Science And You

All articles in this section are written by Michael G. Windheuser, Ph.D. and is from a Christian Magazine titled "Uplook"

You can subscribe to this magazine by visiting their website at: www.uplook.org. The magazine includes a wide variety of articles designed to bring glory to God our Saviour.

There's No Place Like Home
With everything God touches He leaves something of His glory behind.

Outer space is not a very inviting place to visit. There is no air or air pressure, no oxygen, no liquid water, no food, extremely high and low temperatures, and harmful radiation, to name a few features that don't match the basic requirements for life as we know it. We do visit space, but this requires intelligently engineered equipment to allow us to take our environment along with us. We must have oxygen-containing air at the correct pressure, otherwise blood would "boil" in the no-pressure vacuum of space. Food and water are essential, too, as is the right temperature for the biochemistry of life to run smoothly. And our DNA must be protected from damage by cosmic radiation. All of these conditions are already provided for us on earth. The physical conditions on earth exactly match the requirements to sustain human life with little or no effort on our part. Whereas it is with great effort that we take these conditions with us into space.
Earth-like gravity is also difficult to take with us into space. The microgravity environment of space looks like fun, but microgravity is actually harmful to humans. In the short term, with no gravity pulling blood down into the legs, blood redistributes into the head causing facial swelling. The inner ear, which normally controls our equilibrium on earth, is confused by the lack of gravity and many astronauts experience nausea and vomiting as a result. But more than anything else, the lack of normal "Ig" gravity in space may limit human exploration of space because the under-use of muscles causes them to become weak and the progressive loss of calcium weakens bones also.1
Data from long-duration microgravity exposure during Skylab missions in the 1970s indicated an average bone loss of 1% per month.; To counter this decline, NASA required astronauts to perform regular exercise in orbit and dedicated space shuttle missions to the evaluation of vacuum gravity suits and treadmills. While helpful, exercise has not prevented bone-loss during space flight.' In a sense, bones need gravity because they are designed to resist gravity and mechanical forces on earth. There is within bone a mechanism to sense where mechanical stress is placed on the bone and to call in bone-building cells to reinforce or "remodel" the bone. Since these
design features are not needed in micro-gravity, the body switches from using dietary calcium to build bone, to leaching calcium from bone—thus reducing bone strength.4
These concerns are not insurmountable. It may be that Arthur C. Clarke's vision of a circular, rotating spaceship, from the book and movie, 2001: A Space Odyssey, will need to be realized in order to create an artificial earth-like gravity field which we bring with us into space. In the end, these considerations should remind us that our earth environment and the needs of our human physiology are intelligently designed and constructed to be precisely matched and, while we may visit space, there is still no place like home. —MICHAEL G. WINDHEUSER, PH.D.

1 West JB. Physiology of a microgravity environment: Historical perspectives: Physiology in microgravity. Journal of Applied Phys-iolog}' 89:379-384, 2000.
Holick MF. Perspectives on the impact of weightlessness on
calcium and bone metabolism. Bone 22(5)1055-1115,1998.
LeBlanc A et al. Future human bone research in space. Bone
22(5)1135-1165,1998.
Burger EH and J Klein-Nulend. Microgravity and bone cell
mechanosensitivitv. Bone 22 (5)1275-1305,1998.

The Fingerprint of God
With everything God touches He leaves something of His glory behind.

Uplook Magazine Jan-Feb. 2006 Edition

I recognize faces easily, although names are some times slow to come to mind. Just ask my children. Each is a unique person, and though I recognize them, I still occasionally mix up their names. What I never forget is that they are separate and distinct per sons from me. Each is genetically complete, clearly human, and very much alive, both physically and spiritually. Some have suggested that personhood also depends on the presence of brain function, age from conception, or even location (inside or outside the womb). The definition of who is, and who is not, a person is literally a life and death distinction for unborn children. Since January of 1973, some 33 years ago now, millions of children have failed to meet the legal definition of personhood and have lost their lives from a horrible "choice" made by, of all people, their own mothers.
The biological facts are well known. The human egg and sperm reproductive cells are both alive, but each is an incomplete cell because each contains half the normal amount of genetic material as a regular body cell. It is only when the sperm cell penetrates the outer defensive layer of the egg and the two cells fuse during fertilization that a genetically unique, diploid, human cell is formed. At that moment, a human genetic profile or fingerprint is established which is different from either parent and which never changes no matter how many trillion cells develop from this first cell. Fertilization, or conception, is the first moment a new, genetically unique human life can be recognized.
Even more amazing is the evidence, developed in
the past four decades, that the mother's immune sys tem recognizes the growing embryo as a "foreign" object which should be rejected—just as a heart or skin transplant from another person would be reject ed unless anti-rejection drugs were taken. But the growing baby, despite being recognized through its histocompatibility proteins as foreign, is not attacked as if it were just some tissue graft. Scientists call this situation an "immunological paradox" because mothers develop potentially lethal anti body and cell-mediated immune responses against the growing child but the response does not damage the infant.1 Instead, during pregnancy, a temporary state of immunological "tolerance" or protection develops which lasts until delivery of the child. The body recognizes the developing child as if it were an invading bacterial infection or an organ graft, but instead of removing this threat, the body protects this new life. It has been said that life began just once and since then is just passed on. The biological facts are clear that, for the individual, this point of "passing" is the moment of conception. Conception creates a new life, a new person. It is equally clear that God has finely and elegantly designed the mother's immune system to recognize, but also protect, the growing new life within her until birth. This is not an immunological paradox. It is the fingerprint of God. —MICHAEL G. WINDHEUSER, PH.D. O

1 A.L. Mellor and D.H. Munn. Immunology at the maternal-fetal interface: Lessons for T cell tolerance and suppression. Annual Review of Immunology 2000; 18:367-391.

