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Science fiction is filled with strange creatures. Usually they want to eat us, kill us, rule over us, or something like that. In some stories, the creatures land from space. In others, they are created by a mad scientist or result from an accident during an experiment. A few are discovered lurking in remote places, orphaned from the past.

Can you imagine a creature that is part plant and part animal? As crazy as it sounds, such a creature exists. In real life, not fiction. Sea slugs of a certain type eat algae. Their body extracts chloroplast cells from the algae and transports them to structures on its back. These cells absorb sunshine through the slugs transparent skin and produce energy through photosynthesis. The slug generates the exact chemicals needed to sustain the chloroplasts, including chlorophyll and several other enzymes.

The slugs also eat sea anemones. They are not damaged by the anemones stinging cells. Those are transported to the slugs skin and used for its own defense

How did this creature develop? Did some kind of cross-DNA mashup between the sea slug and the algae occur in the past to enable this? No evidence of DNA mixing exists. Scientists know of no mechanism to enable it. I don’t think they are the result of some accident. And people didn’t make them. But their complex systems were design and created by our fascinating, intelligent God.*

*Frank Sherwin, Brian Thomas, Jeffrey P. Tomkins, James J.S. Johnson, Scott Arledge, Fascinating Creatures: Evidence of Christ’s Handiwork, (Dallas, Texas: Institute for Creation Research, 2022), 37-39.

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Which came first, the chicken or the egg? My father posed this question to me when I was a child. If I said the egg, he asked where was the chicken that laid the egg? If I said the chicken, he’d ask how it could exist without hatching from an egg. My father enjoyed teasing with riddles and logic puzzles.

Of course, you and I know the answer in Genesis is simple. God created the chicken when he made the birds of the air.

But this is not a simple question for an evolutionist. They face multiple chicken and egg problems. One is the  human embryo in the womb. It does not have all the systems needed to survive. It relies on the mother’s body. Chemical communication and nutrition flows between the mother and the embryo. The placenta develops from the cells of both bodies. When the baby is developed, it signals the mother’s body to initiate birth. How can two different bodies at different stages of life evolve this interconnection? How could this complexity arise gradually over long periods of time?

The answer: it can’t. All of the systems and features need to appear at the same time. Of course, Genesis tells us God created Eve. He designed her body and the embryonic development that occurred when she bore children. Here again is a reason to believe. If you’d like to see more on this topic, see the show notes for a link to a two-minute video.

“Think You Can Solve the ‘Mother of all Chicken and Egg Problems’ of Your Body?” HillFaith, https://www.hillfaith.org/apologetics/think-you-can-solve-the-mother-of-all-chicken-and-egg-problems-of-your-body/

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Have you ever hiked in a desert environment? Many years ago, our family vacationed in New Mexico and Arizona. Our longest hike was partway down a trail into the Grand Canyon, and back up. Rangers required hikers to carry water. I drank all of mine and wanted more after our three mile hike. Can you imagine plodding through desert dunes for 100 miles before taking a drink? No way, right?

Well, that’s what a camel can do. According to the booklet, Fascinating Creatures, a camel can carry 400 pounds 100 miles without consuming food or water. It utilizes the fat in its hump and storage chambers in the stomach to accomplish this. After eight days without water, a camel can suck up 27 gallons. Ten minutes after drinking, the stomach is empty. The camel is perfectly adapted to the desert environment. Nostrils close against flying dust. Their feet spread like snowshoes to support them on loose sand. Their eyes have special structures to protect the retina from glare and are shielded by eyelids with two rows of eyelashes. An inner eyelid also wipes grains of sand from the eye. A thick coat of hair insulates the animal.*

So, did camels evolve? The fossil record has no evidence of transitional animals. Camel fossils appear quite like modern camels, although some were about twice as big. Camels display the evidence of intelligent design. They are another reason to believe in God.

*Frank Sherwin, Brian Thomas, Jeffrey P. Tomkins, James J.S. Johnson, Scott Arledge, Fascinating Creatures: Evidence of Christ’s Handiwork, (Dallas, Texas: Institute for Creation Research, 2022), 27-29.

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Do you remember the old Star Trek movie where Captain Kirk and crew take a captured Klingon warbird back in time to transport humpback whales into the future? It’s a fun, if unrealistic, story. But back in reality, humpback whales are themselves amazing. They cooperate to corral and feed on fish, launch their 40-ton bodies into the air and communicate with haunting songs.

Where did these whales come from? Evolutionists believe they descended from a wolf-like animal. That’s right. The small critter liked to swim and feed on fish. But why a wolf-like creature? Because whales are mammals. According to evolutionary theory, they developed from other mammals, not fish. So, over millions of years the wolf-like mammal mutated. Nostrils moved to the top of the head, hair was lost and blubber formed. Front legs slowly morphed into flippers and the back legs became a powerful tail. Teeth changed. The cardiopulmonary system changed. Sensory organs developed. That’s what they say. And you thought the Star Trek story was far-fetched!

