Complexity of the cell

― Michael Denton, Evolution: A Theory In Crisis

To grasp the reality of life as it has been revealed by molecular biology, we must magnify a cell a thousand million times until it is twenty kilometers in diameter and resembles a giant airship large enough to cover a great city like London or New York. What we would then see would be an object of unparalleled complexity and adaptive design. On the surface of the cell we would see millions of openings, like the port holes of a vast space ship, opening and closing to allow a continual stream of materials to flow in and out. If we were to enter one of these openings we would find ourselves in a world of supreme technology and bewildering complexity.




http://harunyahya.com/en/books/14942/The-Microworld-Miracle/chapter/4952/Bacteria



the evolutionist scientist W.H. Thorpe reveals his amazement in the following statement:

The most elementary type of cell constitutes a "mechanism" unimaginably more complex than any machine yet thought up, let alone constructed, by man



http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/tj/v18/n2/abiogenesis

We now also realize, after a century of research, that the eukaryote protozoa, believed in Darwin’s day to be as simple as a bowl of gelatin, are actually enormously complex. A living eukaryotic cell contains many hundreds of thousands of different complex parts, including various motor proteins. These parts must be assembled correctly to produce a living cell, the most complex ‘machine’ in the universe—far more complex than a Cray supercomputer. Furthermore, molecular biology has demonstrated that the basic design of the cell is essentially the same in all living systems on earth from bacteria to mammals. … In terms of their basic biochemical design … no living system can be thought of as being primitive or ancestral with respect to any other system, nor is there the slightest empirical hint of an evolutionary sequence among all the incredibly diverse cells on earth.



http://www.uic.edu/classes/bios/bios100/lecturesf04am/lect06.htm

Cells contain a genetic blueprint and machinery to use it

   Genes are instructions for cells to create specific proteins
   All cells use the same types of information
       The genetic code is universal
       The machinery used for synthesis is interchangeable
   However, for this to function properly, information transfer must be error free
       Errors are called mutations

http://www.darwinismrefuted.com/molecular_biology_02.html

the cell is the most complex system mankind has ever confronted. Today we know that the cell contains power stations producing the energy to be used by the cell, factories manufacturing the enzymes and hormones essential for life, a databank where all the necessary information about all products to be produced is recorded, complex transportation systems and pipelines for carrying raw materials and products from one place to another, advanced laboratories and refineries for breaking down external raw materials into their useable parts, and specialized cell membrane proteins to control the incoming and outgoing materials. And these constitute only a small part of this incredibly complex system.

http://www.creationism.org/heinze/SciEvidGodLife.htm

If proteins could form, they could not get together with DNA because DNA does not form outside of living cells. A living cell has a membrane, called lipid bilayer. But lipids are also made by proteins. So to form a cell membrane, you need proteins made by dna. But to make proteins through dna, you need a cell membrane. That is , both, the cell nucleus and dna, and the cell membrane, must exist both at the same time. That is a irreducible complex system.

http://evolutionoftruth.com/evo/evocmplx.htm

Every living cell contains DNA, the program which describes every aspect of the organism's physical design and life functions, including:

Rotifer


ingestion
digestion
conversion to energy
excretion of waste respiration
reproduction
circulation
growth
locomotion
regulation
response to stimuli

http://christiananswers.net/q-crs/abiogenesis.html

Cytologists now realize that a living cell contains hundreds of thousands of different complex parts such as various motor proteins that are assembled to produce the most complex “machine” in the Universe--a machine far more complex than the most complex Cray super computer.

We now also realize after a century of research that the eukaryote protozoa thought to be as simple as a bowl of gelatin in Darwin's day actually are enormously more complex than the prokaryote cell. Furthermore, molecular biology has demonstrated that the basic design of the cell is…
…essentially the same in all living systems on earth from bacteria to mammals… In terms of their basic biochemical design… no living system can be thought of as being primitive or ancestral with respect to any other system, nor is there the slightest empirical hint of an evolutionary sequence among all the incredibly diverse cells on earth (Denton, 1986, p. 250).


