On the complexity of the cell

Nick when you can explain non-local, beyond space and time, quantum entanglement/computation within my DNA and proteins with reductive materialism, then you will have explained how my body got here by purely 'natural processes'. Until then, I'll just enjoy the show as Darwinism keeps getting crushed by one advance in science after another, and believe that God made me! bornagain77

Nick I believe that we all are,,, Fearfully and Wonderfully Made – Glimpses At Human Development In The Womb – video

Well, that's fine, but presumably you don't think supernatural intervention occurred in order to turn your parent's gametic DNA into your genome. In other words, you yourself accept the idea that "God created me" doesn't conflict with this occurring via natural processes. NickMatzke_UD

Umm, I am not slamming Darwin. I am just stating a fact- that he did not know the intricate complexity of the cell. Joseph

Umm, THAT is my point! Joseph

Ok, good. Scott, I don't know why and others get so vexed by this kind of thing: "I suppose he realizes that. Everyone does. But he and others seem to pretend that possibility doesn’t exist." What's wrong with enthusiasm? Most scientists I know are enthusiastic to the point of being boring about their tiny area of speciality. That's a good thing I think. They love their work. Timbo

test Timbo

Petrushka,

There are hard problems in science, and no one knows in advance how or when they will be solved. For example, no one seems to doubt that nuclear fusion can be a steady source of energy, but decades of research haven’t made it possible on earth. Nor can anyone predict how or when it will happen.

The future is always a possibility. The past isn't. If no one has solved a certain energy problem after 1,000 years, they can keep trying. The past is done. The abiogenesis Szostak claims to be looking for while researching design either happened or it didn't. That means that unlike some problems, there may not be an answer to this one. The answer might be that he can't find out how it happened because it didn't. I suppose he realizes that. Everyone does. But he and others seem to pretend that possibility doesn't exist. ScottAndrews

And Joseph,

I would get laughed at for my very simple rendition of what really goes on.

That would only be the case of that "very simple rendition" was not in fact the most detailed rendition that was actually known at the time. If it was, then that's by definition cutting edge research. As above, what would you have had him say? And what does it even matter anyway, how evolution passes information down from generation to generation is secondary to the fact it occurs at all and it occurring was what Darwin observed. Seems to me you just want an excuse to slam Darwin rather then recognize the revolution he touched off with his seminal work. kellyhomes

Joseph,

I would get laughed at for my very simple rendition of what really goes on.

Given the technology available to Darwin what would you have expected him to write? kellyhomes

"Just three and a half billion years."

Ahh yes the magic wand of time can work all miracles:

Life - Its Sudden Origin and Extreme Complexity - Dr. Fazale Rana - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4287513 Dr. Hugh Ross - Origin Of Life Paradox - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4012696 Archaean Microfossils and the Implications for Intelligent Design - August 2011 Excerpt: This dramatically limits the amount of time, and thus the probablistic resources, available to those who wish to invoke purely unguided and purposeless material processes to explain the origin of life. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/08/surprisingly_soon_archaean_mic049921.html The Sudden Appearance Of Photosynthetic Life On Earth - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4262918 Team Claims It Has Found Oldest Fossils By NICHOLAS WADE - August 2011 Excerpt: Rocks older than 3.5 billion years have been so thoroughly cooked as to destroy all cellular structures, but chemical traces of life can still be detected. Chemicals indicative of life have been reported in rocks 3.5 billion years old in the Dresser Formation of Western Australia and, with less certainty, in rocks 3.8 billion years old in Greenland. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/22/science/earth/22fossil.html?_r=1

The evidence scientists have discovered in the geologic record is stunning in its support of the anthropic hypothesis. The oldest sedimentary rocks on earth, known to science, originated underwater (and thus in relatively cool environs) 3.86 billion years ago. Those sediments, which are exposed at Isua in southwestern Greenland, also contain the earliest chemical evidence (fingerprint) of 'photosynthetic' life [Nov. 7, 1996, Nature]. This evidence had been fought by materialists since it is totally contrary to their evolutionary theory. Yet, Danish scientists were able to bring forth another line of geological evidence to substantiate the primary line of geological evidence for photo-synthetic life in the earth’s earliest sedimentary rocks.

