Steven Collins
November 6, 2007
Many pieces have been written about the awesome complexity and capacity of the human brain. As scientists learn more and more abut the brain, its complexity becomes even more awe-inspiring. I’ll share with you some striking pieces of information that were recently cited in the December, 2007 issue of Discover magazine and the November, 2007 issue of National Geographic magazine.
Let’s examine this subject in a biblical context. David wrote in Psalm 139:14: “I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Marvelous are your works.” David lived in a low-tech world which had no access to modern knowledge levels, but he still considered the marvelous human body as a wonder of creation. The brain is a most marvelous organ as it provides us with our consciousness and personality. Daniel 12:4 prophesied that “knowledge will be increased” during a climactic period of human history called “the time of the end.” As discussed in my article, Are We Living in the Biblical Latter Days? (available for free at this website), the Hebrew word translated “increased” was also used to describe how the waters that flooded the earth in Noah’s time “increased” (Genesis 7:17). An exponential increase in the amount of water was described by the word “increased’ in Genesis 7:17 so an exponential increase in mankind’s fund of knowledge is indicated in Daniel 12:4! This prophecy has literally come true in our time as mankind’s knowledge is increasing very rapidly.
The above-cited issue of Discover magazine has an article entitled “The 6 Most Important Experiments in the World.” On pages 51-52 is a discussion about an experiment to “…create a neuron by neuron simulation of the human brain…with all its 100 billion neurons…by 2015.” It is an understatement to say this is a most ambitious undertaking! The first goal was to make a “preliminary model of a neocortical column–a set of about 10,000 cells that work together–equivalent to one in the brain of a two-week old rat.” Remember that this is a “preliminary model” created on a computer program; no actual brain cells were created. But what kind of processing power was necessary just to create this “preliminary [computerized] model” of a portion of a rat’s brain? In order to even make this preliminary computer model of a portion of a rat brain, “IBM has customized one of its most powerful supercomputers, capable of processing more than 22 trillion operations per second.” Wow! It takes that much computing power just to produce a computer model of a 10,000 cell portion of rat’s brain. What kind of computing power will be needed to create a computer model of a complete human brain with 100 billion neurons?
A fascinating article entitled “Remember This” appears on pages 32-57 of the issue of the National Geographic cited above. It examines the specific regions of the brain involved with memory creation and how various brain injuries limit the formation of some kinds of memory. On page 36, the article states that the billions of neurons in the human brain are each so interconnected with so many thousands of other neurons that an “average brain” has approximately “five hundred trillion to a thousand trillion synapses… By comparison there are only about 32 trillion bytes of information in the entire Library of Congress’ print collection.”
Can you fathom that last statement? An “average brain” has 15-31 times as many synaptic connections than all the bytes of information stored in the Library of Congress” entire print collection! I don’t think any of us can even imagine or visualize how many books are stored electronically in the Library of Congress’ collection. Yet the average human brain has vastly more synaptic connections than everything stored digitally in that Library of Congress collection.
Now let’s make a comparison. It took an immensely powerful supercomputer a considerable amount of time to create a computer model of a portion of a rat’s brain. How many designers, programmers and employees were necessary to make the supercomputer and program it with software to produce that electronic model of a rat brain? It is utterly and painfully obvious, is it not, that the computer model of a portion of a rat brain had to be a product of “intelligent design,” right? The answer, of course, is yes. Only an idiot or a fool would contend that either the supercomputer and its software or the resultant model of a piece of a rat’s brain “spontaneously evolved” over time without any intelligent humans being responsible for their design and construction The computer designers, technicians and programmers all had to pool their intelligence to make first the computer and its software and then the resultant model of a portion of a rat brain possible! And yet…many scientists and highly-educated people today would contend that the human brain (an organic, living and sentient computer with vastly greater complexity and capacity than any “computer model”) spontaneously evolved over time without any “intelligent design” (i.e. a Creator) being responsible for its design and construction.
Many readers are familiar with the concept of “Virtual Reality (VR)” programs. I’ve read that some VR programs are so sophisticated that real people create an “avatar” of themselves in computer-generated cyber-worlds and interact with the other “avatars” of other real people in that same computer-generated VR program. I have no idea how some people have so much time on their hands to do that. However, the existence of such sophisticated VR programs further confirm that the “knowledge explosion” of the latter days prophesied in Daniel 12:4 is coming to pass. Let’s consider another comparison. Let’s assume that on your work desk tomorrow morning appeared a copy of the most sophisticated VR game available today. Would you assume the VR game was the result of the effort of many computer makers and programmers or would you assume it somehow “evolved” on it own? Would you believe that the VR game, complete with extra features, electronic connectivities to current computer operating programs and even its shrink-wrap, somehow “just happened” to come into existence on your desk without any intelligent design work? Only a fool would say yes. Yet the human brain, and the entire Physical Universe around us, is graphic testimony to a far greater design capacity and to far greater creative skill than anything mankind can collectively design or make!
For all the brilliance of modern scientific endeavor, the brains of the vast majority of scientists have the equivalent of a “software virus” embedded within them that prevents them from seeing or accepting the obvious fact that such a complex instrument as the human brain had to have a designer and a Maker. Scientists have had their thoughts “‘programmed” throughout their educational lives to accept evolution without question…so they accept it without question. That is how their respective brains have been programmed. Their “software problem” is their faith in the theory of evolution, a “default” setting in all their educational coursework. All the gadgets and machines made by mankind are all, obviously, “intelligently designed.” Yet the very people who design all of mankind’s gadgets and machines will assert that the Physical Creation, something infinitely more complex and engineered than any of mankind’s gadgets and machines, somehow “just happened” by accident over time. Such evolutionists are “swallowing a camel and straining at a gnat.”
Any human brain can have false ideas and beliefs implanted within it due to educational “programming.” A belief in the theory of evolution in highly-intelligent scientific minds is proof of that. As Paul wrote in II Timothy 3:7, such people are “ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.” David observed “The fool has said in his heart, There is no God” (Psalm 14:1). Given the truth of Psalm 14:1 and given the undeniable fact that many modern evolutionists are educated people, one can only conclude that there are a lot of educated fools in the world today. Paul quite accurately prophesied in Romans 1:25 that mankind would “change the truth of God into a lie and worship the creature more than the Creator…” What an accurate prophecy and description about the theory of evolution.
Evolutionists delude themselves into thinking there is no God and that they will never be held accountable for their deeds and actions. They couldn’t be more wrong. As my above-cited article on the “latter days” demonstrates, you can prove that the prophecies of the Bible about the latter days are all coming to pass in our modern times. This means the intervention of that Creator God is coming soon. You can bet your life on it.
