"If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down."
        C. Darwin, The Origin of Species,  pg 219.
 

"There has never been a meeting, or a book, or a paper on the details of the evolution of complex biochemical systems."
        M. Behe, Darwin's Black Box  pg 179.
 

"There are presently no detailed Darwinian accounts of the evolution of any biochemical or cellular system, only a variety of wishful speculations."
        Franklin Harold, The Way of the Cell, Oxford University Press
 

An irreducibly complex system can be built gradually by adding parts that, while initially just advantageous, become
essential.  The logic is very simple.  Some part (A) initially does some job.  Another part (B) later gets added because it
helps A.  But later on, A may change in such a way that B now becomes indispensible.
        H. Allen Orr, Boston Review, Dec 96/Jan 97
 

"The discovery, early in the history of molecular genetics, that the genetic code is apparently univeral - the same in
Escherichia coli, Homo sapiens, and all other organisms, is awesome evidence that all living things are descended from a common ancestor."
        Curtis and Barnes, Biology, pg 355.
 
 
 
 
 
 

Goals:
 

1.  Get some insight into how biological processes operate on the molecular level and consider how that relates to the question of origins.

2.  Appreciate the awesome complexity and information density that is at the heart of living things.
 

Outline:

 
I.  Do recent discoveries in molecular biology support or argue against a naturalistic origin?

II.  Irreducible complexity and molecular biology

III.  Information and molecular biology

IV.  Evidence that chance + natural law can produce complex biochemical systems?

V.  Video and cassette lectures by Michael Behe

I.  Do recent discoveries in molecular biology support or argue against a naturalistic
origin?

 

Naturalists:

Common ancestry has been further supported by recent discoveries in molecular biology

"All the discoveries of modern molecular biology strongly support the Darwinian theory that evolution is the outcome of accidental genetic variations."
        Christian de Duve, The Nature of Nature conference, Waco Texas, April 12-15, 2000.

M. Behe/M. Denton/W. Gitt/others:

Recent discoveries in molecular biology confirm that Darwin's theory cannot account for the molecular structure of life
 
 

Question:  How can such disparate views be held by experts regarding the same field?

Answer:  By focusing on different aspects of the data!
 
 
 

protein / DNA sequence comparison

vs

mechanism of origin

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
"The discovery, early in the history of molecular genetics, that the genetic code is apparently univeral - the same in Escherichia coli, Homo sapiens, and all other organisms, is awesome evidence that all living things are descended from a common ancestor."
     Curtis and Barnes, Biology,  pg 355.
 
 

"Every molecular comparison of various life forms is a "repeat observation" of evolution".
     D. Thomas, Albq. Trib., Aug 31, 1996.
 
 
 

 
 

Original expectation of submicroscopic   -   simple

Ernst Haeckel's view of a cell (quoted in Darwin's Black Box pg 24, 101):

a "simple little lump of albuminous combination of carbon"
a "homogenous globule of protoplasm"
 

Actual finding during last 40-50 years   -   mind-boggling complexity

irreducible complexity, molecular machines, astoundingly high information density

 

..life is based on machines - machines made of molecules!  Molecular machines haul cargo from one place in the cell to another along "highways" made of other molecules, while still others act as cables, ropes, and pulleys to hold the cell in shape.  Machines turn cellular switches on and off, sometimes killing the cell or causing it to grow.  Solar-powered machines capture the energy of photons and store it in chemicals.  Electrical machines allow current to flow through nerves.  Manufacturing machines build other molecular machines, as well as themselves.  Cells swim using machines, copy themselves with machinery, ingest food with machinery.  In short, highly sophisticated molecular machines control every cellular process.  Thus the details of life are finely calibrated, and the machinery of life enormously complex.

     M. Behe, Darwin's Black Box, pg 4-5
 
 

 Molecular Biology - 2

DNA molecules contain the highest known packing density of information.  This exceedingly brilliant storage method reaches the limit of the physically possible, namely down to the level of single molecules.   At this level, the information density is more than 10²¹ bits per cm³.

        W. Gitt, In The Beginning Was Information, pg 195.

II.  Irreducibly complexity and molecular biology
 
 

Definition - All parts are required for a given function.  Removal of any one part results in complete loss of that function.

Orthodox Darwinian view
 

"If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down."
        C. Darwin, The Origin of Species,  pg 219.

"One hundred and twenty five years on, we know a lot more about animals and plants than Darwin did, and still not a single case is known to me of a complex organ that could not have been formed by numerous successive slight modifications.  I do not believe that such a case will ever be found.  If it is ... I shall cease to believe in Darwinism."
         R. Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker, pg 91.
 

