We have
seen how carbon is the most important building-block
of living organisms and how it was specially designed
so as to fulfill that function. The existence
of all carbon-based life-forms however is contingent
upon a second imperative: energy. Energy is an
indispensable requirement for life.
Green
plants get their energy from the sun through the
process of photosynthesis. For the rest of the
living creatures of Earth𨩅nd that includes us𩣱he
only source of energy is a process called "oxidation"𨩅
fancy word for "burning". The energy of oxygen-breathing
organisms is derived from burning the nourishment
that they get from plants and animals. As you
may guess from the term "oxidation", this burning
is a chemical reaction in which substances are
oxidized𩣱hat is, they are combined with oxygen.
This is why oxygen is as vitally important to
life as are carbon and hydrogen.
A
generalized formula for "burning" (oxidation)
looks like this:
Carbon
compound + oxygen > water + carbon dioxide + energy
What
this means is that when carbon compounds and oxygen
are combined (under the proper conditions of course)
a reaction takes place that generates water and
carbon dioxide and releases a considerable amount
of energy. This reaction takes place most readily
in hydrocarbons (compounds of hydrogen and carbon).
Glucose (a sugar and also a hydrocarbon) is what
is constantly being burned in your body to keep
it supplied with energy.
Now
as it happens, the elements of hydrogen and carbon
that make up hydrocarbons are the ones most suitable
for oxidation to take place. Among all other atoms,
hydrogen combines with oxygen the most readily
and releases the most energy in the process. If
you need a fuel to burn in oxygen, you can't do
better than hydrogen. From the standpoint of its
value as a fuel, carbon ranks third after hydrogen
and boron. In The Fitness of the Environment,
Lawrence Henderson comments on the extraordinary
fitness that is involved here:
The very chemical
changes, which for so many other reasons seem
to be best fitted to become the processes of
physiology, turn out to be the very ones which
can divert the greatest flood of energy into
the stream of life. 1
The Design in Fire (Or Why You Don't Just Burst
Into Flame)
As we've just
seen, the fundamental reaction that releases the
energy necessary for the survival of oxygen-breathing
organisms is the oxidation of hydrocarbons. But
this simple fact raises a troubling question:
If our bodies are made up essentially of hydrocarbons,
why aren't they also oxidized? Putting it another
way, why don't we just go up in flame, like a
match that's been struck?
 Our bodies are constantly in contact with the
oxygen of the air and yet they don't oxidize:
they don't catch fire. Why not?
The
reason for this seeming paradox is that, under
normal conditions of temperature and pressure,
the molecular (O2) form of oxygen has a substantial
degree of inertness or "nobility". (In the sense
that chemists use the term, "nobility" is the
reluctance (or inability) of a substance to enter
into chemical reactions with other substances.)
But this raises another questions: If molecular
oxygen is so "noble" as to avoid incinerating
us, how is this same molecule made to enter into
chemical reactions inside our bodies?
The answer to
this question, which perplexed chemists as early
as the mid 19th century, did not become known
until the second half of the 20th century, when
biochemical researchers discovered the existence
of enzymes in the human body whose only function
was to force the O2 in the atmosphere to enter
into chemical reactions. As a result of a series
of extremely complex steps, these enzymes utilize
atoms of iron and copper in our bodies as catalysts.
A catalyst is a substance that initiates a chemical
reaction and allows it to proceed under different
conditions (such as lower temperature etc) than
would otherwise be possible.2
In
other words, there is a very interesting situation
here: Oxygen is what supports oxidation and combustion
and normally one would expect it to burn us up
too. To prevent this, the molecular O2 form of
oxygen that exists in the atmosphere has been
given a strong element of chemical nobility. That
is, it doesn't enter into reactions easily. But,
on the other hand, our bodies depend upon the
oxidizing property of oxygen for their energy
and for that reason, our cells have been fitted
out with an extremely complex enzyme system that
makes this noble gas extremely reactive.
While we're on
the subject we should also point out that this
enzyme system is a marvellous example of design
that no evolutionary theory holding that life
developed as a result of chance events can ever
hope to explain.3
There is yet
another precaution that has been taken to keep
our bodies from burning up: what the British chemist
Nevil Sidgwick calls the "characteristic inertness
of carbon".4 What this means
is that carbon is not too much in a hurry either
to enter into a reaction with oxygen under normal
pressures and temperatures. Expressed in the language
of chemistry this may all seem rather arcane,
but in fact what is being said here is something
that anyone who's ever had to light a fireplace
full of huge logs or a coal-burning stove in winter
or start a stubborn barbecue in summer already
knows. In order to get the fire going, you have
to take care of a lot of preliminaries (kindling,
starter, etc) or else suddenly raise the temperature
of the fuel to a very high degree (as with a blowtorch).
