Episode Transcript
Welcome to faith and science. I'm Dr. John Ashton.
You know, from time to time, as I meet people and the topic of creation versus evolution comes up, a lot of people obviously under the impression, well, evolution must be correct. So many scientists believe in evolution and all the textbooks and so forth. One thing we need to remember is that most scientists believe in evolution because that's what they've been taught and they've never been challenged, perhaps, to think otherwise.
And what happens is that they adjust their mindset to actually see evidence for evolution or be blinded to the very obvious evidence for creation. And so they might see evidence for change in evolution without realise, well, hang on, this change is coming about as a result of loss of information, not as a result of new gaining of information. And this is a very important aspect.
So some of these subtle features are lost when people are being taught evolution. These finer details aren't being pointed out. So the fact that these finer details are glossed over gives the impression, yes, that evolution is a proven, established fact.
And the other thing is too, of course, that as our society becomes more and more secular, there are fewer people are reading the Bible, fewer people are being exposed to the massive evidence that we have just in our history and in the Bible itself for a creator God. And also that the christian faith really just fits the evidence in the reality that we're around just so well. And also the evidence of changed lives by the christian faith.
It was interesting on the radio this morning, I heard a message on the news and I haven't checked this out yet, but essentially it was saying that in Afghanistan a number of the islamic extremist fighters are going around and are going house to house looking for christians to deal with them. And often, unfortunately, these people are killed or else forced to convert. But the story talked about how in one particular area there were quite a number of Christians and there were a large number of christians killed.
And then after that, an angel appeared to the leader of the militant group that was doing this. And there was a very large conversion of these men to Christianity themselves. And the commentator on the news said, it's sort of like a modern day conversion, like Paul.
And of course, the Bible talks about. And we have the letters of Paul that he wrote to the different churches and the account of Paul's journey written by Luke in the book of acts. And Paul, this person who was persecuting and killing christians in the early times as the christian message that God had visited earth as Jesus Christ and had risen again, which was the proof that he was God and as this was spreading through the world at that time, of course, a man named Saul was actively engaged in stamping it out and rounding up these christian believers.
And he himself had an experience where God himself, Jesus Christ himself, appeared to him and spoke to him, and that led to his conversion and very strong faith, to the point that he even got to witness to the emperor in Rome. Of course, he was executed, but his life then just totally changed and what he went through because he realised Christianity was so real. Of course, we don't hear of many of those you such dramatic experiences today.
So that was why I was very interested to hear that on the news today on the radio of a similar experience being reported in Afghanistan at this present time. But there are countless books written of people's experiences of God and miraculous interventions of God. And of course the evidence is overwhelming that Jesus was mean.
Just the fact with his resurrection, it would have been very easy to prove just by recovering the body and producing the body would have simply discounted Jesus' resurrection. And we need to also recall that the disciples at that time didn't believe that he would be resurrected. They hadn't understood and they'd gone to the tomb to prepare the body for burial, of course, to finish the preparation.
So there's overwhelming evidence historically for Jesus' resurrection which is a supernatural event, and it's something that he claimed. When you read about what Jesus did and what he claimed, it all makes sense and it adds up with the historical evidence that follows and all down through history. But we also have the evidence for God in nature, in science.
And I think one of the very strong scientists and christians who are pointing this out is Professor John Lennox, the mathematician and philosopher at Oxford University. Although he's meritus now, you know, in his arguments with atheists, he points out, look, the fact that we are here, the fact that we exist, points to some sort of supernatural beginning. Now, when you look at what the secular physicists are trying to believe in, what they have to believe in in terms of the origin of our universe, is that somehow from nothing, the universe created itself.
I mean, there was a new programme just coming on television at the moment about, on cosmology and the origin of the universe, and this is it, this is what they come to. And when you think about it, there's either got to be something or nothing. Now, why isn't there just nothing now, obviously there isn't nothing, because we're here.
I'm here, I'm talking to you now. I'm sitting in this recording studio and there's a timber bench I'm putting my hand on and so forth, and clock. I'm surrounded by reality.
