Page 278 - The Origin of Birds and Flight

276 The Origin of Birds and Flight

any fighter jet, fly even if its wings are torn, and land on the ceiling. 246
Ron Fearing agrees: “Insects have tremendous maneuverability.” 247
Michael Dickinson, a professor of biology from Berkeley University and
eminent researcher into insect flight, says, “Flapping is much more aero-
dynamically efficient at small sizes than conventional aerodynamics.” 248
But making a robot that beats its wings is no easy matter. What re-
ally defeats scientists is the impossibility of giving that robot the intelli-
gence that makes flight possible. Says Ron Fearing, “The good news is
we know what the wings need to do. The bad news is we don't know
how to do it.” 249 Michael Dickinson states that fruit flies beat their wings
200 times a second and use three different mechanisms in order to take
off. This lets a fruit fly make a U-turn in the air with just eight wing
movements, in as little as 40 milliseconds. 250
According to Dickinson, in order to achieve such a level of control,
the insect robot at Berkeley can make mistakes only three times, approx-
imately on the fourth one, it will drop dead. Robert Michelson, the chief
engineer at Georgia Technology Research Institute, states how difficult it
is to construct a robot that beats its wings for balance and control:
Until we can do things as well as you find them in Creation, you have
to go to alternate techniques. 251
Even though we possess all the technology, intelligence, energy, and
financial backing, we still cannot imitate the systems we witness in na-
ture. These marvels of creation show just a few examples of Allah’s
matchless creative artistry.
It is illogical to ascribe the origin of these living things to chance. No
coincidence can produce a helicopter, for instance. Even if all the com-
ponents used in its manufacture were left out in the open, natural phe-
nomena could never assemble the helicopter by chance. To maintain that
such a thing is possible is just as illogical as to claim that an insect’s
wings could form by coincidence. The origin of insects clearly confirms
creation.
In one verse Allah states: