Chapter 10

Evidence From a Unique Planet

1, 2. What do observers say about our planet Earth?

OUR planet Earth is truly a wonder​—a rare, beautiful jewel in space. Astronauts have reported that, viewed from space, the earth’s blue skies and white clouds “made it by far the most inviting object they could see.”⁠¹

² However, it is much more than just beautiful. “The greatest of all cosmological scientific puzzles, confounding all our efforts to comprehend it, is the earth,” wrote Lewis Thomas in Discover. He added: “We are only now beginning to appreciate how strange and splendid it is, how it catches the breath, the loveliest object afloat around the sun, enclosed in its own blue bubble of atmosphere, manufacturing and breathing its own oxygen, fixing its own nitrogen from the air into its own soil, generating its own weather.”⁠²

3. What does the book The Earth say about our planet, and why?

³ Also of interest is this fact: Of all the planets in our solar system, only on Earth have scientists found life. And what marvelous, abundant varieties of living things there are​—microscopic organisms, insects, plants, fish, birds, animals and humans. In addition, the earth is a vast storehouse of wealth that contains everything needed to sustain all that life. Truly, as the book The Earth expressed it, “The earth is the wonder of the universe, a unique sphere.”⁠³

4. What illustration can be used to show how unique the earth is, and what conclusion must we draw?

⁴ To illustrate how unique the earth is, imagine that you are in a barren desert, devoid of all life. Suddenly you come upon a beautiful house. The house has air conditioning, heating, plumbing and electricity. Its refrigerator and cupboards are filled with food. Its basement contains fuel and other supplies. Now, suppose you asked someone where all of this came from, in such a barren desert. What would you think if that person answered, “It just happened to appear there by chance”? Would you believe that? Or would you take for granted that it had a designer and builder?

5. What Biblical illustration is appropriate to our planet Earth?

⁵ All the other planets that scientists have probed are devoid of life. But Earth teems with life, sustained by very complex systems that provide light, air, heat, water and food, all in exquisite balance. It shows evidence of having been specially built to accommodate living things comfortably​—like a magnificent house. And logically, as one of the Bible’s penmen argues: “Every house is constructed by someone, but he that constructed all things is God.” Yes, the infinitely greater and more amazing “house”​—our planet Earth—​requires the existence of a remarkably intelligent designer and builder, God.​—Hebrews 3:4.

6. How have some acknowledged that the planet Earth does give evidence of intelligent design?

⁶ The more that scientists examine the planet Earth and its life, the more they realize that it is indeed superbly designed. Scientific American marvels: “As we look out into the universe and identify the many accidents of physics and astronomy that have worked together to our benefit, it almost seems as if the universe must in some sense have known that we were coming.”⁠⁴ And Science News admitted: “It seems as if such particular and precise conditions could hardly have arisen at random.”⁠⁵

Right Distance From the Sun

7. How does the earth receive just the right amount of energy in the form of light and heat from the sun?

⁷ Among the many precise conditions vital to life on the earth is the amount of light and heat received from the sun. The earth gets only a small fraction of the sun’s energy. Yet, it is just the right amount required to sustain life. This is because the earth is just the right distance from the sun​—an average 93,000,000 miles. If the earth were much closer to the sun or farther away from it, temperatures would be too hot or too cold for life.

8. Why is the earth’s orbital speed around the sun so vital?

⁸ As it orbits the sun once a year the earth travels at a speed of about 66,600 miles an hour. That speed is just right to offset the gravitational pull of the sun and keep the earth at the proper distance. If that speed were decreased, the earth would be pulled toward the sun. In time, Earth could become a scorched wasteland like Mercury, the planet closest to the sun. Mercury’s daytime temperature is over 600 degrees Fahrenheit. However, if Earth’s orbital speed were increased, it would move farther away from the sun and could become an icy waste like Pluto, the planet whose orbit reaches farthest from the sun. Pluto’s temperature is about 300 degrees below zero Fahrenheit.

9. Why is it important that the earth rotate on its axis with a certain frequency?

⁹ In addition, the earth consistently makes a complete rotation on its axis every 24 hours. This provides regular periods of light and darkness. But what if the earth rotated on its axis, say, only once a year? It would mean that the same side of the earth would be facing the sun all year long. That side would likely become a furnacelike desert, while the side away from the sun would likely become a sub-zero wasteland. Few, if any, living things could exist in those extreme circumstances.