We can touch it, we can see it, we can feel it's real, it exists, it's made up. All these things and us are made up of atoms bound together by chemical reactions and chemical bonds. And I'm sitting on a chair and I have to exert a force to get up against gravity.
So all these things exist, but why should they exist? Why should anything exist? But we do exist. Now, one of the important points that John Lennox points out, of course, is that the whole universe itself and its structure and makeup points to a beginning, a creator. And of course, that's why these scientists are scrambling to try and figure out some theory to explain.
As I've explained in talks previously, the big Bang theory just doesn't cut it. It just doesn't work. We try all the math, the predictions don't work out.
It doesn't fit what we observe, it doesn't fit the data. And the proponents of the big Bang theory have to contrive all sorts of imaginary theories, like inflation and so forth, that are totally unprovable. And there's actually no evidence for them either.
So we're left with, okay, how did we come to be here? But the Bible says that we are created by a nonphysical being, a being that is outside space and time. That's non material. That has always been there, has always existed.
Now, it's a bit hard for our minds to understand that, but it makes sense. That makes sense that there's this non material existence that has always existed, and that that has the ability to create this universe. Just like our non material thoughts have the ability to affect electrical voltages, to affect the material world.
Our non material thoughts, in effect, can affect this material world. And we can make things, we can move our arms and legs and so forth and do things, and we can be creative. And it's fascinating, of course, that the Bible talks about that we as beings were made in the image of God.
And I think, well, obviously we're not spirits, but it seems to me that our mind, if God is non material, then what part of us is non material? It's our mind. So our minds are made in the image of God. And to me this makes so much sense too, because we can understand the creation around us.
We have learnt to understand how molecules and atoms and force fields and so forth work and understand these things. And quite early on, man learned how to smelt metals, to make tools, to utilise the amazing natural resources that we have. I love timber.
And wood is such an amazing self replicating, self replenishing material for building. There are all the different types of trees that have all different properties from the light balsa wood that you can make the model aeroplane frames out of, and they're so light and less dense through to teak that can be so beautiful and yet so heavy and very rot resistant and so forth. Huon Pines and all the different timbers that are around, and some with the beautiful structures to make beautiful furniture like walnut and so forth.
And so there's so much here know points that our mind was created in that way. And so this is one of the important points that John Lennox points out. Look, the universe had to have an origin and a creator.
There's so much evidence for that. Where did the laws of physics come from? Where did the laws that constrain the energy fields, that enable the nuclear reactions to occur, that count for the energy generation in stars and all this sort of thing? Where did those laws come from that designed the structure of atoms and the atomic particles within them and so forth? Did they all just randomly, somehow come from nothing? It just doesn't make sense. The Bible makes so much sense in what it describes.
And as it talks about God, it talks about God in a way that makes sense compared to all the other religions that I've had any knowledge of. Christianity and Judeo-Christian Christianity, of course, is the culmination of the jewish faith, faith from the Hebrews. One of the other areas, of course, that fascinates me is the evidence too, from chemistry, because I trained as an industrial chemist, and this is an area that I see there is just overwhelming evidence for.
And I think as people try to explain life, particularly biologists, I feel that they just don't understand the chemistry behind this and how it's impossible for the chemistry and the chemical, the biochemistry to have arisen by just chance, random mutations. And it's interesting, I was reading an article by Carrie Wolfe. She has a phd in chemistry from the University of Nebraska in the US, and she has an article in this book that I've referred to several times recently.
Design and Catastrophe: 51 Scientists Explore Evidence in Nature that's published this year by Andrews University Press in the United States. And she has a chapter in here.
It's chapter 13 titled Membrane Asymmetry Points to the Creator. And she writes, as a chemistry professor, when I study nature, I see evidence of God as a creator. And she goes on and says, I've been teaching biochemistry for many years and I often teach about the structure and function of cellular membranes.
Now, this is when you think about a cell membrane in the whole evolution gamut. This is so important because the membrane protects all the internal functions of a cell from the external environment. So if life had to form, all these delicate interconnected biochemical reactions have to be protected.
