The Essay
GOD DID IT!
A SPIRITUAL BELIEF DRAWN
FROM SCIENCE
INTRODUCTION
1/2/04 updated
April 25, 2006
Do
you ever wonder if there really is a God- with whom
you can feel a relationship?
Do your
prayers get answered?
Why do
bad things sometimes happen to good people?
Do you
ever wonder what caused the world to exist and to work
the way it does?
Are you
interested in how scientific considerations might bear
on such questions?
As a
scientist who had trouble accepting religious
teachings in view of scientific facts, I searched for
evidence in the design and operation of the world as
science has revealed it. The search revealed
unmistakable signs of ingenuity in the design of
everything in the world. We don't ordinarily recognize
those signs because we take them for granted without
asking how they originated.
This
paper presents a theoretical concept for combining our
scientific understanding of the source and design of
the universe with our awareness of a spiritual
dimension in our lives. Most theories of the origin
and functioning of the earth and life do not resolve
the different explanations offered by "natural"
scientific theories, as taught in schools, and the
religious statements that "God created heaven and
Earth" taught by religions. These seemingly polar
opposites are actually resolvable and coexistent. This
theoretical concept offers a resolution of the science
versus religion dilemma by proposing a plausible
"working" theory and credible, verifiable evidence for
an intelligent Creator of our existence.
EVIDENCE
FOR BELIEF IN A CREATOR
There
is overwhelming evidence, not commonly recognized, of
astonishing ingenuity[1]
in the design, creation and operation of the universe,
nature and our lives. A key point of the theory of
this paper is that there is a cause for
everything--whether we have identified it or not. Thus
the world's existence and its ingenious design
revealed by science require a cause. This BELIEF holds
that the ultimate or primary cause is an ingenious
designer-creator. There is nothing else known with the
ingenuity and power to be the cause of the design and
creation of the world.
In many
court trials circumstantial evidence is taken as a
basis for judgment. The evidence of ingenuity in
the world's design is overwhelming. Even though it is
circumstantial and not proof, the evidence justifies
the belief that there must be a transcendent,
intelligent, powerful 'something' that purposely chose
to create this particular form of universe, from the
broadly (but not completely) accepted 'Big Bang'
theory of an explosion that produced:
·
all the atomic elements
·
the scientific laws such as chemistry, physics and
biology which assembled the atoms into this amazing
universe
·
the patterns of the universe's operations such as
life, growth and evolution that produced-
·
the plants, animals and humans living in it.
Name
the cause what you will: Ingenious Designer, Primary
Cause, Intelligent Source, Creator, or God.2
This
intelligent source does not micro-manage the world
today but, while indirectly guiding the overall
direction of this 'world in progress', it has given it
a degree of self-management by incorporating
variations, chance, inherent capabilities and limited
free-will in many areas. These features make life
enjoyable and free, explain some random happenings and
facilitate progress toward a more perfect world.
Anything that can bring such an amazing universe and
living creatures such as humans into being from
nothing, starting with the "Big Bang", must have
super-human intelligence and power.
Although this theoretical concept is drawn from
scientific considerations it still affirms and
reinforces the underlying, if not literal, assertion
of most religions that there is a God- a Creator-
'whose presence can be discerned in all that exists'
(Espinoza). Thus it allows believers to practice their
religion, but on the basis of its symbolic, not
necessarily its literal, meaning.
EVIDENCE FOR THIS THEORY
It is
beyond the scope of this paper to point out all the
examples of intelligent design because they are
everywhere we look. Let a few examples illustrate the
point.
The world in which we live
provides convincing and awesome evidence of
intelligence and imagination in creation. But because
it is the only place we've ever known it's hard to
appreciate how ingenious each feature really is.
To help
recognize this, try to see life from a new viewpoint.
