The human body—God’s masterpiece
The human brain is ‘ …the most complex and orderly arrangement of matter
in the universe’. Isaac Asimov
by Joseph Paturi
‘I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully
made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right
well’ (Psalm 139:14).
We live in an amazing world. The greatest of all creations is man himself, the marvellous
machine—precise and efficient. The human body has a dynamic framework of bone
and cartilage called the skeleton. The human skeleton is flexible, with hinges and
joints that were made to move. But to cut down harmful frictions, such moving parts
must be lubricated.
A new twist on blood vessels
Blood vessels are not just straight-through tubes, like water pipes, as was thought.
Scientists at Imperial College, London, found that blood vessels have a slight twist
to them—they are helical. Colin Caro and Spencer Sherwin showed that the gentle
corkscrewing makes the blood flow more evenly compared to straight vessels. They
found that, with helical vessels, damage from turbulent flow was much less likely,
especially at T-junctions. Smooth flow also encourages the production of health-promoting
protective substances.
This could be very important in bypass surgery where veins from a patient’s
leg are used to replace sections of clogged arteries around the heart. If surgeons
were to give the replacement a slight twist, it could result in a longer time before
the vessels clog again.
New Scientist 158(2134):19, May 16, 1998.
Our Creator’s attention to detail is extraordinary.
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Man-made machines are lubricated only by outside sources. But the body lubricates
itself by manufacturing a jelly-like substance in the right amount at every place
it is needed. Yes, the body is a wonder machine, despite the defects from genetic
copying errors (mutations) that have accumulated since the Fall of man brought on
the Curse (Genesis
3).
The body has a chemical plant far more intricate than any plant that man has ever
built. This plant changes the food we eat into living tissue. It causes the growth
of flesh, blood, bones and teeth. It even repairs the body when parts are damaged
by accident or disease. Power, for work and play, comes from the food we eat.
Even in freezing weather our bodies will sometimes overheat. The body’s own
cooling system then takes over. Drops of perspiration pour from millions of tiny
sweat glands in the skin. This is a major way in which our cooling system keeps
our temperature down. The human body has an automatic thermostat that takes care
of both our heating and cooling systems, keeping body temperature at about 37°C
(98.6°F).
The brain is the centre of a complex computer system more wonderful than the greatest
one ever built by man. The body’s computer system computes and sends throughout
the body billions of bits of information, information that controls every action,
right down to the flicker of an eyelid. In most computer systems, the information
is carried by wires and electronic parts. In the body, nerves are the wires that
carry the information back and forth from the central nervous system. And in just
one human brain there is probably more wiring, more electrical circuitry, than in
all the computer systems of the world put together.1
Yes, it is a wonderful thing—this brain of ours.
In fact, as we look at this very moment, we are actually seeing with our brain.
Although, of course, the message is carried there from another marvellous structure,
the human eye. Modern cameras operate on the same basic principle as our eyes. In
our eye the focus and aperture are adjusted automatically.
The sound we hear is being played on a perfect little musical instrument inside
our ear. The sound waves go down the auditory canal and are carried by the bones
of the middle ear to the cochlea, which is rolled up like a tiny sea shell. The
outer ear operates in air. But the cochlea is filled with liquid, and transferring
sound waves from air to liquid is one of the most difficult problems known to science.
Three tiny bones called the ossicles are just right to do the job that enables us
to hear properly. Interestingly, the size of these little bones does not change
from the time we are born.
The heart actually is a muscular pump forcing blood through thousands of miles of
blood vessels. Blood carries food and oxygen to every part of the body. The heart
pumps an average of six litres (1.5 U.S. gallons) of blood every minute, and in
one day pumps enough blood to fill more than forty 200-litre (50-gallon) drums.
Yes, the human body is a wonderful machine. The fact that any one of these devices
exists is a complete demonstration that they are the work of an intelligent and
skilful designer, God Himself. ‘So God created man in
His own image, in the image of God created He him, male and female created
He them’ (Genesis 1:27).
The raw material, the basic chemicals in our body, can be found in the ‘dust of the ground’. However, these chemicals
cannot arrange themselves into cell tissues, organs and systems. This can only happen
with an input of intelligence.
The book of Genesis teaches that God took ‘the dust of
the ground’, a heap of chemicals, shaped a man and then blew into
his nostrils the breath of life. Then man became a living soul. Human beings are
different from animals, for ‘God created man in his
own image’ (Genesis 1:27). Our bodies have been designed with
the ability to pass on to the next generation the programmed information required
to form another person from simple chemicals.
We are more than the chemicals that form our body. We are a special creation of
God. Man is God’s masterpiece—His workmanship, the crown of creation.
The control centre of the human body is the human brain. It is by far the most complex
information-management system in the universe.
The best in the universe …
’Without a doubt, the most complex information-processing system in existence
is the human body. If we take all human information processes together, i.e. conscious
ones (language, information-controlled, deliberate voluntary movements) and unconscious
ones (information-controlled functions of the organs, hormone system), this involves
the processing of 1024 bits daily. This astronomically high figure is
higher by a factor of 1,000,000 [i.e., is a million times greater] than the total
human knowledge of 1018 bits stored in all the world’s libraries.’
Dr Werner Gitt, in Information: The Third Fundamental Quantity, (reprint
from) Siemens Review, 56(6), November/December 1989.
Related articles
Note
- According to the technical discussion the author had with Dr Ratnakant
Sanjay, M.D., of Bangalore, India. Return to text.
(Also available in Chinese (Simplified)
and Chinese (Traditional))
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