Research Paper: The Butterfly Gland

Emily Loney
Science and the Bible
Rob Buzza
March 22, 2013

If one, thought to be unimportant, organ didn’t exist… neither would you. There has been and still is much ongoing debate between the theories of evolution and creation. One form of evolution called ‘naturalistic evolution’ is defined as “A gradual process in which something changes into a different and usually more complex or better form”. In this paper I will be using one argument to disprove this theory of naturalistic evolution. The argument centers around the complexity of the body and its absolute reliance on the thyroid for vital functions. The thyroid was thought for years by evolutionary scientists to be vestigial, or of no obvious or predictable function. They taught that it was unnecessary to human life and development. However, science has found that the thyroid is not a vestigial organ and it is vital to human life. In this research paper we will look at the general anatomy of the thyroid, the crucial hormones it produces and how this proves that naturalistic evolution cannot possibly be true.

The thyroid is an endocrine gland located just below the Adam’s apple in the shape of a butterfly, in the average adult it will weigh between 10-15 grams. When the thyroid is it normal size you should not be able to feel it in your neck, if you can feel it or can see it that is unhealthy and you should get it looked at by a doctor, it is then called a ‘goiter’. The thyroid is brownish red in color, is rich in blood vessels, and there are nerves which are used for the control of voice quality passing through the middle of the thyroid. The thyroid’s basic function is to produce two hormones. It is informed by the pituitary gland, by way of ‘thyroid-stimulating hormone’ (TSH) to produce these hormones. The first and most prevalent hormone is thyroxine, it composes 80% of the hormone produced in the thyroid. The other 20% of the hormones is triiodothyronine. Thyroxine is the inactive form of hormone and triiodothyronine is the active form. Both are excreted into the blood stream via the vessels located throughout the thyroid.

The thyroid predominantly produces the hormone Thyroxine. Once excreted into the blood stream thyroxine attaches itself to a transport-protein; 70% of the time it will attach to ‘Thyroxine-binding globulin’ (TBG). A few other transport proteins are: "thyroxine-binding prealbumin" (TTR or TBPA), paraalbumin, and then a few free floating thyroxine molecules. Thyroxine travels around in this fashion until it reaches organs such as the liver or the kidneys and is converted into triiodothyronine, the active thyroid hormone. Thyroxine specifically affects your Heart, Brain, and metabolism by: keeping your heart rate in its correct range, regulating the amount of blood pumped throughout the body, controlling your lungs rate of ventilation, increasing sympathetic activity in the brain, potentiating brain development, increasing your basal metabolic rate and increasing the metabolism of proteins and carbohydrates in our human bodies. If our bodies did not produce thyroxine then children would be unable to develop mentally and physically; leaving them mentally impaired and physically underdeveloped. If an adult stops producing this hormone, then their metabolic rate will decrease significantly. This will result in fatigue, weight gain, reduced appetite, poor memory, and depression to name a few.

We can see by the information provided above that the thyroid is of utmost importance for human existence. Without Thyroxine the human body would not exist. The heart, lungs, metabolism, brain and our ability to grow is dependent on this simple hormone and its small producer. Life could not exist without any of these components, so how can natural evolutionists claim that organisms adapted into this amazingly intricate state of dependence we find ourselves in. If