A New Review of the Evolution of Multicellularity

3 Replies to “A New Review of the Evolution of Multicellularity”

1. 1
   bornagain77 says:

   January 28, 2014 at 6:03 pm

   As a novice, looking at the plausible origin of multicellularity through bottom up random variation/natural selection processes, it strikes me, not only as impossible but, as a ludicrous notion bordering on insanity to even imagine it can be done. The more I have learned about what would have to be involved, in turning a single celled creature into a multi-trillion celled creature, has only strengthened my conviction in the matter. First, as Dr. James Tour notes in the following video and quote,,,

   James Tour – Top Ten Most Cited Chemist in the World Knows That Evolution Doesn’t Work – video
   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JB7t2_Ph-ck

   “I build molecules for a living, I can’t begin to tell you how difficult that job is. I stand in awe of God because of what he has done through his creation. Only a rookie who knows nothing about science would say science takes away from faith. If you really study science, it will bring you closer to God.”
   James Tour – one of the leading nano-tech engineers in the world – Strobel, Lee (2000), The Case For Faith, p. 111

   ,,,i.e. it is extremely difficult to coax molecules into a desired (Intelligently Designed) molecular machine without using already preexisting molecular machines to help you do the job, and even then it is extremely difficult to build a ‘new’ molecular machine, such as the nano-car that Tour’s team built,,

   Science & Faith — Dr. James Tour – video (At the two minute mark of the following video, you can see a nano-car that was built by Dr. James Tour’s team)
   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pR4QhNFTtyw

   This problem for the bottom up processes of neo-Darwinian evolution become much more apparent as we take note of this following piece of trivia on Flagellum fabrication:

   The Bacterial Flagellum: A Paradigm for Design – Jonathan M. – Sept. 2012
   Excerpt: Indeed, so striking is the appearance of intelligent design that researchers have modeled the assembly process (of the bacterial flagellum) in view of finding inspiration for enhancing industrial operations (McAuley et al.).
   http://www.scribd.com/doc/1067.....-Flagellum

   You can catch a glimpse of the stunning engineering parameters, and the precise manner in the step by step assembly process of the bacterial flagellum, that inspired it to be modeled, in the following video:

   Bacterial Flagellum – Intelligent Design – video
   http://www.metacafe.com/watch/3994630/

   Clearly there is some instruction code somewhere in the bacterial cell that directs the construction, but it is far from clear that it resides in DNA alone as neo-Darwinists presuppose. In fact, there are some very good reasons for supposing that construction/fabrication coding does not, and cannot, reside entirely in DNA:

   Extreme Genome Repair – 2009
   Excerpt: If its naming had followed, rather than preceded, molecular analyses of its DNA, the extremophile bacterium Deinococcus radiodurans might have been called Lazarus. After shattering of its 3.2 Mb genome into 20–30 kb pieces by desiccation or a high dose of ionizing radiation, D. radiodurans miraculously reassembles its genome such that only 3 hr later fully reconstituted nonrearranged chromosomes are present, and the cells carry on, alive as normal.,,,
   http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pm.....MC3319128/

   Not Junk After All—Conclusion – August 29, 2013
   Excerpt: Many scientists have pointed out that the relationship between the genome and the organism — the genotype-phenotype mapping — cannot be reduced to a genetic program encoded in DNA sequences. Atlan and Koppel wrote in 1990 that advances in artificial intelligence showed that cellular operations are not controlled by a linear sequence of instructions in DNA but by a “distributed multilayer network” [150].
   http://www.uncommondescent.com.....onclusion/

   The Types: A Persistent Structuralist Challenge to Darwinian Pan-Selectionism – Michael J. Denton – 2013
   Excerpt: Cell form ,,,Karsenti comments that despite the attraction of the (genetic) blueprint model there are no “simple linear chains of causal events that link genes to phenotypes” [77: p. 255]. And wherever there is no simple linear causal chain linking genes with phenotypes,,,—at any level in the organic hierarchy, from cells to body plans—the resulting form is bound to be to a degree epigenetic and emergent, and cannot be inferred from even the most exhaustive analysis of the genes.,,,
   To this author’s knowledge, to date the form of no individual cell has been shown to be specified in detail in a genomic blueprint. As mentioned above, between genes and mature cell form there is a complex hierarchy of self-organization and emergent phenomena, rendering cell form profoundly epigenetic.
   http://bio-complexity.org/ojs/.....O-C.2013.3

   HOW BIOLOGISTS LOST SIGHT OF THE MEANING OF LIFE — AND ARE NOW STARING IT IN THE FACE – Stephen L. Talbott – May 2012
   Excerpt: “If you think air traffic controllers have a tough job guiding planes into major airports or across a crowded continental airspace, consider the challenge facing a human cell trying to position its proteins”. A given cell, he notes, may make more than 10,000 different proteins, and typically contains more than a billion protein molecules at any one time. “Somehow a cell must get all its proteins to their correct destinations — and equally important, keep these molecules out of the wrong places”. And further: “It’s almost as if every mRNA [an intermediate between a gene and a corresponding protein] coming out of the nucleus knows where it’s going” (Travis 2011),,,
   Further, the billion protein molecules in a cell are virtually all capable of interacting with each other to one degree or another; they are subject to getting misfolded or “all balled up with one another”; they are critically modified through the attachment or detachment of molecular subunits, often in rapid order and with immediate implications for changing function; they can wind up inside large-capacity “transport vehicles” headed in any number of directions; they can be sidetracked by diverse processes of degradation and recycling… and so on without end. Yet the coherence of the whole is maintained.
   The question is indeed, then, “How does the organism meaningfully dispose of all its molecules, getting them to the right places and into the right interactions?”
   http://www.netfuture.org/2012/May1012_184.html#2
2. 2
   bornagain77 says:

