without parallel. Neurophysiologist William H. Calvin notes: “Aside from hormonally triggered preparations for winter and mating, animals exhibit surprisingly little evidence of planning more than a few minutes ahead.” Animals may store food before a cold season, but they do not think things through and plan. By contrast, humans consider the future, even the distant future. Some scientists contemplate what may happen to the universe billions of years hence. Did you ever wonder why man—so different from animals—is able to think about the future and lay out plans?

The Bible says of humans: “Even time indefinite [the Creator] has put in their heart.” The Revised Standard Version renders it: “He has put eternity into man’s mind.” (Ecclesiastes 3:11) We use this distinctive ability daily, even in as common an act as glancing in a mirror and thinking what our appearance will be in 10 or 20 years. And we are confirming what Ecclesiastes 3:11 says when we give even passing thought to such concepts as the infinity of time and space. The mere fact that we have this ability harmonizes with the comment that a Creator has put “eternity into man’s mind.”

Drawn to a Creator

Many people, however, are not satisfied fully by enjoying beauty, doing good to fellowmen, and thinking about the future. “Strangely enough,” notes Professor C. Stephen Evans, “even in our most happy and treasured moments of love, we often feel something is missing. We find ourselves wanting more but not knowing what is the more we want.” Indeed, conscious humans—unlike the animals with which we share this planet—feel another need.

“Religion is deeply rooted in human nature and experienced at every level of economic status and educational background.” This summed up the research that Professor Alister Hardy presented in The Spiritual Nature of Man. It confirms what numerous other studies have established—man is God-conscious. While individuals may be atheists, whole nations are not. The book Is God the Only Reality? observes: “The religious quest for meaning . . . is the common experience in every culture and every age since the emergence of humankind.”

From where does this seemingly inborn awareness of God come? If man were merely an accidental grouping of nucleic acid and protein molecules, why would these molecules develop a love of art and beauty, turn religious, and contemplate eternity?

Sir John Eccles concluded that an evolutionary explanation of man’s existence “fails in a most important respect. It cannot account for the existence of each one of us as unique self-conscious beings.” The more we learn about the workings of our brain and mind, the easier it is to see why millions of people have concluded that man’s conscious existence is evidence of a Creator who cares about us.

In the next chapter, we will see why people of all walks of life have found that this rational conclusion lays the basis for finding satisfying answers to the vital questions, Why are we here, and where are we going?

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Chess Champion Versus Computer

When the advanced computer Deep Blue vanquished the world champion chess player, the question arose, “Aren’t we forced to conclude that Deep Blue must have a mind?”

Professor David Gelernter of Yale University replied: “No. Deep Blue is just a machine. It doesn’t have a mind any more than a flowerpot has a mind. . . . Its chief meaning is this: that human beings are champion machine builders.”

Professor Gelernter pointed to this major difference: “The brain is a machine that is capable of creating an ‘I.’ Brains can summon mental worlds into being, and computers can’t.”

He concluded: “The gap between human and [computer] is permanent and will never be closed. Machines will continue to make life easier, healthier, richer and more puzzling. And human beings will continue to care, ultimately, about the same things they always have: about themselves, about one another and, many of them, about God. On those terms, machines have never made a difference. And they never will.”

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Supercomputer Equals Snail

“Today’s computers are not even close to a 4-year-old human in their ability to see, talk, move, or use common sense. One reason, of course, is sheer computing power. It has been estimated that the information processing capacity of even the most powerful supercomputer is equal to the nervous system of a snail—a tiny fraction of the power available to the supercomputer inside [our] skull.”—Steven Pinker, director of the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

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“The human brain is composed almost exclusively of the [cerebral] cortex. The brain of a chimpanzee, for example, also has a cortex, but in far smaller proportions. The cortex allows us to think, to remember, to imagine. Essentially, we are human beings by virtue of our cortex.”—Edoardo Boncinelli, director of research in molecular biology, Milan, Italy.

