Designed
or Evolved?
CURIOUSLY
WROUGHT
- BTG No. 156a December 2001
by Henry M. Morris, Ph.D.*
© Copyright 2004 Institute for Creation Research. All
Rights Reserved.
In a recent book, two eminent authors (both
evolutionists) give a glowing assessment of the human
mind and the brain through which it functions.
The human brain is the most astonishing and mysterious
of all known complex systems. Inside this mass of
billions of neurons, information flows in ways that we
are only starting to understand. The memories of a
summer day on the beach when we were kids; imagination;
our dreams of impossible worlds. Consciousness. Our
surprising capacity for mathematical generalization and
understanding of deep, sometimes counter intuitive,
questions about the universe. Our brains are capable of
this and much more. How? We don't know: the mind is a
daunting problem for science.
1
This testimony brings to mind a statement made more than
thirty years ago by the atheistic biochemist, Isaac
Asimov, arguably the most prolific scientist writer of
all time. He said that:
. . . in man is a three-pound brain which, as far as we
know, is the most complex and orderly arrangement of
matter in the universe. How could the human brain
develop out of the primeval slime?
2
Asimov's answer to this key question was that the energy
from the sun somehow provided the information necessary
to create life and ultimately the human brain. He had no
explanation as to how this miracle of complexity could
have been produced by the sun, and neither does anyone
else. The current authors (Sole and Godwin) are frank
enough to acknowledge, simply, that "we don't know."
The mind is, indeed, "a daunting problem for science."
The fact is that science can never provide the answer as
long as its practitioners deny the truth of a divine
creation. The psalmist, on the other hand, gladly
acknowledged God, and said in awe: "I will praise thee;
for I am fearfully and wonderfully made" (Psalm 139:14).
He then continued with remarkable insight: "My substance
was . . . made in secret, and curiously wrought . . ."
(Psalm 139:15). The word so picturesquely translated in
the King James Bible as "curiously wrought" is the
Hebrew raqam meaning "embroidered," or "did needlework,"
and it is so translated in the other passages where it
is used.
The idea of highly intricate needlework is most
appropriate in trying to describe the amazing network of
interconnected neurons in the human brain.
Human beings have something on the order of 100,000
genes, and human brains have more than 1 trillion nerve
cells, with about 100-1,000 trillion connections
(synapses) between them. That's at least 1 billion
synapses per gene, even if each and every gene did
nothing but control the production of synapses (and it
doesn't).
3
But astoundingly complex as the human brain may be, it
still does not explain how all this serves to produce
consciousness, let alone how it can generate abstract
thought and inventive ingenuity and all the myriad
thoughts and reasonings of the human brain, not to
mention its imaginations and even its dreams.
Anthropologist Matt Cartmill acknowledges this vital gap
in our knowledge.
The phenomenon of consciousness is the source of all
value in our lives. As such, it should be at the top of
the scientific agenda. Yet despite its fundamental
importance, consciousness is a subject that most
scientists are reluctant to deal with. We know
practically nothing about its mechanisms or its
evolution.
4
What a marvelous paradox this is! The gift of
consciousness is the basic phenomenon which permits
scientists to investigate the processes of nature and
develop descriptions thereof, but they have no
understanding of consciousness itself.
The machineries of consciousness are an almost perfect
mystery.
5
Not only does the human brain somehow generate
consciousness and then complex thought processes, but
also the ability to communicate those thoughts to
others. The phenomenon of language (real language, not
animal barks and grunts) is still another amazing
phenomenon for which there is no evolutionary
explanation. Languages can rather quickly "evolve" into
different languages, but how did language evolve? And
was there one original language, or have various
languages evolved independently? Evolutionists do not
know. If they refuse to consider God's explanation in
the Bible, they will probably never know.
