A CHAIN OF MIRACLES

A CHAIN OF MIRACLES
THE EXTRAORDINARY HARMONY BETWEEN SUNLIGHT AND THE EYE

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 4^o C (39.2^oF) 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 4^o C (39.2^o F) this cycle is broken, because water begins to expand again and becomes "lighter." So, the water at 4o C (39.2^o F) becomes the bottom layer and as we move up, the temperature decreases to 3^oC (37.4^o F) and then 2^oC (35.6^o F) and so on. At the surface the temperature falls to 0^oC (32^o F) and freezes but only at the surface. The water below at 4^o C (39.2^o 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 4^oC? 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



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THE SURFACE TENSION OF WATER
HAS BEEN SPECIFICALLY ADJUSTED TO SUPPORT LIFE

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

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.

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.


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THE FORMATION OF ATOMIC BONDS NECESSARY FOR LIFE REQUIRES THE TEMPERATURES WE HAVE ON EARTH

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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