Is Evolution’s Foundation Missing?
WHAT is the essence of Darwin’s theory of evolution? “In its full-throated, biological sense, . . . evolution means a process whereby life arose from nonliving matter and subsequently developed entirely by natural means.” Darwinian evolution postulates that “virtually all of life, or at least all of its most interesting features, resulted from natural selection working on random variation.”—Darwin’s Black Box—The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution,a by Michael Behe, associate professor of biochemistry at Lehigh University, Pennsylvania, U.S.A.
Irreducible Complexity—Evolution’s Stumbling Block?
When Darwin developed his theory, scientists had little or no knowledge of the amazing complexity of the living cell. Modern biochemistry, the study of life at the molecular level, has revealed some of that intricacy. It has also raised serious questions and doubts about Darwin’s theory.
The components of cells are made up of molecules. Cells are the building blocks of all living creatures. Professor Behe is Roman Catholic and believes in evolution to explain the later development of animals. However, he raises serious doubts about whether evolution can explain the existence of the cell. He speaks of molecular machines that “haul cargo from one place in the cell to another along ‘highways’ made of other molecules . . . 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.”
Now, all of this activity is taking place on what scale? A typical cell is only one thousandth of an inch [0.03 mm] across! In that infinitesimal space, complex functions vital to life are occurring. (See diagram, pages 8-9.) Little wonder that it has been said: “The bottom line is that the cell—the very basis of life—is staggeringly complex.”
Behe argues that the cell can function only as a complete entity. Thus, it cannot be viable while being formed by slow, gradual changes induced by evolution. He uses the example of a mousetrap. This simple apparatus can function only when all its components are assembled. Each component on its own—platform, spring, holding bar, trap hammer, catch—is not a mousetrap and cannot function as such. All the parts are needed simultaneously and have to be assembled for there to be a working trap. Likewise, a cell can function as such only when all its components are assembled. He uses this illustration to explain what he terms “irreducible complexity.”b
This presents a major problem for the alleged process of evolution, which involves the appearance of gradually acquired, useful characteristics. Darwin knew that his theory of gradual evolution by natural selection faced a big challenge when he said: “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.”—Origin of Species.
The irreducibly complex cell is a major stumbling block to belief in Darwin’s theory. In the first place, evolution cannot explain the leap from inanimate to animate matter. Then comes the problem of the first complex cell, which must arise in one fell swoop as an integrated unit. In other words, the cell (or, the mousetrap) must appear out of nowhere, assembled and functioning!
The Irreducible Complexity of Blood Clotting
Another example of irreducible complexity is a process most of us take for granted when we cut ourselves—blood clotting. Normally, any liquid will immediately leak out of a punctured container and will do so until the container is empty. Yet, when we puncture or cut our skin, the leak is quickly sealed by the formation of a clot. However, as doctors know, “blood clotting is a very complex, intricately woven system consisting of a score of interdependent protein parts.” These activate what is called a clotting cascade. This delicate healing process “depends critically on the timing and speed at which the different reactions occur.” Otherwise, a person could have all of his blood clotting and solidifying, or on the other hand, he could bleed to death. Timing and speed are the vital keys.
Biochemical investigation has shown that blood clotting involves many factors, none of which can be missing for the process to succeed. Behe asks: “Once clotting has begun, what stops it from continuing until all the blood . . . has solidified?” He explains that “the formation, limitation, strengthening, and removal of a blood clot” make up an integrated biological system. If any part fails, then the system fails.
Russell Doolittle, evolutionist and professor of biochemistry at the University of California, asks: “How in the world did this complex and delicately balanced process evolve? . . . The paradox was, if each protein depended on activation by another, how could the system ever have arisen? Of what use would any part of the scheme be without the whole ensemble?” Using evolutionary arguments, Doolittle tries to explain the origin of the process. However, Professor Behe points out that there would be an “enormous amount of luck needed to get the right gene pieces in the right places.” He shows that Doolittle’s explanation and casual language conceal tremendous difficulties.