10. How does the earth’s tilt affect climate and crops?

¹⁰ As Earth rotates on its axis, it is tilted 23.5 degrees in relation to the sun. If the earth were not tilted, there would be no change of seasons. Climate would be the same all the time. While this would not make life impossible, it would make it less interesting and would drastically change the present crop cycles in many places. If the earth were tilted much more, there would be extremely hot summers and extremely cold winters. But the tilt of 23.5 degrees allows for the delightful changing of seasons with their interesting variety. In many parts of the earth there are refreshing springtimes with plants and trees awakening and beautiful flowers coming into bloom, warm summers that allow for all kinds of outdoor activity, crisp autumn weather with gorgeous displays of leaves changing colors, and winters with beautiful scenes of snow-draped mountains, forests and fields.

Our Amazing Atmosphere

11. What makes the earth’s atmosphere so unique?

¹¹ Also unique​—indeed, amazing—​is the atmosphere that surrounds our earth. No other planet in our solar system has it. Nor does our moon. That is why astronauts needed space suits to survive there. But no space suits are needed on the earth, because our atmosphere contains the right proportions of gases that are absolutely essential for life. Some of those gases, by themselves, are deadly. But because air contains safe proportions of these gases, we can breathe them without harm.

12. (a) How is it evident that we have just the right amount of oxygen? (b) What vital function does nitrogen have?

¹² One of those gases is oxygen, making up 21 percent of the air we breathe. Without it, humans and animals would die within minutes. But too much oxygen would endanger our existence. Why? Pure oxygen becomes toxic if breathed too long. In addition, the more oxygen there is, the more easily things burn. If there were too much oxygen in the atmosphere, combustible materials would become highly flammable. Fires would easily burst forth and would be difficult to control. Wisely, oxygen is diluted with other gases, especially nitrogen, which makes up 78 percent of the atmosphere. But nitrogen is much more than just a dilutant. During thunderstorms, millions of lightning bolts occur earth wide every day. This lightning causes some nitrogen to combine with oxygen. The compounds produced are carried to the earth by rain, and plants make use of them as fertilizer.

13. What part does the right amount of carbon dioxide play in the life cycle?

¹³ Carbon dioxide makes up less than one percent of the atmosphere. What good is such a small amount? Without it, plant life would die. That small amount is what plants need to take in, giving off oxygen in return. Humans and animals breathe in the oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide. An increasing percentage of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would tend to be harmful to humans and animals. A decreasing percentage could not support plant life. What a marvelous, precise, self-sustaining cycle has been arranged for plant, animal and human life!

14, 15. How does the atmosphere serve as a protective shell?

¹⁴ The atmosphere does more than sustain life. It serves as a protective shell too. About 15 miles above the ground, a thin layer of ozone gas filters out harmful radiation from the sun. Without this ozone layer, such radiation could destroy life on earth. Also, the atmosphere shields the earth from bombardment by meteors. Most meteors never reach the ground because they burn up in their descent through the atmosphere, appearing to us as falling stars. Otherwise, millions of meteors would strike all parts of the earth, resulting in extensive damage to life and property.

¹⁵ In addition to being a protective shell, the atmosphere keeps the warmth of the earth from being lost to the coldness of space. And the atmosphere is itself kept from escaping by the earth’s gravitational pull. That gravity is just strong enough to accomplish this, but not so strong that our freedom of movement is hampered.

16. What can be said about the beauty of the sky?

¹⁶ Not only is the atmosphere vital for life, but one of the more beautiful sights is the changing sky. Its scope and grandeur simply stagger the imagination. The earth is enveloped with the sky’s endlessly majestic and colorful panoramas. In the east a golden glow announces the dawn, while the western sky bids the day farewell in glorious displays of pink, orange, red and purple. White billowy, cottonlike clouds proclaim a fine spring or summer day; an autumn mantle of clouds like lamb’s wool says that winter is approaching. At night the sky is magnificent in its starry splendor, and a moonlit night has a beauty all its own.

