Episode Transcript
Welcome to faith and science. I'm Dr. John Ashton.
Just recently on the news, I heard that in the United States, for example, apple, certain banks were withdrawing credit or closing accounts of christian organisations. And there certainly seems to be a rise against, for example, some places I've heard increased restrictions on reading the Bible in public places and this sort of thing, which is very worrying. And I think one of the reasons that we have this increase is that again, people have come so inculcated with the idea that we evolved rather than be created by a supreme being, that they're again totally beginning to ignore the Bible.
There's this view that science has disproved the Bible. And to me this is just so sad, because when we look at the discoveries that we're making in the area of science, particularly in the area of biology, the evidence that we were created by an amazing superintelligence is just increasing daily. And there are many things that we just take for granted that are powerful evidence for this creator.
One of the ones that came to my attention just recently, talking to a friend who's a medical practitioner about the amazing functions of our kidneys. Another friend was talking about how he is actually surviving with just half a kidney. He had to have the others removed for medical reasons, but he's got half a kidney, but yet he can still live and survive.
And this is especially remarkable because of the functions of these little organs. Now, when we talk about the kidneys, they're just. We have two of them, of course, there's these two small organs in our body, and most mammals have them, birds have them, reptiles have them.
Of course, they're slightly different. And there's an evolutionary story that is told about these. But when we look drill down into the chemistry and structure of these small organs, it is absolutely amazing in design.
So in us, in humans, the kidneys are these two reddish brown, sort of bean shaped, blood filtering organs. They're about twelve centimetres long in size, and they receive blood from the arteries and they purify the blood and waste products are excreted to a ureter that carries then the waste product in urine to the bladder. But, you know, the kidneys are involved in controlling the volume of different body fluids.
The water salt balance, the acid base balance or the ph of our blood. They involved in various electrolyte concentrations in our body, maintaining those and the removal of toxins from our body. It's just amazing.
Some of the substances, as the blood circulates through, are reabsorbed into solute free waters, that sort of purified water and some substances are excreted, such as ammonium and potassium and uric acid. And there's tiny little units in our kidneys called nephrons. And I'll talk about those in detail another time.
But because these tiny little structures are so amazing in their own structure, and yet each adult kidney contains about 1 million nephrons. A mouse kidney, for example, only contains about twelve and a half thousand nephrons. But a human kidney contains a million of these special cells.
And we can talk about Nephron. It's N-E-P-H-R-O-N. It's just a similar.
But when we look at drill down and look at the structure of these, it's like looking into another world of chemical engineering. And so I'll talk about those separately. Let's have a look at.
Just want to talk about the main function of the kidneys. The reason why I talk about this is that there is incredible design and chemical engineering involved in the design and structure of the kidneys, as well as the biochemistries involved. And we need, as I talk about these, we need to bear in mind that all these structures have to be encoded for in a genetic code that evolutionists believe arose by random, chance blind mutations.
And yet it's so complex and it works. And this is just one of our organs. And when we consider the complexity of the kidney, we realise it's absolutely impossible for this machine to have evolved.
It's absolutely impossible for the codes that are responsible using the chemical compounds that we represent by act and g, that carry the information that is then read by a ribosome, that then assembles the proteins that make the structures for this absolutely impossible, for this amazing system to arise. By chance, the kidneys also convert a precursor of vitamin D to its active form, calcitriol. And they also synthesise special hormones such as renin and erythiopoietin.
So, of course, our kidneys, located fairly high, actually, in the abdominal cavity, one on each side. Now, because of the size of the liver, it usually results in the right kidney being slightly lower and smaller, just to fit in than the left kidney. Now, on top of each kidney is an adrenal gland.
And the kidney and the adrenal gland are surrounded by two special layers of fat, the perirenal fat and the renal, which is present between the renal fascia and the renal capsule. And so you've got the. When you look at this little bean shaped organ, when we look at the concave border or the inside bit, you've got the larger convex outer shape and then the inner shape, and of course, that's where the different arteries and veins and the ureter leave from that particular part.
So from the inside part of the bean shaped organ, of course, there are a lot of structures in the kidney itself. Now, I'll run through and list some of these structures. But when we think about these structures, just remember that there has to be a specific code that encodes each of these structures so that they're just that when they're made, they're just the right size, they just fit and they just carry out their function.
And so you've got, within the structure of the kidneys, you've got 18 cone shaped. What we call renal lobes contain a portion that is called the renal pyramid. And between these little renal pyramids are projections of cortex called renal columns.
And then the tip or papilla of each pyramid empties urine into a minor calyx. And the minor galaxies empty into a major calaxies, and the major galaxies empty into the renal pelvis when this becomes the ureter. And so when you think about these are just some of the structures that have to be fitted in, that are part of the delivery system for the different fluids.