Thus, one of the major objections to the evolutionary model is the insurmountable hurdle of irreducible complexity. Behe states: “I emphasize that natural selection, the engine of Darwinian evolution, only works if there is something to select—something that is useful right now, not in the future.”
“An Eerie and Complete Silence”
Professor Behe states that some scientists have studied “mathematical models for evolution or new mathematical methods for comparing and interpreting sequence data.” However, he concludes: “The mathematics assumes that real-world evolution is a gradual, random process; it does not (and cannot) demonstrate it.” (Last phrase italics ours.) He earlier said: “If you search the scientific literature on evolution, and if you focus your search on the question of how molecular machines—the basis of life—developed, you find an eerie and complete silence. The complexity of life’s foundation has paralyzed science’s attempt to account for it; molecular machines raise an as-yet-impenetrable barrier to Darwinism’s universal reach.”
This raises a series of questions for conscientious scientists to consider: “How did the photosynthetic reaction center develop? How did intramolecular transport start? How did cholesterol biosynthesis begin? How did retinal become involved in vision? How did phosphoprotein signaling pathways develop?”c Behe adds: “The very fact that none of these problems is even addressed, let alone solved, is a very strong indication that Darwinism is an inadequate framework for understanding the origin of complex biochemical systems.”
If Darwin’s theory cannot explain the complex molecular foundation of cells, then how can it be a satisfactory explanation for the existence of the millions of species that inhabit this earth? After all, evolution cannot even produce new family kinds by bridging the gaps from one family kind to another.—Genesis 1:11, 21, 24.
The Problems of the Beginning of Life
No matter how plausible Darwin’s theory of evolution may appear to be in the eyes of some scientists, they must ultimately face the question, Even if we assume that forms of living things evolved by natural selection, how did life get its start? In other words, the problem lies, not in survival of the fittest, but in arrival of the fittest and the first! However, as Darwin’s remarks on the evolution of the eye indicate, he was not concerned with the problem of how life began. He wrote: “How a nerve comes to be sensitive to light hardly concerns us more than how life itself originated.”
French science writer Philippe Chambon wrote: “Darwin himself wondered how nature selected emerging forms before they were perfectly functional. The list of evolutionary mysteries is endless. And today’s biologists have to humbly admit, with Prof. Jean Génermont of the University of South Paris in Orsay, that ‘the synthetic theory of evolution cannot readily explain the origin of complex organs.’”
In the light of the tremendous odds against such endless variety and complexity of life forms, do you find it difficult to believe that it all evolved in the right direction just by chance? Do you wonder how any creatures could have survived in the battle of the survival of the fittest while they were still evolving eyes? Or while they were supposedly forming primitive fingers on a subhuman body? Do you wonder how cells survived if they existed in an incomplete and inadequate state?
Robert Naeye, a writer for Astronomy magazine and an evolutionist, wrote that life on earth is the result of “a long sequence of improbable events [that] transpired in just the right way to bring forth our existence, as if we had won a million-dollar lottery a million times in a row.” That line of reasoning can probably be applied to every single creature that exists today. The odds are stacked against it. Yet, we are expected to believe that by chance evolution also produced a male and a female at the same time in order for the new species to be perpetuated. To compound the odds, we also have to believe that the male and the female not only evolved at the same time but also in the same place! No meeting, no procreation!
Certainly, it stretches credulity to the limit to believe that life exists in its millions of perfected forms as a result of millions of gambles that paid off.
Why Do the Majority Believe?
Why is evolution so popular and accepted by so many as the only explanation for life on earth? One reason is that it is the orthodox view taught in schools and universities, and woe betide you if you dare to express any doubts. Behe states: “Many students learn from their textbooks how to view the world through an evolutionary lens. However, they do not learn how Darwinian evolution might have produced any of the remarkably intricate biochemical systems that those texts describe.” He adds: “To understand both the success of Darwinism as orthodoxy and its failure as science at the molecular level, we have to examine the textbooks that are used to teach aspiring scientists.”