Otherwise they're just going to be all just broken up and not coherent. They're not going to actually be able to set up a cyclical reproductive system. And she goes on to say the cellular membrane in living cells is composed of fats and proteins and a little bit of carbohydrate.
And as I've pointed out, when we look at these structures, and it's easy to say lipids, proteins and some carbohydrates, but these structures involve millions of identical atoms of dozens of different types. And so again, it's a major problem for evolutions. But anyway, she talks about the plasma membrane of animals and bacterias, essentially a fat biolayer that serves as a barrier between the inside of each living cell and its environment.
And so one of the little parts of this bi fat, of this fat biolayer, or lipid biolayer, is exposed to the outside of the cell, and one is exposed the inside of the cell or the cytoplasmic side. So that's cytoplasm as the name for the material inside the cell. And what she points out is that these two little layers, or she refers to them as leaflets, are different in composition and they're asymmetrical.
That is, they're not symmetrical. These are made up of what they call phospholipids. And she lists a whole lot of different types of phospholipids that are involved in these ones.
And she lists, for example, glycolipids, spinga, nyoline, phosphodiolo, serine, and another phosphatol choline and phosphatidol inocital. And she says these types of lipids are not randomly distributed between layers. Instead, the glycolipids contain the carbohydrates and are always found on the outer layer of the plasma membrane.
They're never found on the layer that faces the cytoplasm. Sphingamyelin is also almost found in this outer part, whereas the phosphor dosserine, however, is found primarily on the opposite side, on the inner side. And so she asks the question, well, hang on, how does this asymmetry arrive? And in the laboratory, when researchers work to assemble a lipid biolaber, the phospholipids and the glycolipids self assemble in a random, symmetrical manner, producing a biolayer membrane with no asymmetry.
So this is a major problem for evolution that she's pointed out. In other words, if you take these compounds, say these molecules formed in nature by themselves, right? And evolutionists expect them to form a cell. Well, she says, what happens is they form a mixture, but in living cells, they're all separated so that only there's a certain type on the outside and a certain type on the inside.
Now, again, when you say, well, it's only a few atoms, maybe that can occur by chance. But hang on, no, you can't have it that because you've got thousands of identical atoms, all molecules, rather all have to align up on the right side. Thousands, not just one or two thousands.
And we know from probability statistics that isn't going to happen. It just doesn't happen. The other thing she points out is that many proteins are found in biological membranes.
Some are positioned across the membrane, they're exposed on both sides, and these are called transmembrane proteins. And some are pumps and channels, and others are receptor proteins. And these proteins need to be oriented in the membrane in the correct way.
For example, if the ligand binding protein side of a receptor protein is facing the extracellular environment and is able to bind to a hormone molecule, it will change the three dimensional structure of the transmembrane protein, allowing the signal to be noticed and transmitted to the inside of the living cell. So it has to be facing a particular way to work and carry out its job. The pumps and channels also must be correctly orientated in the biolay so that the ions and molecules being moved across the cell membrane.
And of course, that's how the cell gets its nutrients. And so it's very important, are transported in the correct way. For example, the sodium potassium atp phase is an important pump in many cells.
It always pumps the sodium ions out of the cell while it pumps the potassium ions into the cell. And this requires the use of cellular energy, which we call ATP, to pump these ions across the membrane, which sets up an iron gradient. Now, the iron gradient can then be used by other transmembrane proteins, called secondary transporters, to pump other important molecules or ions across the membrane.
And so she gives an example of this. And so one of the examples is the sodium glucose link transporter, which uses the sodium gradient to pump glucose into the cell. Sodium is allowed into the cell through this transporter as glucose is pumped in.
These proteins and transporters never flip in orientation, that is, the protein channels and pumps do not experience transfers diffusion. Scientists have never found these proteins inserted into the membrane the wrong way. These specifically oriented proteins are another example of the asymmetry of cellular membranes.
