The Body Temple: We’re a Bacterial Zoo!
“Please wash your hands” is a present truth. But why do germs exist, and why do we have so many? Aren’t bacteria bad?
by Jack Hoehn | 21 August 2024 |
There is a world you cannot see without a microscope. But a drop of pond water on a microscope can show us an autonomous world living, literally, right under our noses. In fact, this microscopic world lives not only under our noses, but on our noses, in our noses, in our mouths and throats, on our skin, in our intestines.
Neither 19th-century author Charles Darwin nor Ellen White knew much about them, and had no idea they were the cause of serious diseases. But before their deaths (1882, 1915) Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch had begun to reveal that bacteria were a major cause of infectious disease.
It was not until the mid-20th century, however, that it became understood that bacteria mostly are positive contributors to life on earth, and that only a small minority have become pathogens or disease causers. The oft-stated “fact” that there are more bacteria in our body than there are human cells is apparently not correct. But there are still trillions and trillions of them on and in our body, and they are essential. We could not survive without them.
Same Systems, Different Design
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Bacteria are single-cell organisms. Many of them are round cocci; others are long slender rods, or bacilli; and some are corkscrew spirochetes. Bacteria have cell walls, cytoplasm inside the cells, RNA, and DNA. But unlike body cells, their DNA and RNA is not walled off in a nucleus, but rather floats in the cytoplasm in a precisely organized ring form. This permits them to reproduce more quickly than cells in plants and animals. Each bacteria only lives for minutes, but can reproduce itself 72 times in a day.
If they could not move, they would not be able to perform the tasks they have to make the essential nutrients available to the ecosystem. Some bacteria can swim with motors called flagella, or cilia, that have component parts that mechanical engineers will recognize. The bacterial flagellar motor is described as “a powerful molecular nanomachine.”
This is what convinced former evolutionist microbiologist Michael Behe[2] to accept intelligent design over the random-mutations-and-survival proposition. Not only is the bacterial flagellar motor composed of component parts, each requiring separate methods of construction, but it is a very efficient design getting maximum motility with minimum energy consumption. These invisible motors have speed controls, permitting some bacteria to gain speeds of 20 to 60 cell lengths a second. This would be the same as my Hyundai’s traveling at a speed of 668 miles an hour!
Because they are so tiny, of course, it would take the microscopic bacteria eight months to go 1 km, but for their size they are tremendously fast and can control the speed of their motors. Think of this, the bacterial flagellar motor has the equivalent of an accelerator pedal, or joystick. They can go places and do things, “on purpose.” And what purposes might these trillions of bacteria have that can survive not only on and in our bodies but also be found in the most extreme environments on the planet—both in volcanos and in icebergs?
Unselfish Processors
Bacteria are designed to make chemicals useful for life. The early atmosphere was created by the ceaseless, unselfish, silent activity of the uncounted cyanobacteria using the power in light to liberate oxygen from water into the air. Elemental carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur are only able to be utilized by the activity of bacteria to modify and recycle these essentials in forms living cells and organisms can use. Bacteria in the soil both break down (decompose) dead material to recycle their components for new life, but they also make those elements chemically available to be useful in cells. Nitrogen in the air needs to be inert so we don’t make nitric acid in our lungs every time we take a breath, but nitrogen in the soil needs to be made available for cells to make proteins. Used-up proteins need to be released back into the soil or atmosphere. Both jobs are done for us by differently tasked bacteria.
So what? Bill Bryson explains it this way:
“Make no mistake. This is a planet of microbes. We are here at their pleasure. They don’t need us at all. We’d be dead in a day without them.”
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Beside making chemistry available for life, bacteria also contribute to our kitchens. There would be no Cheddar, Gouda, Gruyere, Brie, Emmental, Jarlsberg, Raclette, fondue, or yoghurt without bacteria. No kimchee, sauerkraut, or pickles. Breads wouldn’t rise without yeast or sourdough starter. There would be no soy sauce, chocolate, or coffee without fermentation by different bacteria. And alcohol cannot be made without bacteria. (Ok, you don’t drink alcohol, but your car does, and nurses need it, and your hand cleanser and after-shave contains it—so relax, health reformers; alcohol is our friend, just not a safe drug.)
Bacteria Worship?
Where is the worship in bacteria? Does the Creator you have been worshiping make bacteria? Let’s look at it this way.
My kindergarten-felt-board Adventist heritage begins with a one week magic show called Eden. Day one, light. Day two, firmament. Day three, land and plants… you know the story. There are no germs in that creation story, just like there were no dinosaurs. They had to be added to the story after day seven. Disobedience gave us germs, Satan made them: bad ones, ones that will kill you—Bible diseases such as “leprosy” (Mycobacterium Leprae, or more likely, Treponema pallidum?), “boils” (Staphylococcus aureus?), and “dysentery” (Salmonella tryphosa?).
20th– and 21st– century science opens to us a bigger and much more detailed creation story that uses tiny natural unselfish things previously invisible to our naked eyes that are mostly cooperative, intentional, clever, purposeful, engineered to give us atmosphere, process chemicals to be useful, and give us grilled cheese sandwiches—our amazing planet of microbes. Sure, a few of them have been intelligently and maliciously turned into diseases. But the basic design was created before the diseases. Is there worth in that? Is there worth-ship in that? Does the God-is-love hypothesis thrive with the testimony of science that creation has been founded on tiny, wonderful bacteria? Perhaps this hymn got it right:
“All things bright and beautiful
All creatures great
And small.
All things wise and wonderful
The Lord God made them all.”
Including bacteria.
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[1] Graphic photo by Darryl Leja, National Human Genome Research Institute, NIH.
[2] Michael Behe’s 1996 book Darwin’s Black Box has repeatedly been claimed to be neutralized by evolutionists. In fact the last 28 years and better understanding of the flagella have only sharpened his argument for irreducible complexity and obvious purpose and design.
[3] Photo by CDC on Unsplash. Bacteria with flagella.
[4] Bill Bryson, The Body: A Guide for Occupants, Anchor Books (2021), page 29.
[5] Cecil Francis Alexander (1848).
Jack’s Adventist Tomorrow—Fresh Ideas While Waiting for Jesus in its second edition continues to be the most popular book Adventist Today has published.
Chapters include: Rehabilitating Satan, Marching as to War–Political Morality, Not A Rib–Gender Equality, Procreation: Chance or Choice?, Intoxicants, Who Then Shall Be Saved?, and many more.
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