Peering Into the Unseen—What Is Revealed?

WHAT is accomplished when humans use new inventions to pull back the curtain, as it were, and see what they could not see before? Doing so can help determine with a degree of certainty what was formerly unknown.—See the box below.

It was once the common belief that the earth was the center of the universe. But then the use of the telescope showed that the planets, including the earth, are held in place in rotation around the sun. More recently, with the invention of powerful microscopes, humans have examined the atom itself and have seen how certain kinds of atoms combine with other kinds to form what are called molecules.

Consider the composition of a molecule of water, a substance essential to life. Because of their design, two atoms of hydrogen will combine in a unique way with a single atom of oxygen to form a molecule of water—billions of which are in each drop! What can we learn by examining a molecule of water and considering its behavior under different circumstances?

The Wonder of Water

Although individual drops of water seem very simple, water is an extremely complex substance. In fact, Dr. John Emsley, a science writer at Imperial College, in London, England, said that it is “one of the most investigated of all chemicals, but it is still the least understood.” New Scientist magazine stated: “Water is the most familiar liquid on Earth, but also one of the most mysterious.”

Dr. Emsley explained that despite the simple structure of water, “nothing is as complex in its behaviour.” For example, he said: “H₂0 should be a gas, . . . but it is a liquid. Moreover, when it freezes . . . , its solid form, ice, floats instead of sinking,” as would ordinarily be expected. Regarding this unusual behavior, Dr. Paul E. Klopsteg, a past president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, observed:

“This appears as a remarkable design for sustaining aquatic life such as fishes. Think what would happen if water, as it cools to the freezing point, didn’t behave as described. Ice would form and keep forming until it occupied an entire lake, snuffing out all or most marine life.” Dr. Klopsteg said that this unexpected behavior of water is “evidence of a great and purposeful mind at work in the universe.”

According to New Scientist, researchers now think that they know the reason for this unusual behavior of water. They have developed the first theoretical model that accurately predicts the expansion of water. “The key to the mystery,” the researchers realized, “lay in the spacing of oxygen atoms within these structures.”

Isn’t that remarkable? A molecule that appears so simple challenges human comprehension. And to think that water makes up most of the weight of our body! Do you too see in the marvels of this molecule, of only three atoms of two elements, “evidence of a great and purposeful mind at work”? Yet, a molecule of water is extremely small and much less complex than many other molecules.

Molecules of Great Complexity

Some molecules are composed of thousands of atoms of many of the 88 elements that occur naturally on earth. For example, a molecule of DNA (short for deoxyribonucleic acid), which contains the coded information for the heredity of every living thing, can have millions of atoms of several elements!

Despite its unbelievable complexity, the DNA molecule is only 1/10,000,000 inch [0.0000025 mm] in diameter, far too small to be seen except with the aid of a powerful microscope. It was not until 1944 that scientists discovered that DNA determines the heredity of a person. This finding set off intensive research into this extremely complex molecule.

Yet, DNA and water are but two of the many kinds of molecules that go into the construction of things. And since there are many molecules that are found both in what is living and in what is nonliving, should we conclude that there is somehow just a simple step, or bridge, between what is alive and what is not?

For a long time, many people believed that to be the case. “The hope that increased biochemical knowledge would bridge the gap was specifically expressed by many authorities in the 1920s and 30s,” explained microbiologist Michael Denton. Yet, in time, what was actually discovered?

Life Is Special and Unique

Although scientists expected to find transitional intermediates, or a series of gradual steps, between what is living and what is not, Denton observed that the existence of a definite discontinuity was “finally established after the revolutionary discoveries of molecular biology in the early 1950s.” Relating a remarkable fact that has now become evident to scientists, Denton went on to explain:

“We now know not only of the existence of a break between the living and non-living world, but also that it represents the most dramatic and fundamental of all the discontinuities of nature. Between a living cell and the most highly ordered non-biological system, such as a crystal or a snowflake, there is a chasm as vast and absolute as it is possible to conceive.”

This does not mean that creating a molecule is easy. The book Molecules to Living Cells explains that “the synthesis of the small-molecule building blocks is complex in itself.” It adds, however, that making such molecules “is child’s play in comparison to what must have followed in order to generate the first living cell.”

Cells may exist by themselves as free-living organisms, such as bacteria, or they may function as part of a multicellular organism, such as a human. It would take 500 average-size cells to equal the size of the period at the end of this sentence. So it is not surprising that the functions of a cell are invisible to the unaided eye. What, then, is revealed by using a microscope to peer into a single cell in the human body?

