THE NON-EVOLUTION OF MAMMALS
(OR, THE NATURAL THEOLOGY OF NURSING)
Recently my daughter gave birth to a son, giving another fresh example of the miracle of childbirth and creation of a new human life. This time, however, another aspect of birthing struck me as worthy of special note for the way in which it confounds Darwinian speculations and illustrates the loving purposes of our great Creator.
This aspect of childbirth is nursing. Within a matter of hours after birth, a woman’s breasts, having been prepared by hormones during pregnancy, begin the serious manufacture of large quantities of milk. This milk is exquisitely tailored to the new baby’s needs, and is nutritionally far superior to any other form of milk, formula, or supplement. “Cow’s milk is great for cows,” was the laconic comment of my med school virology professor when I questioned him on the subject years ago. Human milk has just what the human infant needs, right down to antibodies transferred by mother to baby, so that breast-fed babies have lower rates of viral illness. How did we attain such a perfect fit between the baby’s nutritional needs and mother’s milk? Was it random evolution and amazingly good luck, as we are so often told?
Let’s back up a bit in the evolutionary story. “The female breast is a modified sweat gland,” one of my recent textbooks of pathology confidently states. Thus, it is believed that some proto-mammal had a lucky mutation one day that caused a few of its sweat glands to change the nature of secretion so as to gain nutritional content. At just the same time, this proto-mammal’s offspring mutated in such a way as to change its behavior, so that it can locate the “sweat gland” with enhanced nutritional value, and begin feeding on the gland's secretion. The new nursing mother must also have her behavior genetically modified at the exact same time, so that she at least tolerates this new invasion of her body. This seems like a pretty tall tale. What’s the evidence for it?
The short answer is “very little.” Darwin pointed to gradations in mammary gland structure, with “higher” mammals having well-formed mammary glands complete with nipples, and “lower” mammals (such as monotremes) having less conspicuous glands that lack nipples. This might be regarded as slightly suggestive, but it’s hardly conclusive. Darwin’s followers haven’t added much to this threadbare evidence. What they hope no one notices is that there’s a pretty big gulf between the simplest mammary gland and any form of sweat gland. Thousands of biochemical genetic changes would be needed to make such a glandular transition, not to mention the complex behavioral changes and neuronal reflexes that would be needed in both mother and offspring. Once again, we’re asked to believe in a lot of successive evolutionary miracles, with very little evidence to support the Darwinian story. No convincing fossil sequence, no experimental verification—just blind faith in evolution is what’s demanded here.
What about the other side—the creation version? Can we discern anything of God’s purpose in creating mammals in general, and human nursing in particular? Yes, I believe we can. There are few things in this world more beautiful and endearing than a mother nursing her baby. It provides emotional bonding and intimacy between mother and child, with mutual pleasure and physical benefit, but it also does something more. It gives us a graphic symbolic picture of a mother giving of her very self to sustain and nourish her infant. This, in turn, builds us a bridge of understanding to a higher unseen truth--that God our Creator gives generously of his very self in creating us, sustaining us, being patient with us, and redeeming us from evil. Nowhere is this great self-giving of our Creator more evident than in the Christmas story, where God the Father gives us his only begotten eternal Son to bear our sins and save us from death and all evil.
Thus, mammary glands and nursing are things we should praise and thank God for, as a generous provision for our own needs, as well as a wonderful picture of His own selfless love and providence in caring for us. It’s especially good to reflect at Christmastime on how the Creator himself was humbly born as a tiny baby, and used the same highly complex and wonderful system for newborn nourishment that He himself had created.
(dedicated to my daughter Laura and her newborn son Edmund Michael, with love)