Set aside the way you view the things you have always
taken for granted--such as our earth and our everyday
pattern of existence. Close your eyes and try to
imagine the situation from the perspective of Creator
before this universe existed. Realize that billions of
years ago there was nothing-no stars, no earth, no
air, no time, and no space that we are now occupying
Nothing! Yet today you can open your
eyes and see all that and infinitely more!!
How
would one even begin to create all this? Don't
you get a feeling of awe at the result?
Consider the overwhelming evidence found in the
immensity of the cosmos and the incredibly complex yet
ingeniously interdependent relationships in nature,
which make it work so smoothly
The
more you study science and learn the principles and
methods by which the world works, and experience the
intellectual, emotional and spiritual aspects of our
existence, the more you come to realize just how
ingenious, awesome and, yes, miraculous life really
is.
Most of
the world's design features or characteristics are
absolutely vital to the formation and operation of the
universe and life. This fact offers compelling
evidence for a thinking source that had knowledge of
what design would work well, and also had the power to
bring it all into being. If any one of the vital parts
had been missing there would be no universe as we know
it.
A
complete list of these vital elements would seem
endless but some are discussed in this essay. A
sampling includes:
· the
physical laws of science
· the
Big Bang
· quarks
· electrons
· protons
· neutrons
· the
so-called 'strong' and 'weak' forces that hold
together the nuclei of atoms
· positive
and negative polarities that attract opposites
· electron
orbits that make atomic structure possible
· Ability
of atoms to bond together by sharing electrons to form
the large molecules and compounds of life.
The
list continues with:
· the
gravity that holds everything together, and along with
centrifugal force, holds the earth and other planets
in orbit around their suns
· the
atomic elements such as oxygen, hydrogen, carbon etc.
· water,
sunlight, rain and the key molecules such as
chlorophyll, DNA and proteins needed for life
· all
the processes of cell division, digestion,
reproduction and evolution.
Each
one of these and many more are essential for the
existence of today's world.
Can you
imagine such an assembly of vital elements just
'happening' to be on hand without an intelligent,
reasoning cause?
The Big Bang theory
apparently has some inconsistencies but is accepted by
most scientists. It posits an explosion about fifteen
billion years ago at a single tiny spot (known to
mathematical physicists as a singularity) with an
almost infinite amount of concentrated energy or
material, which was contained by an almost infinite
gravitational force.
Moments
after, the universe consisted of photons, electrons,
neutrinos, protons and some neutrons. Minutes later
cooling condensed these particles into helium and
hydrogen.
Millions of years later gravity condensed this matter
into galaxies and stars. Some of these stars fused
their hydrogen into more helium and eventually 'burned
out', collapsed and exploded as supernovae spewing out
all the heavier elements such as carbon, oxygen and
iron needed for life. These in time condensed as more
stars and planets such as our earth.
So from
something tiny at the time of the Big Bang were
created all the diverse yet ordered and interrelated
entities we observe today: the cosmic universe with
billions of stars, galaxies etc. expanding in space
and containing our solar system with our own sun and
amazing, life-giving, hospitable Earth.
Consider the fortuitous availability
and interactions of the earth's vital air, water,
carbon dioxide, chlorophyll, fertile soil and sunlight
needed to produce the food, fuel and temperature for
survival; and the complex scientific laws of nature's
behavior, including evolution, that have helped
produce the phenomena of life, growth and
reproduction.
More
specifically, recognize that the entire universe is a
system of interdependent, cycling constituents:
·
the galaxies apparently expanding forever
·
the planet earth rotating on its axis for day and
night and around the sun for the seasons
·
water cycling from oceans to clouds to ground to
plants (powered by sunlight) to animals and humans
· carbon,
hydrogen, oxygen and other chemicals cycling from
ground to plants to humans to dust again!
· the
residual energy from the Big Bang, residing in the
nuclei of atoms, the chemical bonds of
compounds, the order, momentum and heat of the
universe' constituents etc. Order, such as in living
things, requires energy for its maintenance. Thus
plants require sunlight and humans need food and die
without it. It has been theorized that when the
universe's energy, which is continually decreasing as
heat is radiated to space, reaches zero, this universe
will cease to exist as such.
