Who Did It First?

Like one biologist once said, “I HAVE the suspicion,”“that we’re not the innovators we think we are; we’re merely the repeaters.”Many times, human inventors only repeat what plants and animals have been doing for thousands of years. This copying from living things is so prevalent that it has been given its own name—bionics. Another scientist says that practically all the fundamental areas of human technology “have been opened up and utilized to advantage by living things . . . before the human mind learned to understand and master their functions.” Interestingly, he adds: “In many areas, human technology is still lagging far behind nature.”2
As you reflect on these complex abilities of living creatures that human inventors have attempted to copy, does it seem reasonable to believe that they happened by chance alone? And happened, not just once, but many times in unrelated creatures? Are these not the kind of intricate designs that experience teaches can only be the product of a brilliant designer? Do you really think that chance alone could create what it later took gifted men to copy? Bear in mind such questions as you consider the following examples:

AIR CONDITIONING. Modern technology cools many homes. But long before, termites also cooled theirs, and they still do. Their nest is in the center of a large mound. From it, warm air rises into a network of air ducts near the surface. There stale air diffuses out the porous sides, and fresh cool air seeps in and descends into an air chamber at the bottom of the mound. From there it circulates into the nest. Some mounds have openings at the bottom where fresh air comes in, and in hot weather, water brought up from underground evaporates, thus cooling the air. How do millions of blind workers coordinate their efforts to build such ingeniously designed structures? Biologist Lewis Thomas answers: “The plain fact that they exhibit something like a collective intelligence is a mystery.”3

AIRPLANES. The design of airplane wings has benefited over the years from the study of the wings of birds. The curvature of the bird’s wing gives the lift needed to overcome the downward pull of gravity. But when the wing is tilted up too much, there is the danger of stalling. To avoid a stall, the bird has on the leading edges of its wings rows, or flaps, of feathers that pop up as wing tilt increases (1, 2). These flaps maintain lift by keeping the main airstream from separating from the wing surface.
Still another feature for controlling turbulence and preventing “stalling out” is the alula (3), a small bunch of feathers that the bird can raise up like a thumb.
At the tips of the wings of both birds and airplanes, eddies form and they produce drag. Birds minimize this in two ways. Some, like swifts and albatross, have long, slender wings with small tips, and this design eliminates most of the eddies. Others, like big hawks and vultures, have broad wings that would make big eddies, but this is avoided when the birds spread out, like fingers, the pinions at the ends of their wings. This changes these blunt ends into several narrow tips that reduce eddies and drag (4).
8 Airplane designers have adopted many of these features. The curvature of wings gives lift. Various flaps and projections serve to control airflow or to act as braking devices. Some small planes lessen wing-tip drag by the mounting of flat plates at right angles to the wing surface. Airplane wings, however, still fall short of the engineering marvels found in the wings of birds.

ANTIFREEZE. Humans use glycol in car radiators as antifreeze. But certain microscopic plants use chemically similar glycerol to keep from freezing in Antarctic lakes. It is also found in insects that survive in temperatures of 4 degrees below zero Fahrenheit. There are fish that produce their own antifreeze, enabling them to live in the frigid waters of Antarctica. Some trees survive temperatures of 40 degrees below zero Fahrenheit because they contain “very pure water, without dust or dirt particles upon which ice crystals can form.”4
UNDERWATER BREATHING. People strap tanks of air to their backs and remain under water for up to an hour. Certain water beetles do it more simply and stay under longer. They grab a bubble of air and submerge. The bubble serves as a lung. It takes carbon dioxide from the beetle and diffuses it into the water, and takes oxygen dissolved in the water for the beetle to use.

CLOCKS. Long before people used sundials, clocks in living organisms were keeping accurate time. When the tide is out microscopic plants called diatoms come to the surface of wet beach sand. When the tide comes in the diatoms go down into the sand again. Yet in sand in the laboratory, without any tidal ebb and flow, their clocks still make them come up and go down in time with the tides. Fiddler crabs turn a darker color and come out during low tide, turn pale and retreat to their burrows during high tide. In the laboratory away from the ocean, they still keep time with the changing tide, turning dark and light as the tide ebbs and flows. Birds can navigate by sun and stars, which change position as time passes. They must have internal clocks to compensate for these changes. (Jeremiah 8:7) From microscopic plants to people, millions of internal clocks are ticking away.COMPASSES. About the 13th century C.E. men began to use a magnetic needle floating in a bowl of water—a crude compass. But it was nothing new. Bacteria contain strings of magnetite particles just the right size to make a compass. These guide them to their preferred environments. Magnetite has been found in many other organisms —birds, bees, butterflies, dolphins, mollusks and others. Experiments indicate that homing pigeons can return home by sensing the earth’s magnetic field. It is now generally accepted that one of the ways migrating birds find their way is by the magnetic compasses in their heads.

DESALINATION. Men build huge factories to remove salt from seawater. Mangrove trees have roots that suck up seawater, but filter it through membranes that remove the salt. One species of mangrove, Avicennia, using glands on the underside of its leaves, gets rid of the excess salt. Sea birds, such as gulls, pelicans, cormorants, albatross and petrels, drink seawater and by means of glands in their heads remove the excess salt that gets into their blood. Also penguins, sea turtles and sea iguanas drink salt water, removing the excess salt. Are all these designed?