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THE EXTRAORDINARY HARMONY BETWEEN SUNLIGHT AND THE EYE
Light emitted by the Sun is at an
ideal wavelength that permits living things on Earth to be able
to see. |
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Only the "visible light" wavelengths on the electromagnetic spectrum
can enable biological vision. The largest part of the radiation emitted
by the Sun falls within this parameter.
For vision to occur, the cells of the retina must be photosensitive,
in other words, able to register photons. This requires that photons fall
within the visible spectrum, because photons of different wavelength are
either too weak or too strong to be registered by retina cells. Altering
the size of the eye would make no difference, because what matters is
the size of the cells, the harmony between them, and the wavelength at
which the photons occur.
As we all know, organic molecules-the building blocks of living cell
structures-are produced by a diversity of different combinations of carbon
atoms. The "seeing" cells they form register only visible light.
Consequently, eyes of living beings register only the visible light emitted
by the Sun. These factors combine to create vision. God specifically created
both the eye and the Sun that emits light at the proper wavelength for
it to perceive.
Professor Michael Denton investigated this subject in great detail in
his book Nature's Destiny, concluding that an organic eye could produce
vision only within the limits of visible light. No other theoretically
conceivable eye design can register different wavelength:
UV, X-ray, and gamma rays are too energetic and are
highly destructive, while infrared and radio waves are too weak to be
detected because they impart so little energy interacting with matter...
And so it would appear that for several different reasons, the visual
region of the electromagnetic spectrum is the one region supremely fit
for biological vision and particularly for the high-resolution vertebrate
camera eye of a design and dimension very close to that of the human eye.
42
Taken all together, this all leads to the conclusion that the Sun is
carefully designed to emit radiation at a certain bandwidth (1 in 1025),
providing heat, supporting the biological functions of complex life forms,
enabling photosynthesis and making possible vision for living beings on
Earth. This critical balance is certainly not driven by erratic, coincidental
processes. All this has been created by God, the Lord and Governor of
the heavens, the Earth, and everything in between. Every detail He creates
confronts us with a chain of miracles, demonstrating the infinite might
of our Creator Who created everything.
THE EXTRAORDINARY SELECTIVENESS OF THE ATMOSPHERE
The atmosphere admits rays that are
beneficial to us and prevents harmful ones from passing, which requires
an extraordinary selectivity. So ideal for life, such selectivity
is the work of a flawless Creation. |
If the Sun's radiation has been designed to support life on Earth, the
atmosphere plays an important role in letting through it wavelengths in
the right combination and at the right ratio.
In order to reach the Earth's surface, radiation coming from space must
pass through the atmosphere first.
If the atmosphere were not of a composition allowing it to filter through,
it could be of no benefit. However, the atmosphere has a special filtering
property that lets beneficial radiation penetrate.
The atmosphere's truly miraculous aspect is not that it lets radiation
penetrate, but that it lets through only beneficial radiation-visible
light and infrared radiation, while shielding us from other deadly types
of radiation. Thus, the atmosphere is a crucial filter against cosmic
radiation reaching the Earth from sources other than the Sun. Professor
Denton explains:
Atmospheric gases themselves absorb electromagnetic
radiation immediately on either side of the visible and near infrared...
The only region of the spectrum allowed to pass through the atmosphere
over the entire range of electromagnetic radiation from radio to gamma
rays is the exceedingly narrow band including the visible and near infrared.
Virtually no gamma, X, ultraviolet, far infrared, and microwave radiation
reaches the surface of the earth. 43
It is impossible not to see the detail in this design. Out of a possible
range of 1025 different wavelengths, the Sun emits the type of radiation
that is beneficial for us; and the atmosphere allows only it to pass through.
(All but a fraction of the little ultraviolet radiation the Sun emits
is prevented from passing the ozone layer.)
Interestingly, like the atmosphere, water is selective in its penetrability.
Only visible light can penetrate it. Infrared radiation (heat energy)
can penetrate miles of air, but only a few millimeters of water. Therefore,
only the top few millimeters on the surface of the world's seas are heated
by the Sun's radiation. Heat absorbed by this layer is then gradually
diffused downward, with the result that beneath a certain depth, the water
temperature of all the seas is roughly similar, creating an environment
conducive to aquamarine life.
Every other type of harmful or deadly cosmic radiation gets caught by
this flawless filtering system, letting only beneficial radiations pass
through.