Practically anything we observe today can seem like a
miracle if we try to imagine how to design and create
it, starting from scratch: forests teaming with trees,
insects, animals and humans; birds, flowers; beautiful
sunsets. -What a production!
Physicist Chat Raymo3
cites Teilhard de Chardin, Jesuit scientist, as
"insisting that the surest way to know God is through
his creation, and the truest knowledge of creation is
that provided by contemporary science".
The atomic elements,
molecules and compounds that comprise the earth and
all the other planets are formed from the atoms
produced by the Big Bang and subsequent condensation
processes. Some mechanism had to combine the atoms
into the thousands of different compounds of the world
we know, such as:
*
various proteins of our bodies
*
drugs that cure us
*
cellulose and lignin of trees and plants, etc.
How
does this ingenious and vital process work?
Organic
molecules usually consist of the atomic elements:
carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and lesser amounts of
nitrogen, sulfur, phosphorus, etc. The way these
atoms are positioned and bonded to their neighboring
atoms in a molecule determines their behavior and use
in all the processes of life.
One
atom, carbon, has the unusual ability to bond to
itself and thus can form long chains.
These
chains can branch out by bonding to other atoms such
as hydrogen and oxygen or more carbon to produce the
whole family of organic chemicals.
How
does this bonding take place? Consider the
structure of the atom. All atoms from the
smallest, hydrogen, to one of the largest natural
atoms, say uranium, have a central core, the nucleus
of which consists of positively charged protons and
usually neutrons with no charge. The larger the
atom the more protons and neutrons it has.
Far
outside the nucleus, in atomic dimensions, negatively
charged electrons, equal in number to the positive
protons in the nucleus, whirl around the nucleus in
several concentric orbits, of fixed capacity for
electrons that have discrete energy levels.
Bigger atoms have more electrons and orbits. The
outermost orbit contains the electrons that can form
bonds with other atoms to form the big molecules
needed for life.
Atoms
are very stable when their outer orbits are full.
Atoms of inert gasses such as neon and krypton have
full outer orbits and thus are stable and rarely bond.
Atoms
without full orbits bond with other atoms by sharing
enough outer electrons to fill their orbits to achieve
stability and become molecules. If instead of
sharing, some atoms that may be only slightly negative
may "steal" an electron from a slightly more negative
atom and become strongly negative, leaving the other
more positive. The pair then consists of
oppositely charged ions that attract each other,
because positives attract negatives, and they form
ionic compounds such as the common table salt.
When
all the atoms are metallic, say iron, copper and
aluminum, they hold together by contributing all their
outer electrons to the general pool of the group.
The pooled electrons are free to flow through the
metal body such as an electric wire to conduct
electricity. The rest of each metal atom becomes
part of the crystal structure of the metal and obtains
its stability by sharing the free electrons with all
the other atoms
All
atoms and molecules seem to have an inherent, built-in
self- organizing tendency to find a stable
configuration and find it by random migrations.
But how did the stable configurations and the process
of migration "happen" to exist?
What
was the original cause of this effective and vital
feature of our existence? The evidence cited
here points to something intelligent, superhuman and
powerful.
THE
LAWS OF NATURE "Did they just happen"?
The
principles and relationships we call laws of nature
that define and control the formation and operation of
this complex but organized universe, are themselves
marvels of intelligent design. Their elegant
simplicity and inter-connectedness can be seen in the
mathematical forms of the laws" equations".
Thus
the very simple equation F=M A, when properly applied,
can tell the force F needed to Accelerate a body, say
your car, having a mass M to say 60 miles per hour in
a certain number of seconds. How can something so
simple define something so complex?
The
simple equation E=M C (squared) describes the energy E
obtained in a nuclear reactor from the consumption of
a mass M of fissionable uranium, where C is the speed
of light. Amazing simplicity!
