Complexity and evolution of the cell

[jriccitelli]

If you found a microscopic miniaturized steam engine (a cell) in the boiler room of a ocean liner (a larger complex design) why would you think this was proof that the larger design came from the smaller? And why would that then demand that the ocean liner itself must not have a designer? If the ocean liner has intelligent design, why would a microscopic design override the clearly evident necessity of design in the larger design? (whether or not one proceeded the other, they both have a high level of design)

Why would something that changes to suit it’s environment be an indication that it doesn’t have ‘change’ already engineered into it’s DNA?

After all, from the video it seems that bacteria develops its own strand of false DNA in order to fool the cells true codes. The bacteria had to ‘know what it is doing’, in fact mimicking true DNA with false seems to be part of the bacteria’s own code. In other words developing false strands of DNA is in the bacteria’s own DNA code, as well as ‘the DNA to change itself’ in order to adapt.
So how does this adaptation eliminate design, or God?

Christians would generally believe that bacteria was put into the earth as part of the curse and sentence of death on creation. So I suspect bacteria is a special breed of biology that God engineered to destroy life, because of sin (rather than just wait for old age to set in). (Gods creation of bacteria and pestilence is an argument I have with Word of Faith proponents)

Another thing: If bacteria were around for millions of years (billions) how in the world did life withstand the obvious mutant growth and destruction of bacteria for so ‘long’?
Bacteria can obviously have quick devastating effects; viruses have been shown to wipe out huge percentages of our own species within a few short years. How did any species withstand ‘millions’ of years?

That’s another thing that ‘evolutionists’ ignore – the shear length of a million ‘years’, let alone two million, 3, 20, 30 million ‘years’! A billion? Years? What are the ‘chances’ that biological viruses would not destroy all positive chance developments of life, when such an enemy such as bacteria existed along side living things this whole time (and a quickly adjusting enemy that is quicker it seems than the positive growth?)?

[jonperry]

There are many interesting comments here. Let me just respond to one for now.

jriccitelli, you said:

you hear the words “amazing, highly complex, intricate design, engineered, etc” then they add ‘evolved’ to the sentence, why? Is not ‘amazing’ the antithesis of what happens ‘naturally’?

Because of the Intelligent Design movement there is confusion when biologists use the words "designed" or "engineered" when talking about evolution. This need not be the case however. Evolution does design/engineer things. The difference between nature and an intelligence like you or me is that we only see nature designing through blind trial and error, not planned intention. It truly is amazing when we see the complex chemistry of a virus. It's amazing for its complexity, it's amazing for its efficiency, and it's amazing when we contemplate the trial and error process by which it came into existence.

In my opinion (and apparently the opinion of the creators of this film) evolution is an amazing process.

Why did matter get together to construct these structures? What was their goal? To me, matter has ‘no reason’ to do anything. There is no goal. What is the ‘reason’ simple life structures should even ‘want’ to structure themselves to some purpose?

Chemists and biologists investigating life origins tend to believe there was no goal when chemicals first began to assemble into complex systems.

A thunder cloud is a chemical system which produces thunder and lightning. It does NOT do so with purpose. The chemistry and physics of the clouds interacting with the environment make the thunder happen on accident (without purpose).

Likewise, it is thought that the first chemical systems capable of reproduction were not trying to reproduce. Their chemistry interacting with the environment simply made reproduction happen on accident. In the beginning they were most likely horrible at their "job" of reproducing and clearly did so without purpose.

If we started with one reproducing system we have two. When conditions are right, they will make 4 and so on. If reproduction is imperfect, variation will occur. Some variations of the system will be better at reproducing than others within their environments. Some variations will fail and forever be deleted from the game. Over time, if conditions are right, the successful systems will get better and better until we get a system so good at reproduction that it seems to do it on purpose and with skill.

The chemical and fossil records suggest that the first reproducing chemical systems on earth appeared over 4.5 billion years ago. If this is true and if these ancient systems are what gave rise to modern cells, when we look at a living cell today we are looking at a system that has been evolving all that time.

[jonperry]

Christians would generally believe that bacteria was put into the earth as part of the curse and sentence of death on creation. So I suspect bacteria is a special breed of biology that God engineered to destroy life, because of sin (rather than just wait for old age to set in). (Gods creation of bacteria and pestilence is an argument I have with Word of Faith proponents)

Just a quick note on bacteria and viruses. In biology they are two very different things. A virus is what was shown in the video (colored black in the animation). Viruses are protein packs with DNA inside, they are not technically alive as they can not metabolize or reproduce on their own. The video showed their DNA as being black which suggested it was a fake kind of DNA but it's actually made of the same stuff your DNA is made of. They color coded it so you could tell it apart.

