Cell Biology provides many extraordinary examples of intelligent design. Inside each and every organism reside biomechanical systems that Darwin and his contemporaries could never have imagined. Even today, much of what is happening inside cells is still not understood, and yet evolutionists hold fast to a belief that these remarkable constructs developed without God.
These two contrasting views of the cell provide poignant illustration of how worldviews impact our interpretation of physical evidence. In his presentation, Chris Ashcraft will discuss the cell as it relates to these opposing views and describe some important cellular features, which offer testimony to the glory of the Creator.
DNA is not a special life-giving molecule, but a genetic databank that transmits its information using a mathematical code. Most of the workings of the cell are best described, not in terms of material stuff — hardware — but as information, or software.
So, in today’s terminology, Darwin seems to have been thinking of life only as hardware, not software. But as Davies recognized, life’s information content from a naturalistic origin-of-life perspective …
“ … leaves us with a curious conundrum. How did nature fabricate the world’s first digital information processor—the original living cell—from the blind chaos of blundering molecules? How did molecular hardware get to write its own software?"
How did life originate? Evolutionist Professor Paul Davies admitted, “Nobody knows how a mixture of lifeless chemicals spontaneously organized themselves into the first living cell.” Andrew Knoll, professor of biology, Harvard, said, “we don’t really know how life originated on this planet”.
A minimal cell needs several hundred proteins. Even if every atom in the universe were an experiment with all the correct amino acids present for every possible molecular vibration in the supposed evolutionary age of the universe, not even one average-sized functional protein would form. So how did life with hundreds of proteins originate just by chemistry without intelligent design?
How did the DNA code originate? The code is a sophisticated language system with letters and words where the meaning of the words is unrelated to the chemical properties of the letters—just as the information on this page is not a product of the chemical properties of the ink (or pixels on a screen). What other coding system has existed without intelligent design? How did the DNA coding system arise without it being created?
How could mutations—accidental copying mistakes (DNA ‘letters’ exchanged, deleted or added, genes duplicated, chromosome inversions, etc.)—create the huge volumes of information in the DNA of living things? How could such errors create 3 billion letters of DNA information to change a microbe into a microbiologist? There is information for how to make proteins but also for controlling their use—much like a cookbook contains the ingredients as well as the instructions for how and when to use them. One without the other is useless.
Mutations are known for their destructive effects, including over 1,000 human diseases such as hemophilia. Rarely are they even helpful. But how can scrambling existing DNA information create a new biochemical pathway or nano-machines with many components, to make ‘goo-to-you’ evolution possible?
Why is natural selection, a principle recognized by creationists, taught as ‘evolution’, as if it explains the origin of the diversity of life? By definition it is a selective process (selecting from already existing information), so is not a creative process. It might explain the survival of the fittest (why certain genes benefit creatures more in certain environments), but not the arrival of the fittest (where the genes and creatures came from in the first place). The death of individuals not adapted to an environment and the survival of those that are suited does not explain the origin of the traits that make an organism adapted to an environment.
How did new biochemical pathways, which involve multiple enzymes working together in sequence, originate?
Every pathway and nano-machine requires multiple protein/enzyme components to work. How did lucky accidents create even one of the components, let alone 10 or 20 or 30 at the same time, often in a necessary programmed sequence. Evolutionary biochemist Franklin Harold wrote, “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.”
Living things look like they were designed, so how do evolutionists know that they were not designed? Richard Dawkins wrote, “biology is the study of complicated things that have the appearance of having been designed with a purpose.” Francis Crick, the co-discoverer of the double helix structure of DNA, wrote, “Biologists must constantly keep in mind that what they see was not designed, but rather evolved.” The problem for evolutionists is that living things show too much design. Who objects when an archaeologist says that pottery points to human design? Yet if someone attributes the design in living things to a designer, that is not acceptable. Why should science be restricted to naturalistic causes rather than logical causes?
