Creation of Man - HARUN YAHYA

In order to survive, countless balances must be preserved in your body every moment. As a person lives his daily life, he is not aware of any of these balances. For example, at this moment various systems are adjusting your blood pressure. The "aldosterone" hormone produced in the adrenal glands has the duty of preventing a fall in your blood pressure and adjusting the sodium balance in your body.

In your body exists as little as one gram in ten million of aldosterone. Research has shown that from one ton of adrenal glands, only ten milligrams of aldosterone is secreted.26 In order to obtain one gram of aldosterone, it would be necessary to collect the aldosterone secreted from the adrenal glands of a total of ten million people. The human body is created in such a delicate balance that a deficiency in such a small quantity of this hormone results in death.

As explained above, aldosterone has two purposes: to increase the concentration of sodium (Na+) in the blood and to raise blood pressure. These two requirements are intimately connected to each other and aldosterone is a finely designed solution for meeting these two needs at the same time. If the quantity of sodium in the blood increases, the fluid level in the blood also rises with it. This is because molecules of water have a tendency to go where sodium is high.

Here is where we see the excellence of the design of aldosterone. On the one hand, it increases the amount of sodium; on the other, it uses the capacity of sodium to absorb fluid. When the blood level of sodium falls, aldosterone warns the cells in the tiny tubes of the kidneys. These cells intercept the sodium ions in the urine and reabsorb them. This causes the sodium ions to enter the cells forming the tiny tubes, and from there they are released again into the blood.

In this way, the amount of sodium is raised, the ion balance is maintained, the amount of fluid in the blood is increased, and blood pressure is restored to its normal level. When the sodium ions in the tiny tubes of the kidneys are restored, potassium ions (K+) are secreted from the blood to the urine because the proportion of sodium and potassium in the blood must be at a very particular rate. The mineral proportion is very important to ensure the proper acid-base balance in the fluid inside and outside the cells, and for the proper functioning of the nervous system.

Aldosterone is produced in the exterior portion of the adrenal gland. The cells in this portion have never seen the cells in the depths of the kidneys (and there is no possibility for them to encounter them). How is it that these cells know how to produce the right hormone for the reabsorption of sodium and the release of potassium? How does the adrenal gland know how to balance electrolytes and reduce the blood pressure? Most people are unaware that such ions exist in their own bodies.

Every cell in the human body is created to fulfill a special function; they are given their special qualities and placed in an area where they can perform this function. In short, a human being is created, and every feature of his body is a proof of this creation.

He to Whom the kingdom of the heavens and the Earth belongs. He does not have a son and He has no partner in the Kingdom. He created everything and determined it most exactly. (Qur'an, 25: 2)

The next system we will examine is a wonder of planning and design. As we examine the workings of this system, we must ask, "Could this system have come into being as the result of unconscious chance?"

This question is important because time, chance, and the results of natural law are the reasons offered by history's worst deceit for its denial of the existence of God; the theory of evolution bases its account of the development of living things on this foundation.

The deceit of evolution claims that human beings and everything else ultimately came into existence by chance. However, the system that we are about to examine is, by itself, enough to reveal the real nature of the myth of chance and to show the deceitful enterprise of evolution.

The system is constructed so that it will come into operation when there is a blood pressure drop. It begins its role when the blood pressure drops below a certain level, like a fire alarm sensor specially designed to detect smoke coming from a fire.

When the blood pressure falls, the alarm sounds because low blood pressure can be very serious. When the alarm sounds, a series of measures must be taken to raise it. These measures include the following:

1. The blood vessels must be constricted. (This constriction will cause a rise in blood pressure, as is the case when a garden hose is compressed in the end.)

2. More water must be absorbed from the kidneys and mixed with the blood to raise the blood fluid level.

A flawless system has been placed in the depths of the human body to put these measures into effect. At the moment when the blood pressure falls (or the amount of sodium in the blood becomes less), certain cells in the kidneys become aware of the problem. The Juxtaglomerular cells secrete a very important substance called "renin."27

It is a wonder that cells can detect a drop in blood pressure or in the amount of sodium present and then secrete renin, the first link in a long chain that raises blood pressure.

In blood plasma, there is a protein that normally has a neutral effect as it circulates in the blood. This protein, called angiotensiogen, is produced in the liver. The first stage of this incredible planning starts here. Angiotensiogen and renin have no functions of their own, but they were designed specially to unite with one another. How is it possible that they are specially produced like logo blocks designed to fit perfectly into one another?

Consider this: kidney cells and liver cells are far removed from one another. How is it that one of these groups of cells produces one part (renin) and the other group produces the other part (angiotensiogen) in such a way as to fit perfectly with the first part? Could this happen as the result of unconscious chance?

Renin changes the composition of the angiotensiogen molecule, causing the emergence of a new molecule, angiotensin I:

This new molecule has no function either. Found in the lungs, an enzyme called angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE for short) functions to break down the angiotensin I molecule. Because of this enzyme, angiotensin I changes into a different molecule, angiotensin II.

Two different molecules produced in the kidneys and the liver act on each other and a new molecule is produced. Lung cells that have no relation to kidney cells and liver cells produce an enzyme to unite completely with this new molecule. Moreover, they produce this enzyme long before it unites with these molecules. How do lung cells produce the right enzyme for a process that has not yet developed to interact with a material that has not yet been produced? How does it know how to make an enzyme that will change a non-functional hormone into a functional hormone?

