Awake!, October 8, 1963
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the Church Suppresses Freedom
OCTOBER 8, 1963
(paget 24-29)
THE MISSION OF THIS JOURNAL
New* sources that are able to keep you awake to 'the vital issues of our times must be unfettered by censorship and selfish interests. "Awoke!" has no fetters. It recognizes facts, faces facts, is free to publish fcjcts. It is not bound by political ambitions or obligations; it is unhampered by advertisers whose toes must not be trodden on; it is unprejudiced by traditional creed*. This Journal keeps itself free that it may speak freely to you. But it does'not abuse its freedom, ft maintains integrity to truth.
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CONTENTS
From Stars to Atoms
Earth Designed for Human Habitation
Exploring the Wonders of the Sea
Those Amazing Animal Engineers
Identifying the One Who Made It All
What God Requires of You
Greek Government Bows to the Church,
Suppresses Freedom
M
Volume XLIV London, England, October 8, 1963 Number 19
(jmxk, STARS To- ATOMS
A STUDY of the material universe inspires awe for its Creator in the minds of honest men.
When one appreciates its staggering size and complexity, its order and unity, he realizes his own smallness and the unspeakable greatness of the One who created it all. His image of himself shrinks to insignificance as he contemplates the depths of space and realizes that the earth he stands on is less than a mere grain of sand by comparison.
From the very largest heavenly bodies to the very smallest atomic particles, we are confronted with an order and design so marvelous that many who study it express themselves as one Harvard geology professor, who said: “We live in a universe not of chance or caprice, but of Law and Order. Its administration is completely rational and worthy of the utmost respect.
Leaming from the Marvels of Creation
—This is the fascinating theme developed in the articles on pages 3 to 23 of this special issue of “Awake!”
Consider the marvelous mathematical scheme of nature that permits us to give consecutive atomic numbers to every element.”
The Universe
When astronomers began mapping the heavens centuries ago they never dreamed of its size and complexity. What at first appeared through that telescopes to be distant stars were later found to be entire “island universes” of stars, called galaxies, where billions of stars were collected together in orderly systems.
More advanced telescopes revealed thousands, millions, yes, billions of these galaxies. So colossal has the size of our universe proved to be and so vast the distances within it that the most advanced scientific methods have only scratched the surface in understanding it.
The billions of galaxies, each containing innumerable stars, planets and other bodies, were also found to be in orderly arrangement For example, our galaxy, called the Milky Way, containing about 100,000,000,000 stars, is associated with at least seventeen other galaxies in what might be called a galactic group. Other galactic groups contain hundreds, or even thousands, of galaxies.
King David of ancient Israel, with far less knowledge of the heavens than we now have, was compelled to exclaim: “When I see your heavens, the works of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have prepared, what is mortal man that you keep him in mind?”—Ps. 8:3, 4.
Distance
Despite the existence of so many heavenly bodies, there is little danger of collision, for the spaces in between them are immense.
Our closest neighbor, the moon, is over 238,000 miles away. But since there are about 100,000,000,000 stars in our own galaxy, the Milky Way, are not some of them close enough to endanger earth? No, because the nearest star is the sun, and it is 93,000,000 miles away. The next closest star is about 270,000 times as far away from us as the sun is!
So vast are distances in the universe that they are measured in “light years,” the distance light travels in one year at its speed of over 186,000 miles per second. This amounts to about six trillion (6,000,-000,000,000) miles a year! That closest star other than the sun, one of the Alpha Centauri group, is over four light years away, or about twenty-five trillion (25,-000,000,000,000) miles distant!
Our Milky Way galaxy measures about 100,000 light years in diameter, which helps explain why its myriads of stars are in little danger of colliding. Beyond that, the distance from our Milky Way galaxy to the next closest galaxy like it, called Andromeda, is about 1,400,000 light years.
That means that if you traveled at the rate of 186,000 miles each second, it would take you almost 1,400,000 years to reach this neighbor galaxy!
The stars that make up the bulk of these galaxies are self-illuminating bodies like our sun. Each is a huge sphere of intensely glowing gas. Some are so dense that one , cubic inch of their material weighs several million pounds. The density of the star most familiar to us, the sun, is only about one and a half times that of liquid water.
While the size of our sun is impressive, it is only average as stars go. Its diameter of 864,000 miles seems very large compared to earth’s diameter of about 8,000 miles, but one star in our Milky Way, Antares, has a diameter of about 350,000,000 miles, 400 times that of our sun. If one edge of Antares were placed at our earth, it would reach to the sun and nearly three times beyond it.
Making the entire arrangement even more awesome to our finite minds is the fact that no end to these stars and star systems can be detected. Each time more powerful instruments peer into the universe, it is seen to stretch beyond that new limit of vision.
The entire gigantic mass is precisely arranged and accurate in its movements. Day after day, year after year, century after century, the stars and planets follow their paths through the skies in such orderly fashion, and are so regular in their orbits, that eclipses may be predicted centuries in advance. Even our finest timepieces can be set by their movements. So orderly are they that men stake their lives on the laws that govern their regularity when they use them as navigational aids to cross dark oceans by air and sea. The book The World We Live In states: “For all its complexity, the solar system also reveals an order and harmony that has ever impressed scientists contemplating the laws that govern the motions of the skies.”
This magnificent expanse shouts out the glory and power of its Creator, of whom Isaiah said: "Raise your eyes high up and see. Who has created these things? It is the One who is bringing forth the army of them even by number, all of whom he calls even by name. Due to the abundance of dynamic energy, he also being vigorous in power, not one of them is missing.” —Isa. 40:26.
The Smallest
About a century ago English physicist John Dalton’s experiments showed that the various elements behaved as if they were composed of tiny units. He called these units atoms, and thought they were indivisible, solid particles.
