I recently learned some fascinating facts about the Peregrine Falcon, related by my friend Tom Ellsworth, minister of the Sherwood Oaks Christian Church, Bloomington, Indiana.
The Peregrine Falcon is the fastest creature on the planet. While he spends most of his time high above the earth searching for food, it’s his incredible sky-diving ability that sets him apart. The falcon exceeds 200 miles an hour in a steep dive!
His aerodynamic shape, swept-back wings, stiff feathers and pulse rate that reaches 900 beats per minute, certainly enable him to reach those breakneck speeds. But that incredible velocity creates other challenges. For instance, how can the falcon’s eyes focus on prey a mile away while being blasted by air?
To begin with, he has 5 times the number of photoreceptors as a human eye, which enables him to make split-second adjustments. Plus he has a secondary clear eyelid that prevents wind damage but does not limit visibility. And finally, beneath his eye is a dark patch similar to a football player’s eye black, which cuts down on glare.
A greater hazard is breathing during high-speed dives. A wall of air builds in front of the falcon, which prevents normal breathing, while so much pressure builds in the lungs that it would cause most animals’ lungs to burst. To compensate, the falcon has specialized cone-shaped bones protruding from the entrance of its nostrils that deflect the shockwaves and control the flow of incoming air. It’s the same design employed in jet engines to prevent the same problem. Isn’t that amazing?
When I first heard the above information, I immediately thought to myself, “How can anyone learn about the secondary clear eyelid and the cone-shaped nostrils of a Peregrine Falcon and believe that it happened by chance?” I’m not an expert on the theory of evolution, but to me, macro-evolution as an explanation of the origin of the species doesn’t make a lick of common sense.
Tourists who visit Mount Rushmore don’t question if the faces of the four presidents were intentionally carved out of the granite wall or if they are the result of millions of years of weathering. We all instinctively know the difference between deliberate design and random results.
Common sense looks at the complexity of a Peregrin Falcon and concludes there has to be a superior intelligence who mapped out each detail. The Bible says God has made the truth about Himself plain but men continue to deliberately suppress the truth because of their wickedness.
“For since the creation of the world 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. For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools” (Romans 1:19-22).
“So God created …every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.” – Genesis1:21