Is the
simplicity of these and all the other simple equations
representing the complex processes of nature, just
accidentally simple-or examples of intelligent design?
Another
observation dubbed the "Anthropic Principle" has noted
that many seemingly arbitrary and unrelated constants
in the laws of physics are in fact by mysterious
coincidence precisely the values needed to have a
universe capable of producing life. Even the
most minor variation in the values of certain
fundamental forces of physics would have completely
eliminated the possibility of our existence. For
example:
· If the
strength of
gravity had been slightly weaker relative to
electromagnetism, stars such as our sun would be much
smaller, burn faster and not support life as we know
it.
· If the
nuclear 'weak'
force, one of those bonding the nucleus of an atom
together, were slightly weaker relative to gravity,
all the hydrogen in the universe would have been
turned to helium and there would be no water anywhere.
· If the
nuclear 'strong'
force, which also bonds the nucleus, were 2 percent
stronger, protons, and therefore atoms, would not have
formed; or if it were 5 percent less there would be no
stars.
· If the
difference in
mass between a proton and neutron were not exactly as
it is, all neutrons would have been protons or
vice-versa and no chemistry or life would exist.
·
If ice
were not lighter
than liquid water, a property traceable to unique
properties of hydrogen, ice wouldn't float, so oceans
and lakes and rivers would freeze from the bottom up.
·
If the
ratio of the strong force to electromagnetism were not
exactly
as it is, carbon-the building block of all living
things-would not have been produced at the center of
stars from beryllium and helium during the tiny window
of opportunity - a micro, micro, micro second long.
And the list goes on! 4,5,6
So the
picture of creation seems hardly one of random events.
Rather, it suggests (but does not 'prove' in the
scientific sense) that the right conditions for the
creation of the intelligently designed universe, life
and human beings must have been intelligently
conceived.
One
might argue that an omnipotent Creator could have
structured the laws and constants in any fashion and
simply 'willed' them to work. But in that case the
laws that we discover would still support the reality
we experience and be no less convincing as evidence of
creative intelligence and power.
NOTE:
While science has explained in words and equations
most of the laws that govern what happens in this
world, there is much we don't know, especially at the
fundamental level. For example,
·
Why are
the laws
structured as they are? Is it on purpose to produce
the world, as we know it?
·
Just
how does gravity work? We know things attract
each other in proportion to their mass but how?
· How did
energy get
converted to mass at the Big Bang? We know that
certain amounts of mass are produced by a certain
amount of energy (the famous E= MC squared) but just
how does that take place?
We are
astonished and humbled at the superhuman ingenuity of
all that we know and don't know of such matters.
Humans are arguably the crowning example of ingenuity
in Creation!
Consider you, your human body, composed of ashes from
dead stars, designed with:
· eyes
to see the world and convey information to your brain
·
vocal chords and tongues with which to talk and sing
· legs
to transport you
· arms
and hands to perform your myriad tasks
· digestive
system to provide you with energy from food
· numberless
biological processes in your body, to nourish, grow,
and guard you
· emotions
to provide human pleasures, love and danger
warnings
· sex
organs for producing your offspring
· brain
to receive signals from your sensory organs; direct
your body's functions; think analytically and
logically (sometimes!) to gain knowledge and
understanding; conceive new ideas and patterns of
living; solve problems; create technology of the
modern world, beauty in the arts, and much more!
· intuition
and reasoning power, the uniquely subtle qualities
that represent a high order of intelligent design.
They tell us that all of creation could not have just
'happened', by an infinite number of lucky
coincidences throughout time. It is much more credible
to believe that some intelligent entity devised it
all.
We
intuitively seek an explanation for the mystery of
life and search for that elusive meaning beyond our
everyday experience. Apparently we were created
with that awareness of the existence of a larger
meaning to our lives and we seek our role in it.