“If a poll were taken of all the scientists in the world, the great majority would say they believed Darwinism to be true. But scientists, like everybody else, base most of their opinions on the word of other people. . . . Also, and unfortunately, too often criticisms have been dismissed by the scientific community for fear of giving ammunition to creationists. It is ironic that in the name of protecting science, trenchant scientific criticism of natural selection has been brushed aside.”d
What viable and reliable alternative is there to Darwin’s theory of evolution? Our final article in this series will address that question.
[Footnotes]
a Referred to from here on as Darwin’s Black Box.
b “Irreducible complexity” describes “a single system composed of several well-matched, interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, wherein the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning.” (Darwin’s Black Box) Thus, it is the simplest level at which a system can function.
c Photosynthesis is the process whereby plant cells, using light and chlorophyll, make carbohydrates from carbon dioxide and water. It is called by some the most important chemical reaction occurring in nature. Biosynthesis is the process by which living cells manufacture complicated chemical compounds. Retinal is involved in the complex vision system. Phosphoprotein signaling pathways are integral functions of the cell.
d Creationism involves belief that the earth was created in six literal days or, in some cases, that the earth was formed only about ten thousand years ago. Jehovah’s Witnesses, while believing in creation, are not creationists. They believe that the Bible’s Genesis account allows for the earth to be millions of years old.
[Blurb on page 6]
“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.”
[Blurbs on page 10]
Inside the cell, there is “a world of supreme technology and bewildering complexity.”—Evolution: A Theory in Crisis
The instructions within the DNA of the cell, “if written out, would fill a thousand 600-page books.”—National Geographic
[Blurb on page 11]
“The mathematics assumes that real-world evolution is a gradual, random process; it does not (and cannot) demonstrate it.”
[Blurb on page 12]
“It is ironic that in the name of protecting science, trenchant scientific criticism of natural selection has been brushed aside.”
[Box on page 8]
The Molecule and the Cell
Biochemistry—“the study of the very basis of life: the molecules that make up cells and tissues, that catalyze the chemical reactions of digestion, photosynthesis, immunity, and more.”—Darwin’s Black Box.
Molecule—“the smallest particle into which an element or a compound can be divided without changing its chemical and physical properties; a group of like or different atoms held together by chemical forces.”—The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language.
Cell—the fundamental unit of all living organisms. “Every cell is a highly organized structure that is responsible for the form and function of an organism.” How many cells form an adult human? One hundred trillion (100,000,000,000,000)! We have about 1,000,000 cells in every square inch [155,000 per sq cm] of skin, and the human brain has from 10 billion to 100 billion neurons. “The cell is the key to biology because it is at this level that a collection of water, salts, macromolecules, and membranes truly springs to life.”—Biology.
[Box on page 9]
The “Unparalleled Complexity” of the Cell
“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 kilometres 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. We would see endless highly organized corridors and conduits branching in every direction away from the perimeter of the cell, some leading to the central memory bank in the nucleus and others to assembly plants and processing units. The nucleus itself would be a vast spherical chamber more than a kilometre in diameter, resembling a geodesic dome inside of which we would see, all neatly stacked together in ordered arrays, the miles of coiled chains of the DNA molecules. A huge range of products and raw materials would shuttle along all the manifold conduits in a highly ordered fashion to and from all the various assembly plants in the outer regions of the cell.
“We would wonder at the level of control implicit in the movement of so many objects down so many seemingly endless conduits, all in perfect unison. We would see all around us, in every direction we looked, all sorts of robot-like machines. We would notice that the simplest of the functional components of the cell, the protein molecules, were astonishingly, complex pieces of molecular machinery, each one consisting of about three thousand atoms arranged in highly organized 3-D spatial conformation. We would wonder even more as we watched the strangely purposeful activities of these weird molecular machines, particularly when we realized that, despite all our accumulated knowledge of physics and chemistry, the task of designing one such molecular machine—that is one single functional protein molecule—would be completely beyond our capacity at present and will probably not be achieved until at least the beginning of the next century. Yet the life of the cell depends on the integrated activities of thousands, certainly tens, and probably hundreds of thousands of different protein molecules.”—Evolution: A Theory in Crisis.
