Participants: Chris Holland
Series Code: IIWC
Program Code: IIWC201620A
|
00:01 IIW-2016-20 --- Designed with purpose-Is it all a Bunch of Gas?
00:07 IIW-2016-20 --- Designed with purpose-Is it all a Bunch of Gas? 00:13 IIW-2016-20 --- Designed with purpose-Is it all a Bunch of Gas? 00:22 IIW-2016-20 --- Designed with purpose-Is it all a Bunch of Gas? 00:27 IIW-2016-20 --- Designed with purpose-Is it all a Bunch of Gas? 00:32 IIW-2016-20 --- Designed with purpose-Is it all a Bunch of Gas? 00:36 IIW-2016-20 --- Designed with purpose-Is it all a Bunch of Gas? 00:41 IIW-2016-20 --- Designed with purpose-Is it all a Bunch of Gas? 00:46 IIW-2016-20 --- Designed with purpose-Is it all a Bunch of Gas? 00:50 IIW-2016-20 --- Designed with purpose-Is it all a Bunch of Gas? 01:31 It has stood the test of time. 01:34 God's book, The Bible 01:38 Still relevant in today's complex world 01:44 It Is Written 01:46 Sharing messages of hope around the world! 01:58 CHRIS: Thank you so much for watching It Is Written. We are in the midst of a series, 02:04 "Designed With Purpose." And today, we're going to take further look at this issue of 02:11 design, and we're going to look at nitrogen. Now, before you say, "Nitrogen? That doesn't 02:16 sound very exciting," you are going to be thrilled with the conversation today, because 02:21 nitrogen is an essential part of the proteins that we are made of, as well as our DNA. It is 02:29 also about 80% of our atmosphere. And we're going to look at why the role of nitrogen 02:36 in the atmosphere is so important and how it is taken from the atmosphere to be used 02:43 in biological molecules. To help us with this discussion and its implication on our faith, I want 02:51 to welcome again Dr. Tim Standish. DR. STANDISH: Well, thanks so much. It's good to be 02:55 back. CHRIS: Yes. And I'm sure glad you're here, because if I was going to have a discussion 02:59 on nitrogen, that would be a very, very short discussion, Dr. Standish. Now, Dr. Standish, you 03:06 have a Ph.D. in environmental biology and public policy. You are the senior scientist for the 03:14 Geoscience Research Institute. Tell us, Dr. Standish, what are you doing on a daily basis in 03:23 this world of biology and its implications on faith? DR. STANDISH: Well, there are lots 03:29 of things that we do at the Geoscience Research Institute. One of the things that I enjoy 03:36 doing is actually working on documentary films that help to explain design in the natural 03:45 world. So that's kind of fun to do. It's a little bit outside of the normal activities of a 03:53 scientist, but trying to get both the facts straight, but also convey the amazing 04:01 information that we know about our world. Obviously, I'm particularly interested in the 04:07 environment and how ecology works in such a way that life can exist. So you know, if I was 04:22 to tell you, "This is what I do on such-and-such a day in my office," I'm afraid I couldn't 04:27 tell you, because I'm not a prophet. It's something different every day. But this 04:31 media work is certainly enjoyable. CHRIS: That is wonderful. And Dr. Standish, if 04:38 someone wanted to find out more about some of the documentaries that you're working on, some of 04:43 the work of the Geoscience Research Institute, where would they go to find out about this 04:47 information? DR. STANDISH: Well, actually, I'd point them to two different web pages. 04:51 First of all, there is the Geoscience Research Institute web page, which is GRISDA.org. 05:00 GRISDA.org. That's one. Another one is IllustraMedia.com. No space, just I, 05:13 M-E-D-I-A.com, and that's where you'll see some of the documentaries that I've had the 05:21 privilege of working on, and others that have also been produced by Illustra Media. They 05:27 are fantastic, really the best thing out there. CHRIS: Fascinating. And all of 05:31 those videos having to do with design and creation in the world of nature, seeing how God is 05:39 working, seeing. using the terminology that we've used in some of our previous shows, 05:46 seeing the plan which points to the Planner, that Planner being Jesus Christ Himself. DR. 05:52 STANDISH: Yes. CHRIS: Now, today we're going to have a little bit of a conversation about 05:56 nitrogen. And so maybe, let's just start right there and make it really basic to kick off 06:03 with. What is nitrogen? DR. STANDISH: Nitrogen is the most exciting element