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From Particle Physics to Your Brain

Professor Paul Davies reflected on the ability of the brain to handle the abstract field of mathematics. “Mathematics is not something that you find lying around in your back yard. It’s produced by the human mind. Yet if we ask where mathematics works best, it is in areas like particle physics and astrophysics, areas of fundamental science that are very, very far removed from everyday affairs.” What does that imply? “It suggests to me that consciousness and our ability to do mathematics are no mere accident, no trivial detail, no insignificant by-product of evolution.”—Are We Alone?

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Frontal lobe

Prefrontal cortex

Broca’s area

Wernicke’s area

Motor cortex

● The Cerebral Cortex is the surface region of the brain that is most strongly linked to intelligence. A human’s cerebral cortex, if flattened, would cover four pages of typing paper; a chimpanzee’s would cover only one page; and a rat’s would cover a postage stamp.—Scientific American.

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Every People Has One

Throughout history, whenever one people encountered another, each found the other speaking a language. The Language Instinct comments: “No mute tribe has ever been discovered, and there is no record that a region has served as a ‘cradle’ of language from which it spread to previously languageless groups. . . . The universality of complex language is a discovery that fills linguists with awe, and is the first reason to suspect that language is . . . the product of a special human instinct.”

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Language and Intelligence

Why does human intelligence far surpass that of animals, such as apes? A key is our use of syntax—putting sounds together to make words and using words to make sentences. Theoretical neurophysiologist Dr. William H. Calvin explains:

“Wild chimpanzees use about three dozen different vocalizations to convey about three dozen different meanings. They may repeat a sound to intensify its meaning, but they do not string together three sounds to add a new word to their vocabulary.

“We humans also use about three dozen vocalizations, called phonemes. Yet only their combinations have content: we string together meaningless sounds to make meaningful words.” Dr. Calvin noted that “no one has yet explained” the leap from the animals’ “one sound/one meaning” to our uniquely human capacity to use syntax.

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You Can Do More Than Doodle

“Is only man, Homo sapiens, capable of communicating by language? Clearly the answer must depend on what is meant by ‘language’—for all the higher animals certainly communicate with a great variety of signs, such as gestures, odours, calls, cries and songs, and even the dance of the bees. Yet animals other than man do not appear to have structured grammatical language. And animals do not, which may be highly significant, draw representational pictures. At best they only doodle.”—Professors R. S. and D. H. Fouts.

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“Turning to the human mind, we also find structures of marvellous intricacy,” notes Professor A. Noam Chomsky. “Language is a case in point, but not the only one. Think of the capacity to deal with abstract properties of the number system, [which seems] unique to humans.”

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“Endowed” to Ask

Concerning the future of our universe, physicist Lawrence Krauss wrote: “We are emboldened to ask questions about things we may never see directly because we can ask them. Our children, or their children, will one day answer them. We are endowed with imagination.”

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If the universe and our being alive in it are accidental, our lives can have no lasting meaning. But if our life in the universe results from design, there must be a satisfying meaning to it.

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From Dodging Saber-Toothed Tigers?

John Polkinghorne, of the University of Cambridge, England, observed:

“Theoretical physicist Paul Dirac discovered something called quantum field theory which is fundamental to our understanding of the physical world. I can’t believe Dirac’s ability to discover that theory, or Einstein’s ability to discover the general theory of relativity, is a sort of spin-off from our ancestors having to dodge saber-toothed tigers. Something much more profound, much more mysterious, is going on. . . .

“When we look at the rational order and transparent beauty of the physical world, revealed through physical science, we see a world shot through with signs of mind. To a religious believer, it is the mind of the Creator that is being discerned in that way.”—Commonweal.

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Only humans form questions. Some are questions about the meaning of life

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Unlike the animals, humans have an awareness about themselves and about the future

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Humans uniquely appreciate beauty, think about the future, and are drawn to a Creator

Chapter Five

The Handiwork—What Is Behind It?

AS NOTED in earlier chapters, modern scientific discoveries offer an abundance of convincing evidence that the universe and life on earth both had a beginning. What caused their beginning?

After studying the available evidence, many have concluded that there must be a First Cause. Nonetheless, they may shy away from attaching personality to this Cause. Such reluctance to speak of a Creator mirrors the attitude of some scientists.

