Creation Facts of Life (4 page)
Chemistry, then, is not our ancestor; it's our problem. When cells lose their biological order and their molecules start reacting in chemical ways, we die. A dead body contains all the molecules necessary for life and approximately the right amount of each, but we never see a "road kill" get up and walk off because sunlight energy shining on the carcass made all the molecules of life start working together again. What's lost at death are balance and biological order that otherwise use food to put us together faster than chemistry tears us apart! (See Bliss and Parker
5
; Illustra Media
6
; and Thaxton, Bradley, and Olsen
7
for details.)
Time and chance are no help to the evolutionist either, since time and chance can only act on inherent chemical properties.
Trying to throw "life" on a roll of molecular dice is like trying to throw a "13" on a pair of gaming dice.
It just won't work. The possibility is not there, so the probability is just plain
zero.
The relationship between DNA and protein required for life is one that no chemist would ever suspect. It's using a series of bases (actually taken three at a time) to line up a series of R-groups (Figure 4). R-groups are the parts of each amino acid that "stick out" along the protein chain. "R" stands for the "variable radical," and variable it is! An R-group can be acid; it can be a base; it can be a single hydrogen atom, a short chain, a long chain, a single ring, a double ring, fat-soluble, or water-soluble!
The point is this: There is no inherent chemical tendency for a series of bases (three at a time) to line up a series of R-groups in the orderly way required for life. The base/R-group relationship has to be
imposed on
matter; it has
no basis within
matter.
The relationship between hard and soft rock in the arrowhead in Figure 1 had to be imposed from the outside. All of us could recognize that matter had been shaped and molded according to a
design
that could not be produced by time, chance, and weathering processes acting on the hard and soft rock involved. In the same way, our
knowledge
of DNA, protein, and their chemical properties should lead us to infer that
life also is the result of plan, purpose, and special acts of creation.
 |
Figure 4. |
Let me use a simpler example of the same kind of reasoning. Suppose I asked you this question: Can aluminum fly? Think a moment. Can aluminum fly? I'm sure that sounds like a trick question. By itself, of course, aluminum can't fly. Aluminum ore in rock just sits there. A volcano may throw it, but it doesn't fly. If you pour gasoline on it, does that make it fly? If you pour a little rubber on it, that doesn't make it fly, either. Suppose you take that aluminum, stretch it out in a nice long tube with wings, a tail, and a few other parts. Then it flies; we call it an airplane.
Did you ever wonder what makes an airplane fly? Try a few thought experiments. Take the wings off and study them; they don't fly. Take the engines off, study them; they don't fly. Take the pilot out of the cockpit; the pilot doesn't fly. Don't dwell on this the next time you're on an airplane, but an airplane is a collection of non-flying parts! Not a single part of it flies!
What does it take to make an airplane fly? The answer is something every scientist can understand and appreciate, something every scientist can work with and use to frame hypotheses and conduct experiments. What does it take to make an airplane fly?
Creative design and organization.
Take a look at the features of a living cell diagrammed in Figure 5. Don't worry; I am not going to say much about this diagram. Just notice the DNA molecule in the upper left circle and the protein in the lower right. What are all the rest of those strange looking things diagrammed in the cell? Those represent just a few of the molecules that a cell needs to make just one protein according to the instructions of just one DNA molecule. A cell needs over 75 "helper molecules," all working together
in harmony,
to make one protein (R-group series) as instructed by one DNA base series. A few of these molecules are RNA (messenger, transfer, and ribosomal RNA); most are highly specific proteins.
8
 |
Figure 5. |
Contrary to popular impression, DNA does not even possess the genetic
code
for making protein, but only the genetic
alphabet
. The "alphabet letters" of DNA (the four bases, abbreviated GCAT) are used in groups of three (triplet codons) as code names for the 20 different amino acids of proteins. But bases are equally spaced along DNA; there's nothing in the structure or chemistry that even hints why or which bases should be grouped as triplet codons. Three letter groupings are
not inherent
in base sequences; they are
imposed on
the base series by huge cellular particles called ribosomes.
Ribosomes don't act directly on DNA, but on expendable "base pair copies" of DNA called messenger RNA, or mRNA. The production of mRNA, and of more DNA for reproduction, is magnificently profound, but it's a simple consequence of interlocking base shapes and ordinary chemical attraction (mediated by enzymes). The way ribosomes establish the genetic coding system, however, completely transcends the inherent properties of DNA bases.
