Session 6 – Refuting Evolution Pt.2

In this final session we will continue our refutation of the theory of evolution

We will look at what most believe is the best evidence against evolution, and great evidence for the creator God of scripture

Don’t let your study stop after this, there is much more information available on these

topics that support the Biblical view

Irreducible Complexity & Design

In this session we will look at two topics that are similar but distinct from each other

The first is the argument against evolution from irreducible complexity (which will be

explained in a moment)

The second will be a general argument against evolution from design and

complexity found in organism

"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.“ - Charles

Darwin, Origin of Species

Evolution must explain everything by random mutation and natural selection (which we showed isn’t possible) in short successive

building steps over billions of years

The best argument against evolution (in my opinion) comes from Irreducible Complexity

which was originally put forward (and remains to be argued) by Dr. Michael Behe

“By irreducibly complex I mean a single system composed of several well-matched,

interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, wherein the removal or any one of

the parts causes the system to effectively crease functioning” – Michael Behe

The example often given to illustrate

this is a mouse trap with it’s five

interacting parts

If you remove the spring (1 or the 5 parts) from the mouse trap, does it become 1/5th less effective than before? No. It’s useless

Unless you have all the parts there, there is no function to the mouse trap

The mouse trap couldn’t “evolve”, because evolution does things step by step over a

period of time, not all at once

When dealing with living organisms, natural selection should get rid of useless machinery

that is taking nutrition from the cell. If you have to build these step by step, but don’t

have any function until all steps are complete, the organisms doesn’t look ahead and wait for that function to come about, it either has a beneficial function or doesn’t

Irreducibly complex systems

Bacterial Flagellum Motor

The flagellum is a rotary motor in

bacteria that drives a propeller to spin

It is capable of spinning 100,000 rpm

More than other motors found in nature, this one looks like something we’d make

When we look at a simple bacteria (E. Coli) we’ve discovered there are 35 genes (Proteins) that make up this system

If any one of these genes was not in place, the flagellum would not function, and would

be removed by natural selection

You need all the pieces of this puzzle in place to begin in order for evolution t explain it,

but there is no mechanism that can arrange these 35 parts from the get go

Eukaryotic Cilium

The cilium is a hair-like, or whip-like structure that is built upon a system of microtubules

the function of the cilium will fail if it is

missing any microtubules,

connecting arms, or lacks sufficient dynein motors

Because everything is needed to work, it’s irreducibly complex

Aminoacyl-tRNA Synthetases (aaRS)

These enzymes are responsible for fusing tRNA with the proper

amino acid

Most cells require twenty different aaRS (one for each of the amino acids needed)

If you don’t have all types of aaRS present, translation cannot continue (and life ends)

RibosomesThese molecular machines are essential for

life, and give us the best example of an irreducibly complex system

Ribosomes are responsible for RNA translation, and the

production of polypeptides (proteins)

inside cells

How does it work?

George Church, Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School and Director of the

Center for Computational Genetics said: “The ribosome, both looking at the past and at the future, is a very significant structure --

it's the most complicated thing that is present in all organisms. Craig does

comparative genomics, and you find that almost the only thing that's in common

across all organisms is the ribosome. And it's recognizable; it's highly conserved…

For the most simple Ribosome, a minimum of 53 proteins and 3 polynucleotides are

required to function (many ribosome's have around 300 proteins)

So the question is, how did that thing come to be? And if I were to be an intelligent

design defender, that's what I would focus on; how did the ribosome come to be?”

They’ve tried to construct more simple ribosome's in the lab, and have failed

“The only way we're going to become good scientists and prove that it could come into being spontaneously is to develop a much better in vitro system where you can make smaller versions of the ribosome that still

work, and make all kinds of variations on it to do really useful things but that are really wildly different, and so forth, and get real

familiarity with this really complicated machine. Because it does a really great

thing: it does this mutual information trick…

but not from changing something kind of trivial, from DNA to RNA; that's really easy. It can change from DNA three nucleotides into one amino acid. That's really marvelous. We

need to understand that better..” – Dr. George Church

Leading evolutionists agree this system is problematic for the theory, it’s the best example of a system that can’t get any simpler, but is essential for life to exist

According to cell biologist and molecular machine modeler David Goodsell, “ATP synthase is one of the wonders of the

molecular world.”