Through the century that followed, further experiments disclosed that the atom was not the smallest unit. Step by step three basic building blocks were discovered inside the atom: protons, neutrons and electrons. These three particles were found to have the same orderliness as the rest of the universe. Like a miniature solar system, electrons were discovered to be speeding around a nucleus of protons and neutrons in a law-abiding system.
How big is an atom? Only a few billionths of an inch in diameter! Most of its mass is concentrated in the nucleus of protons and neutrons. The size of this nucleus, however, is 100,000 times smaller than the entire diameter of the atom with its orbiting electrons. Incredibly, as in the arrangement of stars and galaxies, the atom consists mostly of space between the nucleus and its orbiting electrons. Even with 6,000,-000,000,000,000,000,000 (six sextillion) atoms in one drop of water, there is far more space than matter!
Yet, this is not all. Until recent years it was thought that the protons, neutrons and electrons were the tiniest building blocks of creation. However, modem research has brought to light many other small particles inside the atom. Scientists number them at more than thirty. Some are thought to relate to that mysterious force holding the nucleus of the atom together, which, when split, produces the fantastic quantities of energy seen in atomic explosions. There is also some evidence now that even the protons and neutrons themselves may be minute systems, with a central core or nucleus surrounded by clouds of smaller particles.
Declare the Glory of God
So whether we examine the universe or the atom we observe amazing power, order, unity and complexity far beyond our ability fully to comprehend. What we can comprehend is that the same order and harmony in both testify to their having the same Creator.
As a professor of biology stated: "From the drop of water seen through the microscope to the distant star observed through the telescope I marvel at .the exact orderliness that I observe—so exact that laws have been formulated to express its consistency. . . . Somewhere back of all this order must be a Supreme Being, for there can be no order and no laws without a Supreme Mind.” Einstein said he had "a deeply emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe.”
From the large to the'small, from star to atom, our universe strikingly demonstrates the power and harmony of God’s work and underscores the expression of the psalmist who wrote*. “The heavens are declaring the glory of God; and of the work of his hands the expanse is telling.”—Ps. 19:1.
EARTH is man's home, his only home. Try as he will, he cannot stay away from it in space for any length of time. His life depends upon it. His need for it stimulates his hunger for knowledge about it. What he has learned reveals that life on the earth is no accident, but that earth was specifically designed for human habitation. There are ever so many of its characteristics that, as far as is known, are peculiar to it and that are imperative to the life of man and beast.
First of all, there is earth’s temperature. This depends primarily upon its distance from the sun, some 93 million miles, with a variation of three million miles in the course of a year. Were the earth as far removed from the sun as are the planets Neptune and Pluto, no life of the type fou&d on. earth would be possible. The temperature would be far too cold. On the other hand, If the earth were much closer to the sun, life likewise would be impossible because of the extreme heat. The Mariner II space vehicle, shot into space within the
Designed
Uutruut naiiiatioit
as it rotates on its axis. Were the earth to rotate on its axis only once a year, as is the case with its sister planet Mercury, one half of the earth would be a frozen subzero waste and the other half a burning furnace.
Concerning the importance of temperature to the maintenance of life upon the earth, A. R. Wallace once well said:
“The essential features of the structure of organized beings are, continuous growth and repair of tissues, nutrition by the absorption of dead or living matter from without, and its transformation into the various unstable compounds of which their bodies are built up. For these purposes a double system of circulation, gaseous and liquid, has to be continuously in operation, and this is carried on by means of minute tubular or cellular vessels which permeate every part of the body. These wonderfully complex and ■exquisitely adjusted circulating systems are entirely dependent on the continuous maintenance of a very narrow range of temperature somewhere between the extremes of the boiling and the freezing points of water.”1
The Atmosphere
Only slightly less important than the right temperature of the earth is its atmosphere, which gives no less striking evidence for earth’s
past year, revealed that the surface of Venus, a planet that is one-third closer to the sun than is the earth, has a surface temperature of 800° F., a temperature that is far above the melting point of lead. Clearly, the earth’s distance from the sun is evidence of design.
And so is the very speed of the earth being designed for human habitation. Thus concerning the nature of earth’s atmosphere one authority states;
“The signal fact is that the rare gases are present here in only small amounts, much smaller than those known elsewhere in the universe. At the same time, oxygen, nitrogen . . . and water vapor are present in much greater abundance than elsewhere. The relative distribution of the elements in the universe has been determined by spectroscopic analysis of meteorites. These show that the rare gases are present here only In a few millionths to a billionth of their cosmic abundance. Now, since the solar system and probably the Known universe are generally assumed to have been formed simultaneously, the Earth should have contained a reasonably proportionate share of the various elements.”2
But such is not the case. Why? And what is the origin of atmospheric oxygen, which is found in such abundance in earth’s atmosphere (21 percent) and which is so indispensable to life? Scientists cannot answer. They offer various hypotheses, but there are objections to all of them.
Yes, no other known planet has an atmosphere capable of sustaining human life. Was this a mere accident, something that happened by chance, a product of random?
Nor is that all. The atmosphere not only makes human life possible on the earth but it is a most vital factor in preserving it According to the Larousse Encyclopedia of the Earth, the atmosphere does this by acting, first of all, “as an insulating blanket, keeping temperatures in middle and high altitudes from dropping to extremes during night and winter.” Secondly, according to this same authority, “the atmosphere serves to protect us from those of the Sun’s rays which are harmful. The ultraviolet end of the spectrum in particular, while important and necessary for life, is nevertheless fatal below certain wavelengths.”3
What protects the earth from these rays is a thin layer of ozone some 100,000 miles above the surface of the earth. Who but the Designer of the earth and Creator of man could have foreseen the vital need for such a shield? Nor are the sun’s harmful rays the only ones against which the earth’s atmosphere furnishes protection. When the earth passed through the tail of Halley’s comet in 1910, it was feared that harm would come to the human race because that tail contained cyanogen, a deadly gas. But even as the atmosphere protects man from the sun’s harmful rays so it prevented this gas from reaching the surface of the earth.
