The human hand and brain’s unique design, with an opposable thumb, high sensory density, and the newly discovered endorestiform nucleus, enable precise dexterity for tasks like art and microsurgery, surpassing ape capabilities. These features, along with cognitive abilities like speech and artistic appreciation, lack evolutionary survival benefits and intermediate forms, suggesting a purposeful intelligent design, as reflected in Genesis 1:26.
Adam’s role and identity in the Genesis account, his use in the New Testament, and his theological function in major Christian doctrines have become the epicenter of the new discussion concerning human origins. The hermeneutical and theological dilemmas created by these new proposals are ground shaking when it comes to the assumed stance on origins and soteriology sustained by an increasing number of Evangelicals. Slowly but surely this paradigm shift among and within Evangelicals is affecting their understanding of Scripture, and of its authority and primacy in matters of doctrine. Article published in Reflections, n. 80, newsletter of the Biblical Research Institute.
Why am I conscious of my purpose?
God created everything “very good,” but sin brought pain and death. In His grace, He enabled humans to develop medical tools like dialysis, which sustains life in kidney failure though at limited efficiency compared to natural kidneys. While transplants offer better outcomes, challenges remain. For patients, dialysis reflects both God’s foresight and His sustaining grace in suffering, pointing to ultimate restoration through Christ.
The Bible records life spans dropping from ~900 years pre-Flood to ~120 years by Moses’ time, contrasting with modern averages of 80 years and a maximum of ~125 years. Pre-Flood plant-based diets and active lifestyles align with factors promoting longevity today. Genetic studies suggest post-Flood genomic decay from mutations, supported by mathematical analysis affirming biblical ages’ accuracy. Environmental shifts likely accelerated mutations, reducing life spans. Pre-Flood lush climates may have supported longevity. This supports the Bible’s divine inspiration and its health guidance.
Bonding, or filial imprinting, is a vital instinct linking newborns to mothers, ensuring survival and emotional connection. Early separation disrupts this, causing lasting brain damage, including reduced neuron connections and altered astrocytes in the prefrontal cortex, leading to emotional and social issues. Astrocytes, crucial for brain development and function, reflect emotional stress, linking to disorders like depression. This universal bonding instinct suggests a divine design for emotional, social beings, reflecting God’s nature.
Humans uniquely appreciate beauty in nature, like sunrises and symmetrical forms, unlike animals. Beauty involves color, symmetry (bilateral, radial, spiral), and proportion (e.g., golden ratio), processed by the human brain’s complex visual system and prefrontal cortex connections. Animals use similar systems for survival but lack aesthetic appreciation. This unique human ability suggests a design by a Creator who values beauty, as reflected in Genesis.
The human eye’s intricate design enables precise vision through key components. The 4 µm tear film ensures a smooth optical surface, the cornea provides most optical power with transparent collagen fibrils, and the crystalline lens aids focusing with a gradient refractive index. The retina’s cones and rods enable sharp day and sensitive night vision, adapting across a vast luminance range. Additional retinal cells and a “backward” structure optimize function. This complex, interdependent system suggests intelligent design, as noted in Psalm 139:14.
Hearing transforms sound waves, varying in amplitude and frequency, through a complex system. The external ear channels sound to the eardrum, which vibrates, moving ossicles to the cochlea. There, fluid and membranes shift, bending hair cell microvilli, opening ion channels, and triggering action potentials sent to the auditory cortex. Different cochlear regions process high or low pitches, enabling recognition of complex sounds. This intricate, integrated system, essential for perceiving meaningful sounds, suggests an intelligent design by a sound-loving Creator.
Simple physical laws, like those in Conway’s Game of Life, can generate complex features akin to intelligent life, but the creation of such laws, even in the simple cellular automaton of the Game of Life, requires deliberate design by someone. Similarly, in computational systems, complex behaviors rely on meticulously designed rules, data preparation, and algorithms by engineers, not spontaneous or chance processes.These systems demand structured methodologies and intentional design, reinforcing the necessity of an intelligent designer to define contexts and rules, thus supporting the concept of intelligent design over undirected, fortuitous emergence.
The iconic “March of Progress” is misleading
An average of 70 mutations occur in each person.
Ancient Near Eastern views should be considered part of the history of the idea of evolution. The biblical Creation account, in describing the divine actions through which God actually brought the cosmos into existence, was likely deconstructing the alternative theories or speculations of origins available in the Ancient Near East. Consequently, the biblical narrative can be used as well to deconstruct contemporary cosmogonies and evolution. This article was originally published on Perspective Digest, v.24/3.
Confirmation that fathers may sometimes pass mitochondrial DNA to their children violates the assumptions used to calculate the age of the most recent female common ancestor of all living humans. Published in Origins v. 21, n. 2.
Two important papers were published in May 2017, warranting an update on the subject of Homo naledi.
The aim of this article is to use the example of Homo naledi to illustrate the distinction between data and interpretations, and to discuss some of the questions a biblical creationist might have in relation to this new discovery.
This article was originally published as a chapter in the book “The Genesis Creation Account and Its Reverberations in the Old Testament."
Researchers discuss the role and position of Neanderthals in an alleged evolutionary process and debate whether they went extinct before, during or after anatomically modern humans colonized the northern hemisphere, and if the former interbred with the latter. However, many recent studies, ranging from genetics to the analysis of Neanderthal technology and culture suggest that Neanderthals might be understood within a different scientific framework.
Recent discoveries have shown artistic behaviors in Neanderthals including decoration of their bodies with jewelry and probably pigment. Moreover, these are clear indicators that they made use of language and verbal communication.
Recently, the city buses in my neighborhood gained a new set of brightly-colored advertisements along their sides. In bold letters, they proclaimed that humans and chimpanzees are 98% identical: “Come and meet your relatives.”