The Cell—By Chance or Design?

First of all, a person cannot help but be amazed by the complexity of living cells. One science writer observed: “The normal growth of even the simplest living cell requires that tens of thousands of chemical reactions occur in coordinated fashion.” He asked: “How, within one tiny cell, can 20,000 reactions all be controlled at once?”

Michael Denton compared even the tiniest of living cells to “a veritable microminiaturized factory containing thousands of exquisitely designed pieces of intricate molecular machinery, made up altogether of one hundred thousand million atoms, far more complicated than any machine built by man and absolutely without parallel in the non-living world.”

Scientists remain baffled by the complexity of the cell, as The New York Times of February 15, 2000, noted: “The more biologists understand of living cells, the more daunting seems the task of figuring out everything they do. The average human cell is too small to be seen, yet at any moment up to 30,000 of its 100,000 genes may be flicking on or off, executing the cell’s housekeeping needs or responding to messages from other cells.”

The Times asked: “How can a machine so tiny and so intricate ever be analyzed? And even if by prodigious effort one human cell were ever completely understood, there are at least 200 different types in the human body.”

Nature magazine, in an article entitled “Real Engines of Creation,” reported the discovery of tiny motors within each cell of the body. These rotate to create adenosine triphosphate, the power source of cells. One scientist mused: “What can we do when we learn how to design and build molecular machine systems that are similar to the molecular systems we find in cells?”

Just think of the creative capacity of the cell! The amount of information contained within the DNA of just one cell of our body would fill about a million pages this size! More than that, each time a cell divides to create a new one, this same information is passed on to the new cell. How do you think each cell—all 100 trillion of them in your body—came to be programmed with this information? Did it happen by chance, or was a Master Designer responsible?

Perhaps you have reached the same conclusion that biologist Russell Charles Artist did. He said: “We are confronted with formidable, even insuperable, difficulties in trying to account for [the cell’s] beginning and, for that matter, its continued functioning, unless we maintain with reason and logic that an intelligence, a mind, brought it into existence.”

A Marvelous Order of Things

Years ago, Kirtley F. Mather, at the time professor of geology at Harvard University, reached the following conclusion: “We live in a universe, not of chance or caprice, but of Law and Order. Its Administration is completely rational and worthy of the utmost respect. Consider the marvelous mathematical scheme of nature that permits us to give consecutive atomic numbers to every element of matter.”

Let’s consider briefly that “marvelous mathematical scheme of nature.” Among the elementsa known to the ancients were gold, silver, copper, tin, and iron. Arsenic, bismuth, and antimony were identified by alchemists during the Middle Ages, and later during the 1700’s, many more elements were found. In 1863 the spectroscope, which can separate the unique band of colors that each element gives off, was used to identify indium, which was the 63rd element discovered.

At that time the Russian chemist Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleyev concluded that the elements were not created haphazardly. Finally, on March 18, 1869, his treatise “An Outline of the System of the Elements” was read to the Russian Chemical Society. In it he declared: ‘I wish to establish some sort of system not guided by chance but by some sort of definite and exact principle.’

In this famous paper, Mendeleyev predicted: “We should still expect to discover many unknown simple bodies; for example, those similar to aluminum and silicon, elements with atomic weights of 65 to 75.” Mendeleyev left blank spaces for 16 new elements. When asked for proof for his predictions, he replied: “I have no need of proof. The laws of nature, unlike the laws of grammar, admit of no exception.” He added: “I suppose when my unknown elements are found, more people will pay us attention.”

That is exactly what occurred! “During the next 15 years,” explains Encyclopedia Americana, “the discovery of gallium, scandium and germanium, whose properties closely matched those predicted by Mendeleyev, established the validity of the periodic table and the fame of its author.” By the early part of the 20th century, all existing elements had been discovered.

Clearly, as research chemist Elmer W. Maurer noted, “this beautiful arrangement is hardly a matter of chance.” Of the possibility that the harmonious order of the elements is a matter of chance, professor of chemistry John Cleveland Cothran observed: “The post-prediction discovery of all of the elements whose existence [Mendeleyev] predicted, and their possession of almost exactly the properties he predicted for them, effectively removed any such possibility. His great generalization is never called ‘The Periodic Chance.’ Instead, it is ‘The Periodic Law.’”

A close study of the elements and how they fit together to form everything in the universe caused famous physicist P.A.M. Dirac, who was a professor of mathematics at Cambridge University, to say: “One could perhaps describe the situation by saying that God is a mathematician of a very high order, and He used very advanced mathematics in constructing the universe.”