Acting like a protective canopy, the atmosphere further protects man from the multitudes of meteors that fall upon the earth. At times thousands fall in one night. They could cause great harm and damage to the earth and its inhabitants if they were not burned up by friction due to the earth’s atmosphere. The condition on the moon highlights this fact. Thus we are told:
“The utter contrast between the surfaces of the Moon and the Earth, whose environments in space are so similar, is particularly striking. The Moon’s surface is dry and without air. On it are no continents, no long ranges of mountains, and no active volcanoes, but instead a multitude of meteorite craters of all sizes, which are almost lacking on the earth.’’*
■Not to be overlooked is the role that the atmosphere plays in the earth’s water cycle. The waters drawn from the ocean by the rays of the sun form clouds that float or are driven by winds in the atmosphere over the land areas, where they fall as rain. Without such rainfall, man could not live. Surely these varying and vital roles that the atmosphere plays in making human life possible upon the surface of the earth could not be the result of blind chance but, rather, argue eloquently in favor of the earth’s being designed-for human habitation by a great Designer.
Other Vital Cycles
In addition to the water cycle there are also the phosphorus, nitrogen and oxygen cycles, all indispensable to the life of man and beast and giving further eloquent testimony that the earth was indeed designed for human habitation. For example, if there is any truly mineral element more important to life than any other it is phosphorus. It Is comparatively rare and transient, being easily lost by being combined with other elements. Man and beast get it especially by eating grains, which take it from the soil. It is returned to the soil by manure and decaying bodies. Because of man’s carelessness much precious phosphorus is washed into the sea, impoverishing the land.
However, this phosphorus is not lost entirely, for the sea has its own phosphorus cycle. Plankton absorbs phosphorus, zooplankton eats the plankton, small fish eat the zooplankton, and large fish the small fish. When sea plants and animals die they sink to the bottom of the ocean to build up reserves of phosphorus, to which is added that which comes into the sea by soil erosion and sewage. In temperate climates cold weather causes an inversion of the upper and lower layers of water, thus bringing the phosphorus up. so that it can be eaten by the plankton. This starts the cycle all over again. Large numbers of the human race depend upon fish for protein, and the abundance of fish in the ocean largely depends upon this inversion of the upper and lower layers of water, this phosphorus cycle of the &a. Likewise indispensable to human life is the oxygen cycle.
There is no question about oxygen being vital to man’s habitation of the earth. It is kept in equilibrium by the oxygen cycle. Plants maintain this cycle by taking carbon dioxide out of the air and releasing oxygen. Man and beast, in turn, take in the oxygen and release carbon dioxide.
Still another cycle indispensable to man’s earthly existence is that of nitrogen, a gas that comprises 78 percent of the earth’s atmosphere. Nitrogen is a comparatively inert gas that man does not utilize. It is fortunate for man that nitrogen is so inert, that it does not readily mix with other elements. If it did. the oceans would all be a weak solution of nitric add, making life on earth impossible. In the nitrogen cycle the thunderstorms as well as bacteria found on the roots of such plants as peas, beans and clover, introduce nitrogen into the soil in the form of nitrates that can be absorbed by plants. As plants and animal matter decay they release nitrogen to the atmosphere, thereby completing the cycle. Another valuable purpose served by nitrogen is that of a dilutent of the air’s oxygen so that there is just the right amount of free oxygen to support life and for the burning of combustible materials. Surely all these cycles, so vital to life on earth, could not possibly be the product of blind chance but forcefully argue that the earth was indeed designed for human habitation.
Other Factors
Among other factors that argue in behalf of the earth’s being designed for human habitation are the size and location of the moon. Were the moon twice its present size, it would cause such tides and bulgings In'the earth’s crust that man and beast could not exist upon the earth, that is, upon the land. The same is true if the moon were half the distance from the earth that it presently is.
The lowly, humble dust particle furnishes still another proof of design. Dust enters the earth’s atmosphere by means of meteors, volcanoes and desert winds. Without dust, life would not be possible upon earth. Says The Encyclopedia Americana:
"No condensation of moisture, as in rain, mist, fog, could occur without nuclei such as dust particles. If the atmosphere were not impregnated with dust there would be no cloud effects, no radiant sunsets, no soft after* glow; the sun would go down instantly, the harmonious colorings, which lend a halo to the quiet evening would never have been.’’5
Intelligent design is also evident in the tilt of earth’s axis at an angle at 23 degrees. Consider what a past president of the New York Academy of Sciences and a life member of the Royal Institution of Great Britain had to say about this:
"The earth is tilted at an angle of twenty-three degrees. This gives us our seasons. If it had not been tilted, the poles would be in eternal twilight. The water vapor fromthe ocean would move north and south, piling up continents of ice and leaving possibly a desert between the equator and the ice. Glacial rivers would erode and roar through canyons into the salt-covered bed of the ocean to form temporary pools of brine. The weight of the unbelievably vast mass of ice would depress the poles, causing our equator to bulge or erupt or at least show the need of a new waistline belt. The lowering of the ocean would expose vast new land areas and diminish the rainfall in all parts of the world, with fearful results.”0
Much more evidence could be adduced, would space permit, but the foregoing should suffice to prove that the earth was designed for human habitation. Such an amazing number of conditions and balances could not by any means have come about by chance. Only because of design are men of science able to say regarding it:
“Man’s home—the surface of the Earth —is a small and temperate shelter set in a vast and alien universe . . . Well may mankind glory in its fertile plains, its snow-capped pinnacles, its mighty oceans, for they are rare examples of moderation in a universe where extremes of heat and cold prevail ... On earth the greatest miracle is life, but the combination of circumstances which have made life possible is hardly less remarkable.”4
Man Designed for the Earth
Yes, it is no less true that man was designed for earthly habitation. As the Bible makes clear, “To Jehovah the heavens belong, but the earth he has given to the sons of men.” (Ps. 115:16) Man’s arms, legs and hands are ideally suited for him to move about on this earth, to provide for himself food, clothing and shelter. The earth abounds with sounds; man’s ear is constructed so as to pick up the greatest possible number of sounds useful and enjoyable to him. The earth also abounds in colors, and man has color vision. More than all this, man has an intellect, a brain, making possible his appreciating of beauty, so that al] this beauty is not wasted on him.