A bacteria is a living cell, much more complex than a virus. A bacteria has it's own DNA and Ribosomes and so on which allow it to live, metabolize, and reproduce without infecting a large organism like a human. Some bacteria do infect humans but most do not.

Viruses are typically destructive to living cells but bacteria are good in many cases. You have millions of them in your gut helping you digest your food for example.

Another thing: If bacteria were around for millions of years (billions) how in the world did life withstand the obvious mutant growth and destruction of bacteria for so ‘long’?
Bacteria can obviously have quick devastating effects; viruses have been shown to wipe out huge percentages of our own species within a few short years. How did any species withstand ‘millions’ of years?

By bacteria here I think you mean viruses. You are correct in seeing a problem for evolution here but there is a solution: the immune system. Your immune system evolves rapidly inside you even though you do not evolve within your lifetime. The rapid evolution of the immune systems allows it to keep up with invaders.

In the first several billion years of the fossil record we only see viruses and bacteria. These are both fast reproducing and fast evolving organisms. At around 1 billion years ago we see the first multi-celled organisms starting to take hold. It is believed (though we can't see it in the fossils) that the development of a primitive immune system must have happened first or early on to allow these multi-celled organisms to survive battles with the much faster evolving viruses.

So how does this adaptation eliminate design, or God?

Finally, I just want to point out that evolution does not "eliminate" God. You can believe in God and accept evolution. Millions do so. http://www.theos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=40&t=4508

[jriccitelli]

You are very reasonable, like your brother.
Thank you for the clarification on viruses, by lumping ‘things that kill’ together I guessed you would get my point, what I meant was all diseases in general and I was speaking of ‘bad’ bacteria.
Still, both viruses and bacteria have DNA.

Are you supposing DNA designed itself?
Are you suggesting DNA (or some other pre cellular structure develops thought?)
Are you saying the microscopic structures have ‘thought’ but a tree and plant do not? (Or do they)

It's amazing for its complexity, it's amazing for its efficiency, and it's amazing when we contemplate the trial and error process by which it came into existence.

I’ll give you millions of blind chance years for a cell to form, or even a strand of DNA to form, it is still in a empty (hostile) environment all by itself. It has to now form something quickly, how long would that one chance structure get before it dies? (Then the whole process starts from scratch)
How long can one cell live on it’s own, or a DNA strand by itself begin to form something?
(Remember nothing else exists)

[SteveF]

Still, both viruses and bacteria have DNA.

Are you supposing DNA designed itself?
Are you suggesting DNA (or some other pre cellular structure develops thought?)
Are you saying the microscopic structures have ‘thought’ but a tree and plant do not? (Or do they)

I’ll let Jon answer the question. He knows more than I do and is quite articulate. I want to approach this from another angle.

It seems to me you are employing the “God of the Gaps Theory”. In other words, any question science is currently unable to answer then, bingo, it must be God. Or possible a worse theory, if science can’t answer all the questions then the whole Theory is tossed. This would be much like dismissing a meteorologist’s explanation of how a hurricane forms simply because they can’t explain where water comes from. Remember, even Darwin titled his book “The Origin of Species” not “The Origin of Life”. Evolution is principally about observing how life evolved not where it came from.

Now back to the “God of the Gaps Theory”. There is a danger in employing this method. You are implying to the scientific field that if they can explain how DNA formed then they have explained away the need of God behind it all. We wonder why some scientists struggle believing in God. I’m not prepared to set the parameters of the argument unnecessarily in such a fashion.

There are examples in the past where this came back to bite Christians. I’ll give a simple one.

At one time Christians thought there was no way the earth could be revolving around the sun and people like Martin Luther and John Calvin would call anyone who taught this a fool or demonic**.

When the heliocentric solar system was eventually accepted it was assumed that it must be God constantly fine tuning the process since there was no ultimate explanation of it (The God of the Gaps). Later when the French scientist Pierre-Simon Laplace came up with a natural explanation of the solar system, did that remove God from the picture? Of course not. Unfortunately, using the God of the Gaps Theory opened the door for people to think that God may have actually been explained away.