out there. And 06:14 I know that that's an extreme statement. CHRIS: Yes, I'm wondering if we might have some 06:19 folks listening. DR. STANDISH: There may be people who disagree with me, but they are 06:22 people who had no fun in high school. Nitrogen is, you know, an atom that you find in many 06:35 different kinds of explosives. So that's why I'm saying it's exciting. TNT. That's 06:42 trinitrotoluene. Nitroglycerin. You know, these are explosives that people are familiar with. 06:54 And it's the nitrogen in there that is contributing that huge amount of energy that's released 07:04 when these explosives explode. So it's really an exciting element, and yet, it exists in 07:16 our atmosphere as probably the most boring molecule imaginable. Two nitrogen atoms joined 07:26 together to make something called N2, nitrogen gas. It's really, really important that 07:35 it's there. CHRIS: First you said nitrogen was exciting, but now you're saying nitrogen is 07:42 boring. And so if nitrogen is that boring, what would happen if we just replaced all the 07:48 nitrogen in our atmosphere with oxygen, which seems a whole lot more useful? DR. STANDISH: Well, 07:53 things would get a lot more exciting, let's put it that way, if you did that. Remember, 08:00 nitrogen gas is boring. It's inert. What that means is, it doesn't really react with 08:07 anything, whereas oxygen reacts with stuff. We know that because, you know, when we burn 08:15 things up, it's using up oxygen. It's the oxygen that's oxidizing whatever it is that's burning 08:21 away there. So if you took out the nitrogen and replaced it with oxygen, what you would have 08:29 is an awful lot more burning. And in fact, this experiment has been done accidentally, now, 08:35 actually, apparently, quite a few times over the years. My father was a doctor. And back in 08:42 the olden days, if a patient had trouble breathing, one of the things that they would do is put 08:48 them inside an oxygen tent. This was basically a cover, and they raised the amount of oxygen 08:55 inside that tent, which was important for the patient, because they needed more oxygen. 09:02 They were having trouble getting oxygen into their body. However, if that patient happened to 09:08 light up a cigarette inside the oxygen tent, it was a conflagration. That actually 09:16 happened. And my understanding is that my father was not the only doctor who had a patient do 09:22 that. You'd have to be addicted to cigarettes. CHRIS: I would think so. DR. STANDISH: Yes. But 09:27 yes. Because the cigarette, instead of burning slowly as it does in our normal, you know, 09:36 80% nitrogen atmosphere, would burn like an inferno for a very short period of time inside the 09:44 oxygen-enriched atmosphere. So it's very important that we have some kind of inert gas that 09:51 takes up most of the atmosphere; otherwise, we simply would not be able to control fires. 09:56 CHRIS: Okay. So maybe help me a little bit here. So nitrogen gas in particular is very important 10:05 in its role in the atmosphere, and nitrogen is important to life, but if it's inert, why is 10:16 it found all over in explosives, and why is it so exciting, so to speak, when it's not a gas? DR. 10:24 STANDISH: The secret lies in the triple bond that exists between two nitrogen atoms when they go 10:32 together and form the nitrogen gas that we see in the atmosphere. Those three bonds 10:39 are very hard to break. So to separate nitrogen in two, into individual nitrogen atoms, you 10:50 have to put in a huge amount of energy to break those three bonds apart. CHRIS: Okay. DR. 10:58 STANDISH: And that's why nitrogen gas is inert. It just doesn't react with things. You 11:04 can, you know, have a fire in nitrogen, and the nitrogen won't have anything. won't make any 11:11 difference in that situation. But, if you take nitrogen apart, you put the energy in, right, to 11:19 split it apart, what's going to happen if you put it back together again? All of that 11:25 energy that was put in to pull it apart it going to be released as you reform that triple bond. 11:34 And that's how explosives that contain nitrogen work, which is basically most explosives that 11:40 people work with. The nitrogen on trinitrotoluene is held apart on this organic molecule called 11:50 toluene. If you break that molecule so that the nitrogens can get back together again, 11:57 boom, they release all that energy as they