Franklin Harold is an evolutionist through and through. No questions asked there. He is also Emeritus Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Colorado State University. His book, The Way of the Cell, is quite readable and fascinating.
Chapter 6 is entitled "It Takes a Cell to Make a Cell." This is strange, coming from an evolutionist, but some science news just came out, which I will quote later, which backs this up. It does leave the idea of an 'original' cell which just sort of came together in the mists of history past and ended up parenting all of us -- it leaves that idea rather lacking for any probable or historical evidence.
First, here are a few quotes from chapter 6
"Rudolph Virchow (1821-1902)...is best remembered today for his succinct proclamation (1858) of one of biology's universal laws: Omnis cellula e cellula, (every cell comes from a preexistent cell).
"Virchow's law has stood the test of more than 3 billion years...Nor is it surprising, given what we now now, that it takes a cell to make a cell. Even those for whom life is simply the expression of the instructions encoded in the genes acknowledge that it takes cellular machinery to implement those instructions: enzymes, RNAs, energy, precursors, even the proper pH and ionic composition. But this can hardly be the whole story, for it fails to capture one of the key features of bological reproduction. Growth and division refer not simply to the accretion of biomolecules, but to the replication of an integrated pattern of functions and structures...Reproduction is ultimately the business of cells, not of molecules [please note that, Jovaro...], because direction and location are not spelled out in the genes; instead, a growing cell models itself upon itself." (pp99-100)
And, to date, NO ONE knows how any cell does that. The common thing taught in science courses is that the genes dictate everything a cell does. But despite what the texts tell the unsuspecting student, we KNOW this is wrong! There is a type of information, referred to as 'epigenetic' which is transferred from parent to daughter cell apart from genetic information. It has to do with the shape of the cell and knowing where the midpoint of the cell is (which the cell seems to 'know' with very high precision) in order for successful replication.
Thus, when discussing the idea that is so prevalent that the genetics carry all the information needed for the cell, Harold states that "the genetic paradigm is not a hypothesis drawn from testable propositions, but what is called in Geerman a Weltanschauung (a world view) that expresses the reductionist spirit of contemporary science.... Knowledge of the genes and what they encode is nowhere near sufficient to explain how the cell elongates, divides and [in the case of E.coli] produces a pair of rods with rounded caps." (p. 111)
"What pulls together the cacophany of molecules and ion channels and regulated pathways into a coherent whole...quickly and every time? If a cell is an orchestra and DNA the score, who or what conducts?...Here we reach an edge, and are left comtemplating the disquieting notion of an orchestra without a conductor." (p. 113)
That is a good introduction to some recent science news:
From http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 001033.htm
Source: Wistar Institute
Date: 2004-11-10
Wistar Study Demonstrates Heritability Of Non-Genomic Information
PHILADELPHIA (Sunday, October 31, 2004) - It's one of the defining tenets of modern biology: The characteristics of a living organism are coded into the organism's DNA, and only information in the DNA can be passed to the organism's offspring.
A new study by scientists at The Wistar Institute, however, suggests that this is not the full story. Instructions that control gene activity and are recorded solely in the molecular packaging of the DNA can also be passed to an organism's progeny, according to the new data. This heritable information is distinct from the genetic information coded in the DNA and is referred to by scientists as being "epigenetic" in nature. A report on the study appears in the November 1 issue of Genes & Development.
"The implication of our findings is that, parallel to the genetic information in our DNA, we also inherit epigenetic information to ensure that the regulation of our genes is executed correctly," says Jumin Zhou, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the gene expression and regulation program at Wistar and senior author on the new study."
Most of the rest of the article is technical, but the point is made here in the first paragraphs.
We know so little! And the more we know, the more we come to the realization that life is a lot more than a fortuitous accident that happened to some accidently correctly-placed molecules once upon a past. It is a seeries of processes imposed upon them in a specific way. Scientists have tried imposing those processes on all the right molecules and even structures via chemical means, electric shocks, and every other way they can think of -- with a 100% failure rate.
It takes a cell to make a cell. And unless cells themselves are eternal, then it took a Creator to make that first cell, even in evolutionary terms.
And if a Creator then, why not believe what He has said about the rest?