17. How did a writer comment on the sky, and to whom does the credit belong?

¹⁷ What an amazing provision our earth’s atmosphere is, in every way! As a writer in The New England Journal of Medicine commented: “Taken all in all, the sky is a miraculous achievement. It works, and for what it is designed to accomplish it is as infallible as anything in nature. I doubt whether any of us could think of a way to improve on it, beyond maybe shifting a local cloud from here to there on occasion.”⁠⁶ This comment calls to mind what a man millenniums ago recognized when confronted with such remarkable things​—that they are “the wonderful works of the One perfect in knowledge.” He meant, of course, “the Creator of the heavens and the Grand One stretching them out.”​—Job 37:16; Isaiah 42:5.

Water​—An Extraordinary Substance

18. What are some qualities of water that make it extraordinary?

¹⁸ The earth contains vast supplies of water with properties essential for life. It is more abundant than any other substance. Among its many advantageous qualities is that it occurs as a gas (water vapor), a liquid (water), and a solid (ice)​—all within earth’s temperature range. Too, the thousands of raw materials that humans, animals and plants need must be transported in a fluid, such as blood or sap. Water is most ideal for this because it will dissolve more substances than any other liquid. Without water, nutrition could not continue, since living organisms depend on water to dissolve the substances on which they feed.

19. What unusual quality does freezing water have, and why is that so important?

¹⁹ Water is also extraordinary in the way it freezes. As water in lakes and seas cools, it becomes heavier and sinks. This forces the lighter, warmer water to rise to the top. Yet, as water approaches the freezing point, the process reverses! The colder water now becomes lighter and rises. When it freezes into ice, it floats. The ice acts as an insulator and keeps the deeper waters underneath from freezing, thus protecting marine life. Without this unique quality, every winter more and more ice would sink to the bottom where the sun’s rays could not melt it the following summer. Soon, much of the water in rivers, lakes and even the oceans would become solid ice. The earth would turn into an icy planet that would be inhospitable to life.

20. How is rain formed, and why does the size of raindrops show thoughtful design?

²⁰ Extraordinary, too, is the way that regions far from rivers, lakes and seas get life-sustaining water. Every second, the sun’s heat changes thousands of millions of gallons of water into vapor. This vapor, lighter than air, floats upward and forms clouds in the sky. Wind and air currents move these clouds, and, under the right conditions, the moisture drops as rain. But raindrops tend to grow only to a certain size. What if this were not so, and raindrops became gigantic in size? That would be disastrous! Instead, rain usually comes down in the right size, and gently, seldom hurting even a blade of grass or the most delicate flower. What masterful, considerate design is evident in water!​—Psalm 104:1, 10-14; Ecclesiastes 1:7.

“The Productive Land”

21, 22. What wisdom is shown in the makeup of “the productive land”?

²¹ One of the Biblical penmen describes God as “the One firmly establishing the productive land by his wisdom.” (Jeremiah 10:12) And this “productive land”​—the soil of planet Earth—​is impressive. Wisdom is evident in its makeup. Soil has qualities essential for plant growth. Plants combine the nutrients and water in the soil with carbon dioxide from the air, in the presence of light, to produce food.​—Compare Ezekiel 34:26, 27.

²² The soil contains chemical elements that are needed to sustain human and animal life. But vegetation must first convert those elements into forms that can be assimilated by the body. Cooperating in this are tiny living organisms. And many millions of them can be found in just a spoonful of soil! They are of countless different designs, each working to convert dead leaves, grass and other waste matter back to usable form, or to loosen up the soil so that air and water can get in. Certain bacteria convert nitrogen into compounds that plants need for growth. Topsoil is improved as burrowing worms and insects continually bring up particles of subsoil to the surface.

23. What powers of restoration does the soil have?

²³ True, because of misuse and other factors some soil is damaged. But this damage need not be permanent. The earth has amazing built-in powers of restoration. This can be noted in places where fires or volcanic eruptions have devastated the land. In time, these areas once again flourish with vegetation. And when pollution is controlled, land is restored, even land that was turned into a barren waste. Most important of all, to deal with the basic problem behind misuse of the soil, earth’s Creator has purposed to “bring to ruin those ruining the earth” and to preserve it as the eternal home he originally prepared for mankind.​—Revelation 11:18; Isaiah 45:18.

