The Human Brain: Praise Chance!

Reading through Denton’s book is a mind blower. As I’m reading I keep thinking, I have to quote and write about this, then that, then this, then that, but when I got to his discussion of the human brain it was just too much. The complexity is staggering. To think that undirected “natural” random processes a la Darwinism could result in a human brain defies reason. I will quote several paragraphs, and see if you don’t agree.

One aspect of development which could require a vast number of unique gene combinations is the development of the nervous system. This is an area of biology that has always conjured up visions of infinity. Estimates of the total number of connections in the human brain have been possible for more than a century since the famous Spanish neurologist Santiago Ramon y Cajal developed staining techniques that revealed the finest branches of the neronal dendritic tree. This technique revealed that each cell may make up to 10,000 connections with other neurons. The brain of man, for example, contains about 10¹¹ nerve cells, which make between 10,000 and 100,000 connections with other cells, making a total for the whole brain of about 10¹⁵, or 1 quadrillion connections. There are certainly more connection in the brain than there are cells in the body.

At present, we cannot answer with any certainty the question as to how many different cells or connections in the human brain might be uniquely specified. But we can still make a tentative guesstimate. We have seen there are 10¹¹, or 100 billion, neurons in the human brain and each connects with about 10,000 other neurons via its dendritic and axonal branches, making a total of about 10¹⁵ connections. Assuming identifiable subsets of neurons in the human brain contain about 100 cells, this would mean 1 billion unique, genetically determined cell types (and this is probably an underestimate, as the number of neurons in an identifiable cluster is probably closer to 10 than 100).

But even if we assume that uniquely identifiable classes of neurons in the human brain contain as many as 100 neurons and if we assume that only one-thousandth of the connections are specified—that is, only 10 connections per neuronal equivalence class (again, almost certainly an underestimate)—this would give 10¹⁰, or 10 trillion, uniquely specified connections in the human central nervous system.

That’s a lot of connections! Those numbers are insane! And this is all happening in our brains all the time. All I can say to this is, praise chance!

I used this phrase while my kids were growing up, and still do when they mostly are, to mock the pretensions of atheists/materialists who claim that mere matter by itself could create anything, let alone a human brain. Such a claim is worth mocking, especially since our cultural betters think it’s the most rational thing in the world to think the universe and everything in it is a result of a cosmic accident. Obviously, accidents don’t create the human brain. Only an almighty, omniscient, Creator God is a sufficient explanation. Persuading our kids of this fact is a piece of cake, and when we do they will never be tempted this think atheist/materialism is the least bit plausible.

Here’s the deal. God’s existence is undeniable, unless someone chooses to deny the undeniable. The Apostle Paul tells us that, “God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.” This means that God in creation has revealed himself to us in ways that are impossible to deny. Of course people can deny it all they want, but they may as well deny the nose on their face. The growth in scientific knowledge, reflected in books like this (and it’s 18 years old) is making denial look increasingly desperate for those determined to make an excuse.