[Box on page 10]
Facts and Legends
“To a person who does not feel obliged to restrict his search to unintelligent causes, the straightforward conclusion is that many biochemical systems were designed. They were designed not by the laws of nature, not by chance and necessity; rather, they were planned. . . . Life on earth at its most fundamental level, in its most critical components, is the product of intelligent activity.”—Darwin’s Black Box.
“There can be no doubt that after a century of intensive effort biologists have failed to validate [the Darwinian theory of evolution] in any significant sense. The fact remains that nature has not been reduced to the continuum that the Darwinian model demands, nor has the credibility of chance as the creative agency of life been secured.”—Evolution: A Theory in Crisis.
“The influence of evolutionary theory on fields far removed from biology is one of the most spectacular examples in history of how a highly speculative idea for which there is no really hard scientific evidence can come to fashion the thinking of a whole society and dominate the outlook of an age.”—Evolution: A Theory in Crisis.
“Any science of the past . . . that excludes the possibility of design or creation a priori ceases to be a search for the truth, and becomes the servant (or slave) of a problematical philosophical doctrine, namely, naturalism.”—Origins Research.
“It is a legend . . . that Charles Darwin solved the problem of the origin of biological complexity. It is a legend that we have a good or even fair grasp on the origin of life, or that proper explanations refer only to so-called natural causes. To be sure, these and other legends of philosophical naturalism have a certain stature. One does not speak too harshly of them in polite company. But neither should one accept them uncritically.”—Origins Research.
“In private many scientists admit that science has no explanation for the beginning of life. . . . Darwin never imagined the exquisitely profound complexity that exists even at the most basic levels of life.”—Darwin’s Black Box.
“Molecular evolution is not based on scientific authority. . . . There are assertions that such evolution occurred, but absolutely none are supported by pertinent experiments or calculations. Since no one knows molecular evolution by direct experience, and since there is no authority on which to base claims of knowledge, it can truly be said that . . . the assertion of Darwinian molecular evolution is merely bluster.”—Darwin’s Black Box.
[Box on page 12]
Evolution—“A Game of Chance”
The theory of evolution is certainly a gambler’s dream. Why? Because according to the evolutionist, it wins even with astronomical odds against it.
Robert Naeye writes: “Because evolution is primarily a game of chance, any seemingly minor past event could have gone slightly different, cutting off our evolutionary line before humans evolved.” But no, we are supposed to believe that every gamble paid off, millions of times. Naeye admits: “The long series of bottlenecks makes it clear that the emergence of intelligent life is far more difficult than scientists once thought. There are probably more obstacles that scientists haven’t even stumbled across yet.”
[Diagram on page 8, 9]
Simplified Diagram of a Cell
Ribosomes
Structures in which proteins are made
Cytoplasm
Area between the nucleus and the cell membrane
Endoplasmic reticulum
Sheets of membrane that store or transport the proteins made by the ribosomes attached to them
Nucleus
It is the control center that directs the cell’s activities
Nucleolus
The site where ribosomes are made
Chromosomes
They contain the cell’s DNA, its genetic master plan
Vacuole
Stores water, salts, proteins, and carbohydrates
Lysosome
Stores enzymes for digestion
Golgi body
A group of membrane sacs that package and distribute proteins made by the cell
Cell membrane
The covering that controls what enters and leaves the cell
Centriole
Important in cell reproduction
Mitochondrion
Production center for ATP, the molecules that supply energy for the cell
[Picture on page 7]
The separate pieces do not make a mousetrap—it must be complete to function as such