Man has been given a set of teeth, and the earth abounds with all manner of fruits, vegetables, cereals, on which to use his teeth, as well as such sweets as maple syrup and honey to delight his sense of taste. Water is indispensable to man’s existence, and what an abundance of it there is upon earth! There was a time when “scientists” blithely speculated that someday man would content himself with a few concentrated pellets. But now he knows better, for both taste and bulk are essential for proper digestion and elimination, and the food’s being pleasing to the eye also aids in digestion.
Earth designed for human habitation and man designed for earthly habitation —by whom? By the Creator, Jehovah God, even as we read in his Word, the Bible, at Isaiah 45:18: “This is what Jehovah has said, the Creator of the heavens, He the true God, the Former of the earth and the Maker of it, He the One who firmly established it, who did not create it simply for nothing, who formed it even to be inhabited: ‘I am Jehovah, and there is no one else.’ ” And as we note how He made all things we are compelled to exclaim, in the words of the psalmist: “How many your works are, O Jehovah! All of them in wisdom you have made. The earth is full of your productions.”—Ps. 104:24.
REFERENCES
1 Fortnightly Review, March 1, 1003, pp. 40611.
•t Scientific American, August 1953, pp. 63-36.
3 Page 16.
4 “The Crust".—J. Tuzo Wilson, in The Earth and Its Atmosphere, edited by D. R. Bates.
s Vol. 9, p. 429.
s Man Does Not Stand Alone—Morrison, p, IT.
Although this planet is called earth, 71 percent of its surface is covered by the seas. The volume of water that they contain is so great that, if the earth were bulldozed smooth, seawater would inundate it to a depth of over two miles. But far from being a vast wasteland, the seas swarm with life. In fact, the first living creatures on this planet were de-rigned so as to live comfortably in the seas. To this end “God blessed them, saying: ‘Be fruitful and become many and fill the waters in the sea basins.’"—Gen. 1:9,20-23.
Those that have explored the ocean depths are amazed at the beauty of design and the mobility of these countless sea creatures. There Seems to be no end to their variety, and each one is equipped so as to live in Its particular habitat; whether that be at the seashore, in warm surface waters, or in the near-freezing depths of undersea valleys beneath more than six miles of water.
Exploring Seashore Life
Although one may be inspired by the majestic waves pounding a rocky shore, a careful examination of the many living creatures that make their home along the shore can be equally rewarding. Many of the animals have remarkable behavior cycles that are repeated with the ebb and flow of the tides. The regular changing of color of the common fiddler crab is a good example. The Scientific American of April 1954 reported the following interesting results of some experiments conducted on these creatures:
“Sometimes the crab is darkest in the morning, sometimes at noon and occasionally both early in the morning and early in the evening. The time of
greatest darkening tends to occur about 50 minutes later each successive day. Now it is common knowledge that high and low tides in any given locality also occur about 50 minutes later each day. We found that the maximum darkening of the crabs in our laboratory came at about the time of day when the tide was low in the place where they had been collected. In other words, at the very same time that crabs bn the beach were taking on their darkest hue as protection from the sunlight and predators, their captured relatives in the laboratory, who had been kept in a darkroom for as long as a month, also were becoming their darkest.”
How marvelously these creatures are designed for their protection! To emphasize how remarkably precise is the mechanism that triggers this change of color, “fiddler crabs from Woods Hole were kept in the darkroom side by side with crabs from Martha’s Vineyard, where low tide comes four hours later in the day. The Vineyard crabs turned their darkest just four hours later than the Woods Hole crabs!” Where do sea creatures get the wonderful timing mechanism that is triggered by the ebb and flow of the tides? Evading the answer that God is responsible, scientists say “that such biological clocks are inherited."
Another wonderful creature that is found attached to rocks or in tide pools along the shore is the sea anemone. How beautifully colored they are! Some are olive green, others are flesh-colored or orange, while still others are pink or crimson. Slender undulating tentacles arranged around a central disc give them the appearance of lovely flowers. But let tiny shrimps or minnows in the vicinity beware! Those colorful tentacles possess minute .“lasso threads” that dart out and paralyze unsuspecting victims with poison. The petallike tentacles then reach out and pull the stunned prey into its center, where it vanishes into the mouth of the anemone.
Thus the beautiful, heiplesS-looking anemone is wonderfully designed for survival. But perhaps even more marvelous is the way that it contributes to the support and well-being of the daddy-longlegs of the shore creatures, known as the sea spider. After the anemone has finished dining, this eight-legged, spiderlike creature emerges from some secret lair among the weeds and pebbles and confidently crawls over the anemone's colorful tentacles. Surprisingly, no poisonous threads dart out to strike him. Instead, the sea spider proceeds unmolested to the center of the anemone, where it inserts its long snout into the anemone’s mouth, and calmly sucks up the contents of the latter’s stomach!