Truly it is fascinating to peer into the unseen world of both infinitesimally tiny atoms, molecules, and living cells and mammoth galaxies of stars far beyond the range of unaided vision! The experience is humbling. How are you personally affected? What do you see reflected in these things? Do you see more than your physical eyes can see?

[Footnote]

Do You See More Than Your Eyes Do?

CAR drivers cannot ordinarily see around a blind curve. But with the aid of a mirror placed at the curve, oncoming traffic can be detected and accidents avoided. Similarly, humans cannot actually see an invisible Creator. Is there a way to know that such a One exists?

A first-century writer mentioned how we can perceive what we cannot see. He wrote: “[God’s] invisible qualities are clearly seen from the world’s creation onward, because they are perceived by the things made, even his eternal power and Godship, so that they are inexcusable.”—Romans 1:20.

Think about that. Do you see intelligence reflected in things around us that are beyond human ability to create? Do such things help you to see with “eyes of your understanding” that there is someone greater than man? Let us consider some examples.—Ephesians 1:18, King James Version.

Learning From Creation

Have you marveled at the splendor of a brilliant, star-filled sky on a moonless night, seeing in it evidence of a Grand Maker? “The heavens are declaring the glory of God; and of the work of his hands the expanse is telling,” exclaimed an ancient observer. “When I see your heavens, the works of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have prepared,” this man pondered, “what is mortal man that you keep him in mind, and the son of earthling man that you take care of him?”—Psalm 8:3, 4; 19:1.

It is only natural for us to marvel at creations too wonderful to be duplicated by humans. One famous line of poetry says: “Only God can make a tree.” Yet, far more marvelous is the creation of a baby, which occurs without any creative direction from parents. When sperm from the father unites with an egg from the mother, plans are quickly drawn up in the DNA of the newly formed cell to produce a child. “If written out,” it is said, the instructions within the DNA “would fill a thousand 600-page books.”

That is but the beginning. The original cell divides to make two, then four, then eight, and so on. After about 270 days, a baby made up of thousands of millions of living cells of more than 200 kinds is born. And to think that the original cell had within it the information to make all the different kinds of cells and to produce them at just the right time! Are you moved to praise our Creator? Note the praise furnished by the psalmist who wrote: “You yourself produced my kidneys; you kept me screened off in the belly of my mother. I shall laud you because in a fear-inspiring way I am wonderfully made.”—Psalm 139:13-16.

Those who have studied these “miracles” feel a sense of awe. Dr. James H. Hutton, past president of the Chicago and Illinois State Medical societies, said that he was filled with amazement by the cell’s “magical ability to pass on to successor cells the data they wish reproduced. It is indeed wonderful that our research scientists have been able to learn about such things. But some Divine Intelligence surely must have planned these phenomena.”

Dr. Hutton continued: “In my own subspecialty of endocrinology, the study of endocrine functions and the disorders of these glands adds to the conviction that a Divine Power must be responsible for the marvelous complexity and function of these vital structures.” He concluded: “Contemplating these marvels seems to me compelling reason to believe that some omnipotent and omniscient power planned this universe, set it in motion and presides over it.”

After making these observations, Dr. Hutton asked: “Is He a personal God who notes each sparrow’s fall?” He answered: “Somehow I doubt that. Nor do I believe that He pays any particular attention to my relatively unimportant daily coming and going.”

Why do many acknowledge that intelligence is evident in the “miracles” of creation but question the existence of a personal God who is concerned about humankind?

Does God Really Care About Us?

Many reason that if there were a God, he would not permit humans to suffer so much. A common question some ask is, “Where was God when we needed him?” One person who survived the murder of millions by the Nazis in World War II was so grieved by the suffering he saw that he said: “If you could lick my heart, it would poison you.”

So for many it is a dilemma. As the ancient observer mentioned earlier noted, the evidence of a Creator is obvious when we examine the miraculous order and design of things. Yet, if He is a God who cares about us, how can He permit such terrible suffering? If we are to understand and to worship God properly, we must have a satisfying answer to that important question. Where can we find it?

We invite you to obtain a copy of the brochure Does God Really Care About Us? On page 32 of this Awake!, you can learn how to request one. We feel that a careful examination of the sections “Why God Has Permitted Suffering” and “What Has Been the Result of Rebellion?” will provide you with satisfying answers.

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Do you see in these things evidence of a Creator?