U-rich Archaean sea-floor sediments from Greenland - indications of +3700 Ma oxygenic photosynthesis (2003) http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2004E&PSL.217..237R

Moreover, evidence for 'sulfate reducing' bacteria has been discovered alongside the evidence for photosynthetic bacteria:

When Did Life First Appear on Earth? - Fazale Rana - December 2010 Excerpt: The primary evidence for 3.8 billion-year-old life consists of carbonaceous deposits, such as graphite, found in rock formations in western Greenland. These deposits display an enrichment of the carbon-12 isotope. Other chemical signatures from these formations that have been interpreted as biological remnants include uranium/thorium fractionation and banded iron formations. Recently, a team from Australia argued that the dolomite in these formations also reflects biological activity, specifically that of sulfate-reducing bacteria. http://www.reasons.org/when-did-life-first-appear-earth

Thus we now have fairly conclusive evidence for bacterial life in the oldest sedimentary rocks ever found by scientists on earth. On the third page of this following site there is a illustration that shows some of the interdependent, ‘life-enabling’, biogeochemical complexity of different types of bacterial life on Earth.,,,

Microbial Mat Ecology – Image on page 92 (third page down) http://www.dsls.usra.edu/biologycourse/workbook/Unit2.2.pdf

,,,Please note, that if even one type of bacteria group did not exist in this complex cycle of biogeochemical interdependence, that was illustrated on the third page of the preceding site, then all of the different bacteria would soon die out. This essential biogeochemical interdependence, of the most primitive different types of bacteria that we have evidence of on ancient earth, makes the origin of life ‘problem’ for neo-Darwinists that much worse. For now not only do neo-Darwinists have to explain how the ‘miracle of life’ happened once with the origin of photosynthetic bacteria, but they must now also explain how all these different types bacteria, that photosynthetic bacteria are dependent on, in this complex biogeochemical web, miraculously arose just in time to supply the necessary nutrients, in their biogeochemical link in the chain, for photosynthetic bacteria to continue to survive. As well, though not clearly illustrated in the illustration on the preceding site, please note that a long term tectonic cycle, of the turnover the Earth’s crustal rocks, must also be fine-tuned to a certain degree with the bacteria and thus plays a important ‘foundational’ role in the overall ecology of the biogeochemical system that must be accounted for as well. In what I find to be a very fascinating discovery, it is found that photosynthetic life, which is an absolutely vital link that all higher life on earth is dependent on, uses non-local', beyond time and space' quantum entanglement to accomplish photosynthesis.

Non-Local Quantum Entanglement In Photosynthesis - video with notes in description http://vimeo.com/30235178 Evidence for wavelike energy transfer through quantum coherence in photosynthetic systems. Gregory S. Engel, Nature (12 April 2007) Photosynthetic complexes are exquisitely tuned to capture solar light efficiently, and then transmit the excitation energy to reaction centres, where long term energy storage is initiated.,,,, This wavelike characteristic of the energy transfer within the photosynthetic complex can explain its extreme efficiency, in that it allows the complexes to sample vast areas of phase space to find the most efficient path. ---- Conclusion? Obviously Photosynthesis is a brilliant piece of design by "Someone" who even knows how quantum mechanics works.

Of note; Alain Aspect used quantum entanglement to falsify local realism/reductive materialism. Reductive materialism is the foundation upon which neo-Darwinism is built!!! bornagain77

And just why is simplest ‘possible’ cell in neo-Darwinian imagination separated from simplest actually observed cell by such a universe wide chasm?!?

