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Plants that Do Math Add Evidence for God

by  Kyle Butt, M.Div.

One of the first steps to becoming a good student in school is to learn the basics: reading, writing, and arithmetic. Students spend hours trying to master the basics of arithmetic. But it seems that students in grade school are not the only math masters. A new study indicates that plants may be exceptional at math as well. Allison Smith and Martin Howard of the John Innes Center in Norwich suggest that plants perform basic arithmetic in order to preserve the correct amount of starch during the night (Ledford, 2013). Heidi Ledford, writing for Nature News, explained that scientists once thought plants broke down starch at night time at a fairly constant rate. Experimental results, however, have shown that plants can vary their rate of starch consumption based on the number of hours of darkness they experience. Regardless of how many hours plants sit in darkness, they can regulate their starch use so that virtually no starch remains when the light returns (2013).

While this is the first study to suggest that plants do arithmetic, researchers indicate that this process could explain other biological systems, such as animal hybernation and long migrations in which food supplies need to be regulated to ensure survival. More research will be needed to verify Smith’s and Howard’s conclusions, but Howard states: “We are dealing with a fundamental biological process in cells that’s doing a sophisticated arithmetic calculation” (Ledford, 2013).

The implications of these findings that pertain to the existence of God are obvious. If plants really are doing arithmetic, that means they have been programmed by some type of intelligence. This intelligence must understand arithmetic, and be able to write into plants a code by which the plants can use arithmetic to their advantage. The atheistic, materialistic explanation for the origin of the Universe cannot adequately account either for the laws of math or for plants that can use those laws to survive. When the Creator designed plants, He saw that they were very good (Genesis 1:12). The concept of an intelligent Designer is the only one that adds up.


Ledford, Heidi (2013), “Plants Perform Molecular Maths,” Nature, http://www.nature.com/news/plants-perform-molecular-maths-1.13251.

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