The problem is that multiple beneficial mutations would need to occur together through the centuries, in a random way. Researchers have calculated that 100 million years are needed for just one pair of cooperative mutations to randomly occur in a large population of animals. When you calculate all the changes needed from the furry land critter to the whale, it becomes impossible by random chance.*

That’s one reason why believing in a Creator makes sense.

*”A Whale of a Story,” The John 10:10 project, video embedded on “CONSIDER THIS: A Whale of a Way to Start 2023,” HillFaith https://www.hillfaith.org/apologetics/consider-this-a-whale-of-a-way-to-start-2023/

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Do you visit the hairdresser or barber? Most of us do. A barber is an example of a personal service. People often need someone else to provide personal services that they aren’t skilled to do or are too difficult to manage. Many different personal services exist besides haircuts, including nail care, massage and chiropractic adjustments.

Did you know that fish also need personal care services? Many predatory fish develop dirty teeth and gills. Debris from meals and parasites clutter their mouths. What do they do? They rely on small fish to clean their teeth. They open their mouths and let the small fish swim in to tidy up. When finished, the small fish swim back out. The small fish gets something to eat and the big fish gets a clean smile. A very similar relationship exists between one species of bird and the Nile crocodile. The croc opens up and in steps the bird to pick his teeth clean.*

These symbiotic relationships fly in the face of evolutionary theory. Several different species would need to evolve in a symbiotic way, which defies the odds. How would the crocodile know not to eat the bird, the first time this occurred? How could it ever learn through generations of evolution to just hold its mouth open rather than gobble down a meal? On the other hand, these relationships between animals provide one more reason to believe in an intelligent creator God.

*Scott M. Huse, The Collapse of Evolution (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1983), p. 76.

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Have you considered the complexity of the human eye? From the six muscles that move it, to the pupil and lens that focus light, to the molecular processes of the retina, to the transmission and processing of the signals to the brain, it is a marvel! Many see it as evidence that an intelligence designed all the complex, interrelated systems. But Nathan Lents, a Professor of Molecular Biology, disagrees. He points to the defects in human sight, such as near sightedness, color blindness, macular degeneration and more. He concludes, “Why an intelligent designer would deny his favorite creatures the excellent vision that he provided lowly birds is quite a mystery.”

But, could the existence of defects in sight actually prove an intelligent designer? Cornelius Hunter, who holds a Ph.D. in Biophysics and Computational Biology, thinks so. In his article “Did Nathan Lents Refute Design,” he argues that defective vision would never survive according to evolutionary theory, which is all about the survival of the fittest. He also points out that Lents’ argument is not about science, but metaphysics.*

For believers in the bible, it is quite reasonable that defects in human sight exist. That’s because the perfect world God designed was broken by sin. So continue to view the human eye as evidence of God’s design. And the existence of the diseases and defects in human sight also refute the theory of evolution.

*Cornelius Hunter, “Did Nathan Lents Refute Design?” Evolution News & Science Today, January 21, 2022, https://evolutionnews.org/2022/01/did-nathan-lents-refute-design/.

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Take a moment to look at your cell phone. Isn’t it a marvel of design and engineering? Do you realize that if certain things in it were changed just a bit, it wouldn’t work? There are a lot of antennas and other sources of interference within your phone. Engineers spend hours to place them in the smallest, most compact design in order to isolate the signals. Otherwise they would disrupt the functioning of other parts of the phone.

Did you know the earth and the universe are the same? If you change a few things, just a bit, then life would not exist. For instance:

• Change the oxygen level in the atmosphere – too much and things would burst into flame; too little and we’d suffocate.
• Change the rotation of the earth – if it took more than 24 hours, half the planet would be burning hot while the other half was freezing. Speed the rotation up and the winds would howl like a constant hurricane.
• Change the rate of expansion of the universe — just one millionth slower, and it would have collapsed without forming stars. It if expanded faster, galaxies would not have formed.

There are 122 such constants that have been discovered.* Tweak them a bit and we don’t exist. We look at a cell phone and know it was designed. When we see these facts about the universe — and that they are just right for life — how can you not think it was all designed by God?

*Norman L. Geisler and Frank Turek, I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2004), 98-106.

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I recently purchased a new vehicle. It’s a lot like the vehicles I’ve had for many years. It has four tires, a metal body and safety glass windows. The engine runs on gasoline, uses motor oil and has an air filter. It is connected to an automatic transmission to drive the wheels.

But this vehicle is also very different. It is the first car I have owned that connects to my home Wi-Fi to download updates! It has a global positioning system that can display a map in the dash. The car actually has some sort of vision. Place it in cruise control and it adapts to the speed of vehicles in front of it, speeding up or slowing down. It can even apply the brakes! It can also watch the road and steer itself between the lines, which is great, but it still requires me to hold the wheel and beeps at me if I don’t! I can even use an app on my phone to lock it, start it, locate it in a parking lot, or view a health report!

I really appreciate all the man-years of engineering that have created and improved automobiles! They are a product of intelligent design and quality manufacturing!

Like my car, our fantastically complex world is also the product of intelligent design, God’s design. When you see the complexities of nature, I hope you are reminded and I hope you stop and give praise to God as well!

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