Not universe-wide. Just three and a half billion years. There is, of course, no guarantee that Szostak will be the winner in this race. There are hard problems in science, and no one knows in advance how or when they will be solved. For example, no one seems to doubt that nuclear fusion can be a steady source of energy, but decades of research haven't made it possible on earth. Nor can anyone predict how or when it will happen. Petrushka

Thanks again Nick. Reading Darwin it is obvious that relative to what we now know, Darwin saw a simple cell. If I described the workings of a cell as he did- say for a PhD thesis in cellular biology- I would get laughed at for my very simple rendition of what really goes on. Joseph

Where was this one sentence a week or two ago when we discussed this exact issue in dozens of posts? If I recall it took me at least ten posts just to get anyone to correctly acknowledge the point I was making, and then a dozen or so more to argue it. And now he comes out a week later and says it all for me in once sentence. Szostak's abiogenesis research is design research. If he ever gets anywhere he'd have to go back to the very start and make whole new case for spontaneous organization. And if the design process is spelled out in detail, I wonder if the spontaneous version will be easier or harder to sell? Apparently people are willing to believe that "something" happened. Try telling them exactly what did happen spontaneously without sounding twice as stupid. ScottAndrews

Here's the original source of what Dembski and Dembski's opponent were calling Darwin's drawing. It was a drawing by his son, not that that matters, and actually it is of carnivorous plant cells! Darwin wrote a whole paper about just the movements and structures he observed in the cells of carnivorous plants in 1882. The word "simple" does not appear: http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?itemID=F1801&viewtype=text&pageseq=16 NickMatzke_UD

The contradiction is all contained in this one sentence.

And we’re trying to build a very, very simple cell that might look like something that might have developed spontaneously on the early earth.

He's trying to find out what might have developed spontaneously by building something. If he succeeds, he will have demonstrated design, and 'spontaneous development' will still be a pipe dream. He says exactly what he is doing in plain English, and some people are still gullible and naive enough to call it abiogenesis research. Is that offensive? I don't mean to be. But when someone says he is doing one thing and calls it roughly the opposite all in one sentence, and someone disregards the former and believes the latter, what less offensive words are there for it? ScottAndrews

Nick I believe that we all are,,,

Fearfully and Wonderfully Made - Glimpses At Human Development In The Womb - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4249713 Psalm 139: 14-15 "I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;,,, When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body."

The Human Body is simply amazing:

The Human Body - You Are Amazing - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/5246456 Human Anatomy - Impressive Transparent Visualization - Fearfully and Wonderfully Made - video http://vimeo.com/26011909 The 'Fourth Dimension' Of Living Systems https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1Gs_qvlM8-7bFwl9rZUB9vS6SZgLH17eOZdT4UbPoy0Y "To the skeptic, the proposition that the genetic programmes of higher organisms, consisting of something close to a thousand million bits of information, equivalent to the sequence of letters in a small library of 1,000 volumes, containing in encoded form countless thousands of intricate algorithms controlling, specifying, and ordering the growth and development of billions and billions of cells into the form of a complex organism, were composed by a purely random process is simply an affront to reason. But to the Darwinist, the idea is accepted without a ripple of doubt - the paradigm takes precedence!" Michael Denton

bornagain77

Mr. Matzke, I am not your dude! And just why is simplest 'possible' cell in neo-Darwinian imagination separated from simplest actually observed cell by such a universe wide chasm?!? bornagain77

These aren't even necessarily contradictory statements. Did God create you, ba77? Christians usually answer "yes", what's your answer? NickMatzke_UD

So Nick, aside from you playing politics, did God create life or did it come from a warm little pond? bornagain77

Dude! Simplest currently living currently known-to-science cell != simplest possible cell-like thing. Szostak is looking for the latter. NickMatzke_UD

Nick, Nice strawman- look at his drawings and then compare those drawings to what we now know. His drawings, by comparison, show a very simple cell. Now you can rant and rave all you want- you can make stuff up and attack it too. But in the end, and by what you just said, Darwin did not understand, nor did he observe, the intricate complexity of the living cell. Joseph

So which is it Nick??? Did God create life or did it come from a warm little pond? Myself, I trust no scientist who was playing politics with his theory as Darwin was!! Truth needs no politics!!!