How did multi-cellular life originate? How did cells adapted to individual survival ‘learn’ to cooperate and specialize (including undergoing programmed cell death) to create complex plants and animals?
How did sex originate? Asexual reproduction gives up to twice as much reproductive success (‘fitness’) for the same resources as sexual reproduction, so how could the latter ever gain enough advantage to be selected? And how could mere physics and chemistry invent the complementary apparatuses needed at the same time (non-intelligent processes cannot plan for future coordination of male and female organs).
How did blind chemistry create mind/ intelligence, meaning, altruism and morality? If everything evolved, and we invented God, as per evolutionary teaching, what purpose or meaning is there to human life? Should students be learning nihilism (life is meaningless) in science classes?
Why is evolutionary ‘just-so’ story-telling tolerated? Evolutionists often use flexible story-telling to ‘explain’ observations contrary to evolutionary theory.
Where are the scientific breakthroughs due to evolution? Dr Marc Kirschner, chair of the Department of Systems Biology, Harvard Medical School, stated: “In fact, over the last 100 years, almost all of biology has proceeded independent of evolution, except evolutionary biology itself. Molecular biology, biochemistry, physiology, have not taken evolution into account at all.”
Then why do schools and universities teach evolution so dogmatically, stealing time from experimental biology that so benefits humankind?
Science involves experimenting to figure out how things work; how they operate. Why is evolution, a theory about history, taught as if it is the same as this operational science? You cannot do experiments, or even observe what happened, in the past. Asked if evolution has been observed, Richard Dawkins said, “Evolution has been observed. It’s just that it hasn’t been observed while it’s happening.”
Why is a fundamentally religious idea, a dogmatic belief system that fails to explain the evidence, taught in science classes? Karl Popper, famous philosopher of science, said “Darwinism is not a testable scientific theory, but a metaphysical [religious] research programme ….”
Michael Ruse, evolutionist science philosopher admitted, “Evolution is a religion. This was true of evolution in the beginning, and it is true of evolution still today.” If “you can’t teach religion in science classes”, why is evolution taught?
"Natural selection" (better adapted organisms surviving to pass on genetic material) cannot produce evolution because it produces no NEW genetic material. Mutations are random changes in the genetic makeup of organisms. Evolutionists say that mutations supply the new genes needed for evolution to proceed. Mutations are an example of the Second Law of Thermodynamics (when things are left to themselves they become more disordered over time). It is amazing that evolutionists would put forward mutations as the mechanism by which evolution could somehow take place!
The cell itself is a fine tuned universe created by GOD for his glory. Science continues to explore the cell like it is a "fine tuned universe" and evolutionists continue to make up stories about science discoveries that refute creation of the "fine tuned cell universe". Everything GOD has created declares his sovereign creation because of its extreme complexity and fine tuning.
Similar to the "big bang theory" which can't explain where the nothing that created something came from is the evoluntionist explanation of the origin of the cell. Because the evolutionist mind can't explain how the extremely detailed operation of the cell began evolutionists make up detailed unscientific stories that are only "big bang cell fiction theories" that are taught as "science" in schools..
While the theories and ideas may be many, the presuppositions can only be of two sorts: 1) there is an infinite series of causes, going back into infinite time, with no ultimate Cause; or 2) there exists an uncaused First Cause that was "outside" or transcendent to the universe.
Many scientists today conduct their research based on their presupposition or belief that nothing exists beyond the natural world—that which can be seen around us—and thus they do not accept that any ultimate Cause exists.
The "uncaused First Cause" is the Creator who exists outside of the physical creation He made. Time is not eternal, but created. To ask what happened in time before time was created is to create a false paradox without meaning. There was no "before" prior to the creation of the triune universe of time, space, and mass/energy.
Yet even more amazing (and the universe is amazing) is the historic fact that the Creator-God, after purposefully creating the time-space-matter universe, chose to enter it in the God-human person of Jesus Christ—for the sole purpose of providing a means by which humanity could have a personal relationship with the Creator.
"And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).