Why does the sea anemone allow this robbery? That is no more puzzling than why certain fish and shrimp make their home in the anemone’s stomach and are never digested, while similar little creatures are consumed. In tropical waters sea anemones grow to huge sizes, having tentacles two feet in length. Amazingly, they allow brightly colored coral fish to dart in and out of their stomachs, even though their everyday food consists of similar fish.
Hospitals and Beauty Parlors
An article in Scientific- American of August 1961 suggests that the sea anemone may, in some way, benefit from the probing into its entrails by other sea creatures. The magazine explained that studies have revealed that a large number of marine organisms either live by cleaning other flsh or benefit from being cleaned by them. Cleaner fish, which are now known to include twenty-six species, are specially equipped for their work with pointed snouts and tweezerlike teeth. Since other fish do not molest them, they are generally brightly colored and stand out in their environment. Host fish of many kinds travel long distances in order to receive treatment at these hospitals and beauty parlors of the underworld.
“Even a small cleaning station,” this scientific journal reported, “may process a large number of fish. to. the eeus^e. of a day. I saw up to 300 fish cleaned at one station in the Bahamas during one six-hour daylight period. Some of the fishes pass from station to station and return many times during the day; those that could be identified by visible marks, such as infection spots, returned day after day at regular time intervals.” This amazing behavior called “cleaning symbiosis” is recognized as an important activity that occurs throughout the marine world.
But scientists wonder “what mechanism prevents ordinarily voracious fishes from devouring the little cleaners.” Clearly, it is all part of God’s marvelous design, which design becomes so evident when one explores “his wonderful works in the depths.” —Ps. 107:24.
Designed for Their Habitat
Consider, for instance, fishes that inhabit cold northern waters. Recently scientists took some of them from the Hebron Fiord in Labrador, where both the water
dwelling variety,
or
CUTTLEFISH
and the flsh were a few degrees below freezing. The fish, however, were protected by a built-in supply of antifreeze.
Then there are sea birds and turtles that are able to drink salty seawater, which would dehydrate and sicken their landdwelling cousins. How is this possible? Recent studies reported in the January 1959 Scientific American show that, in addition to their kidneys, sea birds have “a special gland in the head which disposes of salt more rapidly than any kidney does.” Similar experiments with sea turtles revealed that their tears come from a large gland behind their eyeball, which produces a liquid about the same as that of the salt gland secretions of the sea bird.
The more man learns about the creatures of the sea, the more he is impressed with the wonderful way they are made to live in their environment. Fish gills, for instance, are so marvelously designed for extracting oxygen from the water and throwing off carbon dioxide, that scientists are studying the possibility of constructing an artificial gill like the fish’s. Swim bladders and other devices that allow sea creature b to float, and adjust to various ocean depths are equally amazing.
True, not all flsh have swim bladders, but those that do not are the bottom-they are in some way specially equipped, as are the streamlined, wellmuscled mackerel and tuna, who find constant motion practically effortless. Most other fish v possess swim bladders that expand as the fish ascends, helping it to rise, and compress when the fish descends, allowing it to sink. The flsh can then adjust the volume of gas in the bladder so as to bring itself into equilibrium with the depth it desires.
Some sea creatures, however, have special floating devices. Scientific American of July 1960 described how the cuttlefish “uses its cuttlebone [a large absorbent bone along its back] as a submarine commander uses the buoyancy tanks of his craft. When the submarine is to submerge, its buoyancy tanks are filled with water; when it is to surface, compressed air blows the water out of the tanks. ... In its eutl Rebone the cuttlefish thus possesses a buoyancy-regulating device of a most ingenious kind.”
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SQUID
The squid, on the other hand, possesses a large cavity that is filled with just the right amount of fluid of the proper density to give it buoyancy. Interestingly, the deep-diving bathyscaphe bears a resemblance to the squid, and for that reason cranchid squid are sometimes called “bathyscaphoid squid.” “Though the etymology of the term is dubious,” the abovequoted science magazine observed, “it may serve to remind us of an important lesson: Our pride in man’s latest discoveries must be tempered by the knowledge that other animals may have been using them from time Thus the exploration of the sea is not only fascinating, but it also teaches man that the Master Designer of the marvelous wonders found there should be looked to for guidance and wisdom.
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HUMAN engineers usually require a college degree, since they need to learn how to plan or build roads, bridges, dams, canals and tunnels. But in nature there are amazing engineers that do not have school for engineers to learn how to build dams, canals or tunnels; they just know how.
An expert in tunnel construction is a kind of ground squirrel of western North America called the prairie dog. This underground engineer excavates an almost straight vertical shaft eight to sixteen feet deep. The tunnel’s entrance is given special attention. It is situated in the middle of a kind of small volcano of earth. This elevation serves as a barrier against floods, preventing heavy rains from inundating the tunnel. What if the rain is so heavy that even the elevated entrance is temporarily submerged? Nature’s flood-control engineers make arrangements for such an emergency.
Besides the regular tunnels, the prairie dogs construct, not far from the surface, lateral tunnels off the vertical main passageway. As the floodwater pours into the burrow, the prairie dogs hurry into the ends of the emergency tunnels. Water rushing into the burrow forces air up into the emergency tunnels, forming air pockets. These prevent water from advancing farther into the tunnel, thus providing these underground engineers with a place of safety.
For amazing speed in tunnel construction few of nature’s underground engineers exceed the moles and certain armadillos. One mole was observed to dig a tunnel five feet or more in twenty-six minutes, a rate of about twelve feet an hour. An armadillo has been observed to bury itself completely in two minutes—this in soil so hard that one needed a pickax to dig a hole. Not only can armadillos dig with prodigious speed, but the eleven-banded armadillo excavates tremendous warrens in the forest floor that go down as much af fifty feet, coming out at water level at the bottom of river cliffs.