reform the triple bond and become nitrogen gas 12:05 again. CHRIS: That is truly remarkable. And so you've got all this nitrogen, all this 12:14 energy, that is being released when you're putting it back together. Where does that energy 12:24 come from? I mean, where does it get that energy? DR. STANDISH: Well, it doesn't 12:29 happen by a miracle. Actually, by a sort of miracle in a way. But there are mechanisms that 12:36 allow us to do this. Now, when it comes to the situation in nature, there are really two 12:44 ways that we can turn nitrogen into something that can be used by organisms. One of them is 12:53 called thermal shock. That's what you get when you have something like lightning 12:58 striking. As lightning rips through the atmosphere, there is an unbelievable amount of energy 13:07 there. And that's enough energy to split the nitrogen gas molecules into two individual 13:16 nitrogens. Now, if those nitrogens happen to meet up with some oxygen, they will form 13:23 nitrates. CHRIS: Okay. DR. STANDISH: So these are basically nitrogen and oxygen together in 13:30 a molecule. Those nitrates fall out of the atmosphere, and those can be absorbed by plants. The 13:39 plants will absorb the nitrates, probably through their roots. Nitrates, by the way, dissolve 13:44 in water. So water can help to distribute the nitrates around, and then they're absorbed 13:53 through the roots. Once they're inside the plant, the plant has a whole set of machinery that 14:02 takes that nitrate and essentially turns it into ammonia, which is nitrogen with 14:12 hydrogen atoms attached to it. CHRIS: Okay. DR. STANDISH: And that ammonia, then, is stuck 14:18 onto organic molecules. The organic molecules, they came from the process of 14:24 photosynthesis. So that's taking energy from the sun to make those organic molecules, 14:31 molecules made out of carbon, like sugar, for example, and the ammonia gets stuck on there, and 14:39 then you have the beginning of something like an amino acid, or a nucleic acid like DNA. And so 14:51 that's one way in which things can work. The problem is that under normal circumstances, 14:59 there just isn't enough lightning or other causes of thermal shock to produce the 15:06 required amount of nitrate. CHRIS: Okay. DR. STANDISH: And so plants actually have special 15:17 systems for taking nitrogen out of the atmosphere and turning it into ammonia so that they can 15:26 use it. And those systems involve not just the plants; they also involve bacteria. So 15:34 probably the plants that are the most famous for doing this are legumes, bean kind of plants. 15:43 Those plants have special nodules on their roots. And within those nodules, there are 15:53 special bacteria. And those bacteria have to work in an essentially oxygen-free 16:03 environment. So the plant and the bacteria. and it depends, there are some interesting 16:14 ambiguities in this system, but the bottom line is, there is something like haemoglobin in 16:21 there. So the stuff that makes our blood red is found inside these nodules. You'll remember 16:27 that haemoglobin in our blood is there to pick up oxygen and move oxygen around inside our body 16:36 and then release it to our muscles or our brain or wherever we need oxygen. In this 16:42 particular case, this kind of haemoglobin-like molecule actually just grabs any oxygen 16:51 in that area and holds onto it so that these special micro-organisms can do what's 16:59 called nitrogen fixation. We really don't understand fully how they do it. CHRIS: Okay. DR. 17:06 STANDISH: But the plant also is giving the bacterium energy in the form of sugars and so on so 17:15 that they can do this, because remember, they have to put that energy in to split the nitrogen 17:23 apart. Once they do that, then the nitrogen can be passed onto the plant, the plant can make 17:29 proteins, and then we can eat the proteins in beans or, you know, other plants. Plants also 17:40 have protein in them. Or we can eat the animals that ate the plants. But that's how we get 17:45 protein. And without it, well, we couldn't exist; no organism that's alive today can exist 17:54 without proteins. CHRIS: Wow, so we've got this cycle, and it's actually two different cycles in 18:03 which nitrogen is extracted, maybe, from the atmosphere, whether that be through 18:11 lightning or through the plant itself, and then that nitrogen is converted from the lightning 18:18 strike into nitrates. And then with the plant, the plant is converting it into usable 18:23 nitrogen, and eventually becomes ammonia, and then gives kind of the building blocks of proteins. 