(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

The next subject we're going to address is the issue of biogeochemical cycles. We can put together the activities of the biometrics into the larger system. We realize that God has put in place a complex system to provide the nutrients that we need. If you look at an organism's body, you look at our body, you look at the body of a rabbit or whatever, you're going to find that the elements that compose that body are mostly carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen. 98% of the mass of an object is actually made from these things. For example, oxygen and hydrogen, obviously there it's making water. That's a pretty big percentage of organisms between carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen. You've accounted for most everything that an organism is made up of. But it turns out there are other elements that are found in organisms. They're rare, but necessary. Here they are listed. It doesn't mean that you need to know these things, but boron, calcium, chlorine, molybdenum, I mentioned, phosphorus, zinc. There's a number of elements that have to exist in an organism for that organism to survive. It also means that somehow each of these things, even the things that are rare, have to be provided to the organism. They have to be provided as organisms come into being. As a rabbit is born, as it develops, it's got to get these elements somehow as it develops its body. And that is occurring all the time all over the world. How do these things get into organisms? They get there by what we call biogeochemical cycles. Bio meaning life, geo meaning the earth, chemical meaning chemistry. This is a cycle involving biology, living organisms, the earth itself, and chemistry. That, on a continuous basis, is always providing these elements the elements we need. It's providing us with carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, boron. It's producing all of these things providing to every organism across the entire planet. Biogeochemical cycles are extremely important. Put simply, a biogeochemical cycle is thought to exist for each one of these elements. So there ought to be a biogeochemical cycle for carbon. There ought to be a biogeochemical cycle for copper. There ought to be a biogeochemical cycle for molybdenum, so on and so forth. We haven't actually discovered and described all of the cycles, but we suspect they exist for all of them. And the basic principle of each cycle involves the following things. First of all, there is a reservoir, a place to store that particular element in the earth somehow. This is in the inorganic world. It's outside of organisms. There is a place for each of these elements to be stored in sufficient quantity that it can supply the needs of all of the organisms of the planet. Secondly, there are organisms of the biometrics that have been designed to fix that element. Meaning, take that element out of its storage place, out of its reservoir, and put it into a form that can be used by the biological world. Thirdly, there is some mechanism that spreads that element from where it first is introduced into the biological world and spreads it to all of the organisms of the biological world. Fourthly, there is some mechanism that returns the element to the reservoir, making it a complete cycle. Sometimes, very often, what returns it to the reservoir is another organism of the biometrics. But this summarizes what all biogeochemical cycles involve. Some are a little more complicated. They might have multiple steps in here, but they seem to all have in common the fact that there's a reservoir for storing it outside of the biological world. And then there's some mechanism to fix the element, bring it into the biological world. Thirdly, there's some way to spread it through the biological world. And finally, fourth, some way to return it to the reservoir. We're going to give three examples just to get you the flavor of what a biogeochemical cycle involves. First, we're going to look at the carbon cycle. This is the carbon biogeochemical cycle. The reservoir for carbon in our world is actually in the atmosphere. Carbon is stored in the form of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of the earth. Even though carbon dioxide only occupies about 0.3% of the atmosphere, that's enough carbon to supply the carbon needs of the entire planet, of all organisms on this planet. Every organism needs carbon, but there's actually enough of it in the atmosphere to supply the needs of every organism. However, most organisms can't get the carbon directly out of the reservoir. So there are organisms specially designed to fix the carbon, take the carbon out of the atmosphere, and put it into organisms. The process of photosynthesis is the primary mechanism whereby carbon is fixed. And this photosynthesis fixes the carbon into a form that can be used by organisms. That brings it into the biosphere. On land, that's primarily done by plants. In the water, that's primarily done by algae. Once it is fixed, the next step is to spread it to all organisms. This is done by consumers eating the producers, animals eating the plants, animals of the water