Perhaps the strangest of nature’s underground engineers is the duckbilled platypus. This egg-laying mammal constructs a burrow that penetrates the riverbank to a length of from five to upward of sixty feet. Several exits are usually built in. Mrs. Platypus also barricades her burrow with a series of loose earth stoppers at intervals along the main tunnel leading to the outside. All this ensures privacy for the platy-pusery, which the mother does not leave till the young have learned to suck from her fur milk that seeps through certain special pores in her skin.
Expert in Building Dams
Tunnel construction is just one of the many engineering works of the beavers. These bark-eating rodents, found chiefly in North America, weigh from thirty to fifty pounds and are noted for their construction of dams. These dams are not trivial affairs, as some people view them, but they construct what one naturalist calls “serious engineering feats on a very large scale.”
Yes, some beaver-built dams are more than a thousand feet long, the height varying from two feet to as much as fifteen or even more. An amazingly skilled beaver colony once built a dam on the Jefferson River in Montana that spanned 2,140 feet! Beaver-engineered dams may be built straight, curved or even in an S-shape. Some contain thousands of tons of materials.
Much of the dam construction material is wood. For cutting down trees, beaver engineers are well equipped. They have a built-in ax; four yellow-orange, chisellike teeth.1' With these self-shaipening teeth, they can cut down a tree four inches in diameter in about fifteen minutes. Cutting trees down* is not a rare occurrence. A study of beaver colonies in Michigan revealed that each beaver cut down an average of six trees every ten days! With their two nimble front paws, beavers manipulate the sticks, mud or other building material needed for a dam.
Nature’s engineers usually begin a dam by cutting willow or other branches, carrying them to the bottom of the stream, fixing them in place with their butt ends upstream. They add mud, gravel and stones; then another layer of brush and saplings; then more mud and stones, and so on until the dam is as high as needed. The result Is a strong watertight dam that will stand for many years. A spillway is also usually provided.
The pond is usually made in an area where food trees are plentiful, trees such as the poplar and aspen, since the bark of these trees is their favorite food; but they dine on most hardwood trees. The ponds made by the beaver dams may be only an acre or so in extent, or they may be several hundreds or even several thousands of acres.
Home and Canal Building
Why do beaver engineers work so diligently to build a complex dam? The purpose centers around the beaver’s need to store up food for the winter and to build a suitable house or lodge. Though some beavers, especially those in Europe, live in burrows dug in the banks of streams, most beavers in North America have as their final aim a dam, pond and house.
Beavers build houses that vary from eight or ten feet to nearly forty feet in diameter. The lodge may have two levels or floors, the dining room being just a few inches above water level. The second level is floored with peeled sticks or shredded wood, especially cedar, since it is unlikely to harbor pesty insects. In the center of the roof of the house there is a ventilation shaft. Near the house itself beavers store up underwater supplies of food. Also underwater are the entrances to the beaver’s house. The beaver needs a dam, then, so it can have a pond with a constant level of water to keep the underwater tunnel entrances to its house permanently concealed from unwelcome visitors, such as hungry foxes. Moreover, with a pond at a constant level, freezing weather never prevents these furry engineers from having free access to their sunken stores of wood and bark.
When it comes time to plaster their house, beavers continue to display skill. They do the plastering only after the first hard frost, the whole building except the ventilation opening being coated with mud, which freezes hard and forms a solid protection against attacks by enemies. If the beavers plastered their house before the frost, they would risk the plaster’s being washed away by rain; but the beaver engineers avoid that mistake.
Another display of beaver engineering wisdom lies in the fact that sometimes they build a smaller dam in addition to the main dam. They build it downstream in order to back up some water against the original dam and thus decrease the pressure of water on it from the other side.
Amazing engineers? So much so that they have repaired a dam that human engineers could not repair. “A few years ago,” reports the New York Times Magazine of January 24, 1960, “an atomic energy storage dam on Canada’s Chalk River developed a leak that engineers couldn’t find. Stumped, they brought in a pair of beavers and loosed them on the dam. In less than a week the beavers had found the leak—and repaired it.”
But building and repairing dams is just one of the many ways beavers Sttsplay engineering skill. Some naturalists view their construction of canals as an even greater feat. Yes, it is true that beavers, usually in western North America, sometimes build canals on which to float their food supplies, sections of branches and tree trunks, to their pond. The canals may be from three to five feet in width, three feet deep and may be as long as 750 feet! Beaver-engineered canals may have two or even three water levels and little dams that serve as locks. Yes, not without reason Hammond's Nature Atlas of America calls the beaver “An Engineering Genius.”
Thinking Done for Them
How do nature’s engineers do it? How does the prairie dog build an underground home with several flood-control devices? How do beavers know the basic laws of hydraulic engineering? The answer is that nature’s engineers have had their thinking done for them. They have built-in patterns of behavior, usually called instinct or instinctive wisdom. Animals can learn something from experience, of course, but such learning is extremely limited. True instincts, on the other hand, are neither taught nor transmitted by example from one generation to the next; they are part of the genetic code determining the species. “An animal is born,” says the volume The Animal Kingdom, “with an inherited sense that it obeys without question. It comes into the world with the ability to act and protect itself according to its immediate needs—without instruction or learning gained from experience.”
Just as the spider's ability to make an intricate web is inborn in the spider, so that baby spiders make small webs correct in almost every detail, so likewise is the beaver’s ability to build a dam. This is shown by the fact that a beaver raised from infancy by the French naturalist Cuvier was able to perform its woodcutting, hauling and construction work as efficiently as members of its kind that grew up in the wild.