   January 28, 2014 at 6:04 pm

   And the ‘form’ problem just becomes exponentially exasperated for bottom up materialistic explanations as we consider multicellular creatures instead of just the ‘form’ of single celled creatures:

   HOW BIOLOGISTS LOST SIGHT OF THE MEANING OF LIFE — AND ARE NOW STARING IT IN THE FACE – Stephen L. Talbott – May 2012
   Excerpt: The same sort of question can be asked of cells, for example in the growing embryo, where literal streams of cells are flowing to their appointed places, differentiating themselves into different types as they go, and adjusting themselves to all sorts of unpredictable perturbations — even to the degree of responding appropriately when a lab technician excises a clump of them from one location in a young embryo and puts them in another, where they may proceed to adapt themselves in an entirely different and proper way to the new environment. It is hard to quibble with the immediate impression that form (which is more idea-like than thing-like) is primary, and the material particulars subsidiary.
   Two systems biologists, one from the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine in Germany and one from Harvard Medical School, frame one part of the problem this way:
   “The human body is formed by trillions of individual cells. These cells work together with remarkable precision, first forming an adult organism out of a single fertilized egg, and then keeping the organism alive and functional for decades. To achieve this precision, one would assume that each individual cell reacts in a reliable, reproducible way to a given input, faithfully executing the required task. However, a growing number of studies investigating cellular processes on the level of single cells revealed large heterogeneity even among genetically identical cells of the same cell type. (Loewer and Lahav 2011)”,,,
   And then we hear that all this meaningful activity is, somehow, meaningless or a product of meaninglessness. This, I believe, is the real issue troubling the majority of the American populace when they are asked about their belief in evolution. They see one thing and then are told, more or less directly, that they are really seeing its denial. Yet no one has ever explained to them how you get meaning from meaninglessness — a difficult enough task once you realize that we cannot articulate any knowledge of the world at all except in the language of meaning.,,,
   http://www.netfuture.org/2012/May1012_184.html#2

   Yet, Darwinists actually believe that randomly rearranging molecules, and selecting the lucky accidents, can account for such fabrication complexity. A level of complexity that man has yet to fully understand yet. Indeed, it is a level of complexity that man may never fully understand, much less imitate:

   “Complexity Brake” Defies Evolution – August 2012
   Excerpt: “This is bad news. Consider a neuronal synapse — the presynaptic terminal has an estimated 1000 distinct proteins. Fully analyzing their possible interactions would take about 2000 years. Or consider the task of fully characterizing the visual cortex of the mouse — about 2 million neurons. Under the extreme assumption that the neurons in these systems can all interact with each other, analyzing the various combinations will take about 10 million years…, even though it is assumed that the underlying technology speeds up by an order of magnitude each year.”,,,
   Even with shortcuts like averaging, “any possible technological advance is overwhelmed by the relentless growth of interactions among all components of the system,” Koch said. “It is not feasible to understand evolved organisms by exhaustively cataloging all interactions in a comprehensive, bottom-up manner.” He described the concept of the Complexity Brake:,,,
   “Allen and Greaves recently introduced the metaphor of a “complexity brake” for the observation that fields as diverse as neuroscience and cancer biology have proven resistant to facile predictions about imminent practical applications. Improved technologies for observing and probing biological systems has only led to discoveries of further levels of complexity that need to be dealt with. This process has not yet run its course. We are far away from understanding cell biology, genomes, or brains, and turning this understanding into practical knowledge.”,,,
   Why can’t we use the same principles that describe technological systems? Koch explained that in an airplane or computer, the parts are “purposefully built in such a manner to limit the interactions among the parts to a small number.” The limited interactome of human-designed systems avoids the complexity brake. “None of this is true for nervous systems.”,,,
   to read more go here:
   http://www.evolutionnews.org/2.....62961.html

   Systems biology: Untangling the protein web – July 2009
   Excerpt: Vidal thinks that technological improvements — especially in nanotechnology, to generate more data, and microscopy, to explore interaction inside cells, along with increased computer power — are required to push systems biology forward. “Combine all this and you can start to think that maybe some of the information flow can be captured,” he says. But when it comes to figuring out the best way to explore information flow in cells, Tyers jokes that it is like comparing different degrees of infinity. “The interesting point coming out of all these studies is how complex these systems are — the different feedback loops and how they cross-regulate each other and adapt to perturbations are only just becoming apparent,” he says. “The simple pathway models are a gross oversimplification of what is actually happening.”
   http://www.nature.com/nature/j.....0415a.html

   Verse and Music:

   Jeremiah 1:5
   “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart;

   You’re Not Alone – Marie Miller
   http://myktis.com/songs/youre-not-alone/
3. 3
   johnp says:

   February 2, 2014 at 7:20 pm

   From the paper: “Multicellularity has evolved at least once in every major eukaryotic clade (in all ploidy levels) and numerous times among the prokaryotes.”

   Really? You have evidence indicating this?