eating the algae, and that spreads the carbon to the consumers. Consumers of consumers spread it from there, and this is how it gets spread all the way through the biosphere, all the way through the organisms of the planet. The last step, then, is to return the carbon to its reservoir. This happens in a variety of ways. One is if an animal dies, decomposers, usually of the biometrics, will break down the biological molecules and release the carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere again. Another method is by a process we call respiration. In both plants and in animals, carbon can be released by the animal or the plant breaking down the things that contain the carbon and release the carbon dioxide in the process. So animals respire. They take in food, which contains carbon, they break it down by respiration, and they release carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere. Turns out plants do the same thing. For example, at night, when the plant isn't photosynthesizing, it is getting its energy by breaking down food and releasing carbon dioxide. So we have the entire carbon cycle. We've got carbon dioxide stored. Carbon is stored in the reservoir of the atmosphere. It's fixed by photosynthesis. It's spread by consumption, and it is returned by decomposition and respiration. A second cycle is the nitrogen cycle. A bit more complicated than the carbon cycle. It's similar to the carbon cycle in that the nitrogen is actually stored in the atmosphere in the form of nitrogen gas. It's different than the carbon cycle in that the fixers are different. Photosynthesizers can't fix nitrogen. It's special bacteria, nitrogen-fixing bacteria, that fix the nitrogen and transform it into, in this case, ammonia. Ammonia is then transformed by ammonia-oxidizing bacteria, other members of the biometrics, into nitrites. And then a third type of organism in the biometrics changes nitrites into nitrates. Nitrite-oxidizing bacteria do this. The nitrates are picked up by plants. Plants can pick those up. The nitrogen is brought into the biosphere in that fashion. The nitrogen is then spread through the biosphere by consumption, by animals consuming the plants. And then the nitrogen is returned to the atmosphere by, again, a multi-step process. Decomposition produces ammonia, and then that can go back through the system, back into nitrates again. Or nitrates can actually go back into the atmosphere by denitrification done by denitrifying bacteria. I know that's a bit complicated. There's just extra steps in here that allow the nitrogen to be transformed in not just one step but multiple steps. But otherwise, it's the same sort of thing. It's nitrogen stored in the atmosphere, fixed by nitrogen-fixing bacteria, spread by consumption, returned to the atmosphere by decomposition. In the case of nitrogen cycle, it's got some extra steps in there. It's not done by one organism but by a string of organisms, but it's still a cycle providing nitrogen. A third example is the sulfur cycle. Here, the sulfur is stored in a different place than nitrogen and carbon, which are stored in the atmosphere. Sulfur is stored in rocks of the earth. And this is true of most of the other elements, in fact, that we need. Most of them, like iron and magnesium and manganese, are stored in the rocks of the earth. So sulfur, then, is in the form of elemental sulfur or sulfides in rocks. And so we have sulfur-oxidizing bacteria that transform sulfur into sulfates. And then the sulfates are picked up by trees, by plants. So we've got the fixing organisms in the sulfur cycle are usually the sulfur-oxidizing bacteria. Then the sulfur is spread from the plants to the animals by consumption, and it is returned to the reservoir of the rocks by decomposition. Decomposers will send it either directly back into sulfates, which can turn it back into the biosphere again, or the sulfur-reducing bacteria can put it back into sulfide or elemental sulfur form. Again, same sort of principle. It's stored. In this case, it's stored in rocks. It is fixed, brought into the biosphere, spread through the biosphere by consumption, and returned to the reservoir by decomposition. The biogeochemical cycles are amazing things. Really astonishing designs. The question is, where did they come from? Where does this process of where's the biometrics come from? Where do these biogeochemical cycles come from? And the first observation to answer that question is to observe that the biogeochemical cycles are what I call elegant. I have not introduced that term before, so I need to explain that. What I mean by elegant is something that's pretty and simple. More specifically, elegance is when you do something rather complicated in a very simple and beautiful way. There's usually more than one way to do things, and sometimes one way to do things is to have a very complex process that is very awkward and clumsy, but it does do the job. You could design a car that could get you from one place to another, but it would look really ugly. And it might be a little rough ride, but it would fulfill the function. On the other hand, someone else with much more design sense could create a car that looked