"Evolution is very possibly not, in actual fact, always gradual.  But it must be gradual when it is being used to explain the coming into existence of complicated, apparently designed objects, like eyes.  For if it is not gradual in these cases, it ceases to have any explanatory power at all.  Without gradualness in these cases, we are back to miracle, which is simply a synonym for the total absence of explanation."
         R. Dawkins, River out of Eden, pg 83.
 
 
 
 

Emerging Intelligent Design view
 

Darwin's criteria has been met in the discovery of molecular machines
        Michael Behe, Darwin's Black Box
 

The bacterial flagellum and the rotary motor which drives it are not led up to gradually through a series of intermediate structures and, as is so often the case, it is very hard to envisage a hypothetical evolutionary sequence of simpler rotors through which it might have evolved gradually.
        Michael Denton, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, pg 225.
 

There is no hint anywhere of any sort of structure halfway to the complex molecular organization of these fascinating microhairs [cilia] through which their evolution might have occurred.
         Michael Denton, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, pg 108.
 

The irreducible complexity of such bioochemical systems counts powerfully against the Darwinian mechanism and indeed against any naturalistic evolutionary mechanism proposed to date.  Moreover, because irreducible complexity occurs at the biochemical level, there is no more fundamental level of biological analysis to which the irreducible complexity of biochemical systems can be referred and at which a Darwinian analysis in terms of selection and mutation can still hope for a success.
        W. Dembski, Intelligent Design, pg 149.
 
 

 

 
DNA molecules contain the highest known packing density of information.  This exceedingly brilliant storage method reaches the limit of the physically possible, namely down to the level of single molecules.  At this level the information density is more than 10¹⁸bits/cm³.
        W. Gitt, In The Beginning Was Information, pg 195.
 

Man is undoubtedly the most complex information processing system existing on the earth.  The total number of bits handled daily in all information processing events occuring in the human body, is 3 x 10²⁴.  The number of bits being processed daily in the human body is more than a million times the total amount of human knowledge stored in all the libraries of the world, which is about 10¹⁸ bits.
        W. Gitt, In The Beginning Was Information, pg 88.
 

Matter and energy are basic prerequisites for life, but they cannot be used to distinguish between living and inanimate systems.  The central characteristic of all living beings is the "information" they contain, and this information regulates all life processes and procreative functions.
        W. Gitt, In The Beginning Was Information, pg 88.
 

The fundamental quantity informationis a nonmaterial (mental) entity.  It is not a property of matter, so that purely material processes are fundamentally precluded as sources of information.
        W. Gitt, In The Beginning Was Information, pg 47.
 

Neither algorithms nor natural laws, however, are capable of producing information.  The great myth of modern evolutionary biology is that information can be gotten on the cheap without recourse to intelligence.
        W. Dembski, Intelligent Design, pg 153.
 

Undergirding biochemistry is ordinary chemistry and physics, neither of which can account for biological information.
        W. Dembski, Intelligent Design, pg 149.
 
 
 
 
 
 

"There has never been a meeting, or a book, or a paper on the details of the evolution of complex biochemical systems."
        M. Behe, Darwin's Black Box  pg 179.
 
 

"The impotence of Darwinian theory in accounting for the molecular basis of life is evident not only from the analyses in this book, but also from the complete absence in the professional scientific literature of any detailed models by which complex biochemical systems could have been produced."
     M. Behe, Darwin's Black Box, pg 187.
 
 

It is the sheer universality of perfection, the fact that everywhere we look, to whatever depth we look, we find an elegance and ingenuity of an absolutely transcending quality, which so mitigates against the idea of chance.  Is it really credible that random processes could have constructed a reality, the smallest element of which - a functional protein or gene - is complex beyond our own creative capacities, a reality which is the very antitheses of chance, which excels in every sense anything produced by the intelligence of man?  Alongside the level of ingenuity and complexity exhibited by the molecular machinery of life, even our most advanced artefacts appear clumsy. ....  In practically every field of fundamental biological research ever-increasing levels of design and complexity are being revealed at an ever-accelerating rate.  ....  To those who still dogmatically advocate that all this new reality is the result of pure chance, one can only reply, like Alice, incredulous in the face of the contradictory logic of the Red Queen:

Alice laughed.  "There's no use trying", she said.  "One can't believe impossible things".  "I dare say you haven't had much practice" said the queen.  "When I was your age I did it for half an hour a day.  Why sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast".

      Michael Denton, Evolution:  A Theory In Crisis, pg 342
 
 
 
 

 

V.  Video and cassette lectures by M. Behe
 
 

What to learn from these lectures:

1.  Mind-boggling irreducible complexity of molecular biochemical systems
 

(see Psalms 139:14   I will give thanks to thee, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made)

 
 

2.  Appreciate the difference between:
 

 

protein or DNA/RNA sequence comparisons

(do not distinguish between natural and nonnatural causes)
 
 

and
 
 

mechanism explaining origin

(critical for distinguishing between natural and nonnatural causes)