And there's part of the kidney where again, you've got the renal artery enters and the renal vein exits, and then you've got lymph nodes that surround these structures. And then you've got special fat deposits called the helio fat that's deposited in a cavity called the renal sinus, which is the area that contains the renal pelvis and the calyxes. So all these parts, all these components, remember, require a genetic code to make them just the right size so they all fit together and they work in harmony.
They form this structure, which is part of this filtering system. Of course, the kidney possesses no moving structures. It's sort of an amazing philtre system.
So the kidneys receive their blood through the renal arteries, which come from the abdominal oyorta, and they actually receive about 20% to 25% of the heart's blood output goes through the kidneys. So it's a fair bit of blood is being pumped through the kidneys at any time. And these arteries then that come in, they supply blood to interlobural arteries, that supply blood to acurate arteries, and each artery then supplies several interlobular arteries that then feed into what they're called afferent arterioles, that then supply the glomeruly.
So when you think about this is an amazing structure that is involved in this film. So we've got all these components, again, that all have to be encoded for in the dna and of course, blood veins through a whole lot of, again, specialist veins, that when it passes out after purification and cleansing, and of course, there are nerve systems that supply that. The kidney has its own nervous system via the renal plexus, and it gets inputs from the sympathetic nervous system that triggers vasoconstriction, reducing blood flow.
And it also has input from the parasympathetic nervous system via the vagus nerve. And scientists are still trying to work out actually what the role of this is. And so we can see there's this complex nervous structure as well that controls the functions, just like in a chemical engineering operation.
You've got major control systems that open and close valves, regulate flow and all this sort of thing. The same thing is happening in the human kidney. Then again, when we look within the human kidney, there are at least 26 distinct cell types.
And so you've got the glomerulus peritial cells, you've got the glomeruous potocyte cells, you've got the tubal brush border cell, you've got the loop of hernial thin segment cells, you've got the thick ascending limb cell, you've got the kidney distal tube cell, you've got the principal cells, you've got collecting duct intercolated cell, you've got the interstitial kidney cells. And so again, these are just some of the 26 different types of cells. So it's quite fascinating that in the human DNA, there's about 20,000 protein coding genes that are expressed in the different cells of our body, different ones.
And almost 70% of these genes, or about 14,000 coding genes, are expressed in adult kidneys. And there are over 300 genes that are specifically expressed in the kidney, with 50 genes just specific to the kidney. This is a massive amount of genetic information that's involved in coding for the structures that are in the kidneys.
And of course, many of the proteins that are expressed in the cell membranes in the kidneys are transporter proteins. And again, all these different proteins that are expressed there. And we're looking, as I said, thousands of genes.
These genes encode massive amounts of genetic information. And again, with the evolutionary model, it says that these amazing coding systems arose by blind chance mutations, and yet they all work, they fit into a system that we can see is absolutely impossible. In my work, I get involved to look at different chemical engineering processes and I've been on the advisory board for PhD studies, for example, at large australian universities such as the University of New South Wales and also the University of Sydney.
And the structures and the programming that's involved in chemical engineering processes requires a lot of design, and it has to be just right, or it won't work, or it has very low efficiency or will break down. And yet our kidneys work amazingly efficiently and amazingly functional. And as I said, evolutionists have to believe that these amazing structures arose by blind chance mutations.
Yet most chemical engineering plants involve a number of chemical engineers and draughtsmen to work out just the design of the thing, and then a whole team of engineers to construct them. The kidneys, of course, may express a particularly prolific protein, euromodulan, that's the most abundant protein in the urine, and that prevents calcification and the growth of bacteria in the urinary tracts. And again, what we find is that here we have specific chemical compounds that are synthesised that then play these different protective roles.
Now, we have a research project at the moment where I work, where we have specific problems in a uht treatment plant, where we get sort of burn on of the product, on the interior lines of the tube going through the plant that is used to sterilise the beverage. And it's a major problem. We've got teams, we've had university teams looking at this at ways that we can slow down the rate of burn on, on these tubes so that they don't have to be cleaned as quickly, because this is all at its cost, reduces our efficiency and so forth.
And yet what we find in these living systems is that there are these specific compounds that have been designed, again, to keep the system running smoothly and protect it. There are amazing proteins. The solute carrier protein, slc 22 eight a is expressed in some of the tubes.
Another calbindin protein and aquaporin two, all these specific proteins that play function in the role. And again, another time, I'll talk about the nephron, this amazing countercurrent philtre system that is in the kidneys. Many people will be familiar with the ocean spray cranberry juice.
