THE MIRACLE OF HORMONES

INTRODUCTION

Imagine the operations of a modern international company. Hundreds of thousands of highly qualified people gather under the one roof of this business organization, all working toward a common goal. This company has factories, production facilities, administrative centers, branch offices and subsidiaries throughout the world.

Imagine that the English branch of this company informs the head office in America of the demand trends of consumers in England; the management in America, taking account of the latest consumer expectations, sends a directive to the research and development department in Italy; the prototypes designed in Italy are submitted for public approval back in England. The prototypes that gain approval are produced in the Chinese factories of this international company, and a huge world wide advertising campaign is organized to introduce these new products . . .

The organization outlined above must have highly-ordered communication at every level. Administrators, engineers, workers, advertisers, marketing officials and many others must be in constant cooperation with one another. Success depends directly on communication. Otherwise, this company could not survive in today's rapidly changing and developing environment.

Now, imagine a much larger organization. The number of people that belong to this organization is far greater. Suppose that everyone in the world, about 6 billion people, works for this organization. Everyone has his own special job. Hundreds of thousands, sometimes millions of people gather under the same roof to perform a common task. There is such a tight web of administration and information that every one of these 6 billion people is informed individually by means of a cellular phone as to what he or she has to do. For example, if one of these people is employed in a factory, he may sometimes be told to increase the speed of production, sometimes to slow it down, and sometimes to alter the product. Finally, imagine that an organized plan and communications system exist so that millions of people throughout the hundreds of thousands of different locations all over the world work according to this common plan.

Now, let's enlarge our example a little. Imagine that the population of the world is much greater than it is at present, but that our organization functions even more efficiently.

The communication and coordination of the many branches of an international company is very complicated. Directors, managers, engineers and advertisers have to be in touch with one another at all times. The communication network in the human body is millions of times more complex than that of the largest international company.

Suppose that the population is fifteen thousand times greater than it is today, that there are fifteen thousand other planets like this Earth and that the 6 billion people crowded onto each planet make up a total of 100 trillion people. Further suppose that this collection of human beings works together in perfect harmony, each individual being informed by cellular phone as to what he has to do.

This example is beyond our power to conceive, but is actually a simplified description of an existing organization, which operates every second throughout the whole world among the approximately 100 trillion cells that make up the human body.

As you are reading this, millions of operations are happening in your body. In these operations there is a calculation of the needs of every cell in every part of the body, and a determination of what function each cell must perform; measures are taken to respond to the requirements of the cells and each cell is informed individually as to what it must do.

For example, what allows you to read this book are your eye cells, and to nourish them, glucose is required. To respond to those needs, a system was established in your body that calculates how much sugar there is in your blood and that keeps the amount stable. There is a great plan, organized by the web of communication among the cells, that calculates how many times a minute your heart must beat, the level of calcium stored in your body, the amount of blood your kidneys filter and thousands of other such details. This system of chemical communication that ensures that the 100 trillion cells work in harmony with one another is called the hormone system.

The hormone system, together with the nervous system, ensures the coordination of the cells of the body. If we compare the nervous system to messages sent over the Internet, the hormone system can be compared to a letter sent by post: it is slower, but its effect lasts longer.

When we examine these systems that control the body, a fact becomes clear that most people are not aware of. Most people are convinced that they themselves control the direction of their lives. If you asked someone, "How much of your body do you control?" he would surely say, "All of it." But this answer contradicts the scientific facts.

A person is in control of a very limited part of his body, and even of that part his control is only partial. For example, he can use his body to walk, or to speak or he can use his hands to work, but deep within his body there are thousands of chemical and physical operations going on without his knowing about or willing them. Anyone who thinks that he is completely in charge of his own body (or his own life) is greatly mistaken.

To God belong the Most Beautiful Names, so call on Him by them and abandon those who desecrate His Names. They will be repaid for what they did. (Qur'an, 7: 180)

Another fact we will see when we examine the perfect communication system described in this book is this: An organism cannot possibly be formed by lifeless matter, on its own and by chance. Darwinists and materialists do not believe in God; they believe that ultimately living things were formed spontaneously and by chance out of lifeless matter. However, in the twentieth century thousands of discoveries were made concerning cells and the systems contained in them. It is now known that cells have a highly complex design. The communication between hormones and cells alone is enough to show what an extraordinary system exists in cells, and that they could not have been formed by chance.