Well, "truth needs no politics" is a statement that is almost certainly not true in the real world -- there are many cases in history where well-documented truth was badly delayed in part because the people advocating it had poor political sensibilities -- Galileo being the most famous. But I'll leave that aside. One thing you are leaving out in your rush to damn Darwin is that he was still a theist or deist in 1859, and got less religious later in life. People are allowed to change their views. Furthermore, Darwin was quite conservative and didn't like to engage in topics which were basically wholly unknown. His letter to Hooker, one of his closest friends, is private and yet is still incredibly tentative. He once wrote elsewhere that speculating about the origin of life was about as useless as speculating about the origin of matter. NickMatzke_UD

Mr. Matzke, you don't seem to be aware of you schizophrenic claims you have going on here. On the one hand it seems you want to claim that Darwin envisioned unfathomable complexity for the 'simplest' life on earth. Yet on the other hand unfathomable complexity for the 'simplest' life on earth is completely at odds with the belief that the 'simplest' life spontaneously originated in 'some warm little pond'! Does it not even trouble you in the least to hold two diametrically opposed viewpoints at the same time??? Most people consider holding such a conflicting state of affairs in one's mind as insanity! But if you truly believe you are being rational as to all this, then do please write Dr. Szostak and tell him that he is being very unreasonable for expecting 'simplicity' for the first life:

Nobelist Jack Szostak on origin of life research: “We’re halfway there” Excerpt: And we’re trying to build a very, very simple cell that might look like something that might have developed spontaneously on the early earth. https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/origin-of-life/nobelist-jack-szostak-on-origin-of-life-research-%e2%80%9cwe%e2%80%99re-halfway-there%e2%80%9d/

bornagain77

Typical! You are now claiming that the evidence back then was that the cell was simple, and that Darwin's complexity statement was unsupported! In reality, the whole premise that biologists thought cells were super-simple back then is mostly wrong as far as I can tell. Darwin and many other microscopists (Darwin had an excellent microscope) observed cells moving, observed cytoplasmic streaming, observed them swallowing and digesting each other, etc. All of these activities suggest the presence of parts below microscope resolution that are making all of this happen. Darwin's careful consideration of the heredity question led him to realize that all the information for e.g. an adult human has to be contained within the sperm & egg cells, and any way you slice it that means that there is tremendous complexity in those cells (even though Darwin's specific pangenes hypothesis was incorrect in detail, it eventually inspired the idea of "genes" in Weismann IIRC). But, by all means, keep defending the poorly-researched talking point in the face of the historical evidence, it just gives us evolutionists yet more evidence that you guys are ideologues not interested in rigorous scholarship. NickMatzke_UD

Randomly googling, I find that even creationists back in the olden days quoted Darwin against Haeckel:

How in the name of reason can the body of the moneron consist of only "one single substance" -- albumen -- when "all animals," "all organisms," "all living bodies without exception," consist of water and "'other substances?" Water, surely, is not Albumen! Having smarted out, it seems, with the desperate purpose of showing probable ground for the possibility of spontaneous generation, it became necessary to describe the moneron (" the simplest of all imaginable organisms ") as composed of one single substance," even though he should be forced flatly to contradict it in the very next chapter. Is such an outrageous falsifier of Nature fit to teach the world science? He not only contradicts himself, but flatly contradicts Mr. Darwin: "We cannot fathom the marvelous complexity of an organic being; but on the hypothesis here advanced (pangenesis) this complexity is much increased. Each living creature must be looked at as a microcosm—formed of a host of self-propagating organisms, inconceivably minute, and as numerous as the stars of heaven." —Animals and Plants, vol. ii, p. 483. Yet Prof. Haeckel declares that this "living" animal so far from containing "a host of self-propagating organisms," is "composed of one single substance"— "one and the same homogeneous matter," and instead of constituting it a "microcosm," as Darwin has it, in order to make it a suitable subject for spontaneous generation he declares it absolutely to be without organs or parts. But he not only contradicts himself and Mr. Darwin, but he is equally in conflict with Prof. Huxley: "No living being is throughout of homogeneous substance." -- Huxley, Elementary Physiology, p. 15. Prof. Haeckel, however, maintains, as just quoted, that this spontaneously generated "primeval parent of all other organisms" is homogeneously composed of one single substance." Now, which statement are we to believe: this special and evidently ill-considered or purposely fabricated plea for the irrational hypothesis of spontaneous generation, or the deliberately considered statements of the three high authorities quoted, including Prof. Haeckel himself? Clearly, judging from the testimony of these three witnesses, spontaneous generation falls to the ground as an utter impossibility, since Prof. Haeckel distinctly asserts, as above quoted, that "only such homogeneous organisms as are .. . homogenously composed of one single substance could arise by spontaneous generation!" Now, as the moneron is the "simplest of all imaginable organisms," and according to Haeckel, contains not only "albumen," but "water" and "other substances," and according to Darwin is a "microcosm," and according to Huxley cannot be "throughout of homogeneous substance" it follows demonstrably by the united testimony of the three witnesses that a moneron could not have arisen by spontaneous generation, not being "homogeneously composed of one single substance," and consequently that Prof. Haeckel's theory, so far from filling up the "gap existing between Kant's Cosmogony and Lamarck's Theory of Descent," ingloriously breaks down at the very start!