Ribosomes are "molecular machines" each consisting of about 50 specific proteins and three large RNA molecules. Its overall 3-D shape gives a ribosome two adjacent slots each precisely shaped to hold three and only three bases, thus establishing the triplet coding system. This coding system is not based on time, chance, and the properties of the bases, but on plan, purpose, and intelligent design. In the structure of the ribosome, however, as in the arrowhead, nothing supernatural, complex, or even unusual is involved, and the function of the ribosome is easy to understand and explain. In both the ribosome and the arrowhead, the evidence of creation is not in what we can't see and don't know; it's in the pattern of order ("exherent") that we do see and can explain: matter shaped and molded to accomplish the purpose of its Creator, not to satisfy inherent chemical properties.
Besides the above, the ribosomes which establish the amino acid code names for making proteins are themselves made of 50 or more specific proteins. It takes specific proteins to establish the code for making specific proteins, so how did the system get started? Evolutionists admit that's a problem for them because they insist evolution based on time, chance, and the properties of matter is a blind process that can't plan ahead or work toward a goal. On the other hand, creationists see the goal-oriented function of ribosomes as another evidence of creation. Like batteries can be used to start car engines that then recharge the batteries, so proteins can be used to code for the production of proteins that can then "recharge" the coding proteins.
And there's more. Even after ribosomes establish triplet codon names for amino acids, the protein building blocks have no chemical way to recognize their code names! All sorts of wrong chemical reactions between amino acids and base triplets are possible, but these would destroy the code. It falls to transfer RNA (tRNA) molecules to pick up amino acids and base pair them with their codons on the ribosome slots. The base pairing of tRNA and mRNA triplets is based on interlocking shapes and ordinary chemical attraction, but the proper pairing of tRNAs with amino acids requires much more than ordinary chemistry.
When it comes to "translating" DNA's instructions for making proteins, the real "heroes" are the activating enzymes that unite specific tRNA/amino acid pairs. Enzymes are proteins with special slots for selecting and holding other molecules for speedy reaction. As shown in Figure 5 (circle 3), each activating enzyme has five slots: two for chemical coupling
(c, d),
one for energy (ATP), and, most importantly, two to establish a
non-chemical
three-base "code name" for each different amino acid R-group
(a, b).
You may find that awe-inspiring, and so do my cell biology students!
The living cell requires at least 20 of these activating enzymes I call "translases," one for each of the specific R-group/code name (amino acid/tRNA
)
pairs. Even so, the whole set of translases (100 specific active sites) would be (1)
worthless
without ribosomes (50 proteins plus rRNA) to break the base-coded message of heredity into three-letter code names; (2)
destructive
without a continuously renewed supply of ATP energy to keep the translases from tearing up the pairs they are supposed to form; and (3)
vanishing
if it weren't for having translases and other specific proteins to re-make the translase proteins that are continuously and rapidly wearing out because of the destructive effects of time and chance on protein structure!
Most enzymes are proteins that select and speed up chemical reactions that would occur slowly without them.
Translases
are an entirely different category of enzymes. They
impose a relationship
that transcends the chemistry of base triplets and amino acids,
a code that would not occur at all, slowly or otherwise, in their absence.
Let's forget about all the complexity of the DNA-protein relationship and just remember two simple points. First, it takes
specific
proteins to make
specific
proteins. That may remind you of the chicken-and-egg problem: how can you get one without the other? That problem is solved if the molecules needed for "DNA-protein translation" are produced by creation.
Second, among all the molecules that translate DNA into protein, there's not one molecule that is alive. There's not a single molecule in your body that's alive. There's not a single molecule in the living cell that's alive. A living cell is a collection of non-living molecules! What does it take to make a living cell alive? The answer is something every scientist recognizes and uses in a laboratory, something every scientist can logically infer from his observations of DNA and protein. What does it take to make a living cell alive?
Creative design and organization!
Only creative acts could organize matter into the first living cells,
but once all the parts are in place, there is nothing "supernatural" or "mysterious" in the way cells make proteins. If
they are continually supplied with the right kind of energy and raw materials, and
if all
75-plus of the RNA and protein molecules required for DNA-protein "translation" are present in the
right
places at the
right
times in the
right
amounts with the
right
structure,
then
cells make proteins by using DNA's base series (quite indirectly!) to line up amino acids at the rate of about two per second.
In ways scientists understand rather well,
it takes a living cell only about four minutes to "crank out" an average protein (500 amino acids) according to DNA specifications.