All of history's religions bear evidence of a human
yearning for a spiritual dimension. We've been given
the intelligence to discern it if we seek it with an
open mind and desire.
Thomas
Jefferson wrote .It is impossible for the human mind
not to believe that there is, in all this, design,
cause and effect-up to an ultimate cause, a fabricator
of all things from matter and motion, their preserver
and regulator'.7
THE
HUMAN MIRACLE OF BIRTH
Witnessing or being a part of the ingenious birthing
process can be a deeply moving, truly spiritual
experience. How in the world could such a profoundly
creative event have been devised? (conceived?!)
Producing a new human being that will have its own
unique opportunity for a happy and potentially
significant life to live is a sobering but exciting
experience!
In the
complex process of creating a baby the fittest male
sperm, containing the donor's characteristic genes,
must compete with others to find its way up through
the female's slightly hostile acidic uterus to meet
the egg coming down from the ovary. It then must
penetrate the protective layer of the egg, find and
join the egg's cell to form the first fertilized cell
with its own unique genes.
That
cell then starts dividing and duplicating repeatedly.
Individual parts of the organism start to form,
integrate together and grow to full term. The final
result is ejected as a baby, ready to start breathing
and feeding on its own.
The
antibodies that form in our immune systems represent
an ingenious process that fights invading germs. Our
bodies produce their molecular structure to conform in
a hand-in-glove fashion to the invading molecule's
shape. As a key fits in a lock the antibody molecule
attaches itself to the foreign body and neutralizes
it, making us immune to that disease. How did such
amazingly powerful mechanisms and all the other
processes in our bodies and in nature come about?
A
SIMPLE LOOKING LEAF
Similar
astonishing power is found in chlorophyll, the green
substance in growing vegetation. It is able to capture
photons from sunlight to power the reaction of carbon
dioxide in the air with water to produce not only the
oxygen we breathe, but most of the organic matter we
need to sustain life. It provides us with all the
grains, vegetables, grass and trees we need for food,
clothing, and wood and it once produced the ancient
vegetation that may have become our fossil fuel.
To
simplify here a very complex process of
photosynthesis, the chlorophyll molecule in leaves
captures sunlight energy (reflecting back the green
color). The chlorophyll's electrons, activated by the
sun, pass their electrical energy to two intermediate
molecules named NADPH and ATP. Enzymes split
water molecules into hydrogen ions and free oxygen;
the latter diffuses out of the leaf to the air which
living species breathe. Meantime carbon dioxide
diffusing into the leaf from the air links with
another intermediate, RuBP. After several more
steps all these reactants produce a molecule of
glucose while the intermediates are restored to start
the cycle over again. The glucose and its derivatives
become the source of most of the world's needs for
energy.
--- And
all this takes place in a simple looking leaf!
EVOLUTION,
the process first described by Charles Darwin offers
clear evidence of ingenuity in the design of living
things. Darwin's evolutionary theory posited that
natural variations in genes, called mutations, produce
variations in an organism's ability to survive and
procreate in the various changing environments. By
this theory, where advantageous for survival, the
fittest members of a species survive to pass their
genes on to their offspring. Thus they cause a gradual
evolution toward fitness for survival of life and
humans from the amoebic soup of pre-historic times to
the highly developed, living species of today.
It seems significant (and fortunate for us) that one
branch of development has been toward higher order,
intelligence and ability, all of which favors survival
in a competitive environment.
How
does evolution work? It is complicated. Start
with the fact that no two members of any species are
ever exactly alike, even twins. Cloned animals these
days aren't identical even though they may have
identical genes. Historically it was the fittest of
the species that tended to survive best
.
Some of
the variations between individuals are produced by the
random effects of the environment or experience on the
individuals ('as the twig is bent'). But some are
caused by mutations of the code of the DNA molecule in
the individual's original genetic make-up.
