Another marvelous reflection of creation is the astonishing
process of embryonic development, including the way a human being develops in his
or her mother’s womb. But right at this point, evolutionists come up with one
of their best-known arguments. They say, in effect, "Look, if you’re
talking about creation, then surely the Creator must not be very good at it, or
else there wouldn’t be all those mistakes in human embryonic development."
The marvelous development of the human embryo should make
everyone a creationist, it seems to me, but evolutionists say that the
so-called "gill slits, yolk sac, and tail" are useless evolutionary
leftovers (vestiges) that virtually "prove" we evolved from fish,
reptiles, and apes. How does a creationist respond?
Well, there they are, "gill slits, yolk sac, and a
tail". Why are they there? What is a creationist going to say? The
evolutionist believes these structures are there only as useless leftovers or
"vestiges" of our evolutionary ancestry, reminders of the times when
our ancestors were only fish, reptiles, and apes.
The concept of vestigial organs even resulted in cases of
"evolutionary medical malpractice". Young children once had their
healthy (and helpful, disease-fighting) tonsils removed because of the
widespread belief that they were only useless vestiges. That idea actually
slowed down scientific research for many years. If you believe something is a
useless, non-functional leftover of evolution, then you do not bother to find
out what it does. Fortunately, other scientists didn’t take that view. Sure
enough, studies have shown that essentially all 180 organs once listed as
evolutionary vestiges have significant functions in human beings.
Take the yolk sac, for instance. In chickens, the yolk
contains much of the food that the chick depends on for growth. But we, on the
other hand, grow attached to our mothers, and they nourish us. Does that mean
the yolk sac can be cut off from the human embryo because it isn’t needed? Not
at all. The so-called "yolk sac" is the source of the human embryo’s
first blood cells, and death would result without it!
Now here is an engineering problem for you. In the adult,
you want to have the blood cells formed inside the bone marrow. That makes good
sense, because the blood cells are very sensitive to radiation damage, and bone
would offer them some protection. But you need blood in order to form the bone
marrow that later on is going to form blood. So, where do you get the blood
first? Why not use a structure similar to the yolk sac in chickens? The DNA and
protein for making it are "common stock" building materials. And,
since it lies conveniently outside the embryo, it can easily be discarded after
it has served its temporary—but vital—function.
Notice, this is exactly what we would expect as evidence of
good creative design and engineering practice. Suppose you were in the
bridge-building business, and you were interviewing a couple of engineers to
determine whom you wanted to hire. One person says, "Each bridge I build
will be entirely different from all others". Proudly he tells you,
"Each bridge will be made using different materials and different
processes so that no one will ever be able to see any similarity among the
bridges I build". How does that sound?
Now the next person comes in and says, "Well, in your
yard I saw a supply of I-beams and various sizes of heavy bolts and cables. We
can use those to span either a river or the San Francisco Bay. I can adapt the
same parts and processes to meet a wide variety of needs. You’ll be able to see
a theme and a variation in my bridge building, and others can see the stamp of
authorship in our work." Which would you hire?
As A.E. Wilder-Smith {21} [1431] points out, we normally
recognize in human engineers the principles of creative economy and variations
on a theme. That’s what we see in human embryonic development. The same kind of
structure that can provide food and blood cells to a chicken embryo can be used
to supply blood cells (all that is needed) for a human embryo. Rather than
reflecting time and chance, adapting similar structures to a variety of needs
seems to reflect good principles of creative design.
The same is true of the so-called "gill slits". In
the human embryo at one month, there are wrinkles in the skin where the
"throat pouches" grow out. Once in a while, one of these pouches will
break through, and a child will be born with a small hole in the neck. That’s
when we find out for sure that these structures are not gill slits. If the
opening were really part of a gill, if it really were a "throwback to the
fish stage", then there would be blood vessels all around it, as if it
were going to absorb oxygen from water as a gill does. But there is no such
structure in humans of any age. We simply do not have the DNA instructions for
forming gills.
Unfortunately, some babies are born with three eyes or one
eye. That doesn’t mean, of course, that we evolved from something with one eye
or three eyes. It’s simply a mistake in the normal program for human
development, and it emphasizes how perfect our design features and operation
must be for normal life to continue.
The throat (or pharyngeal) grooves and pouches, falsely
called "gill slits", are not mistakes in human development. They
develop into absolutely essential parts of human anatomy. The first pouches
form the palatine tonsils that help fight disease. The middle ear canals come
from the second pouches, and the parathyroid and thymus glands come from the
third and fourth. Without a thymus, we would lose "half" our immune
systems. Without the parathyroids, we would be unable to regulate calcium
balance and could not even survive. Another pouch, thought to be vestigial by
evolutionists until just recently, becomes a gland that assists in calcium
balance. Far from being useless evolutionary vestiges, then, these so-called
"gill slits" are quite essential for distinctively human development.
As with "yolk sac", "gill slit"
formation represents an ingenious and adaptable solution to a difficult
engineering problem. How can a small, round egg cell be turned into an animal
or human being with a digestive tube and various organs inside a body cavity?
The answer is to have the little ball (or flat sheet in some organisms)
"swallow itself", forming a tube which then "buds off" other
tubes and pouches. The anterior pituitary, lungs, urinary bladder, and parts of
the liver and pancreas develop in this way. In fish, gills develop from such
processes, and in human beings, the ear canals, parathyroid, and thymus glands
develop. Following DNA instructions in their respective egg cells, fish and
human beings each use a similar process to develop their distinctive features.