Research on humans and magnetic fields points to intelligent designer

Most pet owners have probably never noticed their dogs prefer to align their bodies in a north-south direction when relieving themselves. But our canine friends only care about that alignment when the Earth’s magnetic field is calm, suggesting they can sense fluctuations in the magnetic field, according to a study published in the journal Frontiers in Zoology. But Fido is not the only one who can sense magnetic lines.

New research indicates humans may possess that ability too, further proof that an intelligent designer created both.

Over the past few decades, many science experiments have shown that a variety of animals navigate, at least partially, through an ability known as magnetoreception, a sense that enables them to detect and respond to the Earth’s magnetic field. Researchers have found evidence of this built-in compass in other mammals, as well as birds, fish, sea turtles, worms, and even bacteria. Wood mice and mole rats use magnetic field lines to situate their nests, and cattle and deer use them to orient their bodies when grazing.

Now researchers at the California Institute of Technology have conducted a preliminary study that suggests humans also subconsciously detect and respond to Earth’s magnetic field, Science Magazine reports.

The researchers measured the brain waves of 24 volunteers while they sat in a Faraday cage, an enclosure that allowed the researchers to manipulate the magnetic field inside the cage while simultaneously blocking all other stimuli that could affect brain activity, such as light and sound.

An EEG detected a sharp drop in a subject’s brain waves when the researchers rotated the magnetic field counterclockwise, simulating the subject looking to the right. The suppression of alpha waves is a sign of brain processing. Since the only variable that changed was the magnetic field, the researchers concluded a set of neurons were firing in response to the change. The EEG also detected a brain signal when the researchers veered the magnetic field toward the floor, as though the volunteer had looked up.

Although the study is preliminary and small, lead researcher Joe Kirschvink believes the results prove humans can sense Earth’s magnetic fields.

“It’s part of our evolutionary history. Magnetoreception may be the primal sense,” Kirschvink told Science.

But contrary to supporting evolutionary theory, these magnetoreception studies point to intentional design, according to a post on the Discovery Institute’s blog, Evolution News.

Evolutionary theory requires belief that magnetic sensation came about purely by chance in the earliest bacteria, persisted throughout the entire tree of living things, and then just disappeared or went dormant in many species. Otherwise it would have needed to arise in distant, totally unrelated parts of the tree, according to Discovery.

And if a bacterium or other creature suddenly engulfed some magnetic material and then somehow sensed the field, how would it know the information was useful?

The fact that scientists are just now beginning to understand that diverse animals and humans can share methods of sensing invisible forces is just further proof creation was designed, according to Discovery. Evolutionary theory cannot account for such complexity. Just as the multitude of sensors humans have designed to sense light, sound, touch, odor, or taste are marvelously complex, “one expects the magnetic sense that scientists are just now coming to understand will be no less so,” Discovery notes.