These facts are very important. Whichever physical law of light we examine,
we see that it is just as needed to enable life. The Encyclopedia Britannica
expresses this extraordinary system as follows:
Considering the importance of visible sunlight for
all aspects of terrestrial life, one can not help being awed by the dramatically
narrow window in the atmosphere absorption and in the absorption spectrum
of water. 44
The transparency of both air and water are miraculous phenomena, both
designed to support life. Surprisingly, though, it must be said that some
people attribute with this flawless design to coincidences, believing
that the atmosphere and the seas regulate their own levels of transparency.
But neither water nor atmosphere-nor, for that matter, any other senseless
thing in the universe-can create such systems. Erratic, coincidental events
or unchecked developments cannot make the refined calculations needed
to combine living things into a cohesive, harmonious whole.
Flawless design, balance, and order are apparent in the universe, in
the world we live in, as well as every physical law. Mankind has existed
for hundred thousands of years unaware of this miraculous system and has
scarcely begun to learn the details of the universe's magnificence. Man's
abilities of comprehension, as the only intelligent being on Earth, is
exceeded by these miracles, which clearly prove the existence of the Creator.
It is truly surprising that some people cannot recognize God's existence
in all this magnificence. They do not appreciate God's infinite wisdom
and knowledge, and do not comprehend that God governs everything and can
create and recreate everything. God reveals:
Does not man see that We created him from a drop yet
there he is, an open antagonist! He makes likenesses of Us and forgets
his own creation, saying, "Who will give life to bones when they are decayed?"
Say "He Who made them in the first place will bring them back to life.
He has total knowledge of each created thing; He Who produces fire for
you from green trees so that you use them to light your fires." Does He
Who created the heavens and Earth not have the power to create the same
again? Yes indeed! He is the Creator, the All-Knowing. His command when
He desires a thing is just to say to it, "Be!" and it is. Glory be to
Him Who has the Dominion of all things in His Hand. To Him you will be
returned. (Qur'an, 36:77-83)
If you are surprised at their blindness, what could
be more surprising than their words: "What, when we are turned to dust,
shall we then be created all anew?" These are the people who reject their
Lord. Such people have iron collars round their necks. Such people are
the Companions of the Fire, remaining in it timelessly, for ever. (Qur'an,
13:5)
THE FINE-TUNING IN THE PHYSICAL PROPERTIES OF WATER
Water freezes from the surface down,
so that ice always floats and never sinks. If, like all other liquids,
water became more dense as it grows colder-in other words, if ice
sank-then ice in oceans, seas and lakes would sink to the bottom.
The surface would continue to freeze and sink, since there would
be no surface ice layer to block out the cold. A large part of the
Earth's oceans, seas and lakes would turn into huge masses of ice.
No life could exist in the seas of such a world. In an ecological
system where the seas were dead, life on land would not be possible
either. In short, the Earth would be a dead planet-if water behaved
"normally." |
In his book The Uniqueness of Biological Materials, renowned biochemist
Professor A. E. Needham states that liquid substances are necessary for
life to form. If the laws of physics permitted only two of the three states
of matter (i.e., solids and gases), life could have never existed because
in solids, atoms are too closely linked and static. They do not permit
the dynamic molecular reactions that living organisms need to perform.
In gases, on the other hand, atoms become too unstable and erratic to
enable the complex mechanisms of living organisms to function.
In short, a necessary condition for the functions of life is a liquid
environment. Water is an ideal or, perhaps, the ideal liquid. Its properties,
extraordinarily conducive for life, have long attracted the attention
of scientists. Water has thermal properties that appear to contradict
some laws of nature but prove that it has been specifically created for
life.
All known substances, including liquids, contract as their temperature
decreases bar one. Decreasing volume means increased density and increased
mass by volume which is why the solid state of liquids has greater mass.
Water on the other hand, contracts until its temperature has fallen to
4o C (39.2o F) where it begins to expand again unlike any other liquid.
It expands further when it freezes which explains why the solid state
of water has less mass than its liquid state. In other words, whereas
ice should sink in water according to "normal" laws of physics, it floats.
With no pumps or muscular systems, plants raise water several
meters from their roots in the Earth. The reason behind this is
surface tension. Channels in plants' roots and stems have been designed
in such a way as to take advantage of surface tension. These veins
narrow as they rise, causing water to "climb" upwards. If the surface
tension in water were as weak as in other liquids, plants would
then be unable to obtain water and would desiccate. On a planet
with no plant cover, human life would be impossible. |
This property of water is really crucial for the seas of the world. If
it did not have this property, a great part of the water on the planet
would freeze and life in lakes and oceans would cease. This fact needs
to be looked at in greater detail. In many parts of the world, in cold
winter days, temperatures fall below 0oC. This coldness affects naturally
seas and lakes alike and their temperature decreases accordingly. The
cooler layers of water sink and the warmer layers rise to the surface
where they are cooled by the cold air and begin to sink again. At 4o C
(39.2o F) this cycle is broken, because water begins to expand again and
becomes "lighter." So, the water at 4o C (39.2o F) becomes the bottom
layer and as we move up, the temperature decreases to 3oC (37.4o F) and
then 2oC (35.6o F) and so on. At the surface the temperature falls to
0oC (32o F) and freezes but only at the surface. The water below at 4o
C (39.2o F) is sufficient to guarantee the survival of fish and other
aquamarine life.