Not Just Chance

24. What questions can we ask about undirected chance?

²⁴ In thinking over the foregoing, here are some things to consider: Was it undirected chance that placed the earth at just the right distance from the sun, its source of energy in the form of light and heat? Was it mere chance that caused the earth to move around the sun at just the right speed, to rotate on its axis every 24 hours, and to have just the correct angle of tilt? Was it chance that provided the earth with a protective, life-sustaining atmosphere having just the right mixture of gases? Was it chance that gave the earth the water and soil needed to grow food? Was it chance that provided so many delicious and colorful fruits, vegetables and other foods? Was it chance that caused so much beauty to exist in the sky, the mountains, the streams and lakes, the flowers, plants and trees, and in so many other delightful living things?

25. What conclusion about our unique planet have many people drawn?

²⁵ Many have concluded that all of this could hardly be due to undirected chance. Instead, they see the unmistakable stamp of thoughtful, intelligent, deliberate design everywhere. Recognizing that, they feel it is only right that the beneficiaries “fear God and give him glory” because he is “the One who made the heaven and the earth and sea and fountains of waters.”​—Revelation 14:7.

Chapter 11

The Amazing Design of Living Things

1, 2. (a) What shows that scientists recognize the need for a designer? (b) Yet how do they then reverse themselves?

WHEN anthropologists dig in the earth and find a triangular piece of sharp flint, they conclude that it must have been designed by someone to be the tip of an arrow. Such things designed for a purpose, scientists agree, could not be products of chance.

² When it comes to living things, however, the same logic is often abandoned. A designer is not considered necessary. But the simplest single-celled organism, or just the DNA of its genetic code, is far more complex than a shaped piece of flint. Yet evolutionists insist that these had no designer but were shaped by a series of chance events.

3. What need did Darwin recognize, and how did he attempt to fill it?

³ However, Darwin recognized the need for some designing force and gave natural selection the job. “Natural selection,” he said, “is daily and hourly scrutinising, throughout the world, the slightest variations; rejecting those that are bad, preserving and adding up all that are good.”⁠¹ That view, however, is now losing favor.

4. How are views on natural selection changing?

⁴ Stephen Gould reports that many contemporary evolutionists now say that substantial change “may not be subject to natural selection and may spread through populations at random.”⁠² Gordon Taylor agrees: “Natural selection explains a small part of what occurs: the bulk remains unexplained.”⁠³ Geologist David Raup says: “A currently important alternative to natural selection has to do with the effects of pure chance.”⁠⁴ But is “pure chance” a designer? Is it capable of producing the complexities that are the fabric of life?

5. What recognition does an evolutionist give to design and to its originator?

⁵ Evolutionist Richard Lewontin admitted that organisms “appear to have been carefully and artfully designed,” so that some scientists viewed them as “the chief evidence of a Supreme Designer.”⁠⁵ It will be useful to consider some of this evidence.

Little Things

6. Are single-celled organisms really simple?

⁶ Let us start with the smallest of living things: single-celled organisms. A biologist said that single-celled animals can “catch food, digest it, get rid of wastes, move around, build houses, engage in sexual activity” and “with no tissues, no organs, no hearts and no minds​—really have everything we’ve got.”⁠⁶

7. How and for what purpose do diatoms make glass, and how important are they to life in the seas?

⁷ Diatoms, one-celled organisms, take silicon and oxygen from seawater and make glass, with which they construct tiny “pillboxes” to contain their green chlorophyll. They are extolled by one scientist for both their importance and their beauty: “These green leaves enclosed in jewel boxes are pastures for nine tenths of the food of everything that lives in the seas.” A large part of their food value is in the oil that diatoms make, which also helps them bob buoyantly near the surface where their chlorophyll can bask in sunlight.