Cells and organisms are very complex… [and] there is a surprising uniformity among living things. We know from DNA sequence analyses that plants and higher animals are closely related, not only to each other, but to relatively simple single-celled organisms such as yeasts. Cells are so similar in their structure and function that many of their proteins can be interchanged from one organism to another. For example, yeast cells share with human cells many of the central molecules that regulate their cell cycle, and several of the human proteins will substitute in the yeast cell for their yeast equivalents! (Alberts, 1992, p. xii).

http://christiananswers.net/q-crs/abiogenesis.html

Most bacteria require several thousand genes to carry out the minimum functions necessary for life. Denton notes that even though the tiniest bacterial cells are incredibly small, each bacterium is a…
…veritable micro-miniaturized factory containing thousands of exquisitely designed pieces of intricate molecular machinery, made up altogether of one hundred thousand million atoms, far more complicated than any machine built by man and absolutely without parallel in the non-living world (Denton, 1986, p. 250).

The simplest form of life requires millions of parts at the atomic level, and the higher life forms require trillions. Furthermore, the many macromolecules necessary for life are constructed of even smaller parts called elements. That life requires a certain minimum number of parts is well documented; the only debate now is how many millions of functionally integrated parts are necessary. The minimum number may not produce an organism that can survive long enough to effectively reproduce.


As Coppedge (1973) notes, even 1) postulating a primordial sea with every single component necessary for life, 2) speeding up the bonding rate so as to form different chemical combinations a trillion times more rapidly than hypothesized to have occurred, 3) allowing for a 4.6 billion- year-old earth and 4) using all atoms on the earth still leaves the probability of a single protein molecule being arranged by chance is 1 in 10^261.

Using the lowest estimate made before the discoveries of the past two decades raised the number several fold. Coppedge estimates the probability of 1 in 10119,879 is necessary to obtain the minimum set of the required estimate of 239 protein molecules for the smallest theoretical life form.

At this rate he estimates it would require 10119,831 years on the average to obtain a set of these proteins by naturalistic evolution (1973, pp. 110, 114). The number he obtained is 10119,831 greater than the current estimate for the age of the earth (4.6 billion years). In other words, this event is outside the range of probability. Natural selection cannot occur until an organism exists and is able to reproduce which requires that the first complex life form first exist as a functioning unit.

In spite of the overwhelming empirical and probabilistic evidence that life could not originate by natural processes, evolutionists possess an unwavering belief that some day they will have an answer to how life could spontaneously generate.

Nobel laureate Christian de Duve (1995) argues that life is the product of law-driven chemical steps, each one of which must have been highly probable in the right circumstances. This reliance upon an unknown “law” favoring life has been postulated to replace the view that life's origin was a freakish accident unlikely to occur anywhere, is now popular.

Complexity of the cell, evidence of design



http://reasonandscience.heavenforum.org/t1330-complexity-of-the-cell#3053

http://evidencepress.com/articles/ultimate-irreducible-complexity/

“The cell is the most detailed and concentrated organizational structure known to humanity. It is a lively microcosmic city, with factories for making building supplies, packaging centers for transporting the supplies, trucks that move the materials along highways, communication devices, hospitals for repairing injuries, a massive library of information, power stations providing usable energy, garbage removal, walls for protection and city gates for allowing certain materials to come and go from the cell.”

A specific example described in the book is the interdependence of DNA, RNA and protein. We summarize the issue, “DNA, RNA and proteins cannot do their jobs without the help of at least one of the other two. DNA is a library of detailed information for the various structures within the cell. It has the information for the manufacture of each protein. RNA is a copy of instructions from the DNA and is sent as a messenger to the ribosomes for making proteins. There are two types of proteins; functional proteins such as enzymes, and structural proteins, which compose the organelles. Living cells need all three molecules at the same time. The chance, simultaneous natural appearance of the three distinct, interdependent complex systems is just not possible.” Not only are these three needed for life, but an organism also needs a cell membrane, usable energy, reproduction and all left-handed amino acids. The cell itself is a tremendous and irrefutable example of irreducible complexity.

