The Components of Blood

Erythrocytes: Small Red Cells

The 25 trillion or so small red cells in the human body never cease carrying their loads. These cells, known as erythrocytes, travel all through the body inside the veins and arteries, carrying oxygen or carbon dioxide. However, these cells need a special structure in order to be able to carry a substance. For example, for a cell to carry oxygen, the most ideal shape for it is to be flat. This increases the cell’s surface area and facilitates contact with the oxygen molecules.

Indeed, the shape of the erythrocyte is reminiscent of a round, flat cushion, whose shape permits the greatest possible surface contact with the oxygen atom.

Under normal circumstances, some 2.5 million erythrocytes are produced in the body every second.2 It’s vitally important that the number of erythrocytes be regulated. A rise in their number for whatever reason—a reduction in body temperature, for instance—can lead to serious problems. When there is an excessive drop in body temperature the number of erythrocytes remains the same, although the blood fluid decreases. The viscosity of the blood is reduced, as the number of erythrocytes increases in terms of units per volume. This can lead to congestion in the veins, obliging the heart to work harder. It’s therefore of vital importance for the number of erythrocytes to be regulated.

It is not enough for the body’s transportation system for red blood cells to be flat. Erythrocytes that carry oxygen would be pointless if they could not offer it to the cells in a usable manner. The cells of the body require molecules to bind oxygen to them—molecules that must combine with the oxygen in the ideal manner, in a three-dimensional form, and carry the oxygen safely. However, they must not bind too tightly to the oxygen, and when they arrive at the cell to which they will release the oxygen, they must separate from it with no difficulty. In short, in order for the oxygen to be transported and used where necessary, a very special molecule with a most particular creation is needed. That molecule is hemoglobin, which gives the erythrocyte—and thus, the blood itself—its red color.

Since hemoglobin performs two entirely separate functions, it has been described as an extraordinary molecule.

As hemoglobin deposits carbon dioxide in the lungs, it takes up oxygen and moves from there to the muscles, which oxidize nutrients and produce carbon dioxide. When the hemoglobin reaches the muscles, it carries out a reverse procedure, depositing oxygen and taking up carbon dioxide—all in a seemingly conscious and disciplined manner.

Hemoglobin is a molecule ideally created for carrying oxygen.

In 1996, scientists discovered that in addition to carrying oxygen, the hemoglobin molecules in the erythrocyte structure also carried another molecule of vital importance: nitrogen monoxide (NO). There is a very important reason why hemoglobin carries this gas. With the assistance of NO, hemoglobin monitors how much oxygen is to be provided to the tissues.3 Therefore, hemoglobin’s transportation of nitrogen monoxide is of the very greatest importance to human health.

The flawless molecular structure and functions of hemoglobin attracted the interest of scientists. In his book The Great Evolution Mystery, the evolutionist Gordon Rattray Taylor writes the following:

The formation of blood, for instance, is a saga in itself. ... [It contains] at least eighty components, many of them still insufficiently understood. A component of central importance, of course, is the haemoglobin which picks up oxygen in the lungs, while giving up carbon dioxide; and then having travelled to the muscles, gives up oxygen and accepts carbon dioxide, which the muscles produce as a result of burning fuel, much as a car produces carbon monoxide. It is a remarkable molecule indeed which at one moment has an affinity for oxygen and a few seconds later loses that affinity; that it simultaneously changes its preferences with respect to carbon dioxide makes it even more remarkable. There could be no more amazing example of adaptation to a task.4

As summarized by Taylor, the hemoglobin molecule is able to make decisions when and where required, just like a conscious entity. Hemoglobin does not only carry oxygen; when it passes by a muscle in urgent need of oxygen, it also immediately realizes that it must deliver that oxygen, and acts in the knowledge that it needs to collect the carbon dioxide being released, and heads directly for the lungs to deposit its new load. The hemoglobin never confuses oxygen and carbon dioxide, and always moves to the correct destination.

It is most thought-provoking that a molecule should behave in a way that requires thought, decision-making, selection and preference.

Thanks to the extraordinary consciousness exhibited by this molecule, human beings are easily able to survive. An average of 900 million erythrocytes are produced in the human body every hour, and each erythrocyte cell contains some 300 million hemoglobin molecules. These molecules possess the ability to perform all of these processes without the slightest confusion. Bearing in mind the number of hemoglobin molecules in the human body and the way that all of them, without exception, possess the same abilities, you can see even more clearly the importance of this subject.

It is obvious to every rational person that such selectivity could never come about by chance, and that random events could never provide these features to all the billions of hemoglobin molecules in the human body. It is Allah Who created the hemoglobin molecule and placed it, with all its characteristics, inside the human body.

That is Allah, your Lord. There is no deity but Him, the Creator of everything. So worship Him. He is responsible for everything. (Surat al-An‘am: 102)

The Hemoglobin-Based Distribution of Oxygen
Represents an Impossible Dilemma for Evolutionists

The blood’s inability to distribute oxygen and take up carbon dioxide without hemoglobin represents an impossible dilemma for evolutionists. That is because evolutionists maintain that blood and the other systems in the human body all developed gradually through a series of stages. In other words, according to this claim, there must have been a time when blood already existed, but when the hemoglobin molecule was not yet present in it. Yet from the point of view of the theory of evolution, this constitutes a major contradiction. Blood cannot perform its function in the absence of the hemoglobin molecule, and an organism will swiftly die if oxygen fails to reach its cells. That organism has no time to wait for the hemoglobin molecule to form. Hemoglobin needs to have formed at the same time as the blood. In other words, it is essential that the blood, together with all its properties and structures, should emerge in a single moment.

Evolutionist claims regarding gradual development collapse at this point, and it can be seen that blood was created by Allah in a single instant.