Ok, I started this topic in the evolution thread, but really it's not about evolution. Of course, if you want to take evolution and get "no God" from it, you have to believe that living cells spontaneously threw themselves together from primordial goo. Here's my posting from the evolution thread, suggesting just the tip of the iceberg as to why this can't be. I would love to hear thoughts, challenges, or questions! I'm a medical student, so this stuff I love. I'd be happy to explain (very simply...I'm a tutor as well so I can do that!) any of the basic processes of life, or the basic components of a cell, etc, for you less-scientifically-knowledgeable, if you're interested!Let's consider the idea of ireducible complexity. Consider DNA alone. In order to have life, you need thousands of enzymes (enzymes are proteins that speed up chemical reactions). Let's assume the (impossible) case that SOMEHOW, a bacterial cell arose, complete with plasma membrane, DNA, ribosomes, microtubules, etc etc etc, and all the enzymes required for metabolism, movement, degradation, etc etc. But even if you somehow randomly got all those enzymes together, you would also have to have the DNA there to be passed on to daughter cells, or else this life that somehow came to be, would simply die and nothing would come of it. So, not only would you need the basic components of a cell, not only would you need the DNA that somehow magically codes for those same components, but you would also need the machinery to copy the DNA. Here's just a couple of the enzymes required in prokaryotic (the most basic bacterial) cells.DNA Polymerase, the basic replicator: Note that this image also includes a section of DNA
Helicase, Required to open up the DNA so that it can be replicated. Don't forget all the proteins required to KEEP it open, once it's been opened:
Here's a Ribosome, required to translate the DNA into proteins. (I know I said that this was just going to be DNA replication enzymes, but I couldn't help throwing this in there...having DNA is worthless if you can't translate it!
So, you want to tell me that even these three things all happened to spontaneously form at the same time? Let alone the thousands of similar molecules that would be required to sustain and propogate a cell. Yes, these are mere molecules, composed of mere atoms. But still...dang. You see?