ATP Synthase

Found inside the Mitochondria (and other places) ATP Synthase is the power (ATP)

producing molecular machines of the cell

Understand there are many steps before ATP synthase also needed to get energy

There are two motors involved with this system,

the F0 (powered by protons) and F1

motors (powered by the F0 motor)

This kinetic energy is used like a generator to synthesize adenosine triphosphate (ATP)

Cyanide blocks the step prior to this, making ATP synthase useless and killing the organism

Whole processes in the cell often require many independent molecular machines to

make them happen

DNA replication

In order for cells to divide (and for life to continue) DNA must be replicated

This vital process is not a simple challenge for evolution to overcome, and shows

evidence of incredible design by a creator

Here’s an overview of what happens

All these parts have a vital function

DNA polymerase

This is the main character in replication,

it’s the machine that reads and adds

nucleotides to create a template strand of DNA

It is extremely accurate, making less than one mistake per billion bases (usually if a mistake

is made, it catches and corrects it)

Other parts

Helicase catalyzes the breaking of hydrogen bonds between the original DNA strands

being copied

Topoisomerase cuts and rejoined the DNA during

replication

SSBP attached to the separated strands to prevent them from recombining

Primase adds RNA primers to the lagging strand of DNA which is needed for DNA

polymerase to begin doing it’s job

DNA Polymerase I replaces the RNA with DNA

Ligase closes the gaps on the lagging strand

RNA Polymerase in cells

Without RNA polymerase, you wouldn’t have the RNA needed to code for proteins in the

Ribosome we looked at earlier

It’s not as simple as RNA polymerase though, you need initiation factors in order for RNA

polymerase to start doing it’s job

These initiation factors guide the RNA polymerase to where it needs to be on the

strand of DNA

“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 kilometers in diameter and

resembles a giant airship large enough to cover a great city like London or New York…

What about these simple cells?

Understand that most these molecular machines we have been discussing are inside

the most simple cells

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.” Michael Denton, Evolution: A

Theory In Crisis

Here is a “simple” bacteria cells

Here is a Eukaryotic cell

Human (Mammals) reproduction shows great complexity and design

Ovaries contain 400,000 eggs to begin! The mother never generates more

Fertilization happens very quick after the

egg enters the fallopian tube, and the baby begins to

grow from that point

If the egg can’t get from the ovary to the tube, life can’t continue

If fertilization happens inside the tube, that means

you need to get the sperm up to that

point, while moving the egg down

If you can’t get the fertilized egg down the fallopian tube, the baby can implant in that

location and cause a tubal pregnancy (which kills both mother and baby)

How do the sperm get up to the egg? It is true they swim, but left alone they would

never reach the egg. The muscles inside the tube help move the sperm upward

But if the muscles are moving the sperm upward, how is the egg coming down?

There are trillions of little hairs (Cilia) that help move the egg

down! What kind of motion do they use?

Maybe they just go wild?

Maybe they are like windshield wipers on a car going back and forth?

Reality? They end up doing the wave

The next obstacle will be fertilization (But don’t worry, there

was a smart designer)

There are several barriers that the sperm must over

come to fertilize the egg, but it has what it needs

The sperm must first get through the cumulus and the shell of the egg

Luckily it has enzymes needed to dissolve those barriers and always it entry

Once it’s inside the egg, there is a check that takes place to make sure it’s the same

species (which is why humans and monkeys can’t have offspring together)

You then have to make sure no other sperm get into the egg, which is hard because

usually many are trying to. So once the first sperm get’s in there is a reaction that

creates another shell to prevent others

From that point the process of growth begin to take place as the cells begin to divide

If left alone for the next 9 or so months (for humans) you will get a baby

Psalm 139:14: “I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your

works; my soul knows it very well.”

God created the miracle of reproduction and should get the credit for it and everything

else that he created

Memory Verse

Hebrews 11:3: “By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of

God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible.”