Since engineering wisdom is inborn in nature’s engineers, how did they get it? How did the prairie dog become a floodcontrol engineer? How do nature’s underground engineers dig with amazing rapidity complicated burrows? How did the beaver become “an engineering genius"? Was it “blind chance” or an unreasoning force? No, but those amazing animal engineers point to the Great Engineer and Architect of all things who imparted to the animal creation a marvelous variety of instinctive wisdom. Little wonder, with every new engineering concept developed by man it usually turns out that nature’s engineers had it first!
BY WRAPPING the earth in a green, colorfully decorated mantle, plant life makes man's planetary home a delightful place in which to live. In fact, its presence spells the difference between the earth's being what it is and its being a barren, lifeless chunk of matter floating in space. Without it no life could exist on earth, because, either directly or indirectly, all living creatures are dependent upon plants for life. They alone are able to synthesize food from air, water and elements from the soil. The marvelous manner in which they do this is clearly no accident.
Every green plant is an astonishing factory that does what no human factory or scientific laboratory has been able to do. It extracts carbon from carbon dioxide gas in the atmosphere, hydrogen and oxygen from the water it draws from the soil, and then combines these elements into a great variety of complex products. The energy it needs for doing this it gets from sunlight.
Without university training in chemistry and, in fact, without the ability to think and reason, a plant combines carbon, hydrogen and oxygen atoms to make complicated foods such as starch, protein, oil, fat and sugar. Through small pores called stomata, a plant takes in air from the atmosphere. Out of the carbon dioxide in the air it extracts carbon. In fact, it is estimated that plants remove 100,000,000,000 tons of carbon from the atmosphere every year. But oxygen, needed by men and animals, is liberated from the leaves as a waste product resulting from their breaking down water into hydrogen and oxygen.
Not all the water taken up by a plant is used by it. A large amount is transpired or evaporated from its leaves. A sunflower, for example, might give off a quart of water in a single day. Necessarily, transpiration must be regulated so the plant will not lose water when it needs it.- This is accomplished by an increase or a decrease in the swelling of the two crescent-shaped guard cells that surround the mouth of each pore. Thus wilting causes the pores to close, stopping the plant’s loss of water. The guard cells of many plants open the pores or stomata when the air is moist but close them when the air is dry or when darkness stops photosynthesis.
Did the plants reason out for themselves that transpiration must be controlled and that it can be done by means of guard cells? Did they conceive the complex process of using sunlight, carbon dioxide and water to make sugar, starch, fats, proteins, and so forth? How did they come to master the complicated process of photosynthesis without intelligence when the greatest minus, among men are unable to duplicate the process, much less understand how it is carried on?
Pollination
The manner in which flowers are fertilized shows all the evidence of clear thinking and thorough understanding of natural laws. Their structure could not have been accidental. The male organs of a flower are its pollen-bearing stamens, and the female organs are the pollen-catching stigmas along with the ovules that produce seeds. When the stamen and the stigma are in the same blossom, the flower is usually designed in such a way that it is not selfpollinating but must be pollinated by another flower. Self-pollination is commonly prevented by a condition in which the stamens and jristil of a flower mature at different times. In the case of the flreweed, the style, which bears the stigma, is curved backward during the period that the stamens are producing pollen. After a while it straightens out and extends itself beyond the stamens so that it can receive pollen from another plant. Is this not obviously the product of intelligent designing?
Some plants are pollinated by insects, and their blooms show evidence of having been designed for that very purpose. Certain flowers attract bees, others moths, and still others butterflies, flies or beetles. There are types that specialize in birds as their pollinators.
Bee flowers are generally blue or yellow or some mixture of these colors. This is the part of the color spectrum to which a bee’s vision is limited. In the case of many of the flowers that use moths as pollinators, they do not open until dusk or night, when the moths coniie out. Also, their color tends to run mainly in the white shades so they can be seen by the moths under the poor light conditions when the moths are flying about. How did they get this sense of timing and insight on color?
Flowers that use short-tongued flies as pollinators have odors that attract them. The large-blossomed Rafflesia of Malaysia gives off a smell like that of putrefying flesh, and the black arum has an odor like that of human dung. Since these flies live on such things, they are attracted to the flowers, and as they crawl over them, they pollinate them.
Some of the flowers that use bees as pollinators have a special lever or trigger device that brings the anther down so that it can dust pollen on the back of the bee when it enters the flower. At this time the female organ, the stigma, is not mature. It stays in the upper part of the flower, but later it will open and curve down so that it will rub a bee’s back. In this way the flower picks up pollen from a bee or, with the anthers, gives it a load of pollen for another flower. Did the flower foresee the necessity of giving pollen for other flowers as well as receiving it for itself? Did it devise this means of using insects as pollinators?
In the case of the lady’s slipper, the bloom forms a sac with the opposite sides curling upward and then inward where the sides meet at the top. The bumblebee that lands on the top of the blossom falls into the sac, where it feeds on the nectar of the flower. Nectar, incidentally, is produced by flowers for the specific purpose of attracting insects or birds. Flowers that are wind-pollinated produce neither nectar nor aroma. Once a bumblebee falls into the sac of a lady’s slipper, the only way it can get out is to crawl out the opening at the end of the blossom near the stem. As it does so, it must first brush against the stigma, which takes pollen from its back, and then it brushes past the anthers, which give its back a new supply of pollen for the next flower. It is evident that the lady’s slipper did not devise by itself this clever way of fertilizing its seeds and passing pollen on to other blooms. In itself it was incapable of knowing the necessity of having the stigma placed ahead of the anthers so it would not be self-pollinated by the insect. But the arrangement is therfe.
Seed Distribution
As with plant pollination, so with the distribution of the mature seeds, thoughtful design is clearly evident. What else can explain why some plants produce seeds that have fluffy tufts attached to them so they can float in the air and be carried great distances by the wind? Others, like the ash and maple, have seeds with wings that allow the seeds to glide through the air. Still others have hooks or barbs that attach to the fur of animals or have explosive pods that shoot seeds away from the parent plant as they explode. How could nonthinking plants recognize the need for seed dispersal, much less devise these ways of accomplishing it?
