September 2003: Page 1, 2, 3, 4

Submitters Perspective

Page 2

Magnifying GOD

Cont’d from page 1

Clams and other mollusca 50,000 species
Seastars and relatives 6,100 species
Insects 751,000 species
Spiders and other non-insect anthropods 123,400 species
Fishes 18,800 species
Amphibians 4,200 species
Reptiles 6,300 species
Birds 9,000 species
Mammals 4,000 species

A total of 1,402,900 species! And if you think you are beginning to see zeroes instead of stars, how about this? How many viruses do you think will fit into a teaspoonful of unpolluted water? Scientists in Norway have estimated that the number could exceed ONE BILLION. That is a teaspoonful of 1,000,000,000 viruses!!!

Scientists estimate that the deep ocean floor could be home to 10 million undiscovered species. The tremendous diversity of life is not limited to those habitats that seem to obviously offer the basics of food, shelter and space. Scientists have found life in regions which would be considered uninhabitable. It is the inhabitants that have developed special features to survive in the harshest of conditions.

Would the unbelievers not realize that there is a SUPREME POWER that has created and controls this method of adaptation and everyone and everything else? In the bays of Antarctica, the coldest marine habitats on earth, where the water is cold enough to turn normal blood into ice,

 

fishes live and thrive. These fishes generate an anti freeze element in their own bodies. Around the fishes are host of other marine creatures - each with their own protective devices to survive the freezing waters.

In the burning heat of the deserts live unique collection of plants, insects and reptiles adapted to survive the harshest of conditions. In the perpetual darkness of the world’s deepest and dampest caves live numerous insects, feeding on the fungi and bacteria that grow there, and in turn being eaten by larger—all of them blind—specialized for a life in the dark.

And even in the boiling water of hot springs, deep down at the bottom of the seas, scientists have discovered unique one-celled microorganisms that thrive in waters up to 110 degrees centigrade. Thanks to God, diversity and adaptability have made life possible in the most remote regions of our planet.

Imagine that you are on a journey upward from the center or core of the earth. You are walking at a leisurely pace. For the first twelve weeks you would travel through burning rocks and molten lava where no life exists. Three minutes before you reach the surface, you would encounter the first organisms in the form of bacteria feeding on nutrients that have filtered deep underwater. As you reach the surface of the earth, you would be dazzled by the millions of life forms that you see—micro organisms, plants and animals—spread right across the earth’s surface. Still walking upwards at the same pace, you would find that only half a minute later, almost all life has disappeared. Upwards still, two hours

later on your walk, you would only find traces of life very faint—consisting mainly of people in airplanes etc. The region with all this multitudes of life makes up only 1 part in 10 billion of the Earth’s mass. This layer of earth that consists of living organisms and their environment is called the “biosphere”. This is the only region of earth where life can exist naturally and it extends only from the bottom of the sea to the highest point of the atmosphere.

Finally, let us imagine that all the tremendous variety of living things on earth are finally discovered and then described. Let us imagine that we had to put together a compilation of all this information. We then decided to devote one page per species. The description would contain the scientific name, a photograph or drawing and a brief description and information on where the species is found. If all this were to be compiled in order to be published as a book, it would be bound in volumes of 1,000 pages making each volume about 17 cm wide. By the time the information about all the species were to be compiled, the volumes covering a million species would occupy 60 meters of space in a library. If we assumed that there were 100 million species of organisms on earth, the volumes would extend through 6 km of space in a library.

Such is the greatness of God who made these millions of species by merely saying to it “Be and it is;” (2:117, 3:47, 6:73, 16:40, 19:35, 36:82, 40:68) “without the least effort” (46:33) and “no fatigue touched us.” (50:38 )

Alim C. / India