This book has two aims: First, to show (with the support of scientific evidence) Darwinists and materialists who make chance their god that their philosophy is illogical and untenable. Second, to once again show those who believe in God, examples of the excellence of His creation, so that they may see the glory, power and sublimity of our Lord and exalt Him for His excellent works.

In the pages that follow, we shall examine the hormone system that controls the human body for the benefit of the human being and that is a manifestation of the wonder of creation, and we shall witness together the creative art of God.

CONSCIOUSNESS IN THE CELL

INTRODUCTION

The theory of evolution was put forward by the naturalist Charles Darwin in the middle of the 19th century, when the level of science and technology was rather primitive, compared with today's. Nineteenth-century scientists worked in relatively simple laboratories. With the very unsophisticated equipment available to them, scientists couldn't even see bacteria. Moreover, they were still under the influence of many false beliefs left over from the Middle Ages.

One of these misconceptions was that living organisms had a fundamentally simple structure—a belief that can be traced back to the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, who wrote that life could come about spontaneously and coincidentally, as a result of inorganic matter assembling itself in a moist environment.

In developing his theory, Darwin drew on the assumption that living things had only a simple structure. Other biologists who later adopted and defended Darwin's theory shared this same belief. For example, from the view of cells that 19th century microscopes provided, Ernst Haeckel, Darwin's greatest supporter in Germany, believed that a cell was a "simple little lump of albuminous combination of carbon," not much different from a piece of microscopic jello. (John Farley, The Spontaneous Generation Controversy from Descartes to Oparin, 2nd ed., Baltimore:The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979, p. 73)

The theory of evolution was based upon this and other similar presumptions. Authors of the theory like Haeckel, Darwin, and Huxley believed that because life was made up of very simple structures, it could come about by itself, randomly. But they were wrong, of course.

During the past 150 years, from Victorian times until now, both science and technology have made enormous strides. Scientists have discovered the real structure of what Haeckel described as being a "simple little lump." They have been amazed to see that the cell is not remotely as simple as was once believed, but contains a number of unimaginably complex systems that could never have been conceived of, much less understood, in Darwin's day.

In explaining the structure of the cell, Professor Michael Denton, the famous molecular biologist, makes this analogy:

To grasp the reality of life as it has been revealed by molecular biology, we must magnify a cell a thousand million times until it is twenty kilometers in diameter and resembles a giant airship large enough to cover a great city like London or New York. What we would then see would be an object of unparalleled complexity and adaptive design. On the surface of the cell we would see millions of openings, like the port holes of a vast space ship, opening and closing to allow a continual stream of materials to flow in and out. If we were to enter one of these openings we would find ourselves in a world of supreme technology and bewildering complexity... (Michael Denton, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, London: Burnett Books, 1985, p. 328)

This book will introduce the miracles of creation in the living cell, a miniature masterpiece that possesses a much more complicated and wondrous system than a giant spaceship's. We will show how the organelles inside the cell, together with the enzymes, proteins and other substances that it produces, perform purposeful functions that could never be expected of them. We'll give examples of the literally trillions of cells to be found in the human body, each of which displays superhuman intelligence and wisdom. Once again, we remind ourselves how all of this cannot be merely an unconscious coincidence, but is a product of God.

Proofs of God's creation, and manifestations of His superior power, wisdom and artistry are everywhere. Wherever we turn, we come face to face with God's creations that move us to exalt Him with glorification.

One reason why this book concentrates on the cell in particular is once again to present the truth to those who deny God by claiming that life is only a result of coincidence. Living things are too complex, too infinitely detailed to have come about as the result of happenstance. It's clear that they were created by a superior Mind and Power. Also, this book aims to explain the superiority manifest in God's creation and to glorify Him thereby.

INTELLIGENT DESIGN, IN OTHER WORDS CREATION

In order to create, God has no need to design

It's important that the word "design" be properly understood. That God has created a flawless design does not mean that He first made a plan and then followed it. God, the Lord of the Earth and the heavens, needs no "designs" in order to create. God is exalted above all such deficiencies. His planning and creation take place at the same instant.