Hall (1878) The Problem of Human Life. [numerous italics omitted] p. 356 http://books.google.com/books?id=Zg0rAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA356#v=onepage&q=fathom&f=false NickMatzke_UD

Nick, Darwin did not know the complexity of the cell. If he had he would not have proposed his theory. Joseph

So Darwin said something not based on the evidence he had at hand? Or perhaps he thought what he drew was complex- LoL! Joseph

Completely ignores Darwin's statement, even though I pointed it out in 2008 IIRC. NickMatzke_UD

The part where you can't read what Darwin wrote. There's no way to spin away "We cannot fathom the marvellous complexity of an organic being; but on the hypothesis here advanced this complexity is much increased", and the bit about the pangenes inside cells making up "a micrcosom - a little universe, forrmed of a host of self-propagating organism, inconceivably minute and as numerous as the stars in heaven." NickMatzke_UD

As to Mr. Matzke's blatant deception that neo-Darwinism expected/predicted unfathomable complexity for the 'simplest' life on earth, even the top researchers of today are being blown away by what they are finding in the 'simplest' life on earth;

First-Ever Blueprint of 'Minimal Cell' Is More Complex Than Expected - Nov. 2009 Excerpt: A network of research groups,, approached the bacterium at three different levels. One team of scientists described M. pneumoniae's transcriptome, identifying all the RNA molecules, or transcripts, produced from its DNA, under various environmental conditions. Another defined all the metabolic reactions that occurred in it, collectively known as its metabolome, under the same conditions. A third team identified every multi-protein complex the bacterium produced, thus characterising its proteome organisation. "At all three levels, we found M. pneumoniae was more complex than we expected," http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091126173027.htm Simplest Microbes More Complex than Thought - Dec. 2009 Excerpt: PhysOrg reported that a species of Mycoplasma,, “The bacteria appeared to be assembled in a far more complex way than had been thought.” Many molecules were found to have multiple functions: for instance, some enzymes could catalyze unrelated reactions, and some proteins were involved in multiple protein complexes." http://www.creationsafaris.com/crev200912.htm#20091229a There’s No Such Thing as a ‘Simple’ Organism - November 2009 Excerpt: In short, there was a lot going on in lowly, supposedly simple M. pneumoniae, and much of it is beyond the grasp of what’s now known about cell function. http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/11/basics-of-life/ Jack T. Trevors - Theoretical Biology & Medical Modelling, Vol. 2, 11 August 2005, page 8 "No man-made program comes close to the technical brilliance of even Mycoplasmal genetic algorithms. Mycoplasmas are the simplest known organism with the smallest known genome, to date. How was its genome and other living organisms' genomes programmed?" http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1742-4682-2-29.pdf

And lest Mr. Matzke forget the 'and oh what a big if' statement of Darwin:

The story behind Darwin's warm little pond - David Tyler Excerpt: But if (and oh what a big if) we could conceive in some warm little pond with all sorts of ammonia and phosphoric salts, - light, heat, electricity &c. present, that a protein compound was chemically formed, ready to undergo still more complex changes, http://www.arn.org/blogs/index.php/literature/2009/11/06/the_story_behind_darwin_s_warm_little_po

Of note; this 'Big If' admission was in a private correspondence, but the duplicitous public persona of Darwin had written in his book that,,,:

"There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved."

