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Jan. 28, 2005 Before addressing intelligent design directly, let's look at the basics of life. In order to understand the implications of intelligent design, we need to understand the nature of life itself. Even though fundamentalists insist the Bible is the source of all truth, it says absolutely nothing about molecular biology. So, we have to study it for ourselves. The smallest living organism is the cell. Cells are made of molecules but molecules are not alive. They must be precisely organized with other molecules to produce life. Generally, cells cannot survive if they are not part of a larger body of cells. There are single-celled organisms but they are rare and exist in very specialized environments. There are only two types of cells in the world, but they display an infinite variety of life. There are eukaryotic cells (animal cells) and prokaryotic cells (plant cells). The biggest difference between animal cells and plant cells is the way they get energy. Basically, plant cells get energy from the sun and process it by photosynthesis using chloroplasts. Animal cells turn protein molecules into chemical energy. They get this protein by eating other plants and animals. Cells and all their complicated parts are made of molecules which are made of atoms. The atoms are joined together by chemical bonding. A molecule is two or more atoms chemically (or covalently) joined together. Out of all the types of atoms available for molecules, only six types are used in biological molecules: carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, phosphorus and sulfur. Occasionally biological systems need ions for certain processes and they get these from chlorine, sodium, calcium, potassium, magnesium and iron. However, virtually all of the structures in a cell are made of these six types of atoms. Each atom has a limited number of bondings it can make with other atoms. Carbon atoms can bond with up to four different atoms at once. Phosphorus can also bond to four different atoms but it usually bonds with four oxygen atoms. Nitrogen can form three bonds and oxygen and sulfur can each form two. Hydrogen can only form one bond to another atom. The interesting thing is that carbon can form stable bonds with other atoms to form long chains. These chains, in turn, can bond to each other and easily create very complex structures. This is why life on earth is carbon based and not silicon based, for example. The complex carbon structures allow for a huge diversity and variety in life forms. This variety isn't available with any other kind of chemical bonding. Additionally, the number of molecules that can be built with these six types of atoms is huge. However, life forms don't use a huge number of completely different molucules. Instead, a limited number of molecules are used and larger molecules are constructed by stringing together these basic molecules in different arrangements. It's like making all the words and sentences and paragraphs in the English language from only the 26 letters of the alphabet. So, what's the point of my excursion into molecular biology? Well, it has to do with how you view the awesome complexity of life. Diversity is the driving characteristic of evolutionary biology. It ensures that every ecological niche is filled with an appropriate organism specifically adapted to that environment by natural selection. Diversity also encourages change by competition when the environment changes. When that happens, the organisms that live there must also change or they will die. The most diverse and adaptable organisms are inevitably the ones that survive. To get to the point we need to realize that evolution has no long-term goal. This means that there is no final criterion by which each selection is judged. The only criterion for selection is short-term survival and reproductive success. It is only incidental that hindsight appears to reveal the successful achievement of a long-term goal. This is misleading. Cumulative selection is an efficient searching procedure which searches for and selects characteristics that "work." The consequences look like creative intelligence. This is merely coincidence and coincidence leads to false conclusions. In fact, if it wasn't for coincidence, religion wouldn't exist. The fact that certain events cannot be easily explained encourages people to attribute the incident to supernatural causes. Many religious people sincerely believe there is no such thing as "accidents." But is it true? Let's see it another way. If something is unknown it is mysterious. Once the truth is known, the mystery disappears. In other words there is no such thing as a mysterious truth. To put it succinctly, things fit together so well in nature because they evolved that way, not because they were designed. Richard Dawkins said it like this, "We have eyes because there is light and we have ears because there is sound." And that, my friends, is the bottom line. ------------ About the author: Keith Cantrell is a musician, artist and writer who lives in a small town in Oregon. He has worked at many different professions and currently is writing a book on the origins of the Bible entitled "The World's Most Dangerous Book." He has been a professing fundamentalist and is now struggling with atheism. His life has been spent searching for truth, and nothing but the truth. He loves comments, feedback and even verbal abuse if it is intelligent. He has 4 children and 4 grandchildren and loves everything about living in Oregon. Email: kwcantrell@yahoo.com Tell a friend about this site! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED! |
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