DNA
(desoxyribonucleic acid) is the key element in the
process of evolution and indirectly in all the
processes of life. It is the molecule found on the
chromosomes in the nuclei of cells of organisms--both
animal and vegetable. In a very complex, ingenious
process DNA helps determine an organism's identity,
structure and behavior. It is so unique to that
individual organism that criminologists use it to
establish the definite identity of a person.
It
consists of a long ladder-shaped molecule, twisted
like a spiral staircase (a double helix). The sidebars
are chains of desoxyribose phosphate and the 'rungs'
or links are four types of basic chemicals dubbed AGTC
(for four nitrogen-containing bases: adenine, guanine,
thymine and cytosine)
The
sequential order of these different chemical links,
embedded in selected segments of the DNA called genes,
provides unique codes. The DNA transmits the codes of
the genes through an intermediary molecule (RNA) to
one or more proteins to establish the coded sequence
of linked amino acids of those proteins that are
forming the cell.
It is
the uniquely coded proteins that actually provide the
individualized and sometimes-inherited traits of the
different parts of an organism- e.g., skin color,
body-build, health, deafness, family resemblance etc.
It seems as if the code instructed the protein as to
its role in the organism. Just how that role is
performed remains an intriguing puzzle.
In an
added complication in the process of transmitting the
code to the protein, enzymes often cut and
'alternatively splice' some of the original DNA's
genes to produce spontaneously a new gene. These new
genes are the source of many of the unexplained
mutations found in nature.
The
fact that the genetic mutations of evolution are
produced at all and that some mutations have features
that are superior and best fitted to survive has to be
viewed as a very effective and practical concept - and
ingenious. And, that the general pattern of
their operation has resulted in the emergence of human
beings can seem strongly suggestive of a purposeful
design (at least to a human!). Coding is where an
intelligent something might intervene to insure the
availability of superior genes for adaptation of
species and development of the human race.
Archeological studies show that evolution did not start until DNA was created and showed up in the fossil remains. This highlights the key role of DNA in the creation of the world. DNA has even been called the "God molecule".
The sudden
mysterious appearance of eyes in the long
archeological history of the evolution of animals
could also have been the result of divine, purposeful
intervention.
The
evolutionary process requires the presence of all the
proper chemicals for:
·
the side bars and the rungs of the DNA
·
the intermediate RNA, (somewhat similar to DNA but it
has uracil in place of thymine)
·
the enzymes
·
the amino acids for the proteins etc.
·
and the means of coding.
It
seems highly significant that if any of these
components of the evolutionary process are missing,
evolution does not take place.
What
causes this fortuitous assembly of these components?
The prevailing theory is that they are synthesized in
the body by enzymes. How ingenious! Could the same
original cause of the synthesis also guide the coding
to insure the availability of the 'fittest' design?
It
seems inconceivable that a mindless molecule such as
DNA could have designed and produced itself and the
ingenious operations it performs. It is as if
something intelligent had programmed everything with
intuition or knowledge of what to do!
In a
very readable book, G.L.Schroeder has postulated that
God's wisdom permeates the world.[8]
In the
post-Darwinian world there has been an assumption that
evolution is a 'natural' thing-just part of the way
things work. But again, its ingenious complexity
argues for it to be recognized as the product of
purposeful and reasoned consideration by something
intelligent.
It seems that an intelligent source guides life's progress and direction by
designing the mutants in DNA to cause individuals to have certain
characteristics and abilities. In other words, the creator works through humans.
THE
LIMITS OF EVOLUTION
In
discussions of the origin of life and the world, it
should be recognized that evolution is only one part
of the creation process, not a complete explanation of
everything in life. For example, it does not
explain the origin of the DNA molecule itself. Nor
does evolution deal with the source of all the non-living
things in the world, such as:
·
the Big Bang
·
the universe
·
the existence of physical properties such as the
negative charge of the electron
·
the amazing structure of the atom
·
the earth
·
the minerals
·
the carbon, water, sunlight etc. that produce the
living things of life.
