The Glory of God's Human Creation

From Where is God When it Hurts? by Philip Yancey,

The fingertips, for example, shows an astounding difference: it can detect a mere 3 grams of pressure, but not until that pressure exceeds 300 grams will I feel pain there! Why? Think about the fingers' activities. The concert violinist must sense an amazing range of pressures to produce perfect sound and volume. A skilled baker, swishing his hands through batches of dough, can notice as little as a two percent variance in the "stickiness" or consistency. Cloth feelers in textile industries compare the qualities of cloth by touch. The fingertips must be incredibly sensitive to the slightest differences in touch.

But sensitivity to touch is not enough. The fingertips must also be tough in order to withstand rigorous activity. Feel the calloused, scaly hand of a carpenter or a professional tennis player. Life would be miserable indeed if the fingertip fired a message of pain to the brain each time a person squeezed a tennis racket or pounded a hammer. So the design of the body includes a fingertip extraordinarily sensitive to pressure, but relatively insensitive to pain. Hands and fingertips serve us well as the most used parts of our bodies.