Series: "The Case for a Creator,THE EVIDENCE OF BIOCHEMISTRY: THE COMPLEXITY OF MOLECULAR MACHINES"

have always underestimated the cell. . . . The entire cell can be viewed as a factory that contains an elaborate network of interlocking assembly lines, each of which is composed of a set of large protein machines. . . . Why do we call [them] machines? Precisely because, like machines invented by humans to deal efficiently with the macroscopic world, these protein assemblies contain highly coordinated moving parts. Bruce Alberts, President, National Academy of Sciences

We should reject, as a matter of principle, the substitution of intelligent design for the dialogue of chance and necessity; but we must concede that there are presently no detailed Darwinian accounts of the evolution of any biochemical system, only a variety of wishful speculations. Biochemist Franklin M. Harold

If Darwinian evolution is going to work, it has to succeed at the microscopic level of amino acids, proteins, and DNA. On the other hand, if there really was a designer of the world, then his fingerprints were going to be all over the cell. A system or device is irreducibly complex if it has a number of different components that all work together to accomplish the task of the system, and if you were to remove one of the components, the system would no longer function. An irreducibly complex system is highly unlikely to be built piece-by-piece through Darwinian processes, because the system has to be fully present in order for it to function.

Let’s look an example: a mouse trap.

First, there’s a flat wooden platform to which the other parts are attached. Second, there’s a metal hammer, which does the job of crushing the mouse. Third, there’s a spring with extended ends to press against the platform and the hammer when the trap is charged. Fourth, there’s a catch that releases when a mouse applies a slight bit of pressure. And, fifth, there’s a metal bar that connects to the catch and holds the hammer back when the trap is charged. Now, if you take away any of these parts—the spring or the holding bar or whatever—then it’s not like the mousetrap becomes half as efficient as it used to be or it only catches half as many mice. Instead, it doesn’t catch any mice. It’s broken. It doesn’t work at all. And notice that you don’t just need to have these five parts, but they also have to be matched to each other and have the right spatial relationship to each other. The parts are stapled in the right place. An intelligent agent does that for a mousetrap. But in the cell, who tells the parts where they should go? Who staples them together? Nobody—they have to do it on their own. You have to have the information resident in the system to tell the components to get together in the right orientation, otherwise it’s useless.

The mousetrap does a good job of illustrating how irreducibly complex biological systems defy a Darwinian explanation, Evolution can’t produce an irreducibly complex biological machine suddenly, all at once, because it’s much too complicated. The odds against that would be prohibitive. And you can’t produce it directly by numerous, successive, slight modifications of a precursor system, because any precursor system would be missing a part and consequently couldn’t function. There would be no reason for it to exist. And natural selection chooses systems that are already working.

Life is actually based on molecular machines. They haul cargo from one place in the cell to another; they turn cellular switches on and off; they act as pulleys and cables; electrical machines let current flow through nerves; manufacturing machines build other machines; solar-powered machines capture the energy from light and store it in chemicals. Molecular machinery lets cells move, reproduce, and process food. In fact, every part of the cell’s function is controlled by complex, highly calibrated machines. And if the creation of a simple device like this requires intelligent design, then we have to ask, ‘What about the finely tuned machines of the cellular world?’ If evolution can’t adequately explain them, then scientists should be free to consider other alternatives.

So as you can see evolution try to explain how we and everything else got here, but when you look at the molecular level they find it very hard, actually impossible to explain it. Use the mouse trap example. And yes, you can build another mouse trap with fewer parts, you can use a box with a stick and string, but you need all the parts for that trap to work also. If the cell doesn’t have all the parts, it WILL NOT FUNCTION LIKE IT SHOULD.

Research the evidence, ask questions, and remember…..

Have an Intelligent Faith!!

-Nelis

parts taken from Strobel, Lee (2009-05-11). The Case for a Creator: A Journalist Investigates Scientific Evidence That Points Toward God. Zondervan.