Whenever God wills a thing to come about, it is enough for Him just to say, "Be!" As verses of the Qur'an tell us: His command when He desires a thing is just to say to it, "Be!" and it is. (Qur'an, 36: 82)

[God is] the Originator of the heavens and Earth. When He decides on something, He just says to it, "Be!" and it is. (Qur'an, 2: 117)

QUANTUM PHYSICS: THE DISCOVERY THAT SCIENTIFICALLY DEMOLISHED MATERIALISM

The quantum model of universe is an attempt to purge the Big Bang of its creationist implications. Supporters of this model base it on the observations of quantum (subatomic) physics. In quantum physics, it is to be observed that subatomic particles appear and disappear spontaneously in a vacuum. Interpreting this observation as matter can originate at quantum level, this is a property pertaining to matter, some physicists try to explain the origination of matter from non-existence during the creation of the universe as a property pertaining to matter and present it as a part of laws of nature. In this model, our universe is interpreted as a subatomic particle in a bigger one.

However this syllogism is definitely out of question and in any case cannot explain how the universe came into being. William Lane Craig, the author of The Big Bang: Theism and Atheism explains why:

A quantum mechanical vacuum spawning material particles is far from the ordinary idea of a "vacuum" (meaning nothing). Rather, a quantum vacuum is a sea of continually forming and dissolving particles, which borrow energy from the vacuum for their brief existence. This is not "nothing," and hence, material particles do not come into being out of nothing. 1

So in quantum physics, matter does not exist when it was not before. What happens is that ambient energy suddenly becomes matter and just as suddenly disappears becoming energy again. In short, there is no condition of existence from nothingness as is claimed.

According to Isaac Newton, light was a flow of a substance known as corpuscles. The basis of the traditional Newtonian physics—which was accepted until the discovery of quantum physics—was that light consisted entirely of a collection of particles. However, James Clerk Maxwell, a 19th century physicist, suggested that light demonstrated wave action. Quantum theory reconciled this greatest debate in physics.

In 1905, Albert Einstein claimed that light possessed quanta, or small packets of energy. These energy packets were given the name photons. Although described as particles, photons could be observed to behave in the wave motion proposed by Maxwell in the 1860s. Therefore, light was a transitional phenomenon between wave and particle 2 —a state of affairs that displayed a major contradiction in terms of Newtonian physics.

Immediately after Einstein, Max Planck, a German physicist, investigated light and astonished the entire scientific world by determining that it was both a wave and a particle. According to this idea, which he proposed under the name of quantum theory, energy was disseminated in the form of interrupted and discrete packets, rather than being straight and constant.

In a quantum event, light exhibited both particle-like and wave-like properties. The particle known as the photon was accompanied by a wave in space. In other words, light moved like a wave through space, but behaved as an active particle when it encountered an obstacle. To express it another way, it adopted the form of energy until encountering an obstacle, at which time it assumed the form of particles, as if it were composed of tiny material bodies reminiscent of grains of sand.

After Planck, this theory was further expanded by scientists such as Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr, Louis de Broglie, Erwin Schrödinger, Werner Heisenberg, Paul Adrian Maurice Dirac and Wolfgang Pauli. Each was awarded the Nobel Prize for his discoveries.

About this new discovery regarding the nature of light, Amit Goswami says this:

When light is seen as a wave, it seems capable of being in two (or more) places at the same time, as when it passes through the slits of an umbrella and produces a diffraction pattern; when we catch it on a photographic film, however, it shows up discretely, spot by spot, like a beam of particles. So light must be both a wave and a particle. Paradoxical, isn’t it? At stake is one of the bulwarks of the old physics: unambiguous description in language. Also at stake is the idea of objectivity: Does the nature of light—what light is—depend on how we observe it? 3

Scientists now no longer believed that matter consists of inanimate, random particles. Quantum physics had no materialist significance, because there were non-material things at the essence of matter. While Einstein, Philipp Lenard and Arthur Holly Compton investigated the particle structure of light, Louis de Broglie began looking at its wave structure.