What would happen if this were not so? What would happen if water were
to behave "normally," and its density were to increase inversely with
the fall in temperature-and sink as ice?
In such a scenario, oceans, seas and lakes would freeze from the bottom
upwards and keep on doing so, because there would be no insulating layer
of ice at the surface. The deepest portions of all lakes, seas, and oceans
would become one huge mass of ice, with a layer of only a few meters of
water at the top. Even if the air temperature above were to warm again,
ice at the bottom would never thaw. In the seas of such a planet, life
could not be sustained; and in an eco-system where the seas are "dead,"
neither could life on land be sustained. In short, if water were to behave
"normally," we would have a dead world.
Why does water not contract, but only until its temperature has fallen
to 4oC? Then it begins to expand again! That paradox has never been answered
by anyone.
Thanks to water's unique thermal properties, the temperature differences
between summer and winter, day and night remain always within the levels
tolerated by humans and other living things. If the world's land area
were bigger than its water area, temperature differentials between day
and night would increase dramatically. Most of the land mass would turn
into deserts, making life impossible or at least, incredibly hard to sustain.
Were water's thermal properties any different, we would have a planet
extremely unfavorable to life.
Professor Lawrence Henderson, of the Biochemistry department at Harvard
University, studied water's thermal properties and made the following
comment:
To sum up, this property appears to possess a threefold
importance. First, it operates powerfully to equalize and to moderate
the temperature of the earth; secondly, it makes possible very effective
regulation of the temperature of the living organism; and thirdly it favors
the meteorological cycle. All of these effects are true maxima, for no
other substance can in this respect compare with water. 45
THE SURFACE TENSION OF WATER HAS BEEN SPECIFICALLY ADJUSTED
TO SUPPORT LIFE
Water's chemical and physical properties
have been ideally created for humans' life and needs. |
Any liquid's surface tension is created by the forces of attraction between
its molecules. Thus, the surface tension of every liquid is different.
Water's surface tension is greater than most other liquids', with significant
biological effects on plant life.
How can plants possibly transport water from deep underground to branches
and twigs many meters high, without the use of pumps or muscles? The answer
is that the channels in plant roots and veins have been designed to take
advantage of water's surface tension. These channels narrow towards the
top of a plant, causing water to "climb" upwards.
What makes this design functional is water's great surface tension. Were
it weaker, as in most liquids, terrestrial plants of any size would not
be able to exist. An environment without plant life would mean no edible
crops, no forage for animals, and thus, no human existence.
High surface tension causes also the breakup of rocks. Thanks to its
high surface tension, water can penetrate the smallest crevices in rock
formations. When temperatures fall below zero, water freezes and expands,
exerting great force against the rock and expanding the crack eventually
wedging it wider. This process is crucial in extracting the minerals locked
in rock formations and also plays a vital role in soil formation.
THE CHEMICAL MIRACLE IN WATER
Along with its physical properties, water's chemical characteristics
are also extraordinarily conducive to life. For one thing, it's an ideal
solvent, in as much as most chemical substances are water-soluble.
One important consequence is that a vast array of beneficial minerals
and other substances reach the sea via river systems. It has been estimated
that five billion tons of chemical substances, vital for aquamarine life,
flow into the seas in just this way.
Water is a catalyst for almost all known chemical reactions, and its
ideal tendency to join in chemical reactions is yet another one of its
important chemical attributes.
Water is not extremely reactive nor corrosive like
sulfuric acid, nor-on the other end of the scale-is it as inert like argon
and other "noble" gases. As Professor Michael Denton states, "It seems
that, like all other properties, the reactivity of water is ideally fit
for both its biological and its geological role." 46
New research into water's chemical properties reveals ever more details
and aspects of its idealness for life. In this regard, Harold Morowitz,
a renowned Professor of biophysics at Yale University, states the following:
The past few years have witnessed the developing study
of a newly understood property of water (i.e., proton conductance) that
appears to be almost unique to that substance, is a key element in biological-energy
transfer, and was almost certainly of importance to the origin of life.