So which is it Nick??? Did God create life or did it come from a warm little pond? Myself, I trust no scientist who was playing politics with his theory as Darwin was!! Truth needs no politics!!! bornagain77

Wm Dembski wrote about this in 2010 Joseph

Nick, you are very confused. Compared to what we know today Darwin thought the cell was very simple. Geez just look at his drawings of the cell What part of that don't you understand? Joseph

From Expelled: David Berlinski, philosopher and mathematician, interview by Ben Stein in 2008 documentary Expelled Stein: Darwin . . . had an idea of the cell as being quite simple, correct? Berlinski: Yes, everybody did. Stein: If he thought of the cell as being a Buick, what is the cell now in terms of its complexity by comparison? Berlinski: A galaxy. Richard Sternberg, evolutionary biologist, interview by Ben Stein in 2008 documentary Expelled: Stein: If Darwin thought a cell was, say, a mud hut, what do we now know that a cell is? Sternberg: More complicated than a Saturn V.

Um, we've dealt with the falsity of Expelled's statement before. Creationists/IDists repeating false talking points again and again does not magically make them true. Actual Darwin:

[Darwin, 1868, The variation of animals and plants under domestication, page 404. ] Finally, the power of propagation possessed by each separate cell, using the term in its largest sense, determines the reproduction, the variability, the development and renovation of each living organism. No other attempt, as far as I am aware, has been made, imperfect as this confessedly is, to connect under one point of view these several grand classes of facts. We cannot fathom the marvellous complexity of an organic being; but on the hypothesis here advanced this complexity is much increased. Each living creature must be looked at as a microcosm – a little universe, formed of a host of self-propagating organisms, inconceivably minute and as numerous as the stars in heaven.

This kind of thing, and the refusal to correct such mistakes when pointed out, is why ID gets no respect from academics, and deserves none. NickMatzke_UD

Here is a neat little video clip that I wish was a bit longer (they say a longer one is in the works):

The Flow - Resonance Film - video http://vimeo.com/groups/7286/videos/25430131

Description: The Flow, from inside a cell, looks at the supervening layers of reality that we can observe, from quarks to nucleons to atoms and beyond. The deeper we go into the foundations of reality the more it loses its form, eventually becoming a pure mathematical conception. bornagain77

Here's the clip:

Ben Stein - EXPELLED - The Staggering Complexity Of The Cell - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4227700

further notes:

