Darwin's Not-So-Simple Cell

Charles Darwin's renowned work, "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection," was published in November of 1859. At the time, little was known about the building blocks of life—cells. More than 150 years worth of technological advancement gives us the remarkable ability to look into these cells and reveals one of the greatest oversights in Darwin’s principle thesis. The stunning complexity of the human cell is devastating to the theory of evolution. 

Single-celled organisms like amoebas were described by Charles Darwin’s contemporary George Henry Lewes as simply a “a microscopic lump of jelly-like substance, or protoplasm…. entirely destitute of texture, and consequently destitute of organs.” (Problems of Life, 1887, p. 38) 

In most cells a nucleus could be seen, but its purpose was a mystery, and the cell seemed otherwise generally featureless. 

In such days, when the smallest, simplest unit of life seemed THAT simple--just a bit of jelly with a few boring features--it was easy to imagine that somehow, within that mysterious “life-giving” jelly, anything could happen. 

But as microscopes improved and techniques were developed to tease out the secrets of the inner world of the cell, we have discovered that this supposedly simple, “jelly-like substance” is filled with machinery of astonishing complexity, ingenuity, and design. 

The world of the human cell, for instance, is one in which approximately one billion chemical reactions take place every second. And these are not random chemical reactions… A human cell is filled with thousands upon thousands of proteins of 10,000 different varieties--molecular machines designed to work together and achieve specific purposes, manipulating their surroundings, creating new structures and dismantling old ones, in a dynamic dance of complexity that would make the Space Shuttle seem simple. 

The type 4a pilus machine not only assembles, but also manipulates long filaments—pili—and is used by some bacteria to move. Built out of 78,216 different atoms, it is merely one example of the world of complex cellular machinery that Darwin and his contemporaries could have no idea existed.  

Life is impossible without these complex machines, and even small changes to organisms, as hypothesized by evolution, requires changes to these machines--even the design of NEW machines. And that is as unlikely as it sounds. 

Molecular biologist Douglas Axe and colleague Ann Gauger, explored the possibility that one particular protein could evolve from another, similar one, based on just a handful of necessary changes to DNA, and found that--at currently understood rates of mutation--it would take 10-to-the-27 years for such a change to take place… That’s a “1” followed by 27 zeros. Impressive, given that scientists think our universe is only 13 billion years old--or about a “1” followed by ten zeros. In other words, the universe has not been around long enough to allow for the possibility that the protein could evolve from another—it’s just not going to happen apart from intelligent intervention.

You may have been led to believe that all scientific discoveries solidly support Darwin’s most famous theory. The reality is, that our increasing ability to study life has revealed that it is far more complex than Darwin ever could have imagined and that even the simplest living cell is devastating to the theory of evolution.

For more reasons to question Evolution, watch our telecast "Evolution’s Dirty Little Secrets" by clicking on the link in the description.