pretty and got you to where you were going and did so very smoothly. You would look at those two cars. Both of them got you there. Both of them did what a car is supposed to do. But one's prettier, and one is smoother. The one that is prettier, you're more impressed with the designer of the one that did it so that it looks good. And that it's smooth. That solution, that design for producing a smooth-looking pretty car, is what we'd call elegant. That's an elegant solution. The other one is kind of an ugly solution. It might do what it's supposed to do, which is not pretty. Biogeochemical cycles are elegant. They do some rather complicated things. Getting carbon, and boron, and molybdenum, and iron to all the organisms of the planet. Now, that could be done in some rather awkward and complex ways. But how it actually gets to us is by these rather simple... I know some of them looked a little complicated, but when you step back and look at it, they are amazingly simple. This reservoir, fixation, spreading by consumption, returned by decomposition, a very simple solution to a very complex and difficult problem. So the biogeochemical cycles seem to be the simplest way to solve a complex solution. And, honestly, they look to me like they're beautiful. They're just like, wow, this is really cool, how this happens. When we see something that's elegant, when we see a solution to a problem that's elegant, we know that that's designed. I mean, you've got those two cars there. The one works really well and is beautiful. A tremendous amount of design went into that. More design has to go into making something pretty and simple than it does just making it happen. Biogeochemical cycles are so elegant that they seem to have to be designed. So what do we do with this information? We've learned about biometrics. We've learned about the biogeochemical cycles. What is our responsibility with this information? First, our responsibility as priests is to better know God. From studying the biometrics and biogeochemical cycles, I'm impressed with God's provision again. He provided for us in the creation. With some amazing designs through the anthropic principle. But here we see that he is providing for our everyday, daily needs. The needs we have right now, and the needs we'll have tomorrow, he's providing it ongoing through these biogeochemical cycles. This indicates to me how God is caring for his creation. How he cares for us. At all moments of all days, it's 24-7, seven days a week, 365 days a year. It's continuous, never stopping. And if it never stopped, organisms would die. This is an amazing, ongoing provision showing, I think very dramatically, God's love and God's care for the creation. It also shows, again, gives insight into what it means for God to be the Creator. It seems very clear that the design of the biogeochemical cycles is too elegant to be anything but design. That means God created it. God put it together. God thought about this, which points out his wisdom and it points out his power. Because he didn't just figure out how it should be, he actually created it exactly that way. And the fact that we can see this, we can discover this, and we're still discovering it, indicates that he has created it in such a way that we can discover it. He wants us to discover it. He desires us to understand his love, his provision. So he's created these illustrations of his love in the creation. And all that stuff just awes me. The idea that such a God of such incredible love, a God who has such incredible wisdom and power, wants me to know him, wants you to know him, is awesome to me. As I learn about biogeochemical cycles, about the biometrics, and we're continually learning more every day about these things, I'm in awe. I feel like I want to stop every once in a while and just praise God. And in the process, I get so excited, sometimes I want to bring others in. And when I do that, when I study the world that God has created and learn more about God, erupting into worship as a consequence, bring others into that worship, I am fulfilling my mandate as a creation priest. You can do the same thing. As you learn about biometrics, as you learn about these things, and I would suggest you do so for the rest of your life, even if you're not going to be a scientist, learn a bit more about it every time. Because the more you learn, the more you're excited about God, the more you know about God, the more you want to worship God, the more you want to bring others into that worship, you are fulfilling your responsibility as a creation priest. What about our responsibility as a king? We need to preserve the biometrics that we have about us. Those things that we see. Again, we've talked about this before. This is a reiteration of what we've already seen. Don't destroy the water cycle. Don't destroy the carbon cycle. Don't allow organisms to go extinct if we can. Preserve the biometrics that God has created so that we can pass on to the next generation the same picture of God that we see, which is an awesome God that looked forward, anticipated our needs, and created the world in such a way as to meet our needs every single day of every single year of our lives.