The more we learn the more impressed some of us become with nature's fitness
in a very precise sense… 47
WATER'S VISCOSITY IS SET AT A CALCULATED RATE
The viscosity of water is of vital
importance to living things. If it were slightly weaker, then it
would be impossible for the capillary vessels to carry blood. |
When we say "liquids," we imagine a highly fluid substance. But in reality,
liquids' viscosity rate can vary greatly. For instance the viscosity rates
of tar, sulfuric acid, glycerol and olive oil are very different from
one another. When these substances are compared with water, this range
of differences is more clearly understood: Water is ten billion times
more fluid than tar, a thousand times more fluid than glycerol, 100 times
more fluid than olive oil, and 25 times more fluid than sulfuric acid.
As this comparison demonstrates, water is a substance of high viscosity.
We can state that it has the highest viscosity rate of any liquid, if
a few substances like ether and liquid hydrogen-gases at room temperature-are
discounted.
Is water's viscosity rate relevant to life? Would it make a difference
to us if its viscosity were greater or smaller? Professor Denton answers
these questions:
The fitness of water would in all probability be less if its viscosity
were much lower. The structures of living systems would be subject to
far more violent movements under shearing forces if the viscosity were
as low as liquid hydrogen...If the viscosity of water was much lower,
delicate structures would be easily disrupted... and water would be incapable
of supporting any permanent intricate microscopic structures. The delicate
molecular architecture of the cell would probably not survive.
Ninety-five percent of blood consists
of water. If water's viscosity of were as high as that of honey
or tar, then your heart would be unable to pump blood.
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If the viscosity was higher, the controlled movement
of large macromolecules and particularly structures such as mitochondria
and small organelles would be impossible, as would processes like cell
division. All the vital activities of the cell would be effectively frozen,
and cellular life of any sort remotely resembling that with which we are
familiar would be impossible. The development of higher organisms, which
is critically dependent on the ability of cells to move and crawl around
during embryogenesis, would certainly be impossible if the viscosity of
water was even slightly greater than it is. 48
Water's high viscosity rate is vital for us humans, because were it a
little less, the capillary network could not transport our blood. The
complex network of blood vessels in the kidney, for instance, could never
have originated.
Water's viscosity rate is vital not only to processes within cell structures,
but also for metabolism as a whole.
All living beings larger than 0.25 of a millimeter have centralized body
systems, because in any larger creature, nutrition and oxygen cannot be
carried to cells by means of diffusion-that is, they cannot be absorbed
directly by the fluids within cells.. Oxygen and nutrition from outside
must be pumped by certain "channels" to the countless cells within the
body, and waste material removed again. Veins and arteries are these channels,
and the heart is the pump that creates the flow within them. The blood
circulating around the body, as we know, is composed mostly of water.
(When the cells, proteins, and hormones are removed from the blood, plasma
remains-which is 95% water.)
This is why water's viscosity is so important to the circulatory system's
effectiveness. Were its viscosity rate like tar's, obviously no heart
could pump it. Not even a substance like olive oil, with a viscosity rate
100 million times higher than tar, could pass through the body's capillary
network, even if the heart could pump it.
Let us inspect this subject more closely. The capillary network's purpose
is to supply every cell in the body with oxygen, energy, nutrients and
other substances, like hormones. For a cell to be able to receive these
deliveries, it must not be further away than 50 microns from the blood
vessel (one micron is one-thousandth of a millimeter). Cells at any greater
distance could not be fed and, therefore, would die.
This is why the capillary network covers every bit
of the human body. It comprises five billion blood vessels with a combined
length of 950 kilometers (590 miles). In some mammals, muscle tissue has
3,000 blood vessels per square centimeter. If 10,000 blood vessels of
the capillary network were to be placed side by side, their combined width
wouldn't exceed the width of a pencil tip. The diameter of these blood
vessels is between three and five microns which means three to five thousands
of a millimeter. 49
Water's high viscosity rate lets blood pass through fine blood vessels
without blockages or slowdowns. Professor Michael Denton states that were
water's viscosity rate even slightly less, no circulatory system could
preserve its functionality:
A capillary system will work only if the fluid being
pumped through its constituent tubes has a very low viscosity. A low viscosity
is essential because flow is inversely proportional to the viscosity...
From this it is easy to see that if the viscosity of water had a value
only a few times greater than it is, pumping blood through a capillary
bed would require enormous pressure and almost any sort of circulatory
system would be unworkable... If the viscosity of water had been slightly
greater and the smallest functional capillaries had been 10 microns in
diameter instead of 3, then the capillaries would have to occupy virtually
all of the muscle tissue to provide an effective supply of oxygen and
glucose. Obviously the design of macroscopic life forms would be impossible
or enormously constrained... It seems, then, the viscosity of water must
be very close to what it is if water is to be a fit medium for life. 50
In short, like all of water's other properties, its viscosity too is
just perfect for life. The viscosity of liquids covers a vast spectrum.