So can you see the issue here, that in nature, if things are being randomly sorted, we would expect some of these things to be proteins to oriented one way and some the other way. But no, they're always oriented the one way. And again, it's not just a handful of them, thousands of them are required in each cell.
So this is a major problem for evolutionary theory, for evolutionary biology, the chemistry and the specifically designed asymmetry which has function, it's functional asymmetry. And so when we look at the statistics of these sort of structures forming by random chance, it's absolutely impossible, it's not going to happen, and we can't make them happen. We can make the chemicals in the laboratory, we can attempt to assemble it.
They don't assemble the right way. They can't assemble because they assemble as mixtures. And even if a few did randomly happen to by chance line up, there's so few of them that the rest of them are all going to be random and so going to destroy and make the cell nonviable.
It's absolutely impossible for thousands of molecules, yes, of molecules of these different types to line up just the right way. And so we can see that life is a miracle. But there's more, she says another attribute of the asymmetrical distribution of the phospholipids in cellular membrane is the intrinsic membrane potential, or nonzero transmembrane potential, of the plasma membrane.
In living cells, this membrane potential is caused by the positively charged head groups of the sphingamyelin and phosphatyl choline on the extracellular side of the plasma membrane, and the net negatively charged head group that is on the inner side. And this transmembrane potential, again, is linked to a whole range of varied physiological phenomena. Of course, there are actually times when phospholipids are occasionally able to flip from one loofit of the biolabor to another undergoing spontaneous transfer diffusion.
But this occurs for a purpose. It's very interesting. So while this flipping diminishes the asymmetry, after a phospholipid flips into the wrong leaflet, it is usually placed back into its original leaflet by special proteins in the cell membranes called flipases.
Oh, isn't that amazing? So in other words, if a phospholipid does by mistake, get randomly inserted the wrong way, there are already proteins there called flipases, enzymes that recorrect it. And she says, for example, phosphatile dicerine is found mostly on the inner leaflet of the plasma membrane. When it flips to the leaflet facing the exterior of the cell, the flipase notices the phosphatile dicerine molecule in the wrong place and flips it back to the inner leaflet.
This is important for the cell because when phagocytes or macrophages notice phosphatylene molecules exposed to the outside the cell, they recognise this and assume that the cell has experienced cell death and the phagocytes are signalled to destroy and remove the cell that has phosphatilecyrene in the outer biolayer. In this case, the asymmetry of the phosphatiline bilayer excluded from the outer leaflet, saves the cell from being destroyed by other cells. Isn't that amazing? But again, this points out that everything is designed to preserve the actual structure, not allow for random changes.
And she goes on to write, I've wondered how this osymmetry was originally set up in a cell. A cell would not be able to function for long if the phospholipids and protein channels or pumps were inserted randomly in the cell membrane. If the osimetry wasn't initially present in a living cell membrane, the iron gradient needed for other cellular processes would never be established and the cell would quickly die.
While thinking about this problem, I was stopped in my tracks when I read this line in my biochemistry textbook. This absolute asymmetry is preserved because membrane proteins do not rotate from one side of the membrane to the other. And because membranes are always synthesised by growth of preexisting membranes, this implies that there must always be a preexisting membrane from which further cellular membranes may grow.
This information fits the model in which the creator could design and create the original cell membranes with absolute asymmetry of the lipids and proteins in them. Now that's amazing. Very powerful evidence from biochemistry of a creator.
Very, very powerful evidence. And of course, we know from the Bible that that creator was Jesus Christ who became our saviour. The world is running down.
It's because of evil. God wants this amazing being outside space and time, wants to eliminate evil. And so people make a choice.
We make a choice whether we're going to follow God and be in his kingdom and want to do the right thing, or just continue on and follow our own will and do evil things. And I would like to encourage everyone who's listening. If you haven't done so, choose good. Don't choose evil.
Choose God. Choose God's way and you can read about it in the Bible, and especially in the book of John in the New Testament.
You've been listening to faith and science. If you want to relisten to these programmes, just google 3abnaustralia.org.au and click on the listen button.
I'm Dr. John Ashton. Have a great day.
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