But once the fuel starts burning, the carbon in
it enters into the reaction with oxygen quite
rapidly and a great amount of energy is released.
This is why it's so hard to get a fire going without
another source of heat. But after combustion begins,
a great deal of heat is produced and this can
cause other carbon compounds nearby to catch fire
as well and so the fire spreads.
When
we look into this matter more carefully, we can
see that fire itself is a most interesting example
of design. The chemical properties of oxygen and
carbon have been so arranged that these two elements
enter into a reaction with one another (combustion)
only when a great amount of heat is already present.
It's a good thing, too because if this weren't
the case, life on this planet would be very unpleasant
if not downright impossible. If oxygen and carbon
were even slightly more willing to react with
one another, the spontaneous combustion騯elf-ignition𥣈f
people, trees, and animals would become a commonplace
event whenever the weather got a little too warm.
Someone walking through a desert for example might
suddenly burst into flame at noon when the heat
was at its most intense; plants and animals would
be exposed to the same risk. Even if life were
possible in such a world, it certainly wouldn't
be much fun.
On the other
hand, if carbon and oxygen were slightly more
noble (that is, slightly less reactive) than they
are, it would be much more difficult to light
a fire in this world than it already is: indeed,
it might even be impossible. And without fire,
we not only would have been unable to keep ourselves
warm: it's quite likely that there would never
have been any technological progress on our planet
because that progress depends upon the ability
to work materials such as metal and without the
heat provided by fire, purifying and working metal
is all but impossible.
What
all this shows is that the chemical properties
of carbon and oxygen have been arranged so as
to be the most suitable for the needs of mankind.
Concerning this, Michael Denton says:
This
curious unreactivity of the carbon and oxygen
atoms at ambient temperatures, combined with
the enormous energies inherent in their combination
once achieved, is of great adaptive significance
to life on Earth. It is this curious combination
that not only makes available to advanced life
forms the vast energies of oxidation in a controlled
and orderly manner but has also made possible
the controlled use of fire by mankind and allowed
the harnessing of the massive energies of combustion
for the development of technology.5
In
other words, both carbon and the oxygen have been
created with properties that are the most fit
for human life. The properties of these two elements
allow us to light a fire and to make use of fire
in the most convenient way possible. Furthermore,
the world is full of sources of carbon (such as
the wood of trees) that are fit for combustion.
All this is an indication that fire and the materials
to start and sustain it have been specially created
to be fit for human life. In the Qur'an, Allah
speaks to mankind with these words:
He Who produces
fire for you from green trees so that you use
them to light your fires. (Surah Ya-sin: 80)
The Ideal Solubility of Oxygen
The
utilization of oxygen by the body is highly dependent
upon the property of this gas to dissolve in water.
The oxygen that enters our lungs when we inhale
is immediately dissolved into the blood. The protein
called hemoglobin captures these oxygen molecules
and carries them to the other cells of the body
where, thanks to the special enzyme system described
above, the oxygen is used to oxidize carbon compounds
called ATP to release their energy.
All
complex organisms derive their energy in this
way. However the operation of this system is especially
dependent upon the solubility of oxygen. If oxygen
were not sufficiently soluble, not enough oxygen
would enter the bloodstream and cells would not
be able to generate the energy they require; if
oxygen were too soluble on the other hand, there
would be an excess of oxygen in the blood resulting
in a condition known as oxygen toxicity.
The
difference in the water-solubility of different
gases varies by as much as a factor of a million.
That is, the most soluble gas is a million times
more soluble in water than the least soluble gas
is and there are hardly any gases at all whose
solubilities are identical. Carbon dioxide is
about twenty times more soluble in water than
oxygen is for example. Among the vast range of
potential solubilities however, the one possessed
by oxygen is precisely what it needs to be for
it to be fit for human life.
What
would happen if the water-solubility rate of oxygen
were different: a little more or a little less?
Let
us take a look at the first situation. If oxygen
were less soluble in water (and thus also in blood)
less oxygen would enter the bloodstream and the
body's cells would be starved of oxygen. This
would make life much more difficult for metabolically
active organisms such as human beings. No matter
how hard you worked at breathing, you would constantly
be faced with the danger of suffocation because
not enough oxygen was reaching your body's cells.
If
the water-solubility of oxygen were higher on
the other hand, you would be confronted by the
threat of oxygen toxicity, mentioned briefly above.
Oxygen is, in fact, a rather dangerous substance:
if an organism gets too much of it, the result
can be fatal. Some of the oxygen in the blood
enters into a chemical reaction with the blood's
water. If the amount of dissolved oxygen becomes
too high, the result is the production of highly
reactive and damaging by-products. One of the
functions of the complex system of blood enzymes
is to prevent this from happening. But if the
amount of dissolved oxygen becomes too high, the
enzymes cannot do their job. As a result, every
breath we take would poison us a little bit more
leading quickly to death. The chemist Irwin Fridovich
comments on this issue:
All
respiring organisms are caught in a cruel trap.