8. With what complex shapes do diatoms cover themselves?

⁸ Their beautiful glass-box coverings, this same scientist tells us, come in a “bewildering variety of shapes​—circles, squares, shields, triangles, ovals, rectangles—​always exquisitely ornamented with geometric etchings. These are filigreed in pure glass with such fine skill that a human hair would have to be sliced lengthwise into four hundred slices to fit between the marks.”⁠⁷

9. How complex are some of the houses radiolarians build?

⁹ One group of ocean-dwelling animals, called radiolarians, make glass and with it build “glass sunbursts, with long thin transparent spikelets radiating from a central crystal sphere.” Or “glass struts are built into hexagons and used to make simple geodesic domes.” Of a certain microscopic builder it is said: “One geodesic dome will not do for this superarchitect; it has to be three lacelike fretted glass domes, one inside another.”⁠⁸ Words fail to describe these marvels of design​—it takes pictures to do so.

10, 11. (a) What are sponges, and what happens to the individual cells when a sponge is completely broken up? (b) What question about sponge skeletons do evolutionists find unanswerable, but what do we know?

¹⁰ Sponges are made up of millions of cells, but only a few different kinds. A college textbook explains: “The cells are not organized into tissues or organs, yet there is a form of recognition among the cells that holds them together and organizes them.”⁠⁹ If a sponge is mashed through a cloth and separated into its millions of cells, those cells will come together and rebuild the sponge. Sponges construct skeletons of glass that are very beautiful. One of the most amazing is Venus’s-flower-basket.

¹¹ Of it, one scientist says: “When you look at a complex sponge skeleton such as that made of silica spicules which is known as [Venus’s-flower-basket], the imagination is baffled. How could quasi-independent microscopic cells collaborate to secrete a million glassy splinters and construct such an intricate and beautiful lattice? We do not know.”⁠¹⁰ But one thing we do know: Chance is not the likely designer.

Partnerships

12. What is symbiosis, and what are some examples?

¹² Many cases exist where two organisms appear designed to live together. Such partnerships are examples of symbiosis (living together). Certain figs and wasps need each other in order to reproduce. Termites eat wood but need the protozoa in their bodies to digest it. Similarly, cattle, goats and camels could not digest the cellulose in grass without the help of bacteria and protozoa living inside them. A report says: “The part of a cow’s stomach where that digestion takes place has a volume of about 100 quarts​—and contains 10 billion microorganisms in each drop.”⁠¹¹ Algae and fungi team up and become lichens. Only then can they grow on bare rock to start turning rock into soil.

13. The partnership between stinging ants and acacia trees raises what questions?

¹³ Stinging ants live in the hollow thorns of acacia trees. They keep leaf-eating insects off the tree and they cut up and kill vines that try to climb on the tree. In return, the tree secretes a sugary fluid that the ants relish, and it also produces small false fruit, which serves as food for the ants. Did the ant first protect the tree and then the tree rewarded it with fruit? Or did the tree make fruit for the ant and the ant then thanked it with protection? Or did it all chance to happen at once?

14. What special provisions and mechanisms do flowers use to attract insects for pollination?

¹⁴ Many cases of such cooperation exist between insects and flowers. Insects pollinate flowers, and in return flowers feed insects pollen and nectar. Some flowers produce two kinds of pollen. One fertilizes seeds, the other is sterile but feeds insect visitors. Many flowers have special markings and smells to guide insects to the nectar. En route the insects pollinate the flower. Some flowers have trigger mechanisms. When insects touch the trigger they get swatted by the pollen-containing anthers.

15. How does the Dutchman’s-pipe ensure cross-pollination, and what questions does this raise?

¹⁵ For example, the Dutchman’s-pipe cannot pollinate itself but needs insects to bring in pollen from another flower. The plant has a tubular leaf that envelops its flower, and this leaf is coated with wax. Insects, attracted by the smell of the flower, land on the leaf and plunge down the slippery slide to a chamber at the bottom. There, ripe stigmas receive the pollen that the insects brought in, and pollination takes place. But for three more days the insects are trapped there by hairs and the waxed sides. After that, the flower’s own pollen ripens and dusts the insects. Only then do the hairs wilt, and the waxed slide bends over until it is level. The insects walk out and, with their new supply of pollen, fly to another Dutchman’s-pipe to pollinate it. The insects do not mind their three-day visit, since they feast on nectar stored there for them. Did all of this happen by chance? Or did it happen by intelligent design?