For instance, Albert Einstein was convinced that the universe had a beginning, and he expressed his desire “to know how God created the world.” Yet Einstein did not admit to belief in a personal God; he spoke of a cosmic “religious feeling, which knows no dogma and no God conceived in man’s image.” Similarly, Nobel laureate chemist Kenichi Fukui expressed belief in a great framework in the universe. He said that “this great link and framework may be expressed in words such as ‘Absolute’ or ‘God.’” But he called it an “idiosyncrasy of nature.”

Are you aware that such belief in an impersonal cause parallels much of the Eastern religious thinking? Many Orientals believe that nature came into existence on its own. This idea is even expressed in the Chinese characters for nature, which literally mean “becomes by itself” or “self-existing.” Einstein believed that his cosmic religious feeling was well expressed in Buddhism. Buddha held that it was not important whether a Creator had a hand in bringing forth the universe and humans. Similarly, Shinto provides no explanation of how nature came to be, and Shintoists believe that the gods are spirits of the dead that may assimilate with nature.

Interestingly, such thinking is not far removed from views that were popular in ancient Greece. The philosopher Epicurus (341-270 B.C.E.) is said to have believed that ‘gods are too remote to do you any more harm than good.’ He held that man is a product of nature, probably through spontaneous generation and the natural selection of the fittest. You may sense from this that similar ideas today are by no means modern.

Alongside the Epicureans were the Greek Stoics, who gave nature the position of God. They supposed that when humans die, impersonal energy from them is reabsorbed into the ocean of energy making up God. They felt that cooperating with natural laws was the supreme good. Have you heard similar views in our day?

Contest Over a Personal God

Nevertheless, we should not dismiss all information from ancient Greece as quaint history. In the context of such beliefs, a noted teacher in the first century presented one of history’s most significant speeches. The physician and historian Luke recorded this speech, and we find it in chapter 17 of the book Acts of Apostles. It can help us to settle our view of the First Cause and to see where we fit into the picture. How, though, can a speech given 1,900 years ago affect lives today as sincere individuals search for meaning in life?

That famous teacher, Paul, was invited to a high court in Athens. He there faced Epicureans and Stoics, who did not believe in a personal God. In his opening remarks, Paul mentioned seeing in their city an altar inscribed “To an Unknown God” (Greek, A·gnoʹstoi The·oiʹ). Interestingly, some think that biologist Thomas H. Huxley (1825-95) alluded to this when he coined the term “agnostic.” Huxley applied the word to those who hold that “the ultimate cause (God) and the essential nature of things are unknown or unknowable.” But is the Creator really “unknowable” as many have held?

That, frankly, is a misapplication of Paul’s phrase; it misses Paul’s point. Rather than saying that the Creator was unknowable, Paul was simply saying that He was unknown to those Athenians. Paul did not have at hand as much scientific evidence for the existence of a Creator as we do today. Still, Paul had no doubt that there is a personal, intelligent Designer whose qualities should draw us to him. Note what Paul went on to say:

“What you are unknowingly giving godly devotion to, this I am publishing to you. The God that made the world and all the things in it, being, as this One is, Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in handmade temples, neither is he attended to by human hands as if he needed anything, because he himself gives to all persons life and breath and all things. And he made out of one man every nation of men, to dwell upon the entire surface of the earth.” (Acts 17:23-26) An interesting line of reasoning, do you not agree?

Yes, rather than suggesting that God was unknowable, Paul was emphasizing that those who made the Athenian altar, as well as many in his audience, did not yet know Him. Paul then urged them—and all who have since read his speech—to seek to know the Creator, for “he is not far off from each one of us.” (Acts 17:27) You can see that Paul tactfully introduced the fact that we can see evidence of a Creator of all things by observing his creation. By doing this, we can also discern some of his qualities.

We have examined various lines of evidence that point to a Creator. One is the vast, intelligently organized universe, which clearly had a beginning. Another is life on earth, including the design manifest in our body cells. And a third is our brain, with our associated awareness of self and our interest in the future. But let us look first at two other examples of the Creator’s handiwork that touch us daily. In doing so, ask yourself, ‘What does this show me about the personality of the One who designed and provided it?’