Considering the cell as being the ultimate irreducibly complex system, there is no conceivable way that life could arise by natural causes. Darwin’s theory of numerous, successive, slight modifications simply does not work when discussing the origin of life. The problem that irreducibly complexity brings to evolution is clearly daunting for evolutionists. Their way to deal with the problem is to dismiss it as nonscientific, pseudoscience or religion dressed in a tuxedo. However, when one looks at the issue of origin of life through the lens of irreducibly complexity, it simply brings one with a reasonable mind to his or her knees, admitting life cannot begin by natural causes.

http://christianevidences.org/scientific-evidence/hematology/the-cell-and-irreducible-complexity/

http://www.rejectionofpascalswager.net/behe.html

Cellular transport systems:

Gated transport is called thus due to it's similarity to our everyday experience of passing through a guarded (electronically or otherwise) gate. This system require three basic components to work: an identification tag, a scanner (to verify identification) and a gate (that is activated by the scanner). The system needs all three components to work otherwise it will not work. Thus in a cell, when a protein is to be manufactured, one of the first steps is for the mRNA [c] to be transported out from the nucleus into the cytoplasm. This requires gated transport of the mRNA at the nuclear pore. Proteins in the pore reads a signal from the RNA (the scanner reads the identification tag) and opens the pore (gate is opened).


DNA and information

The structure of DNA polymerase is determined by information stored on DNA, but it takes DNA polymerase and other proteins to make DNA.  Furthermore, information to make DNA polymerase must be transferred to RNA before it can be used to make proteins from amino acids.  Making the RNA copy also requires proteins.
Can you see where the process has a beginning?  Could any of it function before the whole system was complete?
This system will not work unless all the components are present and functioning.  This means that in order to start life you must have proteins and RNA and DNA.



― Michael Denton, Evolution: A Theory In Crisis

To grasp the reality of life as it has been revealed by molecular biology, we must magnify a cell a thousand million times until it is twenty kilometers in diameter and resembles a giant airship large enough to cover a great city like London or New York. What we would then see would be an object of unparalleled complexity and adaptive design. On the surface of the cell we would see millions of openings, like the port holes of a vast space ship, opening and closing to allow a continual stream of materials to flow in and out. If we were to enter one of these openings we would find ourselves in a world of supreme technology and bewildering complexity.

Minimal Complexity for the Origin of Life

http://www.asa3.org/ASA/education/origins/ic-cr.htm
     For a nonliving system, questions about irreducible complexity are even more challenging for a totally natural non-design scenario, because natural selection — which is the main mechanism of Darwinian evolution — cannot exist until a system can reproduce.  For an origin of life we can think about the minimal complexity that would be required for reproduction and other basic life-functions.  Most scientists think this would require hundreds of biomolecular parts, not just the five parts in a simple mousetrap or in my imaginary LMNOP system.  And current science has no plausible theories to explain how the minimal complexity required for life (and the beginning of biological natural selection) could have been produced by natural process before the beginning of biological natural selection.

http://xwalk.ca/origin2.html

The chicken-egg dilemma has confounded scientists for decades. Chemist John Walton noted the dilemma in 1977 when he stated:

  "The origin of the genetic code presents formidable unsolved problems. The coded information in he nucleotide sequence is meaningless without the translation machinery, but the specification for his machinery is itself coded in the DNA. Thus without the machinery the information is meaningless, but without the coded information, the machinery cannot be produced. This presents a paradox of the 'chicken and egg' variety, and attempts to solve it have so far been sterile."

http://www.arn.org/docs/odesign/od201/peeringdbb201.htm

There is good evidence to suggest that the process of cell division is indeed irreducibly complex, for the steps involved are interdependent and highly coordinated. For example, crucial steps such as DNA transcription require proteins (see Figure 1)—while protein synthesis in turn is dependent upon transcription. Moreover, evidence suggests that the processes involved in cell division are highly regulated and coordinated in a sequential fashion. For instance, in bacteria, cytokinesis does not proceed until DNA replication is complete, so that the DNA is precisely partitioned into the developing daughter cells. Each process itself is complex and if any one of the processes is inhibited, cell division ceases. This interdependence fits the criteria of an irreducibly complex system.