18:29 Am I kind of. DR. STANDISH: You're pretty much there. CHRIS: Am I. DR. 18:32 STANDISH: Yeah. CHRIS: . without a scientific degree. DR. STANDISH: There you go. You 18:35 probably would've gotten an A in one of my classes. CHRIS: Yes, and we've actually known each 18:39 other that long. While I was a student, you were a teacher at the university I went to. So 18:45 here's a question: What happens if we break that cycle? DR. STANDISH: We're in big trouble, 18:51 really big trouble, because if all of the nitrogen is being taken out of the atmosphere and 19:02 turned into nitrates or ammonia or, you know, proteins or what have you, what's going to happen 19:12 to the atmosphere? Well, it's not going to have the nitrogen that actually is needed in the 19:18 atmosphere to keep everything there working as it should. But in addition to that, remember, 19:23 nitrates and ammonia, they don't just sit around all by themselves with nothing 19:30 happening. Ammonium nitrate is a very effective fertilizer that you can buy. At least, you used 19:37 to be able to buy it. I'm not sure you can anymore. It's also an explosive. CHRIS: Wow. DR. 19:44 STANDISH: And it's being used by terrorists, unfortunately. But certainly, it's also just used 19:52 as a regular explosive. Ammonium nitrate, yes, will really go off with quite a bang. And so if you 20:02 had huge amounts of nitrogen just sort of building up, you have the potential for a very 20:10 big bang, if you're not careful. So that's one of many, actually, several reasons why you need to 20:21 complete this cycle by having a way of returning the nitrogen to the atmosphere. Now, here's the 20:29 thing. Think about a situation where a plant, let's say, dies, or an animal dies. It contains 20:37 proteins. Those proteins are going to be broken down. And ultimately, the nitrogen that's 20:48 in the organism, some of it, at least, is going to be turned back into nitrate. Nitrate by 20:58 itself is pretty stable stuff. It also, remember, dissolves in water. CHRIS: Right. DR. 21:04 STANDISH: So what that does is that allows the nitrogen to be recycled to plants in the area 21:11 around this organism that died. So it's a way of recycling nitrogen without having to put 21:18 all of that energy that had to be put in to split the nitrogen gas. But you can't let that just 21:28 build up forever. Too much nitrate in the environment is a really bad thing. It's actually 21:34 one of the problems that we have when farmers put too much nitrogen onto their crops, then 21:40 that leaches off into streams and lakes and so on, and it upsets things in a very bad way. 21:48 It winds up killing everything in the streams and lakes. So there has to be a way of getting 21:54 the nitrogen back into the atmosphere, and in fact, there are other micro-organisms that 21:58 take care of that particular challenge. Now, there's something interesting to note 22:04 about all of the micro-organisms, really, that are the important hinges of this 22:14 cycle, if you want to call them that, and that is, every single one of them benefits from what 22:21 they do. Nobody winds up just doing, you know, taking care of the nitrogen without getting 22:29 some benefit out of it. So it's a system that benefits everything. Without this system, 22:37 it looks like life could not exist on earth. CHRIS: Now, I'm remembering some of our previous 22:44 conversations. This is fascinating because what this definitely points to is, you 22:51 have this cycle of nitrogen coming from the atmosphere, plants getting the nitrogen, 22:59 splitting the nitrogen, turning it into usable nitrogen, and then micro-organisms all over 23:07 the place taking the abundance of nitrates to help that nitrogen get back into the 23:14 atmosphere so that cycle can continue. Here's the fascinating thing I'm seeing: We've talked 23:20 about harmony in the creation pointing to a Designer. So Dr. Standish, let me just ask that 23:29 question. What does this nitrogen cycle tell us about God, if anything? DR. 23:34 STANDISH: Well, for me, it tells me two things. One, it tells me, wow, that is an incredible plan. 23:42 The whole system really needs to be in place for life to be sustained. You can't break it 23:50 and expect that