De Broglie’s discovery was an extraordinary one: In his research, he observed that sub-atomic particles also displayed wave-like properties. Particles such as the electron and proton also had wavelengths. In other words, inside the atom—which materialism described as absolute matter—there were non-material energy waves, contrary to materialist belief. Just like light, these minute particles inside the atom behaved like waves at times, and exhibited the properties of particles at others. Contrary to materialist expectations, the absolute matter in the atom could be detected at certain times, but disappeared at others.

This major discovery showed that what we imagine to be the real world were in fact shadows. Matter had completely departed from the realm of physics and was headed in the direction of metaphysics. 4

The physicist Richard Feynman described this interesting fact about sub-atomic particles and light:

Now we know how the electrons and light behave. But what can I call it? If I say they behave like particles I give the wrong impression; also if I say they behave like waves. They behave in their own inimitable way, which technically could be called a quantum mechanical way. They behave in a way that is like nothing that you have ever seen before. . . . An atom does not behave like a weight hanging on a spring and oscillating. Nor does it behave like a miniature representation of the solar system with little planets going around in orbits. Nor does it appear to be somewhat like a cloud or fog of some sort surrounding the nucleus. It behaves like nothing you have ever seen before.

There is one simplification at least. Electrons behave in this respect in exactly the same way as photons; they are both screwy, but in exactly the same way.

How they behave, therefore, takes a great deal of imagination to appreciate, because we are going to describe something which is different from anything you know about. . . . Nobody knows how it can be like that. 5

To sum up, quantum physicists say that the objective world is an illusion.6 Professor Hans-Peter Dürr, head of the Max Planck Institute of Physics, summarizes this fact:

Whatever matter is, it is not made of matter. 7

All the most celebrated physicists of the 1920s, everyone from Paul Dirac to Niles Bohr, and from Albert Einstein to Werner Heisenberg, sought to explain these results from quantum experiments. Eventually, one group of physicists at the Fifth Solvay Conference on Physics held in Brussels in 1927—Bohr, Max Born, Paul Dirac, Werner Heisenberg and Wolfgang Pauli—reached an agreement known as the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics. It took this name from the place of work of the leader of the group, Bohr, who suggested that the physical reality proposed by quantum theory was the information we have regarding a system and the estimates we make on the basis of that information. In his view, these guesses made in our brains had nothing to do with the outside reality.

In short, our internal world had nothing to do with the outside real world that had been the main subject of interest of physicists from Aristotle to the present day. Physicists abandoned their old ideas regarding this view and agreed that quantum understanding represented only our knowledge of the physical system. The material world we can perceive exists solely as information in our brains. In other words, we can never obtain direct experience of matter in the outside world.

Jeffrey M. Schwartz, a neuroscientist and professor of psychiatry from University of California, described this conclusion emerging from the Copenhagen Interpretation:

As John Archibald cracked, “No phenomenon is a phenomenon until it is an observed phenomenon.” 9

In summary, quantum mechanics’ all conventional interpretations depend on the existence of a perceiving being. 10

Amit Goswami expanded on this insight:

Suppose we ask, Is the moon there when we are not looking at it? To the extent that the moon is ultimately a quantum object (being composed entirely of quantum objects), we must say no—so says physicist David Mermin. . . .

Perhaps the most important, and the most insidious, assumption that we absorb in our childhoods is that of the material world of objects existing out there—independent of subjects, who are the observers. There is circumstantial evidence in favor of such an assumption. Whenever we look at the moon, for example, we find the moon where we expect it along its classically calculated trajectory. Naturally we project that the moon is always there in space-time, even when we are not looking. Quantum physics says no. When we are not looking, the moon’s possibility wave spreads, albeit by a minuscule amount. When we look, the wave collapses instantly; thus the wave could not be in space-time. It makes more sense to adapt an idealist metaphysic assumption: There is no object in space-time without a conscious subject looking at it. 11

This, of course, applies to our perceptual world. The existence of the Moon is of course obvious in the outside world. But when we look at it, all we actually encounter is our own perception of the Moon.