Darwin, You Have Failed Us!
After decades of preaching Darwinian evolution, one of it’s missionaries admits failure.

Uplook Magazine Nov-Dec 2005 Edition

Every so often there appears in print an article that reveals the inner turmoil of the evolutionary believer who has faithfully devoted his life to following the precepts of Darwinism and to passing on the faith to future generations, only to see no fruit from his labours. Such is the case expressed in a short view point article in the British journal The Lancet by Australian R.V. Short¹. In this psalm of lament entitled “Darwin, have I failed you?” professor Short confesses his sadness at not being able to convert any of the 150 medical students enrolled in his class on human evolution from their misguided religious beliefs to his own religion of Darwinism.

Despite having the advantages of unopposed authority as the instructor, editorial control over the course content, the power of the grade book, and the expressed intent to “correct the misconceptions” of his students, there were no changes in the beliefs of his students when measured by comparing answers to an anonymous questionnaire given before and then after the call was completed.

Almost tearfully professor Short observes, “To my utter dismay, there were no statistically significant changes in any of the answers to any of the question.” Sensing that he had fallen short in gaining converts for the Darwinian faith, he says, “I was shattered.” But taking solace from the knowledge that he had “sown a few seeds of the truth” during the class, professor Short invokes the Darwinian confession of faith, solemnly intoning, “I believe in the truth of evolution and still regard it as the most exciting fundamental concept that underpins the whole of biological thinking.”

While short feels he failed Darwin, the truth is that Darwin has failed us. In the 145 years since the publication of Darwin’s book On the Origin of Species , the precepts of biological evolution have been adopted, in large part, by those who have no other faith, no other way to understand how the world came to be, why it is the way it is, and where it is going. In a sense, biological evolution is the faith of religious orphans. Aside from failing to provide clear and convincing evidence of the truth of the spontaneous formation of life and of molecule to man evolution, Darwinism has failed to provide any foundation for human morality and justice². Hitler, Stalin and other tyrants used Darwinism to justify untold human suffering and the pursuit of ultimate power.

Darwinism has failed to provide purpose and value to individuals, hence the “right” to kill unborn children by abortion and perhaps soon the “right” to practice euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide. It has also failed as a basis for just government, economics, politics and human freedom, and it has failed to provide peace both individually in the human heart and in society as is clearly seen in the continuously growing prison inmate population and ongoing conflicts in every part of the globe.

We have not failed Darwin, he has failed us.

Michael G Windheuser, Ph.D.

1 Short, R.V. “Darwin, have I failed you?” The Lancet 343:528-529, 1994
2 Johnson, P.E. Defeating Darwinism by opening Minds. InterVarsity Press. 1997.

Consider for a moment the lowly protein. We take proteins for granted because they are produced and act automatically in our cells. Much is known about how proteins are made and how they function. But the harder question is: Where did proteins come from? Proteins are made from instructions in DNA but proteins are needed to make DNA. So we might ask: Which came first – the DNA or the protein? The answer is that neither came first. In order to have either DNA or protein, both are required.

The evolutionary explanation for how proteins formed is that lightning reacted with chemicals in the atmosphere of the “early earth” to create amino acids. This formed a thing soup of chemicals in warm tide pools. Amino acids joined together to make proteins which then became part of fat globules that then became living cells. Easy, isn’t it? It seems so to those of the evolutionary faith and to those with little scientific background.

The environment of the “early” earth would have been harsh. High levels of radiation would break proteins down as quickly as they formed, and the heat from volcanoes would also destroy proteins. But there is another, more fundamental, problem with the evolutionary scheme for protein formation, a problem that would prevent proteins from ever being formed to begin with. Chemical reversibility.

Proteins can be both made and broken apart depending on the chemical conditions. One of those conditions is the presence or absence of water (H₂O). When amino acids join together, a molecule of water (H2O) is released and a chemical bond is formed. This water has to be removed before the next amino acid is added, otherwise the next bond will not form or the previous bond may be broken. This means that the last place one would predict a protein could form is in the early ocean because the chemical reactions forming the protein would be immediately reversed by all the water! Dr. A.E. Wilder-smith in his book, The Natural Sciences Know Nothing of Evolution., makes exactly this point. [1] The formation of functioning proteins by chance natural processes in the “early ocean” would be a totally futile chemical exercise. As soon as one chemical bond would be made, it would be broken.

