Episode 4 of Evidence for Belief dives into the incredible world of the living cell.

Living cells were once thought to be simple blobs of protoplasm that could have evolved gradually from random chemical combinations in a primordial swamp. But modern microbiology has revealed the irreducible complexity of the living cell and demonstrated the impossibility of proteins and amino acids – the basic building blocks of cells – forming by chance processes. The structural and chemical complexity of the cell cannot be explained by supposed evolutionary processes. This episode begins a three-part journey into the mind boggling world of the amazing living cell.

Here are the links:

VIDEO: Evidence for Belief, Episode 4: The Living Cell

PODCAST: Evidence for Belief, Episode 4: The Living Cell

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ARTICLE::

Welcome to Episode 4 of Evidence For Belief, a series which examines evidence for the existence of God. In this episode we are going to move away from Cosmological evidence into a field known as Teleological evidence, which deals with the evidence of intelligent design within creation.

Over the next three episodes, we will be looking at three amazing characteristics of the living cell; the cell’s complex physical structures, it’s DNA, and the irreducibly complex molecular machines within cells. In this episode we are going to focus on the cell’s physical structures, which, as you are about to see, are amazingly complex and cannot possibly have come about by incremental, random chemical processes.

The living cell was once thought to be extremely simple; a mere blob of protoplasm surrounded by a cell wall. Scientists in the 19th century supposed that this simple building block of life could easily have sprung into existence through the chance combinations of chemicals in an alleged primordial swamp in the distant past. However, the development of the electron microscope, together with advances in the field of genetics, have completely overturned these naive assumptions. Even the simplest of cells is anything but simple!

As new technology has enabled scientists to explore the micro-biological dimension of the living cell, a stunning world of structural complexity and mind-boggling biological processes has revealed itself. Simple cells are now understood to be extraordinarily sophisticated biological factories, thousands or even millions of times more complex than any human-made factory in the macro world.

Far from being a blob of shapeless protoplasm, a cell is an intricately designed entity comprised of many complex structural elements. Consider the following diagram of the structural components of a cell:

A cell has approximately 30 different structural elements, all playing a vital role in its viability. If the cell had no mitochondria for converting nutrients into energy molecules, it would die. If it had no cell wall, it would die. If it had no nucleus with its repository of DNA to provide the cell with its operating instructions, it would die. In fact, remove any of the structural elements from a functioning cell, and it will cease to be viable and, in almost all most cases, would die without being able to replicate itself.

 So, all these structural components had to be in place from the very beginning; they all had to come into existence simultaneously in order for the first cell to be viable: to exist as a living, reproducing biological entity and be able to pass on those structures to subsequent generations. In this sense, the cell can be said to be structurally irreducibly complex.

As Dr. Tas Walker states:

“The whole structure of the living cell points to it being irreducibly complex.”[i]

The concept of irreducible complexity is really crucial at this point, so let me explain it in a little more detail. Irreducible complexity refers to any complex system that can’t be broken down into simpler components without losing its functionality. An irreducibly complex entity is one that is comprised of multiple interdependent parts, all of which are essential for the system to function, and the absence of any one of those individual parts would render the entity non-functional and non-viable.

In the case of the living cell, this is the concept that the complex and interdependent structures of a cell can’t be reduced without destroying the cell. The absence of any one of these fundamental structures would render the cell unviable and unable to replicate.

The corollary of this, therefore, is that all of these interdependent structures of a living cell needed to be in place from the very beginning and couldn’t have evolved incrementally – because a cell that somehow formed with only a few of these structures or with structures only half-formed would not be alive and would not be able to reproduce.

Biologist, Dr Jonathan Sarfati, in chapter 10 of his 2013 book, Refuting Evolution, writes: “Living things have fantastically intricate features – at the anatomical, cellular and molecular level – that could not function if they were any less complex or sophisticated.”

Some evolutionists try to get around this by arguing that the first, primitive cells to somehow emerge from a supposed primordial swamp could have been simpler than today’s cells, with fewer physical structures. Instead of 30 structures, maybe they only needed 10. Well that’s a nice theory, but which 20 would they propose to do away with, and how would the cell survive without them? Furthermore, biologists have not been able to propose any mechanism whereby even 10 complex physical structures could arise from a chemical soup via chance, natural processes.