"The manuals needed for building the entire space shuttle and all its components and all its support systems would be truly enormous! Yet the specified complexity (information) of even the simplest form of life - a bacterium - is arguably as great as that of the space shuttle." J.C. Sanford - Geneticist - Genetic Entropy and the Mystery Of the Genome “Although the tiniest living things known to science, bacterial cells, are incredibly small (10^-12 grams), each is a veritable micro-miniaturized factory containing thousands of elegantly designed pieces of intricate molecular machinery, made up altogether of one hundred thousand million atoms, far more complicated than any machine built by man and absolutely without parallel in the non-living world”. Michael Denton, "Evolution: A Theory in Crisis," 1986, p. 250. The Cell as a Collection of Protein Machines "We have always underestimated cells. Undoubtedly we still do today,,, Indeed, the entire cell can be viewed as a factory that contains an elaborate network of interlocking assembly lines, each which is composed of a set of large protein machines." Bruce Alberts: Former President, National Academy of Sciences; Building a Cell: Staggering Complexity: - Feb. 2010 Excerpt: “All organisms, from bacteria to humans, face the daunting task of replicating, packaging and segregating up to two metres (about 6 x 10^9 base pairs) of DNA when each cell divides,” “,,,the segregation machinery must function with far greater accuracy than man-made machines and with an exquisitely soft touch to prevent the DNA strands from breaking.” Bloom and Joglekar talked “machine language” over and over. The cell has specialized machines for all kinds of tasks: segregation machines, packaging machines, elaborate machines, streamlined machines, protein translocation machines, DNA-processing machines, DNA-translocation machines, robust macromolecular machines, accurate machines, ratchets, translocation pumps, mitotic spindles, DNA springs, coupling devices, and more. The authors struggle to “understand how these remarkable machines function with such exquisite accuracy.” http://www.creationsafaris.com/crev201002.htm#20100202a "To grasp the reality of life as it has been revealed by molecular biology, we must first magnify a cell a thousand million times until it is 20 kilometers in diameter and resembles a giant airship large enough to cover a great city like London or New York. What we would see then would be an object of unparalleled complexity,...we would find ourselves in a world of supreme technology and bewildering complexity." Geneticist Michael Denton PhD., Evolution: A Theory In Crisis, pg.328 Molecular Biology Animations - Demo Reel video http://www.metacafe.com/w/5915291/ The Cell - A World Of Complexity Darwin Never Dreamed Of - Donald E. Johnson - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4139390 Cells Are Like Robust Computational Systems, - June 2009 Excerpt: Gene regulatory networks in cell nuclei are similar to cloud computing networks, such as Google or Yahoo!, researchers report today in the online journal Molecular Systems Biology. The similarity is that each system keeps working despite the failure of individual components, whether they are master genes or computer processors. ,,,,"We now have reason to think of cells as robust computational devices, employing redundancy in the same way that enables large computing systems, such as Amazon, to keep operating despite the fact that servers routinely fail." http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090616103205.htm 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/journal/v460/n7253/full/460415a.html 'The information content of a simple cell has been estimated as around 10^12 bits, comparable to about a hundred million pages of the Encyclopedia Britannica." Carl Sagan, "Life" in Encyclopedia Britannica: Macropaedia (1974 ed.), pp. 893-894

of note: The 10^12 bits of information number, for a bacterium, is derived from entropic considerations, which is, due to the tightly integrated relationship between information and entropy, considered the most accurate measure of the transcendent 'Quantum' information being expressed in a 'simple' life form. For calculations please see the following site:

Molecular Biophysics – Information theory. Relation between information and entropy: https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=18hO1bteXTPOqQtd2H12PI5wFFoTjwg8uBAU5N0nEQIE “Is there a real connection between entropy in physics and the entropy of information? ….The equations of information theory and the second law are the same, suggesting that the idea of entropy is something fundamental…” Tom Siegfried, Dallas Morning News, 5/14/90 – Quotes attributed to Robert W. Lucky, Ex. Director of Research, AT&T, Bell Laboratories & John A. Wheeler, of Princeton & Univ. of TX, Austin

Notes on efficiency

Life Leads the Way to Invention - Feb. 2010 Excerpt: a cell is 10,000 times more energy-efficient than a transistor. “ In one second, a cell performs about 10 million energy-consuming chemical reactions, which altogether require about one picowatt (one millionth millionth of a watt) of power.” This and other amazing facts lead to an obvious conclusion: inventors ought to look to life for ideas.,,, Essentially, cells may be viewed as circuits that use molecules, ions, proteins and DNA instead of electrons and transistors. That analogy suggests that it should be possible to build electronic chips – what Sarpeshkar calls “cellular chemical computers” – that mimic chemical reactions very efficiently and on a very fast timescale. http://creationsafaris.com/crev201002.htm#20100226a

A cell apparently seems to be successfully designed along the very stringent guidelines laid out by Landauer's principle of 'reversible computation' in order to achieve such amazing energy efficiency, something man has yet to accomplish in any meaningful way for computers:

Notes on Landauer’s principle, reversible computation, and Maxwell’s Demon - Charles H. Bennett Excerpt: Of course, in practice, almost all data processing is done on macroscopic apparatus, dissipating macroscopic amounts of energy far in excess of what would be required by Landauer’s principle. Nevertheless, some stages of biomolecular information processing, such as transcription of DNA to RNA, appear to be accomplished by chemical reactions that are reversible not only in principle but in practice.,,,, http://www.hep.princeton.edu/~mcdonald/examples/QM/bennett_shpmp_34_501_03.pdf

etc.. etc.. etc.. bornagain77