What does this mean for the faith of evolutionist? Probably not much. Evolutionary believers have immense faith in the unseen hand of chance and millions of years of time for unlikely events to happen over and over. Maybe proteins came first, then DNA; or perhaps it was DNA and then proteins. It doesn’t really mater for the evolutionist since time and chance can make both. But if you must already have both to have either one, then they could not have evolved in sequence, one after the other. Nor could DNA and protein have evolved in different locations since they each require the other to function in a cell. No, to have both DNA and protein in the same place at the same time to form a living cell would take… God.

[1] Wilder-Smith, A.E. The Natural Sciences Know Nothing of Evolution. Master Books, San Diego, CA. 1981.

NASA recently sent two probes to Mars to look for water. Finding water on Mars is important because believers of the evolutionary church understand that life is not possible without water. They must either find existing life, evidence of past life, or conditions that allow life to evolve outside of earth if they hope to convince unbelievers that life on earth evolved from non living chemicals by chance. Finding life outside of earth would bring instant fame, money, Nobel prizes and the thanks of the congregation who believe in the triune god of evolution – time, chance and natural selection.

The homily goes like this: Earth is not unique. It is a small speck orbiting an ordinary star in a galaxy of billions and billions of stars that must also have planets orbiting them just as earth orbits our sun. Thousands if not millions of planets just like earth must exist in the vastness of space, and surely the conditions that gave rise to life here on earth must be present many places in the universe. If life on earth has had time to develop to the point we can explore nearby planets, then it is certain that this has also happened by evolution on other planets. In fact life must be common in the cosmos. Or so the argument goes.

Thinking people may ask, if this story is true then where is all the life? Everywhere we look and as far as we can sense with our best instruments, there is no life. There are elements, energy, even water – but no life. Where would E.T. call when he phones home? Where is the catalog of earth-like planets with conditions that would have allowed for life to start and evolve? There isn’t one. If faith is the substance of things hoped for, the assurance of things not seen (Heb. 1:1), then the faith of evolutionary believers is as immense as the heavens. They are sure that the life they hope to find is really there, even though they have absolutely n o evidence that it exists.

Recently a new evolutionary sect has developed which recognizes that wherever in space we look there is no life. But, rather than questioning their belief in evolution, they turn the problem on its head. In the book entitled Rare Earth, Peter D. Ward and Donald Brownlee[1] suggests that the conditions necessary for complex life to evolve are more rare than the conditions necessary for “simple” life to arise. Therefore we would not expect to easily find signs of complex life. So our inability to contact life outside earth does not mean that life is not there. This simply begs the question and does not change the fact that there is so far no evidence to support their belief. Is life common or rare in the universe? The evolutionary church allows you to have faith in either idea as long as you don’t challenge the fundamental doctrine of life beyond earth. But unfortunately so far E.T., there is no one home to take his call.

[1] Ward, P.D. and Brownlee, D. Rare Earth: Why Complex Life is Uncommon in the Universe. Copernicus, Springer-Verlag, 2000.

A thermostat is an example of a mechanical feedback loop. When set to a particular temperature, it senses changes in air temperature and reacts to defend the setpoint temperature by turning the heating or cooling system on or off.

Living things use the same principles to maintain body temperature, blood pressure, blood sugar, adequate blood calcium levels, to control bone growth and regulate the supply of energy in cells – just to name a very, very few.

In many cases, the regulation of enzyme activity or level of minerals is exquisitely controlled within a very small range. Intelligent people designed and built the thermostat and the cruise control in an automobile. People also determine the setpoint of the mechanism. But where did biological feedback loops come from, and who or what determined their setpoints? Did the loops just design themselves by evolution?

Describing a feedback loop in a living cell or organism is simple. It is much harder to understand exactly how nonliving chemicals sense a condition, compare it to a pre-set level and then react to bring the condition back to where it should be. How do mere chemicals know what should be? We speak about how the body “controls” blood sugar by directing the liver to make and release sugar at night and by releasing insulin after we eat, causing muscle cells to pick up sugar from the blood. But people understand why keeping blood sugar in a certain range is good and what specifically the range of blood sugar should be. This is a type of understanding that chemicals themselves just do not have.

Partial feedback loops are of little to no benefit. If the body could sense high blood sugar of high blood pressure and yet not be able to react to change, it is of little survival value. In fact, when feedback loops don’t work, we call it “disease” – like diabetes or hypertension. These diseases decrease rather than increase survival. According to evolutionary doctrine, each small change in structure and function must be of survival value to be passed on to future generations. Yet for a feedback loop to function and be of survival value, all the parts must simultaneously exist in the same living cell or body. So how could an entire feedback loop ever evolve when partial loops actually decrease survival?

Evolution requires adherents to believe by faith, without proof, that the thousands of biological feedback loops evolved independently and sequentially over time with no intelligent input. In essence, to believe that the spring designed the thermostat. This is not what happens. Mechanical and biological machines just don’t make themselves. If feedback loops did not make themselves, and people didn’t make them, isn’t it more reasonable to believe the biblical statement that “all things have been created by Him,” that is God the Son (Col. 1:16)? He is the only one who has the intelligence to design, the power to make and the understanding to determine the setpoint of living feedback loops. “Honey, can you turn the heat up?”