Amino acid molecules are asymmetric. They are compounds of the element carbon, and a carbon atom can have four bonds, all arranged in space, as if pointing to the corners of a tetrahedron. Sometimes a carbon atom will have four different groups attached to it. If that happens, then the molecule can exist in two mirror images. If the mirrored molecules are separated, then it is found that one arrangement rotates polarized light clockwise (“to the right”), while the other does so by the same angle counter-clockwise (“to the left”). But the arrangement of the four groups around the asymmetric carbon is not directly predictable. So the arrangement of the molecules is compared to molecules of right-rotating and left-rotating glyceraldehyde. The two arrangements (called enantiomers) of glyceraldehyde are given the prefixes D- (for dextro – right) and L- (for laevo – left). If the arrangement of a molecule is in the same format as D-glyceraldehyde, then it is also labeled as D-, even if it rotates light counter-clockwise.
All this complicated talk leads to this point. An experiment, producing an amino acid would always make 50% D and 50% L. Yet, all amino acids in nature have the L-form. And all natural sugar molecules have the D-form. This remarkable fact suggests that these natural molecules were not designed by random chance.
Prayer: Even if we peer down a microscope, we still see Your handiwork, Lord. Thank You for Your attention to every little detail, which brings honor to You.
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How Native American people came to be in the American continents is one of the most fascinating mysteries of anthropology. Scientists from both secular and Christian backgrounds tend to agree that, for the most part, Native Americans must have migrated to the continents from Asia. This would almost certainly involve crossing from present-day Siberia to present-day Alaska during the Ice Age, which creationists say happened shortly after the Flood.
The existence of large ice sheets in North America would have seemed to create a barrier to migration. In a previous Creation Moment, we discussed the Clovis sites, which are consistent with people having migrated into the interior of what is now Canada, in an ice-free area between two large ice sheets. Now, more recent research has suggested that the migration could have been along the coast. Certain islands off the coast of Alaska contain evidence of this possible migration route.
In the near future, it is unlikely that we will be able definitely to say which of the coastal or inland migration routes is correct. But why would such people groups have migrated so far in any case? Why would they not just stop on the Asian side of Beringia?
The answer is likely to be that they spoke different languages, so they could not understand each other. At the Tower of Babel incident, in Genesis 11, God had spread confusion into human language, and this is what forced the migration of all peoples of the world.
Thank You, Lord, that You have revealed that all peoples of the world are descended from the one man, Adam. Therefore, anyone can be saved by calling on the Name of the One Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Ref: University at Buffalo. “In ancient boulders, new clues about the story of human migration to the Americas: Geologic evidence supports a coastal theory of early settlement.”
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Some people find insects, such as butterflies, fascinating. But there are also those who cannot stand the sight of other insects. Wasps and leather jackets are not particularly loved. I have often wondered why God created such nasty creatures, and I have to remind myself that, like everything else, they were created perfect originally.
But when did God make insects? What classification do we put them in?
Were they created with land animals on the sixth day? Are they the creeping things? Probably not, because all such animals are described as nephesh, and the life (nephesh) of the flesh is in the blood. Were they created on the fifth day? After all, most insects can fly. But, again, the creatures on Day Five were nephesh. Insects do not have blood.
In Genesis 7:14, we read about the flying creatures taken aboard the Ark. They were to be “every bird… every winged creature”. In a previous Creation Moment, we saw that there are two Hebrew words for birds – and tsippor. The first refers to all winged creatures. The juxtaposition of both terms in Genesis 7:14 suggests that insects are specifically excluded, especially as insects do not breathe through nostrils, which was a condition for creatures being taken on the Ark.
In short, the creatures mentioned in Genesis 1 all have nephesh. So non-nephesh animals, like insects, and, for that matter, spiders, are not mentioned. Everything was created in that one week, but we don’t know when insects were made. As non- animals, they do not have the blessed quality of life of those animals with blood.
Prayer: Thank you, Lord, for making all things. Thank You that they all had a perfect purpose in Your perfect design. Amen.
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The sixth day of the Creation Week seems to have been the busiest, as far as the variety of creation goes. On this day, God made land animals, and He made the first two people. During that day, we have to assume that all the events of Genesis 2 happened. That is, God made the animals, planted the Garden of Eden, made Adam, brought some animals to Adam for him to name, and finally God made Eve from Adam’s side.
It is not easy to understand what is meant by the threefold division of the land animals into livestock, creeping things and beasts of the Earth. It seems likely that these subdivisions are not along the lines of the classes of vertebrates. They probably, instead, refer to the way that these animals interact with humans – a more pragmatic, use-oriented classification system that would be more typical of biblical classification.
One point that we notice is that these land creatures, like the sea and flying creatures, are described as living creatures. In other words, they have nephesh. In Genesis 1:22, we read that God blessed these creatures. By implication, this blessing would seem to extend to all nephesh lifeforms – those animals that contain blood. We also read that the creatures were created “according to their kinds”. This concept of kinds is wider than species. A biblical kind(creationists often use the term baramin, from the Hebrew for “created kind”) is probably closer to the taxonomic term family. Species within kinds can vary widely, but one kind cannot evolve into another.
Prayer: Just as You blessed the creatures You made, Lord God, You have blessed us even more. Thank You for all the blessings You have given, common to mankind. Amen.
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