Furthermore there are some abrupt changes and puzzling
gaps in the long archeological history of evolution
that suggest the possibility of some sort of
purposeful intervention. One example cited above is
the sudden appearance of eyes in several species
simultaneously in the course of archeological history.
BRAINS
Our
human brains make us intelligent, reasoning,
self-conscious and emotional creatures. They are one
of the most complex examples of ingenious design on
earth. They process information, use the gift of free
will to make decisions, day in, day out. They
are involved in most of the body's functions from
seeing, talking and moving to automatic control of
unconscious bodily processes. They make possible our
development of knowledge and the language by which to
share it for progress.
Their
construction and functioning are so complicated yet
efficient as to defy full understanding----at least so
far. But studies of injured brains along with magnetic
resonance images (MRI) and stimulation-response
behavior have thrown some light on where
certain functions take place. For example, in the
jelly-like tissue of the brain it has been shown that:
· the
frontal lobe is involved in
speech;
· the cerebrum, the largest part of the
brain, receives signals from all the sensory organs
and commands the actions of muscles and glands;
· the cerebral cortex (part of the cerebrum) is involved
in seeing, hearing, feeling emotions, thinking and
remembering;
· the cerebellum coordinates body movements; and
· the brain stem, the most primitive part of the brain,
controls
breathing and blood pressure.
Communication between these different parts of the
brain takes place through interconnecting nerves and
some cooperation seems to be involved.
But
there is so much we don't know about the brain's
operation. Just what goes on when our brains perform
their myriad tasks? We know our brains have about 100
billion nerve cells (neurons and neuroglia), and 100
trillion synaptic connections networking from the
brain stem at the top of the spine throughout the
brain. The neurological cells account for half the
brain's weight and help develop and support the
neurons.
The
neurons interact with each other by passing and
storing electrical signals and electrochemical
molecules (e.g. dopamine and serotonin) from neuron to
neuron selectively at the synaptic joints where they
meet. Experience seems to help contribute to the ever-
changing patterns of neuron connections. Many
thousands of neurons are involved in the simplest of
tasks. And it all works-beautifully!
The
brain's ability to produce experts is particularly
fascinating. The brain apparently condenses all the
learning from experience and observations of a skilled
practitioner in a given field into unconscious,
integrated conclusions, judgment or knowledge. It is
that judgment that qualifies him to be characterized
as an expert in his field.
But
many mysteries remain.
How for
example could proteins be coded to build the different
parts of the brain, which perform in such a complex
manner?
And
just how does the brain learn its functions?
Just
what is a thought?
And
what is the role of emotions in the brain's functions?
How do
impulses from the eyes get transformed into scenes in
the "mind's eye"?
It is
hard to imagine that the brain developed its complex
structure and functions without guidance.
NERVES
Our
bodies contain a million miles or so of bio-electric
"cables" called nerves. No creature from amoeba to
human can function without them. The brain
itself is a mass of nerves.
All
body parts communicate with each other through the
nerves. This makes possible the rapid, integrated,
body- control so typical of animal behavior.
Information on everything the nerves sense, from
sight, smell, touch and sound to pain, pleasure and
thoughts, is conveyed to the nerve centers in the
spinal cord and brain for further directions. Other
nerves then relay this processed response to the
appropriate nerve or muscle fiber for action.
To help
you understand the amazingly complex and ingenious
design and operation of our nerves, consider this
description:
Each
nerve usually contains many insulated neuron fibers
that individually conduct the message impulses
generated in the many parts of the body. A nerve is
thus much like a telephone cable containing multiple
communication pathways.
Each
neuron in the nerve consists of three main parts. At
one end are many "dendrite" receptor fingers which
generate or receive messages. Then there is the main
cell body containing the nucleus that processes the
messages and creates a response. Last is the extended
arm, the "axon", (which may reach three feet in length
for the nerve that that runs from one's finger tip to
one's brain). The axon has multiple terminals that
transmit the processed message to the multiple