All contemporary modern humans use very complex
languages. There are no "primitive" languages: the 5,000
or more spoken today are equally flexible and
expressive, and their grammar and syntax are sometimes
richer and more precise than that of the more widespread
languages like English or Spanish, which have undergone
some simplification over the centuries.6
There is, therefore, no evidence whatever for any
supposed evolutionary origin of human language, though
each individual language can "evolve" into some
different language in relatively short time (e.g.,
compare Chaucer's English to modern English). Yet
linguists have been notably unsuccessful in trying to
map out an "original" language from which the other
language families have come. Neither the origin of
language itself nor the origin of the major linguistic
families is amenable to an evolutionary explanation. One
of the world's most distinguished linguistic
ethnologists admits this.
It is not certain that all languages have a common
origin. Most linguists consider both problems
insoluble.
7
Not really! The Biblical account fits all the facts.
Language is a special gift of God, imparted to the first
man and woman when He created them "in His image," so
that they could communicate with God and other humans.
The original language families were also supernaturally
imparted by God to thwart the rebellion against Him at
the Tower of Babel.
Not only did God provide a means of oral communication,
but also a means of communicating in writing. The first
book in fact was apparently written by Adam himself
(Genesis 5:1). After the Flood and the confusion of
tongues at Babel, this ability was lost, except possibly
by Noah, Shem, and any others who had not participated
in the rebellion.
But the others still retained the basic mental tools to
learn how to write, this time in their new languages. It
was not long, at least in the great civilizations that
developed in certain early nations, before practically
everyone could read and write. Probably the earliest was
in Sumeria, including Assyria and others in the
Tigris-Euphrates region.
As many as half a million cuneiform tablets, hand size
up to book-page size, are now stored in the museums of
the learned, from Baghdad upriver out to Moscow and
Berkeley. Surely many more are waiting to be found.
These samples are of every quality: once prized accounts
and receipts, schoolboys' lessons, litigation profound
or droll, literary essays, erotica, mathematics—and
entire ancient epics, centuries older than Father
Abraham's. A mostly unread treasury, comprising the
equivalent of tens of thousands of large printed
volumes.
8
In none of these very ancient archaeological sites,
whether in the Middle East or Egypt, China, or India, is
there any indication of a gradual evolution of language
or writing. The languages just seem to spring into
existence fully developed in complex form when they
first appear. So-called "primitive" languages are
invariably highly complex languages, and the same is
true of their written form, with the ability to read and
write evidently widespread in each community.
Indeed the human brain and human consciousness, along
with the ability to express human thoughts in speaking
and writing, are amazing phenomena without any adequate
evolutionary explanation. The same is true of the
marvelous DNA molecules in which are encoded all the
programmed information for the reproduction and growth
of every cell of the human body.
As the psalmist implied, our brains have indeed been
very "curiously wrought" in our mothers' wombs (Psalm
139:15), through the intricately entwined DNA coding
extending all the way back to Mother Eve and Father Adam
and ultimately to the infinite mind and skillful hands
of the great Designer Himself.
As the patriarch Job stressed, contemplating all the
wonderful works of God in creation: "Who knoweth not in
all these that the hand of the Lord hath wrought this?"
(Job 12:9).
References
1. Richard Sole and Brian Godwin, Signs of Life (New
York: Basic Books Inc., 2000), p. 119.
2. Isaac Asimov, "In the Game of Energy and
Thermodynamics You Can't Even Break Even," Smithsonian
Institute Journal, June 1970, p. 10.
3. Paul R. Ehrlich, Human Natures (Washington, D.C.,
Shearwater Books, 2000), p. 4. Dr. Ehrlich is a
Professor at Stanford University. Emphasis his.
4. Matt Cartmill, "Do Horses Gallop in Their Sleep?" Key
Reporter (Autumn 2000), p. 6.
5. Ibid., p. 8.
6. Luigi Lura Cavalli-Sforza, Genes, People and
Languages (New York: North Pointe Press, 2000), p. 59.
7. Ibid., p. 142. Dr. Cavalli-Sforza is Professor of
Genetics at Stanford.
8. Philip Morrison and Phylis Morrison, "Information
Technology, 2500 B.C." Scientific American (vol. 284.
January 2001), p. 109.
* Dr. Morris is Founder and President Emeritus of ICR.