Learning From His Handiwork

Sheer observation of his creation tells much about the Creator. Paul, on another occasion, mentioned an example of this when he told a crowd in Asia Minor: “In the past generations [the Creator] permitted all the nations to go on in their ways, although, indeed, he did not leave himself without witness in that he did good, giving you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, filling your hearts to the full with food and good cheer.” (Acts 14:16, 17) Note the example Paul gave of how the Creator, in providing food for mankind, has borne witness to His personality.

In some lands today, people may take for granted the availability of food. Elsewhere, many struggle to get enough to eat. In either case, even the possibility of having any sustaining food depends on the wisdom and goodness of our Creator.

Food for both man and animals results from intricate cycles—including the water cycle, the carbon cycle, the phosphorus cycle, and the nitrogen cycle. It is general knowledge that in the vital process of photosynthesis, plants use carbon dioxide and water as raw materials to produce sugars, using sunlight as the energy source. Incidentally, during photosynthesis plants release oxygen. Could this be termed a “waste product”? To us this by-product is hardly waste. It is absolutely essential that we breathe in oxygen and use it to metabolize, or burn, food in our body. We exhale the resulting carbon dioxide, which plants recycle as a raw material for photosynthesis. We may have studied this process in a basic science class, but it is no less vital and marvelous. And this is just the start.

In our body cells and in those of animals, phosphorus is vital for transferring energy. From where do we get our phosphorus? Again, from plants. They absorb inorganic phosphates from the soil and convert them into organic phosphates. We consume plants containing phosphorus in these forms and use it for vital activities. Thereafter, the phosphorus returns to the soil in the form of body “wastes” that can again be absorbed by plants.

We also need nitrogen, which is part of every protein and DNA molecule in our body. How do we obtain this element that is so essential for life? Although about 78 percent of the air around us is nitrogen, neither plants nor animals can absorb it directly. So nitrogen in the air must be converted into other forms before it can be taken in by plants and later utilized by humans and animals. How does that conversion, or fixation, occur? In various ways. One way is by the action of lightning.a Nitrogen fixation is also accomplished by bacteria that live in nodules on the roots of legumes, such as peas, soybeans, and alfalfa. These bacteria convert atmospheric nitrogen into substances that plants can use. In this way, when you eat green vegetables, you take in nitrogen, which your body needs in order to produce proteins. Amazingly, we find species of legumes in tropical rain forests, deserts, and even tundras. And if an area is burned over, legumes usually are the first plants to recolonize.

What marvelous recycling systems these are! Each of them puts to good use wastes from the other cycles. The energy needed comes principally from our sun—a clean, endless, and steady source. How that contrasts with human efforts to recycle resources! Even man-made products that are called environmentally friendly may not contribute to a cleaner planet because of the complexity of human recycling systems. In this regard, U.S.News & World Report pointed out that products should be designed so that their high-value components can easily be recovered by recycling. Is that not what we observe in these natural cycles? So, what does this reveal about the Creator’s forethought and wisdom?

Impartial and Just

To help us see further some of the Creator’s qualities, let us consider one more system—the immune system in our body. It also involves bacteria.

“Although human interest in bacteria frequently focuses on their harmful effects,” observes The New Encyclopædia Britannica, “most bacteria are harmless to human beings, and many of them are actually beneficial.” Indeed, they are of life-and-death importance. Bacteria play a crucial role in the nitrogen cycle just mentioned, as well as in cycles involving carbon dioxide and some elements. And we also need bacteria in our digestive tract. We have some 400 species in our lower intestinal tract alone, and they help to synthesize vitamin K and process wastes. Of further benefit to us, bacteria help cows turn grasses into milk. Other bacteria are vital in fermentation—in our making cheese, yogurt, pickles, sauerkraut, and kimchi. What, though, if bacteria get where they do not belong in our body?