life is going to be around for very long. The other thing it tells me is that 23:56 there wasn't very. there could not be a huge amount of time to get that system into place. Now, 24:04 it might be that you could have a broken nitrogen cycle for a few years. But not for millions 24:12 of years. I actually sat down and did some calculations on this awhile ago, and you know, 24:19 depending on your assumptions and things, you're talking about, you know, a few years, 24:25 maybe a few decades, but not millions of years. And yet, what the Darwinian model of things 24:37 demands is that you have lots of time so that these different organisms can evolve. But if one 24:43 of these organisms that's involved in the nitrogen cycle evolves and starts doing its 24:48 thing, that's going to be a huge problem for all the other organisms that exist. Well, it 24:56 just can't even work that way, because you've got to have the nitrogen before you can have the 25:01 organisms. Do you see what I'm saying? CHRIS: I do, I do. DR. STANDISH: It's kind of a catch 25:06 22. CHRIS: Yeah, I know author Michael Behe, a number of years ago, wrote a book, and he talked 25:12 about something called an irreducibly complex system. And I don't know that he applied it 25:16 to this, but it almost seems like this nitrogen cycle is an irreducibly complex cycle that, 25:24 if you took out any one of the components, it just doesn't work. DR. STANDISH: You know, 25:29 that's a really good insight, and I know it is, because my friend Henry Zuill and I 25:36 actually wrote a paper about this, where we asked the question, "Is this an 25:41 irreducibly complex system on the ecological level?" Because Mike Behe, he talked about 25:49 primarily systems that are occurring inside organisms or inside cells. And by the way, 25:58 he's an incredibly insightful man, a really, truly brilliant, wonderful human being. What we 26:06 were asking is, "What if you went outside of individual organisms? What if you looked at 26:11 something on an ecological level? Can you make exactly the same argument?" We said that we 26:20 believed that it's similar, but not necessarily identical. It's close. But the difference is, 26:28 for an ecological cycle like this to work, you can have a little bit of flexibility with 26:39 time, but not a huge amount, whereas for those molecular machines, it's an instant. The 26:45 molecular machine is inside itself. They either have to all be there right at exactly the 26:49 same instant, or the whole thing is functionless. So this is a little bit different, but the 26:57 same general idea. CHRIS: And we're out of time once again, Dr. Standish, but what we are 27:06 seeing is, not only has God designed living things in a complex way, but He's actually 27:15 designed the environment in which they live in a way that all the components must be 27:23 there, because without them, life simply couldn't exist. DR. STANDISH: It's design all the 27:27 way down. CHRIS: Designed with a purpose. Dr. Standish, let's have a word of prayer. Heavenly 27:34 Father, we are so thankful that You've designed our environment with a purpose, and that purpose 27:40 is that we would have life and have it more abundantly. Heavenly Father, help us to 27:45 appreciate that. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen. DR. STANDISH: Amen. 27:57 CHRIS: Dr. Standish, what an interesting conversation we had today about God's design in the 28:02 environment. We want to offer our viewers the DVD Unlocking the Mystery of Life. Tell us 28:09 about this DVD. DR. STANDISH: Well, it's an excellent choice. It's about the little molecular 28:15 machines that run inside our cells, what they're doing, how they're put together, and why 28:23 they appear to be designed as opposed to the product of some incremental unguided process 28:31 like Darwinian evolution. CHRIS: If you'd like to receive that DVD, here's the information 28:37 you need to receive the offer. 29:29 CHRIS: Dr. Standish, thank you again so much for joining us today. DR. STANDISH: Well, it's 29:33 been my pleasure to be here. These things are beautiful, fascinating, and wonderful in 29:40 every way. CHRIS: Absolutely. Dear friends, thank you for watching. I invite you to join 29:45 us again next week. Until then, remember, it is written: "Man shall not live by bread alone, 29:51 but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God." |
Revised 2017-03-08