I was holding my third grandchild this evening at the hospital. Julia Rose Plank was born earlier today and looks, well, like all babies look when they’re first born. No wonder they have to put ID tags on them…you couldn’t tell them apart for love nor money in my books.
In any event, as I was holding her, she was working trying to burp up some gas. In the process, she spit up a little and worked with that as I cleaned. That doesn’t sound like much to write about, except that she knew somehow what to do to keep herself from inhaling what she spit up, and she also knew, somehow, that what was spit up was to come out rather than go back down.
I am amazed. These things are reflex actions, and are a part of the autonomic nervous system. They are “built in”, so to speak, and most everyone has a bunch of those from the time of birth. They govern everything from breathing to digestion to sweating and blood pressure.
Doesn’t matter. I am still amazed. The strict evolutionist will tell us that these reflexes were “selected” over a long period of time through trial and error. Those that had these lifesaving reflexes and used them lived…the others did not. Other reflexes that may have come about that were not of a life-saving or preserving function may well have been lost to no great detriment.
I don’t buy that. It just isn’t reasonable to think that over the millennia, a few individuals gradually developed these reflexes and populated the species as we have it today. Just who were the parents of these individuals? Those who did not have these reflexes? How did they manage to live to reproduce? And if they did live to reproduce, why did they need to develop the reflexes?
I don’t know all the answers, but I do know that there’s something wrong with that picture. Of course, people will say it isn’t that simple, but in essence, it is. And it’s either that explanation, I guess, or the explanation that there was an Intelligence that designed and planned all of this, then put it into practice.
What do you think?
2 comments:
I confess I don't know the answers either, but I was similarly impressed when we introduced our ducklings to the pool of water for the first time. No mama duck around to serve as role model or anything, so as per our duck book we were ready to rescue them from drowing.
The first little duckling hopped over the edge, and promptly dove underwater and zoomed around like a little fish, popped up and shook itself, repeated the process, and presently the little pool was full of eight of them doing the same thing. No little ducky sneezes or coughs, not one of them had the least bit of confusion about "breathing air good, breathing water bad," and they swam like, well, ducks from the moment they set paddlefoot to water.
Totally leaving aside how the *species* was created, the individual bird is a wonder. It's just plain amazing that the blueprints for all that knowledge can be packed into an egg, along with the plans for that autonomic nervous system and an astonishingly complicated feather arrangement and everything else. The mind boggles.
I used to raise chicks (in another life) the old fashioned way...setting hen, rooster, etc. I was always amazed that in 21 days, from a single cell (which is what a chicken egg is), this bundle of living, breathing bird comes out, already knowing how to scratch the ground for food, drink, flock under the mom hen, and all the other things it knows how to do. 21 Days!
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