Daily Devotional – August 18

Anatomy

The evolutionary idea of vestigial (or useless) organs, as leftovers from our evolutionary past, has produced tragic consequences. For many years, the thyroid gland (which has no duct to release secretions) mystified doctors. So when people had an enlarged thyroid (goiter), it was simply removed. In the 1870s, Dr. Theodore Kocker noticed some of his patients were going insane a few years after their operation. Through examining his surgical notes, he found that if he had left any thyroid behind, the patients did not go mad. However, the operations continued, and it was another 30 years before the function of thyroxine (the secretion from this gland) was discovered.

Today, we know that the thyroid gland is vitally important for making and storing hormones that help regulate such things as heart rate, blood pressure, body temperature, and growth rate. If we do not have enough of this hormone, we can feel overly tired, cold, or otherwise low in energy. If we have too much of this hormone, it is like a car idling too fast - we are likely to become overly nervous/irritated, have trouble concentrating, have trouble sleeping, and so on. The thyroid gland is hardly a useless, leftover organ! The more scientists study the body, the more they become convinced that the body did not happen by accident and chance but was designed by someone of great intelligence; that someone is God.

But now, O LORD, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand.

~ Isaiah 64:8

Source: "Pearls in Paradise" by authors Bruce Malone and Jule Von Vett

References for this devotional.