This leads us to the heart of the problem for evolutionists – the problem of abiogenesis: the impossibility of non-living chemicals creating biological life We’ll look at this in more detail in Episode 7, but here is an overview of the issue in so far as it relates to the physical structures of the cell. Abiogenesis refers to the genesis or origin of the first biological life in the very beginning. Ultimately, evolutionary theory must explain how non-living chemicals and inanimate matter could give rise to the first living cells. If people assert that biological life came into existence via natural means, without the aid of a supernatural Creator, it must be demonstrated how non-life can give birth to life; how inanimate chemicals can create a pulsing, living biological cell.

In particular, for abiogenesis to have occurred, it must be demonstrated how proteins could be formed by chance chemical processes – because proteins are the building blocks of all biological life. And yet, as we are about to see, this has now been shown to be an impossibility.

All the physical components of a cell are constructed of proteins, shaped and folded together to form the amazing physical structures that our microscopes can now detect. Each individual structure within the cell is formed by thousands of different types of proteins being folded into very specific individual shapes and then joined together in a very specific sequence. And each one of those individual proteins is, in turn, comprised of thousands of even smaller building blocks called amino acids.

Biologist, Dr John Ashton, in his book “Evolution Impossible”, explains that a single cell has 2.4 million protein molecules made up of approximately 4,000 different types of proteins. Furthermore, he points out that ongoing attempts to create even a single protein in laboratories with the latest technologies, have completely failed.

Of course, the fall-back position of evolutionists is that, given enough time, random processes must eventually result in the right chemical combinations to bring about the formation of proteins and, eventually, a living cell.

 Dr Clifford D. Sirnack, in his book, “Trilobites, Dinosaurs and Man”, exemplifies this argument:

“If we had amino acids, we then would have proteins, and if we had proteins, we would be well along the road to life. Given trillions upon trillions of possibilities for chemical combinations, and given a few million years for it all to happen, the components of life would have appeared. And once that had been accomplished, once the bricks and the stones and the lumber for the building of life were present, then all that would have been required were a few more million years for life to actually appear.”

This type of argument, which persists to the current day, appears, on the surface, to have merit. After all, surely given enough time, all the necessary components of cellular life can form by chance. However, this line of reasoning vastly underestimates the statistical improbability of even a single protein evolving by chance.

In 1962, Dr Isaac Asimov (a professed atheist), in his book, “The Genetic Code”, calculated the probability of a simple insulin-like protein evolving by random chemical combinations.

He calculated that there are 8 x 10²⁷ (i.e. 8 x 10 to the power of 27, or 8 followed by 27 zeros) different possible combinations of Amino Acids – the building blocks that comprise a simple protein. In other words, there are 8 x 10²⁷ possible combinations for these building blocks being put together, but only ONE of those combinations would create a viable protein – the specific protein required at each place within a physical structure of the cell.

 Even if we assume that a new combination has formed every second that the universe has existed, after 14 billion years only 4 x 10¹⁷ seconds have elapsed and therefore there can only have been a maximum 4 x 10¹⁷ possible combinations that could have formed. The universe would have to be 10 BILLION TIMES OLDER than it supposedly is, in order to produce a single, simple protein!

Furthermore, Dr Asimov calculated the probability of a fully functioning cell, with its millions of interdependent parts comprised of exactly the right proteins in exactly the right order, forming by itself to be 1 in 10^40,000. (That is the number 1, followed by 40,000 zeros!). And bear in mind that Asimov was a self-declared atheist. That was in 1962.

 Subsequent probability estimates have been even less favourable as our understanding of the complexity of cells has increased. Biophysicist Dr Harold Morowitz more recently estimated that the chance creation of a living cell from natural processes might be 1 in 10 to the power of 10 BILLION.

 Dr Thomas Heinze, Professor of Organic Chemistry at Friedrich Schiller University, Germany, in his article, “Did God Create Life? Ask a Protein”, states:

“Proteins are so complex …The belief that the first cell spontaneously popped into being without the involvement of the Creator has its basis in the pre-scientific myth that single-celled creatures were simple. It obviously does not stand up under today’s knowledge that a cell’s DNA, RNA, membranes and proteins are extremely hard to make, and when proteins are made, they must be properly folded, addressed, and turned on and off at just the right times. None of these brilliant solutions could invent itself, yet no ‘first cell’ could exist without all of them. They could not have happened without a very intelligent Creator.”

To this very day, the scientific community remains completely baffled as to how cellular life could have originated via natural means from lifeless chemicals. Consider these quotes from world renowned scientists:

   “The novelty and complexity of the cell is so far beyond anything inanimate in the world today that we are left baffled by how it was achieved.” (Dr M. W. Kirschner, Professor and Chair, Department of Systems Biology, Harvard Medical School, USA.).