The very oxygen which supports their lives is
toxic to them and they survive precariously,
only by virtue of elaborate defense mechanisms.6
What
saves us from this trap餻rom being poisoned by
too much oxygen or from being suffocated by not
enough of it㷽s the fact that oxygen's solubility
and the body's complex enzymatic system have been
carefully designed and created to be what they
need to be. To put it more explicitly, Allah has
created not only the air we breathe but also the
systems that make it possible to use that air
in perfect harmony with one another.
The Other
Elements
Carbon
and oxygen of course are not the only elements
that have been deliberately designed to make life
possible. Elements like hydrogen and nitrogen,
which make up a large part of the bodies of living
things, also possess attributes that make life
possible. In fact, there appears not to be a single
element in the periodic table that does not fulfill
some sort of function in support of life.
In the basic
periodic table there are ninety-two elements ranging
from hydrogen (the lightest) to uranium (the heaviest).
(There are of course other elements beyond uranium
but these do not occur naturally and have all
been created under laboratory conditions. None
of them are stable.) Of this ninety-two, twenty-five
are directly necessary for life and of those,
just eleven𧬆ydrogen, carbon, oxygen, nitrogen,
sodium, magnesium, phosphorus, sulfur, chlorine,
potassium, and calcium驜ake up some 99% of the
body weight of nearly all living things. The other
fourteen elements (vanadium, chromium, manganese,
iron, cobalt, nickel, copper, zinc, molybdenum,
boron, silicon, selenium, fluorine, and iodine)
are present in living organisms only in very small
amounts but even these have vitally important
functions. Three elements𨩅rsenic, tin, and tungsten𨩅re
to be found in some living things where they perform
functions that are not completely understood.
Three more elements㼀romine, strontium, and barium𨩅re
known to be present in most organisms, but their
functions are still a mystery.7
This
broad spectrum encompasses atoms from each of
the different series of the periodic table, whose
elements are grouped according to the attributes
of their atoms. What this indicates is that all
of the element groups of the periodic table are
necessary, in one way or another, for life. In
The Biological Chemistry of the Elements, J. J.
R Frausto da Silva and R. J. P Williams have this
to say:
The biological elements
seem to have been selected from practically
all groups and subgroups of the periodic table...
and this means that practically all kinds of
chemical properties are associated with life
processes within the limits imposed by environmental
constraints.8
Even the heavy, radioactive
elements at the end of the periodic table have
been marshaled in the service of human life. In
Nature's Destiny, Michael Denton describes in
detail the essential role that these radioactive
elements, such as uranium, play in the formation
of the earth's geological structure. Naturally
occurring radioactivity is closely associated
with the fact that the earth's core is able to
retain its heat. That heat is what keeps the core,
which consists of iron and nickel, liquid. This
liquid core is the source of the earth's magnetic
field which, as we have seen elsewhere, helps
shield the planet from dangerous radiation and
particles from space while performing other functions
as well. Even the inert gases and elements such
as the rare-earth metals, none of which seem to
be involved in the support of life, are apparently
there because of the demands of ensuring that
the range of naturally-occurring elements would
extend as far as uranium. 9
In short,
it is safe to say that all the elements whose
existence we know of serve some function in human
life. Not one of them is either superfluous or
purposeless. This situation is further evidence
that the universe was created by Allah for mankind.
Conclusion
 Every physical and chemical
property of the universe that we have examined
turns out to be exactly what it needs to be in
order for life to exist. And yet in this book
we have only scratched the surface of the overwhelming
evidence of this fact. No matter how deeply you
delve the details or broaden the search, this
general observation remains true: In every detail
of the universe, there is a purpose that serves
human life and each detail is perfectly designed,
balanced, and harmonized to achieve that purpose.
Certainly this
is proof of the existence of a superior creator
who brought this universe into being for this
purpose. Whatever property of matter we may examine,
we behold in it the infinite knowledge, wisdom,
and power of Allah, Who created it from nothingness.
Every thing bows to His will and that is why each
and every thing is in perfect harmony with everything
else.
This
is the conclusion that 20th-century science has
at last reached. And yet, it is only a recognition
of a fact that was imparted to mankind in the
Qur'an over fourteen centuries ago: Allah has
created every detail of the universe to reveal
the perfection of His own creation:
Blessed be He
who has the Kingdom in His Hand! He has power
over all things. He who created the seven heavens
in layers. You will not find any flaw in the creation
of the All-Merciful. Look again-do you see any
gaps? Then look again and again. Your sight will
return to you dazzled and exhausted. (Surat
al-Mulk: 1-4)
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