Some seeds even have the ability to crawl after they drop to the ground. The seed of the cranesbill has a long tail or awn. In dry weather the awn curls up like a corkscrew, but in damp weather it uncurls. This movement with changing humidity causes the seed to move along the ground. When the seed reaches a suitable spot to plant itself, it drives itself into the ground, and protruding bristles hold it firmly in place. The same is true of the seeds from certain grasses. Did these plants reason out for themselves that changing humidity could cause a tail or awn of the right material to curl and uncurl and that this action would disperse their seeds as well as plant them in the ground?
Insect Eaters
Intelligent design is very evident in such plants as the pitcher plant, the bladderwort, Venus flytrap and the sundew. These plants are constructed in such a fashion that they can trap insects.
The pitcher plant has vase-shaped leaves that hold rainwater. The upper half of the pitcher has an inner surface that is smooth and slippery, and below this region there is a zone of stiff hairs that point downward. Insect? venturing onto the slippery surface lose their foothold and fall into the pitcher and drown in the water at the bottom. The down-pointing hairs prevent them from getting out. As the insect decays and is acted upon by digestive enzymes secreted by the plant, the plant absorbs it.
The Venus flytrap has an entirely different system of catching insects. Attached to a flat leaf it has a two-lobed blade that is hinged down its middle. Along the outer edges of the lobes is a row of needlelike spines that interlock when the lobes are closed. Three short bristles on each half act as triggers. When an insect touches these sensitive bristles the two halves of the blade spring together like a steel trap. The imprisoned insect is then digested by fluids secreted by the plant. Such insect-eating plants usually grow in marshy areas where there is insufficient nitrogen in the soil, and the bodies of the captured insects supply the plant’s nitrogen needs.
There seems to be no end of examples of intelligent design in plant life. Wherever a person m^y look he will find nonthinking plants doing things and making use of natural laws in ways that exceed the intellectual ability of average humans and, in some cases, aven of the most skilled scientists. When the knowledge man has accumulated about plants is assembled, it makes an impressive array of evidence that argues that plants are no accident. They were created by God.
HOW marvelous are the laws that govern the movements within the tiny atom, as well as the rotation of the stars and their planets! What wisdom is manifest in the creation of the animals, birds, plants, and the other countless wonders in the earth! How wonderfully the creatures of the sea are designed for their habitat! Is it not natural that a person should want to become acquainted with the One responsible for all these marvels of creation?
However, strange as it may seem, many persons do not believe that anyone is responsible. They believe that life sprang spontaneously from nothing and that it continues without any intelligent direction. But certainly science, which is “knowledge concerned with the physical world and its phenomena," does not indicate this conclusion. To the contrary as Brigadier General David Sarnoff, chairman of the Board of the Radio Corporation of America, not long ago said:
“Science begets humility. Its every discovery reveals more clearly the Divine Design in nature, the remarkable harmony in all things, from the infinitesimal to the infinite, that surpasses mortal understanding. The physical processes and laws of the universe are logical, all-embracing and wholly dependable. They imply a Supreme Architect, and the beauty and symmetry of His handiwork inspire reverence."
The most noted names in science agree with this observation. Dr. Albert Einstein said that it was enough for him “to try humbly to comprehend even an infinitesimal part of the intelligence manifest in nature.” The famous inventor Thomas Edison once said: “After years of watching
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the processes of nature, I cannot doubt the existence of a Supreme Intelligence. The existence of such a God can, to my mind, almost be proved from, chemistry.” And the famous British physicist Lord Kelvin concurred: “If you think strongly enough, you will be forced by science to believe in God."
There is plan, design and order everywhere one looks in the universe, and “it is incontrovertible that where there is a plan there is intelligence,” observed Nobel Prizewinning physicist Arthur H. Compton, “An orderly, unfolding universe,” he said, "testifies to the truth of the most majestic statement ever uttered—‘In the beginning God’!”
Nineteen centuries ago a keen student of the physical world and its phenomena wrote in similar vein: ’“For his invisible qualities are clearly seen from the world's creation onward, because they are perceived by the things made, even his eternal power and Godship, so that they are inexcusable.”—Rom. 1:20.
Unquestionably a blind unreasoning force is not responsible for the marvels of creation, but, rather, an all-powerful intelligent God is. Increased knowledge of the physical world impresses this fact upon one. But who is this Master Craftsman? What is his name? What does he expect from us in the way of praise and worship ?
No matter how much knowledge of the physical world and its phenomena scientists obtain, they can never from this source find the answers to such questions as these. But, then, there are many persons who do not want to know the answers. Why so? Because if they knew about God's purposes and what he required of man, they would feel obligated to serve Him and to live in accord with His righteous principles. So to avoid any restrictions, many refuse to examine the Creator’s inspired revelation about himself in his Word, the Bible, They claim that the Bible is merely the work of men, and is subject to errors like any other book.
The Bible Identifies the One
But if one dismisses prejudices and examines the Bible with an open mind, he will find that there is as much evidence that attests to its Divine Authorship as there is evidence that shows that the heavens and earth were designed by a Supreme Intelligence. Both originate from the same Source. As the famous scientist and discoverer of the law of gravity, Sir Isaac Newton, said: “No sciences are better attested than the religion of the Bible.’’
A careful' reader of this infallible book of the Supreme Architect will find that it does not attribute the marvels of creation to a nameless, impersonal “Mother Nature,” but that it says: "Jehovah God made earth and heaven.” (Gen. 2:4) Open your Bible to Psalm 83:18 and read his name for yourself: “That people may know that you, whose name is Jehovah, you alone are the Most High over all the earth.”
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