Then up to two trillion white blood cells in our body fight the bacteria that might harm us. Daniel E. Koshland, Jr., editor of Science magazine, explains: “The immune system is designed to recognize foreign invaders. To do so it generates on the order of 10¹¹ [100,000,000,000] different kinds of immunological receptors so that no matter what the shape or form of the foreign invader there will be some complementary receptor to recognize it and effect its elimination.”

One type of cell that our body uses to fight invaders is the macrophage; its name means “big eater,” which is fitting because it devours foreign substances in our blood. For example, after eating an invading virus, the macrophage breaks it into small fragments. It then displays some protein from the virus. This bit of marker protein serves as a red flag to our immune system, sounding the alarm that foreign organisms are on the loose inside us. If another cell in the immune system, the helper T cell, recognizes the virus protein, it exchanges chemical signals with the macrophage. These chemicals are themselves extraordinary proteins that have a bewildering array of functions, regulating and boosting our immune system’s response to invasion. This process results in a vigorous fight against the specific type of virus. Thus, we usually manage to overcome infections.

Actually, much more is involved, but even this brief description reveals the complexity of our immune system. How did we get this intricate mechanism? It came free of charge, regardless of our family’s financial or social standing. Compare that with the inequity in health care available to most people. “For WHO [World Health Organization], growing inequity is literally a matter of life and death, since the poor pay the price of social inequality with their health,” wrote the director general of WHO, Dr. Hiroshi Nakajima. You can understand this lament made by one of São Paulo’s slum dwellers: “For us, good health care is like an item in a window display in a luxurious shopping mall. We can look at it, but it is beyond our reach.” Millions of people around the globe feel the same way.

Such inequities moved Albert Schweitzer to go to Africa to provide medical care for the less privileged, and his efforts earned him a Nobel prize. What qualities do you associate with men and women who have done similar good deeds? You probably realize that they have love for humanity and a sense of justice, believing that people in developing lands too are entitled to medical care. What, then, about the Provider of the wonderful immune system built into us regardless of financial and social standing? Does it not more significantly bespeak the Creator’s sense of love, impartiality, and justice?

Getting to Know the Creator

The above-noted systems are just basic examples of the Creator’s handiwork, but do they not reveal him to be a real and intelligent person whose qualities and ways draw us to him? Numerous other examples could be considered. We have probably found in daily life, however, that merely observing a person’s works may not really be enough for us to know him well. It would even be possible to misunderstand him if we did not gain a complete picture of him! And if that person has been misrepresented or maligned, would it not be good to meet him and hear his side? We might converse with him to find out how he reacts under different circumstances and what qualities he displays.

Of course, we cannot have a face-to-face conversation with the powerful Creator of the universe. Yet, he has revealed much about himself as a real person in a book that is available, in whole or in part, in more than 2,000 languages, including yours. That book—the Bible—invites you to get to know and cultivate a relationship with the Creator: “Draw close to God,” it says, “and he will draw close to you.” It also shows how it is possible to become his friend. (James 2:23; 4:8) Would you be interested in that?

To this end, we invite you to consider the Creator’s factual and fascinating account of his creative activities.

[Footnote]

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A Reasonable Conclusion

There is wide agreement among scientists that the universe had a beginning. Most also agree that before that beginning, something real must have existed. Some scientists talk about ever-existing energy. Others postulate a primordial chaos as the preexisting condition. Whatever terms are used, most presuppose the existence of something—something without a beginning—that extended back infinitely.

So the issue comes down to whether we presuppose some thing eternal or some one eternal. After considering what science has learned about the origin and nature of the universe and life in it, which of these alternatives seems more reasonable to you?

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“Each of the elements central to life—carbon, nitrogen, sulfur—is converted by bacteria from an inorganic, gaseous compound into a form that can be used by plants and animals.”—The New Encyclopædia Britannica.

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What Is Your Conclusion?

Our Universe

↓ ↓

Had No Had a

Beginning Beginning

↓ ↓

Without Cause Was Caused

↓ ↓

By Some THING By Some ONE

Eternal Eternal

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Many Orientals believe that nature came into existence by itself

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Paul made a thought-provoking speech about God while standing on this hill, with the Acropolis in the background

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God gave to each of us an immune system that surpasses anything modern medicine can provide