Well, this cranberry juice is produced by a countercurrent filtering system that was developed by a colleague, Tim Lang had a company, Tim Lang Lang Technologies, in conjunction with CSIRO, the Commonwealth Industrial Scientific Organisation and the australian government's main research organisation. And of course, the process has been painted and that patented, and that was a collaborative research project to develop this countercurrent separation system. And we have a prototype at this as well, that we're looking at developing.
Well, the kidneys use a countercurrent filtration system separate to cleanse the blood. And as I said, it took a team of engineers, top scientists, to develop this one that is used by ocean spray, which is the patented system for the cranberry juice. And yet we expect and believe, we're teaching our young people, we're teaching our children in school, that evolution occurred, that these amazing structures like this in our kidneys evolved by chance, random, blind mutations.
It's absolutely impossible. It points to an amazing super designer, super amazing chemical engineer to design these things. So it's interesting that the kidneys excrete a variety of waste products produced by a metabolism, and they excrete them into the urine through this nephron system and filtration system.
There are just so many processes that are involved in the kidney system. To go through all the different compounds and everything would take a long time. But again, it's interesting.
Just google if you're interested in this articles on the functional physiology of the kidneys to see or the biochemistry of the, of the kidneys. It's amazing because, as I mentioned, they excrete variety of hormones that can respond to the levels of oxygen in the tissue. Kidneys release hormones that stimulate the production of red blood cells in the bone marrow.
And so they're also involved, as said, in producing calcitriol, the activated form of vitamin D that promotes the intestinal absorption of calcium, and also the reabsorption of phosphate. And then renin is another enzyme that is produced, or hormone that's produced by the kidneys, that regulates angiotensin and aldocterone levels. And so these are involved, for Example, in blood pressure regulation.
And so the kidneys actually don't seem to directly sense blood pressure, but they're involved in the long term regulation of blood pressure. And this is because they help regulate sodium concentrations. It's an amazing system.
There's a whole lot of chemical messengers that make up the renin angiotensin system. And again, this Whole system, you know, it has, this is a control system that is there within the kidneys, a chemical control system, and it just reeks of amazing design that regulates the kidney's absorption of sodium chloride, thereby expanding the extra fluid CompartMent and raising blood pressure. There's a whole mechanism that's involved there.
The kidneys are also involved in the acid base regulation or homeostasis, in other Words, the ph regulation the blood. So the ph has to be maintained around a value of 7.4 ph.
7.4. And this is very important. And so this is regulated by a couple of systems.
You've got the lungs that are part of this system, by regulating carbon dioxide content in the blood. And so that's the first line of defence when the body experiences an acid based problem. So all the time the body is attempting to return the body ph to a value of 7.4
by controlling the respiratory rate, the rate at which we breathe. And so when the body's experiencing acidic conditions, it'll increase the respiratory rate, which in turn drives off carbon dioxide and decreases the hydrogen ion concentration. And as a ResUlt, the ph then increases.
And so we've got this mechanism there. And of course, that's why plant based foods that are more alkaline, plant based foods and fruit give us a greater capacity. We don't get puffed as quickly.
We can carry more oxygen because it alkalizes the blood ph, and therefore we can absorb more of the acidic waste products and so forth that are produced during metabolism of exercise. But of course, the kidneys also help maintain the acid base homeostasis. And again, this is a whole separate system, where it involves the regulation of bicarbonate and different transporters there.
So again, we've got this whole. And also potassium and chloride co transporters are involved. Again, it's an amazing system that is involved in the kidneys there.
The kidneys also regulate osmolality. That is, they help maintain the water and salt levels in the body. Any significant rise in plasma osmolity is detected by the hypothalamus, which communicates directly with the posterior pituitary gland.
And this gland causes an excretion of antiduretic hormone, resulting in water reabsorption by the kidney and an increase in urine concentration. So here again, we can see all other parts of the body, the hypothalamus, the pituitary, creating different hormones that interact with the biochemistry in the kidneys, that help regulate and control the human body is an amazingly chemical engineered, designed system. And it's just crazy to think that this system evolved.
Of course, the main reason is of know signed a study comparative physiology and tried to look know the kidneys in reptiles and birds and everything. But we need to remember that Professor Clifford Ladd Prosser, who was the originator of comparative physiology, pointed out that it's not really so much a defined discipline, but a viewpoint or a philosophy. In other words, there's really no scientific evidence for evolution there, it’s just a world view. You've been listening to faith and science. Remember, if you want to relisten to these programmes, just Google 3abnaustralia.org.au and click on the radio listen button and look for faith and science. I'm Dr. John Ashton.
Have a great day. You've been listening to a production of 3ABN Australia radio.