Again, it is clear that each stage is a designed system. The angiotensin II produced as a result of these stages is a proof of design and planning. This enzyme has two vital functions that would lead the system to the desired end result: the first of these functions is the constriction of the blood vessels (the first of the three desired results that we enumerated at the beginning of this section). Angiotensin II stimulates the muscles surrounding the blood vessels and activates the mechanism that contracts these muscles. In this way, the muscles contract, narrowing the diameter of the blood vessels and raising the blood pressure.

Again, this is impossible; Angiotensin II is specially designed to constrict the blood vessels and these is no room for chance in this flawless design.

Another important function of angiotensin II is to summon into action the wonderful aldosterone hormone. Angiotensin II reaches the adrenal glands and gives the command to secrete aldosterone. This is another proof of planning: when aldosterone mixes with the blood, it causes the kidneys to absorb the fluid in the urine.

As a result, the blood pressure will rise. This is the second result we want to achieve.

The material produced in concerted effort (and according to a plan by the kidneys, lungs and liver) brings about the secretion of the hormone causing a rise in blood pressure. In order to do this, it is necessary that the kidney cells, lung cells and liver cells form a coalition.

Before all else, this coalition must investigate what they need to do when blood pressure drops to make a decision about the best way "to constrict the blood vessels" and "to ensure the secretion of aldosterone."

Later, they must again make an investigation and analyze the anatomy of the adrenal glands and that of the cells in the muscles of the blood vessels and determine the way in which they function. Later, they will have to determine the molecular make-up of Angiotensin II to cause the muscles of the blood vessels to contract, and the adrenal glands to secrete aldosterone.

When blood pressure falls, renin secreted by certain kidney cells and angiotensiogen secreted in the liver come together and unite, like two matching parts of a logo. After this union, an enzyme called ACE forms a molecule called angiotensin II. This molecule constricts the blood vessels and ensures the secretion of aldosterone in the kidneys. This hormone causes the kidneys to reabsorb much more fluid from the urine. This chain of operations adjusts the blood pressure, raising it to the proper level.

That last thing that must be done is to determine how this molecule will be produced. Every organ must take responsibility for one stage in its production. In terms of the production plan, there is a three-stage assembly system in which every organ is given a function. The kidney will produce renin, the liver will produce angiotensiogen and the lungs will produce ACE. Afterwards, the cells must return to their normal roles.

If someone does not believe that this system was created by a supreme power according to a special plan, that person must accept the view that unconscious cells achieved this by the mechanisms of neo-Darwinism (mutation and natural selection). The claims of evolutionists are unbelievable and illogical because this system (comprised of the kidney, liver and lung cells), which is irreducibly complex, must have come into being all at once at the same time. The probability of this happening by chance would require very unlikely events. At the same time (and again ultimately by chance), cells would have had to be formed to measure the pressure in the kidneys, then aldosterone would have had to be formed in the adrenal gland, the kidney tube cells would have had to acquire a structure designed to respond to aldosterone, and the cells in the muscles of the blood vessels would have had to get a structure that could be affected by angiotensin II. Countless other elements would have had to be in place at the same moment for this system to come into being, and if just one element had been absent, the whole system would not have functioned.

1. The adrenal glands produce the hormones that stimulate the thirst center.
2. Information taken from baroreceptors in the heart travel to the
3. When enough water is provided, the tongue, the stomach and the intestine send the message that the reserves are filled.
4. The hypothalamus orders the saliva glands to stop production, and the result is a dry mouth.
Many times in the course of a day we feel thirsty and so drink a glass of water. But we are generally unaware of what is happening in our bodies at that time. Cells in the various organs of the body determine the water needs of the body and work with one another in a series of operations by which a person is urged to drink water. We never think about where this urge comes from; we just drink the water that assists our bodies.

A system as this could not come into being as a result of unconscious operations of chance. This system, created by the eternal intelligence and knowledge of God and placed in the human body, has worked perfectly in the bodies of every one of the millions of human beings that have ever existed (except in cases of illness). Human beings have become aware of the existence of this system through research done with the help of sophisticated technological tools. Every bit of research that is done makes it impossible to explain the existence of the systems operating in the human body in terms of the myth of chance. This is because human beings are created, and it is not possible to hide the magnificence of creation by creating imaginary and illogical scenarios.

At the beginning of this section, we listed three measures necessary to increase blood pressure. The third was the necessity of getting the person to drink more water. In order to get a person to drink water, he must want to drink it. This time, the unconscious cells of the lungs, kidneys and liver deep in the body must influence a person's psychology.

The required plan is just one more detail in the flawless system created by God. The angiotensin-II produced by the concerted efforts of the kidneys, lungs and liver goes to a special part of the brain and activates it. This area of the brain is the "thirst center" that stimulates a sense of thirst. But there, an impediment called the "blood-brain barrier," which protects the brain makes it very difficult for the angiotensin II to pass from the blood to the brain tissues. This protective system is found in several areas of the brain, and one of these is the "thirst center." Thanks to the special character created in angiotensin-II, it is able to stimulate the thirst center and to arouse the desire to drink water.28

After so many proofs, there is nothing left to say to a person who answers "Yes." The heart and conscience of such a person has been blinded; he has been conditioned not to accept the truth. God reveals in the Qur'an what is to be said to such a person:

… Do you then disbelieve in Him Who created you from dust, then from a drop of sperm, and then formed you as a man? He is, however, God, my Lord, and I will not associate anything with my Lord. (Qur'an, 18: 37-38)

26 Yenson Mutahhar, Insan Biyokimyasi (Human Biochemistry), Ankara, Gunes Bookstorei, 1995, p. 761

27 Ic Hastaliklari (Internal Diseases), p. 275

28 Fizyoloji Ders Kitabi (Textbook of physiology), 1997, p. 398