But among the billions of different possible rates, water has been created
with perfect viscosity.
THE FORMATION OF ATOMIC BONDS NECESSARY FOR LIFE REQUIRES
THE TEMPERATURES WE HAVE ON EARTH
Life has such a complex structure
that not even a single protein in the millions in a single cell
could have come about by chance. |
The various chemical bonds keeping atoms and molecules together are called
ionic, covalent or weak bonds. Covalent bonds join the atoms in amino
acids, the building blocks of proteins. Weak bonds keep the three-dimensional
structure of the amino acid chains they form when they fold or twist together.
In other words, if weak bonds did not exist, the proteins formed by chains
of amino acids could not function, where there are no proteins, there
is no life.
Interestingly, the temperatures needed to form covalent as well as weak
bonds fall within the range existing on Earth. In reality, covalent and
weak bonds are wholly different bonds and there is no natural reason why
they should require the same temperatures to form.
Yet both types of chemical bonds occur only within the temperature range
existing on Earth. Were they to form at different temperatures, proteins-therefore,
life-could not form, because proteins require both types of bonding simultaneously.
In other words, if the temperature ranges in which covalent bonds enable
the formation of amino acid chains weren't also conducive to the formation
of weak bonds, proteins could not develop their three-dimensional structure;
and amino acids would remain as purposeless and dysfunctional chains.
Likewise, if a temperature range suitable for weak bonds were not conducive
to forming covalent bonds, no chains of proteins could form.
This reveals that atoms, as the building blocks necessary for life, are
in great harmony with the home of life, the Earth, as Professor Michael
Denton points out in his book, Nature's Destiny:
Out of the enormous range of temperatures in the cosmos,
there is only one tiny temperature band in which we have (1) liquid water,
(2) a great plenitude of metastable organic compounds, and (3) weak bonds
for stabilizing the 3-D forms of complex molecules. 51
Denton stresses that all types of physical and chemical bonds necessary
for the formation of life can exist effectively and simultaneously only
within a very narrow temperature range-which exist only on Earth, among
all the other planets in the solar system.
THE SOLUBILITY OF OXYGEN IS IDEAL FOR LIFE
The air we breathe, and the systems that allow us to make use of
it, were created in perfect harmony. |
Our bodies' ability to absorb oxygen is due, in turn, to water's ability
to absorb it. When we breathe, the oxygen inhaled into our lungs enters
our bloodstream almost instantly. In our blood, the protein called hemoglobin
transports oxygen to the cells. Enzymes in cells, in turn, use the oxygen
to burn carbon compounds called ATP to release energy.
All complex life forms produce their energy by this system, which depends
on oxygen's solubility properties of. If oxygen were any harder to dissolve,
less of it could enter the bloodstream, and cells would be starved of
energy. On the other hand, if oxygen were more readily soluble, its content
in the bloodstream would increase enough to cause oxidation poisoning.
Interestingly, the water solubility of different gases can vary a million
fold. Carbon dioxide, for instance, is 20 times more soluble than oxygen.
Among the vast range of solubility properties of gases, oxygen has just
the right solubility properties for us.
What would happen if it were otherwise?
Were oxygen less soluble in water (and therefore, in blood), less of
it could enter the bloodstream, and cells would not receive enough oxygen-making
survival more difficult for air-breathing creatures. No matter how much
we breathed, gradually we would be starved of oxygen because sufficient
quantities of what the air contained could not be delivered to the cells.
As stated above, if oxygen were more readily absorbed into the bloodstream,
oxidation poisoning would occur. Oxygen can be a highly dangerous gas
and deadly if taken in higher doses. When the blood's oxygen ratio increases
substantially, oxygen reacts with water to produce highly destructive
byproducts. The body has highly complex enzyme systems to prevent or defuse
such reactions, but were the body's oxygen content to increase further,
these systems could not cope, and every breath we take would quicken death.
About this, chemist Irwin Fridovich has this to say:
All respiring organisms are caught in a cruel trap.
The very oxygen which supports their lives is toxic to them and they survive
precariously, only by virtue of elaborate defense mechanisms. 52
The only thing that protects us from this dilemma-from oxygen poisoning
or oxygen starvation-is that oxygen's solubility and our bodies' complex
enzyme systems are created just as they should be. Clearly, God has created
the air we breathe, as well as the systems that enable us to benefit from
it, in perfect harmony.
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