Commentary: Are Humans Becoming More Intelligent? (Part Three)
Biomimicry
#1406c
Martin G. Collins
Given 18-Nov-17; 10 minutes
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transcript:
One result of believing that God created the universe is that the visible world is regarded not simply as a set of information but as someone's achievement. It is something an intelligent being has carefully thought-out and prepared beforehand.
Genesis 1 is complete with elaborate patterns. God first creates three settings (light, sky and sea, dry land, and vegetation). Then, in the same order, He fills them with appropriate life (light bearers, birds and sea creatures, land animals and people). The overall effect is that of an artist filling in a canvas.
To produce such artistry, God had to perform specific acts of ordering, which are expressed with verbs such as "made," "separated" and "placed" dominant in the process. The story itself follows a fixed pattern for each day of creation. Even the division into days lends an orderly quality to the creation.
God's miraculous creativity gives way to biological generation as we read about "plants yielding seed," "fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed," waters that "bring forth swarms of living creatures," and a command to the creation to "be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth."
In ancient times, there were intelligent people, and some who were not so intelligent, like people today. First, let’s acknowledge an example of ancient intelligence, as we have in the last two commentaries. Ancient Romans engineered a cup utilizing nanotechnology that changes color wavelength depending on which direction the light enters the cup and is based on the direction the observer is looking at the cup. It can be green or red. It is called “the Lycurgus Cup.” Furthermore, the way this cup was designed makes it possible to detect types of poisons.
The reason is simple. When you add various liquids in the cup, it makes the wavelength change. Because it is so sensitive to certain things (like salt concentrations, for example), the color varies. When it holds water, it appears green; but when it holds oil, it appears red. If the cup changes colors when you think you are drinking water, beware because it may be poison! It is amazing to me that they came up with that so long ago.
Today, taking inspiration from God’s creation to solve human problems, is the idea behind "biomimicry," or "biomimetics." Taking an idea out of God’s creation, scientists have developed technologies that seek to mimic some of God's unique innovations. Birds, for example, have provided solutions to technological problems in various areas.
Optical materials are being developed from bird feathers that have nanostructures (like the cup mentioned before) that utilize light instead of pigment to make color. The brilliantly colored feathers of the male Eastern Bluebird aren’t created by pigments, like most other colors found in creation. That shade of blue is produced by nanostructures that self-assemble in much the same way as beer foam.
Essentially, they form the same way as materials undergoing phase separation, when different substances become unstable and separate from each other. Color-producing structures in feathers start out as bubbles of water inside living cells and are replaced with air as the feather grows, thereby changing the color. These intricate optical structures, which look like sponges with air bubbles under a microscope, are being used to create a new generation of optical materials in the lab.
Also, bird skulls have inspired lighter, stronger building materials. Architect Andres Harris, who has studied animal bones extensively (particularly bird skulls) in a bid to design a highly efficient bio-inspired surface, says,
Skulls in general are extraordinary impact-resistant structures and extremely light at the same time as they protect the most important organs of an animal body and this performance and physical property can be applied in structure or architecture design.
Harris imagines mimicking the material for a large pavilion, and the blog Biomimetic Architecture notes that this concept could also be applied to cars to make them stronger.
Another mimicked bird inspired design is the nose of a bullet train that looks like a kingfisher’s beak. The kingfisher dives into the water from the air without making a splash, mostly thanks to its highly efficiently-shaped beak. Engineer and bird enthusiast Eiji Nakatsu realized that the same shape could solve an annoying problem faced by Japan’s ultra-fast bullet trains, which created a loud booming sound like a thunder clap whenever they exited a tunnel. The nose of the train was pushing air at high speeds, creating a wall of wind that not only made the loud sound, but also slowed down the train. The new, kingfisher-inspired train nose eliminates this problem, making the trains up to 20 percent more fuel efficient and faster.
Here’s yet another invention to make you paranoid that that little flying creature above your house is no ordinary bird or bat. Surveillance cameras flap their wings in the sky just like birds and bats. The RoboSwift, as implied by its name, is a micro-airplane based upon the biology of the swift, a family of birds capable of extremely fast flight.
Developed by Delft University of Technology, the RoboSwift is equipped with observation cameras that might be used either to study birds, or possibly for surveillance of human activity. Wind tunnel tests have found that its flight is remarkably bird-like thanks to the ability to fold its ‘feathers’ backwards.
Also out of the air comes bat sonar, which is being used in canes to help the blind detect obstacles and navigate more easily. It doesn’t have any exciting physical features that reveal its inspiration, but the Ultracane wouldn’t be possible without study of the way bats get around in pitch blackness. In the same way that bats can “see” in the dark using ultrasonic echoes that reveal the location of obstacles, the Ultracane warns blind users of objects in their path. A number of sensors on the cane even make it possible for users to sense objects higher than head height.
In addition, bats have unwittingly become the inspiration for a government surveillance device. The United States military commissioned the COM-BAT from the University of Michigan College of Engineering, giving them a five-year, $10-million-dollar grant to develop the design. Fitted with a solar panel in its transparent ‘head’, the 6-inch spy plane has wings shaped like those of the flying mammal. The plane must be able to collect large amounts of surveillance data while running on only 1 watt of power. Thus, we have a solar-powered, bat-inspired spy plane.
God’s creation is overflowing with energy and abundance. The sheer variety of things created is amazing, to say the least. In Psalm 104, we find the sea teeming "with things innumerable," and to a world "full of [God’s] creatures." In Psalm 8, we find mankind has been made “to have dominion over the works of [God’s] hands.” God has “put all things under [mankind’s] feet.”
Because God has created these wonderful things, He has also given us the ability to learn from them and come up with real-life solutions to life’s quandaries. God’s attributes are clearly seen in Creation, as we well know. Yet the very scientists and inventors who use God’s design don’t credit Him, but pay homage to “nature,” their environmental god.
This reminds us of Numbers 14:11:
Numbers 14:11 Then the Lord said to Moses: "How long will these people reject Me? And how long will they not believe Me, with all the signs which I have performed among them?
Creation is full of signs of God’s wisdom and power, but man is just so blind because of his enmity.
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