One of the interesting unique characteristics of humans is their erect posture. Atheists have derided the concept of God's intelligent creation of man by claiming that erect posture produces so many problems that no intelligent being would create an erect posture in any living thing. The claim is that back problems, muscle fatigue, hernias, and all kinds of other problems are due to our erect posture. In making a challenge like this, atheists ignore the beneficial aspects of erect posture--such things as ease of digestion (with food being pulled down by gravity), reduction of stroke possibilities since the head is higher than the heart and blood is under less gravitational pull, increased ability for tool use, etc.

What is also interesting is that there are some incredible design features built into man to accommodate erect posture. The equipment designed to eliminate waste is one of these. Another one reported on in Nature (www.nature.com/nature) is the design of a woman to accommodate pregnancy. You would think that a very pregnant woman would lose her balance and topple over with the ever growing weight up front in her body. Why she does not is an interesting engineering design.

One of the lower lumbar vertebra in women is wedged shaped while in males it is square. The key hip joint in a woman is 14 percent larger than in a man in proportion to body size. Harvard researcher Katherine Whitcome has been studying these differences and comments "It's absolutely beautiful. A little bit of tinkering can have a profound effect." There is a lot of tinkering in the creation, and everywhere researchers look they see that a wonder-working hand has gone before.

--John N. Clayton

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