  “We must concede that there are presently no detailed Darwinian accounts of the evolution of any biochemical or cellular system, only a variety of wishful speculations.” (Dr M. Harold Franklin, Emeritus Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Colorado State University.)

 “The biggest gap in evolutionary theory remains the origin of life itself… the gap between such a collection of molecules [amino acids and RNA] and even the most primitive cell remains enormous.” (Dr Chris Wills, Professor of Biology at the University of California, USA.)

  “We are as much in the dark today about the pathway from nonlife to life as Charles Darwin was when he wrote, ‘It is mere rubbish thinking at present of the origin of life; one might as well think of the origin of matter.’” (Dr Paul Davies, Director of BEYOND: Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science at Arizona State University.)

But let’s give the evolutionists the benefit of the doubt for a moment. Let’s suppose that, despite the sheer statistical impossibility of proteins ever forming by random chemical processes, that they somehow managed to do so in the beginning. Let’s suppose that the primordial soup managed to cough up millions of amino acids and proteins, all floating around together in close proximity. But that is not even a tiny percentage of the way to forming a living cell! All you have is some very basic inanimate chemical building blocks floating around doing nothing. You still have to propose some means of arranging all these building blocks into the right orders and shapes to form all the highly specialised structures of the cell. You have the building blocks but no one to build the structure and no explanation of how the building blocks could somehow arrange themselves into the highly organised structures of a living cell.

 Consider a house. It consists of bricks, concrete, wood for the frame, internal lining boards, gyprock, tiles, nails, brackets, screws, glue, sarking, insulation, electrical wiring, plumbing pipes, electrical fittings, windows, architraves, skirting, gutters, and all the internal fit out of cupboards and lights and flooring and taps and toilets and on and on. Hundreds of thousands of tiny individual components – the individual building blocks that comprise a house. But merely having all that raw material – the basic building blocks of a house – is just the start. They then need to be joined together in an incredibly precise way to create the final structure, and no amount of random processes will ever do that.

 If you placed all the raw ingredients that comprise a house into a big pile on a block of land and a whirlwind came along and mixed them all up, all those individual components would never arrange themselves into a perfectly constructed house by random processes. You could have a whirlwind come through that building site every minute for the rest of eternity and you would never get a house out of it. In fact the laws of thermodynamics point out that random natural processes always move toward entropy and decreasing complexity rather than order and increasing complexity. Always! Random processes lead inexorably to disorder, not order.

Even if a primordial soup in the distant past could somehow, have miraculously coughed up some amino acids and proteins – the basic chemical building blocks for biological life – they would simply be floating there in random disorder, needing to be somehow assembled to make living, functioning entities. Inanimate, lifeless proteins do NOT naturally start working together and assembling themselves into the incredibly complex shapes and structures of a living, pulsing biological lifeform!

 Dr Sir Fred Hoyle once stated that the single cell is so unbelievably complex that the chance of it forming from non-living matter by natural chemical processes is, and I quote, “less probable than the chance that a tornado sweeping through a junkyard might assemble a fully functioning 747 aircraft.”[1]

You see, when we look at an aircraft or a house, we see the obvious evidence of intelligent design. We see their complexity and the remarkable way they have been constructed and we rightly conclude that chance natural processes could not have created them. Their obvious complexity and design tell us that they are the products of great intelligence and impressive skill.

And yet the living cell is thousands or even millions of times more complex and impressive than a house of aircraft. And we’ve only just scratched the surface of this topic.

So far, we have examined just the first of three amazing characteristics of cells, their physical structures which display overwhelming evidence of an intelligent designer. These incredibly complex structures couldn’t possibly have been formed by random chemical processes in some kind of imagined primordial chemical swamp. Belief in abiogenesis, that cellular life somehow formed from inanimate chemicals is not at all supported by the laws of physics, chemistry and simple common sense!

In the next episode, we are going to explore the second of three amazing characteristics of cells. We are going to zoom in even further and examine a molecule that lies in the nucleus of every living cell – DNA.

For more information on any of these topics, you can check out my books, which are available on my website, smartfaith.net, where you can also subscribe to my weekly blog.

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FOOTNOTES

[1] Fred Hoyle. 1981. Evolution from Space. New York: Touchstone. p. 24

[i] Tas Walker, “Irreducible Complexity and Cul-De Sacs”, https://creation.com/irreducible-complexity-and-cul-de-sacs, 17 Dec 2016

For more information, check out my books, “No More Monkey Business” and “7 Reasons to Believe” on Smartfaith.net