Jeffrey M. Schwartz included these lines regarding the fact demonstrated by quantum physics in his book The Mind and the Brain:

The role of observation in quantum physics cannot be emphasized too strongly. In classical physics [Newtonian physics], observed systems have an existence independent of the mind that observes and probes them. In quantum physics, however, only through an act of observation does a physical quantity come to have an actual value. 12

Schwartz also summarized the views of various physicists on the subject:

As Jacob Bronowski wrote in The Ascent of Man,
“One aim of the physical sciences has been to give an exact picture of the material world. One achievement of physics in the twentieth century has been to prove that that aim is unattainable.” . . . Heisenberg said the concept of objective reality “has thus evaporated.“ Writing in 1958, he admitted that “the laws of nature which we formulate mathematically in quantum theory deal no longer with the particles themselves but with our knowledge of the elementary particles.” “It is wrong,” Bohr once said, “to think that the task of physics is to find out how nature is. Physics concerns what we can say about nature.” 13

Fred Alan Wolf, one of the guest physicists in the documentary film “What the Bleep Do We Know?” described this same fact:

What makes up things are not more things. But what makes up things are ideas, concepts, information. . . . 14

Following the most fascinating and sensitive experiments that the human mind could devise over the course of 80 years, there are now no views opposed to quantum physics, which has been decisively and scientifically proven. No objections can even be suggested against the conclusions reached by the experiments performed. Quantum theory has been tested in hundreds of possible different ways devised by scientists. It has earned the Nobel Prize for a number of scientists, and is continuing to do so.

Matter, the most fundamental concept of Newtonian physics and once regarded unconditionally as the absolute truth, has been eliminated. Materialists, supporters of the old belief that matter was the sole and definitive building block of existence, were really confused by the fact of the lack of matter suggested by quantum physics. They now have to explain all the laws of physics within the sphere of metaphysics.
The shock that this inflicted on materialists in the early 20th century was far greater than can be expressed in these lines. But the quantum physicists Bryce DeWitt and Neill Graham describe it:

No development of modern science has had a more profound impact on human thinking than the advent of quantum theory. Wrenched out of centuries-old thought patterns, physicists of a generation ago found themselves compelled to embrace a new metaphysics. The distress which this reorientation caused continues to the present day. Basically physicists have suffered a severe loss; their hold on reality. 15

In conclusion, the truth disclosed by science is this: Matter and time have been brought into being by an independent possessor of immense power, by a Creator, Allah.

1. William Lane Craig, Cosmos and Creator, Origins & Design, Spring 1996, vol. 17, p. 20
2. George Gilder, http://www.taemag.com/issues/articleid.17078/article_detail.asp
3. Goswami, The Self-Aware Universe, p. 31
4. David Pratt, http://www.theosophy-nw.org/theosnw/science/prat-mat.htm
5. Richard Feynman, The Character of Physical Law, Modern Library Edition, New York, 1994, pp. 122-123.
6. Thomas J. McFarlane, “The Illusion of Materialism,” http://www.integralscience.org/materialism/materialism.html
7. Peter Russell, “The Primacy of Consciousness,” http://www.peterussell.com/SP/PrimConsc.html
8. Jeffrey M. Schwartz, Sharon Begley, The Mind and The Brain:Neuroplasticity and the Power of Mental Force, Regan Books, 2003, pp. 272-273
9. Ibid. p. 274
10. Roger Penrose, The Road to Reality, Alfred A. Knopf, 2006, p. 1031
11. Goswami, The Self-Aware Universe, pp. 59-60.
12. Schwartz & Begley, The Mind and The Brain, p. 264
13. Ibid., p. 274
14. What the Bleep Do We Know?,” Documentary film directed by: William Arntz and Betsy Chasse, mns: 0.22.19-0.22.28
15. Nick Herbert, Elemental Mind: Human Consciousness and the New Physics

THE SCIENTIFIC COLLAPSE OF MATERIALISM

How did the endless universe we live in come into being?

How did the equilibrium, harmony, and order of this universe develop?

How is it that this Earth is such a fit and sheltering place for us to live in?

Questions such as these have attracted attention since the dawn of the human race. The conclusion reached by scientists and philosophers searching for answers with their intellects and common sense is that the design and order of this universe are evidence of the existence of a supreme Creator ruling over the whole universe.

This is an indisputable truth that we may reach by using our intelligence. God declares this reality in His holy book, the Qur'an, which He inspired as a guide for humanity fourteen centuries ago. He states that He has created the universe when it was not, for a particular purpose, and with all its systems and balances specifically designed for human life.

