Research That Demonstrates Design and Unearths Flood Deposition

by Frank Sherwin, M.A. *

Whether the evidence is large or small, related to the physical sciences or the life sciences, recent discoveries shout “creation.” A look at the submicroscopic world of an enzyme complex, as well as the “extraordinary” transport and mixing of sediments on a continental scale, should make this clear.

In the 2010 Annual Review of Biochemistry, two authors discussed cellulosomes, “one of nature’s most elaborate and highly efficient nanomachines,”¹ which in this context refers to a biological device measured in the millionths of a millimeter. Nanomachines accomplish many required biological functions.

For instance, cows and other rumencontaining creatures need an efficient way to break down plant cell walls. The rumen, the first region of the specially-designed stomach, contains symbiotic bacteria that secrete two “remarkably elaborate enzymes,” hemicellulose and cellulase, that break down these walls.¹ After making the enzymes, the bacteria then assemble them “into a large multienzyme complex” called a cellulosome. The authors briefly addressed how cellusomes could have originated, and in doing so revealed a truth about evolutionary origins:

It is likely that anaerobic [oxygen-free] environments impose selective pressures that have led to the formation of cellulosomes; however, the nature of the evolutionary drivers that have resulted in the formation of these enzyme complexes is currently unclear.²

Not only is this formation “currently unclear,” evolution itself has been unclear for 150 years and will remain so, because it is powerless to explain the real world. Nevertheless, the authors confidently assumed that no Creator was involved, even though their report is rich with creation/design inferences.

Bacterial cellulosomes are stunning examples of highly elaborate naturally evolved nanomachines that could be used as a blueprint for the design, construction, and exploitation of tailor-made catalytic multiprotein complexes with precise functions.³

Meanwhile, at the other end of the size spectrum, geologists are baffled by rocks that evidently moved across continents—up to 3,000 miles.⁴ Wide swaths of the Himalayan foothills have zircon samples that suggest transport of material so extraordinary that it could not have happened through any of today’s commonly observed processes. But because secular scientists are locked into long-age thinking, they never consider mechanisms like those described in Genesis 6-9.

The geological evidence, however, clearly points to the power of moving water covering “great distances,” as well as “a high degree of sediment mixing and homogenization.”⁴ What is remarkable—and not unexpected—is that their explanations for such massive transport could match the consequences of a global flood. Examples include clustering of continents close to the equator, deficiency of continental vegetation, and assembly of significant landform heights providing stream power for extensive river systems.

Speaking of a global flood, secular geologists recently admitted this planet was once covered with water…almost.

“We are talking about a time when, if you were looking at the Earth from space, you would hardly see any land mass at all,” [geologist Mike] Tice said. “It would have almost been an ocean world.”⁵

Creation science starts by taking God at His Word. It describes a worldwide flood that provides a framework to explain the extraordinary transport and mixing of sediments, which would have occurred when receding floodwaters drained from the continents into the freshly sculpted ocean basins. Creation also explains the overt design inference of ultra-tiny cellulosomes that would never appear through chance, time, and random genetic mistakes.

References

1. Fontes, C. M. G. A. and H. J. Gilbert. 2010. Cellulosomes: Highly Efficient Nanomachines Designed to Deconstruct Plant Cell Wall Complex Carbohydrates. Annual Review of Biochemistry. 79: 655-81.
2. Ibid, 656.
3. Ibid, 673.
4. Myrow, P. M. et al. 2010. Extraordinary transport and mixing of sediment across Himalayan central Gondwana during the Cambrian–Ordovician. Geological Society of America Bulletin. 122 (9-10): 1660-1670.
5. Bergeron, L. Stanford study: Earth’s early ocean cooled more than a billion years earlier than thought. Stanford University news release, November 11, 2009, reporting on research published in Hren, M. T., M. M. Tice and C. P. Chamberlain. 2009. Oxygen and hydrogen isotope evidence for a temperate climate 3.42 billion years ago. Nature. 462 (7270): 205-208.

* Mr. Sherwin is Senior Science Lecturer at the Institute for Creation Research.

Cite this article: Sherwin, F. 2010. Research That Demonstrates Design and Unearths Flood Deposition. Acts & Facts. 39 (11): 18.