16. How do some Ophrys orchids and the bucket orchid get themselves pollinated?

¹⁶ Some types of Ophrys orchids have on their petals a picture of a female wasp, complete with eyes, antennae and wings. It even gives off the odor of a female in mating condition! The male comes to mate, but only pollinates the flower. Another orchid, the bucket orchid, has a fermented nectar that makes the bee wobbly on its feet; it slips into a bucket of liquid and the only way out is to wriggle under a rod that dusts the bee with pollen.

Nature’s “Factories”

17. How do leaves and roots work together in nourishing plants?

¹⁷ Green leaves of plants feed the world, directly or indirectly. But they cannot function without the help of tiny roots. Millions of rootlets​—each root tip fitted with a protective cap, each cap lubricated with oil—​push their way through the soil. Root hairs behind the oily cap absorb water and minerals, which travel up minute channels in the sapwood to the leaves. In the leaves sugars and amino acids are made, and these nutrients are sent throughout the tree and into the roots.

18. (a) How does water get from roots to leaves, and what shows that this system is more than adequate? (b) What is transpiration, and how does it contribute to the water cycle?

¹⁸ Certain features of the circulatory system of trees and plants are so amazing that many scientists regard them as almost miraculous. First, how is the water pumped two or three hundred feet above the ground? Root pressure starts it on its way, but in the trunk another mechanism takes over. Water molecules hold together by cohesion. Because of this cohesion, as water evaporates from the leaves the tiny columns of water are pulled up like ropes​—ropes reaching from the roots to the leaves, and traveling at up to 200 feet an hour. This system, it is said, could lift water in a tree about two miles high! As excess water evaporates from the leaves (called transpiration), billions of tons of water are recycled into the air, once again to fall as rain​—a perfectly designed system!

19. What vital service is performed by the partnership of some roots and certain bacteria?

¹⁹ There is more. The leaves need nitrates or nitrites from the ground to make vital amino acids. Some amounts are put into the soil by lightning and by certain free-living bacteria. Nitrogen compounds in adequate quantities are also formed by legumes​—plants such as peas, clover, beans and alfalfa. Certain bacteria enter their roots, the roots provide the bacteria with carbohydrates, and the bacteria change, or fix, nitrogen from the soil into usable nitrates and nitrites, producing some 200 pounds per acre each year.

20. (a) What does photosynthesis do, where does it happen, and who understands the process? (b) How does one biologist view it? (c) What may green plants be called, how do they excel, and what questions are appropriate?

²⁰ There is still more. Green leaves take energy from the sun, carbon dioxide from the air and water from the plant’s roots to make sugar and give off oxygen. The process is called photosynthesis, and it happens in cell bodies called chloroplasts​—so small that 400,000 can fit into the period at the end of this sentence. Scientists do not understand the process fully. “There are about seventy separate chemical reactions involved in photosynthesis,” one biologist said. “It is truly a miraculous event.”⁠¹² Green plants have been called nature’s “factories”​—beautiful, quiet, nonpolluting, producing oxygen, recycling water and feeding the world. Did they just happen by chance? Is that truly believable?

21, 22. (a) What did two famous scientists say in testifying to the intelligence in the natural world? (b) How does the Bible reason on this matter?

²¹ Some of the world’s most famous scientists have found it hard to believe. They see intelligence in the natural world. Nobel-prize-winning physicist Robert A. Millikan, although a believer in evolution, did say at a meeting of the American Physical Society: “There’s a Divinity that shapes our ends . . . A purely materialistic philosophy is to me the height of unintelligence. Wise men in all the ages have always seen enough to at least make them reverent.” In his speech he quoted Albert Einstein’s notable words, wherein Einstein said that he did “try humbly to comprehend even an infinitesimal part of the intelligence manifest in nature.”⁠¹³

²² Evidence of design surrounds us, in endless variety and amazing intricacy, indicating a superior intelligence. This conclusion is also voiced in the Bible, where design is attributed to a Creator whose “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.”​—Romans 1:20.

23. What reasonable conclusion does the psalmist express?

²³ With so much evidence of design in the life around us, it does seem “inexcusable” to say that undirected chance is behind it. Hence, for the psalmist to credit an intelligent Creator is certainly not unreasonable: “How many your works are, O Jehovah! All of them in wisdom you have made. The earth is full of your productions. As for this sea so great and wide, there there are moving things without number, living creatures, small as well as great.”​—Psalm 104:24, 25.