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A question for the sceptic: Can you think of anything less likely to have been organized by unguided chance than the production of a protein followed by the almost unbelievable series of steps that address it, deliver it and help it fit with the other molecules with which it will work? Regulating production Protein making must be carefully regulated. Otherwise the machines would make too much of one kind of protein, an easy one for example, and not enough of another. The right proteins must be delivered to the right places in the right amounts or the cell will die, so protein making had to be intelligently regulated from the very first. One molecular machine used in protein regulation uses specific stretches of DNA called “regulatory DNA sequences” as a sort of a switch. The DNA, however, cannot turn protein production on or off by itself. Each regulatory DNA sequence works with a specific protein which has been folded to fit the |
Molecular Machines (continued) |
correct spot on the DNA. The protein works with the DNA to regulate the production of a protein by switching the gene for that protein on and off at the right times. No cell could exist if it were not able to regulate the production of its chemicals. Reproduction Another reason life could not have been started by a cell which generated spontaneously without a Creator is that each cell must have a way to reproduce. If the “first cell” did not have this ability already fully functional there could never have been a second cell! After the first generation, new life would have become no life. In reproduction, when a cell divides, one copy of its DNA is passed on to its offspring. There are several reasons that this is not easy. Perhaps the easiest to understand is that the DNA’s two strands are |
Myoglobin: a single-chain globular protein of 153 amino acids |
long, thin, and tightly twisted together like the strands of a rope. The DNA strands must be separated one from the other at cell division to give one strand to each cell. How does one strand get separated from the other when they are twisted tightly together? Among a number of machines necessary for reproduction are DNA unwinding machines. Without these and other machines that allow cell division, no “first cell” could ever have produced a second cell. A question for skeptics: When you say that non living chemicals came together to form the first living cell without need of intelligent design, did those chance chemical reactions also form all of the molecular machines that are essential for reproduction? Tying up the loose ends In this article, I have chosen a few easy to understand examples of the cell’s many molecular machines: • pumps that bring nutrients through the membrane and into the cell, • machines that make proteins, • regulatory machines, • unwinding machines. If even one of these had been left out, no “first cell” could have lived or reproduced! Since no machine has ever been known to come together without a designer/creator, the required presence of a good number of machines from the very first is powerful evidence that living things had an intelligent and capable Creator. The impact of this evidence is growing as new molecular machines, complete with moving parts, are discovered every year. In fact, microscopes so powerful they permit scientists to study cell parts that were previously invisible show up previously undreamed of layers of complex details. We will examine some others in future emails. In contrast, place even the sharpest point, blade, or whatever man can make under the microscope, and turn up the magnification. The higher the magnification, the cruder it looks. While each jump ahead in magnification shows up more evidence for an intelligent Designer/Creator, no evidence has been uncovered that dead chemicals ever came together to spontaneously produce life. Whenever I mention this, sceptics protest that I just don’t understand how simple the first cell really was. A really simple first life is a prediction of their theory, yet each advance in making microscopes reveals another layer of complexity that no cell could live without. The tiny moving parts of molecular machines are but one example. What will future research reveal? • Their prediction: A way to make a cell so simple that undirected chemical reactions could have put it together. • My prediction: The number of known complex parts and functions that no cell could live without will continue to increase. |