**"People gave ear to an upstart astrologer who strove to show that the earth revolves, not the heavens or the firmament, the sun and the moon....This fool wishes to reverse the entire science of astronomy; but sacred scripture tells us [Joshua 10:13]that Joshua commanded the sun to stand still, and not the earth." Martin Luther

**"Those who assert that 'the earth moves and turns'...[are] motivated by 'a spirit of bitterness, contradiction, and faultfinding;' possessed by the devil, they aimed 'to pervert the order of nature.'" John Calvin

[jriccitelli]

That’s an issue that came back to bite Catholicism. Nobody has disproved 'God' or 'His' word. Science hasn't a leg to stand as far as changing their position, science changes everyday.
I already spoke of Geocentrism and Catholicism on the following thread and somewhere else:
'Does conduct determine a Christian's final salvation?' (pg1)

[jriccitelli]

As far as creation goes, I don’t begin with God, I end up at God.
‘Something’ had to design all this.
Who? It wasn’t you or me either. The design and engineering around (and in us) is so super super super ultra-fantastic, and so beyond what any mind could ever even fathom – that the designer ‘whoever’ they are must also be a super ultra fantastic being.

So we look around to find ‘who’ fits that ‘description’?

We don’t see anyone, but we do ‘have the design’. And thus we do have a ‘description’ of the designer, as the designer would have to be super ultra intelligent, maybe even omniscient. And they would have to be ultra powerful and in fact more powerful than the energy around us, as many things appear ‘controlled’ or ‘put into’ orbit and motion by a power greater than the matter and energy being used. And this intellectual being must be larger than the solar system itself, as the system shows that it was put into motion also, and so on.

We look around to see ‘who’ could fit this description?

The only one raising their hand seems to be the God of the Hebrews, all the other gods never even claimed much or half as much of these characteristics. All science really does is ‘observe’. Science does not technically make or engineer anything, if a scientist does so he is then being an engineer, also. Science observes the great design in Creation; they admit it, that confirms there is a designer. I really do not see how a person can step back and say, well we will just have to wait until science observes that there is no designer, when we already agree there is design ! ? ? (In fact Creation has billions of ultra complex and ultra intricate designs)

Gap fallacy? If you find a book on the ground without an authors name, are you going to wait for science to tell you it may have written itself?

[SteveF]

That’s an issue that came back to bite Catholicism.

I don’t understand what you’re saying here? Are you simply agreeing with me or saying that Catholics were different than Christians. Geocentricity was the absolute universal position of all Christians including the Reformers Luther and Calvin I cited above. But that is not the point I’m making. It’s about using God of the Gaps as argumentation.

Nobody has disproved 'God' or 'His' word

That’s not the issue I’m raising. What I’m saying is your method of argumentation may lead a scientist to think they have proven God is not behind creation.

[Homer]

For the Theistic evolutionist, what role do you think God plays in creation? Is He a sort of cosmic dice-roller who needs to throw the dice again and again, almost endlessly, to come up with something? Is He something like the Deist would say, who set things up and now is "hands off"? And was evolution the only way He could have come up with the "creation", i.e., was He unable to do it any other way? Seems so inefficient and implausible. So many questions!

To me it is far more difficult to believe something like our eyes could be an accident, something that conferred a benefit to its possessor each step of the way as it developed.

[SteveF]

So many questions!

Yes!

Is He a sort of cosmic dice-roller who needs to throw the dice again and again, almost endlessly, to come up with something? Is He something like the Deist would say, who set things up and now is "hands off"?

I suppose this question could be asked of any view one holds of creation since even as stated above by others who question evolution they believe God has hard wired adaptability into creatures.

Regardless of what view you hold there does seems to be things God has set in motion in which he doesn’t seem to intervene. There’s such consistency, predictability and apparent non-intervention that the term “Laws of Nature” is used. This has enabled scientists to make predicable and consistent observations. Even for your everyday person this applies. When you plant an oak tree, for example, you know how long it will take to grow. You won’t look in your back yard the day after planting it and see it’s spouted up 20 or 30 feet.

Yet, in quantum mechanics they have discovered something that seems to imply some free will in nature in which electrons seem to make tiny independent decisions. This led some to construct the so called butterfly effect, in which the example is given of a butterfly flapping its wings in New York causing a hurricane in Tokyo. But even this would not overtake the basics of nature like gravity reversing itself etc…

was He unable to do it any other way? Seems so inefficient and implausible.

Set aside evolution for the moment. I watched a documentary about Volcanoes a year or two ago which showed the incredible synchronicity between tectonic plates, water, mountains, volcanoes, carbon dioxide etc.. Yet, all of this was set in motion at the beginning of the earth and happens “naturally”. It doesn't seem accidental at all….at least to me. God seems to have set in motion something a long time ago that would cause destruction (earthquakes) and yet was very necessary for life. This could be seen as inefficient and implausible as well…and yet that’s the way God created it. The documentary is called “Earth: The Power of the Planet – Volcano”

This is the only place I could find the entire documentary on-line. I found it fascinating:

http://mycommonsensepolitics.net/index. ... &Itemid=57

Gotta scoot