God invites people to consider this truth in the following verse:

Are you stronger in structure or is heaven? He built it. He raised its vault high and made it level. He darkened its night and brought forth its morning light. After that He smoothed out the earth… (Surat an Naziat: 27-30)

Elsewhere it is declared in the Qur'an that a person should see and consider all the systems and balances in the universe that have been created for him by God and derive a lesson from his observations:

He has made night and day subservient to you, and the sun and moon and stars, all subject to His command. There is certainly Signs in that for people who pay heed. (Surat an-Nahl: 12)

In yet another verse of the Qur'an, it is pointed out:

He makes night merge into day and day merge into night, and He has made the sun and moon subservient, each one running until a specified time. That is God, your Lord. The Kingdom is His. Those you call on besides Him have no power over even the smallest speck. (Surah Fatir: 13)

This plain truth declared by the Qur'an is also confirmed by a number of the important founders of the modern science of astronomy. Galileo, Kepler, and Newton all recognized that the structure of universe, the design of the solar system, the laws of physics and their states of equilibrium were all created by God and they arrived at that conclusion as a result of their own research and observations.

Materialism: A 19th-Century Fallacy

The reality of the creation of which we speak has been ignored or denied since the earliest times by a particular philosophical point of view. It is called "materialism". This philosophy, which was originally formulated among the ancient Greeks, has also made an appearance from time to time in other cultures and has been advanced by individuals as well. It holds that matter alone exists and that it has done so for an infinity of time. From these tenets, it claims that the universe has also "always" existed and was not created.

In addition to their claim that the universe exists in an infinity of time, materialists also assert that there is no purpose or aim in the universe. They claim that all the equilibrium, harmony and order that we see around us are merely the product of coincidence. This "coincidence assertion" is also put forward when the question of how human beings came into being comes up. The theory of evolution, widely referred to as Darwinism, is another application of materialism to the natural world.

We just mentioned that some of the founders of modern science were faithful people who were in agreement that the universe was created and organized by God. In the 19th century, an important change took place in the attitudes of the scientific world with respect to this matter.

Materialism was deliberately introduced to the agenda of modern science by various groups. Because the 19th century's political and social conditions formed a good basis for materialism, the philosophy gained wide acceptance and spread throughout the scientific world.

The findings of modern science however undeniably demonstrate how false the claims of materialism really are.

The Findings of 20th-Century Science

Let us recall the two assertions of materialism about the universe:

The universe exists in infinite time and, because it has no beginning or end, it was not created.

Everything in this universe is merely the result of chance and not the product of any intentional design, plan, or vision.

Those two notions were boldly advanced and ardently defended by 19th-century materialists, who of course had no recourse other than to depend upon the limited and unsophisticated scientific knowledge of their day. Both have been utterly refuted by the discoveries of 20th-century science.

The first to be laid in the grave was the notion of the universe existing in infinite time. Since the 1920s, there has been mounting evidence this cannot be true. Scientists are now certain that the universe came into being from nothingness as the result of an unimaginably huge explosion, known as the "Big Bang". In other words, the universe came into being-or rather, it was created by God.

The 20th century has also witnessed the demolition of the second claim of materialism: that everything in the universe is the result of chance and not design. Research conducted since the 1960s consistently demonstrates that all the physical equilibriums of the universe in general and of our world in particularly are intricately designed to make life possible. As this research deepened, it was discovered each and every one of the laws of physics, chemistry, and biology, of the fundamental forces such as gravity and electromagnetism, and of the details of the structure of atoms and the elements of the universe has been precisely tailored so that human beings may live. Scientists today call this extraordinary design the "anthropic principle". This is the principle that every detail in the universe has been carefully arranged to make human life possible.

To sum up, the philosophy called materialism has been utterly refuted by modern science. From its position as the dominant scientific view of the 19th century, materialism collapsed into fiction in the 20th.

How could it have been otherwise? As God indicates "We did not create heaven and earth and everything between them to no purpose. That is the opinion of those who are disbelievers." (Surah Sad: 27) it is wrong to suppose that the universe was created in vain. A philosophy so utterly flawed as materialism and systems based on it were doomed to failure from the very beginning.