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42 10/31/2005
How Birth Screams Creation
David Menton has a new DVD entitled, “Fearfully and Wonderfully Made” where he makes a clear case of irreducible complexity. This newsletter will give a brief synopsis of the amazing birthing process that makes evolution look like a silly fairytale.
When does life begin in the womb? The Bible says we are fearfully and wonderfully made yet today this wonderful creation is reduced to an embryo. This embryo is known as a fetus after about 8 weeks along when all the “parts” are there. Ps 139:13-14 says “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.” Interestingly we are literally knit together. Our skin is made of collagen fibers that are stronger than steel yet isn’t even as elastic as steel but our skin still stretches. Why? Because of the literal knitting pattern the skin is made in.
Psalm 139:15-16 says “My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place [the womb]. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth your eyes saw my unformed body.” Indeed God’s eyes are upon every birth and every abortion before birth. Ecclesiastes 11:5 says, “As you do not know the path of the wind. Or how the body is formed in a mother’s womb, so you cannot understand the work of God, the Maker of all things.” This verse tells us we can look at how a baby forms .but we will never understand it all.
The womb has the uterus in the center with two oviducts that go out the top of the uterus on both sides. Also near the top just under the oviducts lay the ovaries, one on each side. Every 28 days an ovary releases an egg with each ovary taking turns releasing one egg every other month. If something happens to one ovary the other one automatically knows what to do and releases one every month on its own. When the egg is released, the oviduct has a catcher’s glove that moves over top of the oviduct just before the egg is released and literally catches the egg. Good timing or God’s timing?
In the ovary the egg begins as a follicle. When a baby girl is born she already has about 400,000 eggs. Even the Lord who has told us to be fruitful and multiple knows that is way too many arrows for our quiver. Every month about 30-40 of these will start to develop and build up cells around the outside of the egg. If the egg is not fertilized the egg begins to break down and forms a scar that is clearly visible to the naked eye. Each month fertilization doesn’t occur another scar forms. Normally, scar tissue does not break down but this scar tissue does. Can you imagine how much scar tissue would build up throughout a woman’s life if it didn’t break down?. Doctors would love to know how this is done, but we can’t reproduce this amazing miracle and creation of God.
Once the egg is fertilized in the oviduct, it moves down to the uterus where it will be implanted. Sperm, however, goes in the opposite direction at the same time. It is a misconception that the sperm actually swims through the oviduct. It doesn’t. The muscles actually push the sperm along. How does the egg go the opposite direction down the oviduct when the muscles are pushing the sperm the other way. Inside the oviduct are cilia that are so tiny that even under a microscope you can’t see one individual cilia. There are trillions of these that move like a wave to carry the egg to the uterus against the muscle action of the oviduct. Somehow these just evolved with this information?
Once the egg is released you have a 12-24 hour period of time that it can be fertilized. At about 30 hours the fertilized egg divides and becomes a two-celled child. The cells then secrete a sticky substance that allows it to move down the oviduct. Without this substance the egg would just spin and not move to the uterus (but evolution just happened to figure this out).
It is essential that only one sperm fertilize the egg. First it has to get through the cumulus, a wall designed to keep sperm out. However the sperm produces a specific enzyme that dissolves the cumulus so that it can get through it. What a stroke of luck for evolution! Next there is another shell-like layer that is around the egg. It is a gelatinous type substance, but the sperm can’t get through it either. Yet the sperm produces a different enzyme that allows it to get through that layer. As soon as the sperm touches the membrane of the egg it checks to make sure it is the right species before letting it in. If it passes inspection it opens up and the sperm can enter. Remember, it is essential that only one sperm enter, so by another stroke of luck for evolution, the egg cell membrane has another enzyme that opens as soon as the sperm touches it. Immediately certain granules explode hardening the membrane so that no other sperm can enter. Amazingly, once this fertilization happens it is a sinful human being as Psalm 51:5 clearly tells us.
At 30 hours there are two cells that continue to divide in exponential growth. The first two cells are held together by a soft shell in which they are encased. If the shell breaks apart the cells can separate and you get two children (God’s cloning produces identical twins). Most twins are a result of two eggs that ovulated and both fertilized.
At about 3 days the baby is a ball of cells called a morula. At about 4 ½ days the ball of cells become hollow and it is now called a blastocyst. At about 5 or 6 days the blastocyst will penetrate and implant on the wall of the uterus. This blastocyst is not the mother’s tissue, yet it is welcomed by the mother’s uterus. Normally, if you take tissue from your son or daughter and put it in the mothers’ body, her body develops an immune response against her own children, yet God made this possible by keeping the two separate.
Around the blastocyst is a Cytotrophoblast that will secrete a chemical at about 6 days. These are the cells that can penetrate through the uterus and will form the placenta. Much like a stereo is plugged into a wall and receives energy from a power plant to work, the placenta is a super organ or a giant power plant that plugs into the mother’s system and the baby is the stereo. (Reptiles are like batteries and receive nutrients from a yolk inside the egg, but humans need the mother’s power plant).
There are many blood vessels in the uterus but when the cytotrophoblast touches the arteries of the uterus the ends of the arteries erode and close off. There are about 20 visible arteries that pump about ½ gallon of blood a minute. This placenta will form a seamless separation between the mother and the baby so that blood cells for the baby form on the inside of the placenta and blood cells for the mother are on the outside keeping the blood from mixing. The mother’s blood flows all around the placental villous which has trillions of tiny receptacles that capture nutrients from the mother’s blood and transfer it to the baby. Special molecules of proteins will carry important items like iron from the mother’s side into the baby’s placenta and releases it there. Yet during all of this the blood of the mother is separate from the baby. (Sadly, alcohol or drugs can passively go through the placental walls and get to the baby).
The umbilical chord also has a special jelly-like substance that keeps the chord from kinking and cutting off the blood supply as the baby moves around inside the womb. Without this special substance the baby would never survive a kinked chord.
When the baby is born the placenta separates and literally breaks apart these 20 arteries. It has been said that giving birth is the greatest wound anyone has ever survived to tell about. Why does the mother not bleed to death from 20 severed arteries? There are muscles on the end of each artery that immediately squeeze off the blood flow when the placenta separates. How can an evolutionist say, “No design there!”?
When it comes time for the birth another problem appears. The baby is too big for the pelvis. The woman’s pelvis is different than a man’s. God foresaw and fixed this problem by creating three seams that can separate when specially created enzymes partially digest the ligaments that hold these seams together. Without these enzymes evolving at just the right time evolution would have to start over because the baby would never get out.
The placenta is the kidney, intestinal tract, liver etc. for the baby. The baby could be inside the mother without any of these and live because the placenta does all the work. Yet when the baby is born this super organ is just discarded. Also, while the baby is in the womb, the blood bypasses the lungs but as soon as the baby is born this bypass closes and now pumps the blood to the lungs. No time for evolution here.
Clearly, so many intricate and vital details, involving so many separate systems scream design. One can not remove any of these enzymes or chemicals without having the entire birthing process fail. Remove one part from an airplane and it won’t fly. Remove one of these processes from a human being and it won’t reproduce. Evolution would require these processes to gradually come about. Creation and irreducible complexity show that the system must be fully formed and fully functional right “from the beginning.”
Surely I am fearfully and wonderfully made.