Cellular Polarity

In recent years bacteria have been found to be more complex than evolutionists anticipated. For instance, the cell's protein machines are found at specific locations, such as one end or the other, within the cell rather than randomly strewn about. Given the incredible complexity found across the spectrum in biology's life forms, a high degree of intracellular organization in bacteria hardly seems surprising. But for evolutionists, life is a fluke. As one evolutionist put it, bacteria are typically viewed as unstructured “bags of enzymes.”

It is remarkable that such a view could persist given what has been known for decades. Indeed, even before so many of the molecular and cellular mechanisms were elucidated biology's high complexity could be inferred.

It is a testament to the blinding effect of evolution that even recently bacteria could be viewed as unstructured “bags of enzymes.”

And it is yet another example of evolution's "life is a fluke" blunder that has played out over and over. The history of evolution is full of false leads and surprises. "We once thought it was so simple ..." is the evolutionary refrain, followed by "isn't evolution incredible." As leading evolutionist Bruce Alberts admitted in 1998:

We have always underestimated cells. Undoubtedly we still do today. But at least we are no longer as naive as we were when I was a graduate student in the 1960s. Then, most of us viewed cells as containing a giant set of second-order reactions: molecules A and B were thought to diffuse freely, randomly colliding with each other to produce molecule AB—and likewise for the many other molecules that interact with each other inside a cell. This seemed reasonable because, as we had learned from studying physical chemistry, motions at the scale of molecules are incredibly rapid. … But, as it turns out, we can walk and we can talk because the chemistry that makes life possible is much more elaborate and sophisticated than anything we students had ever considered. Proteins make up most of the dry mass of a cell. But instead of a cell dominated by randomly colliding individual protein molecules, we now know that nearly every major process in a cell is carried out by assemblies of 10 or more protein molecules. And, as it carries out its biological functions, each of these protein assemblies interacts with several other large complexes of proteins. Indeed, the entire cell can be viewed as a factory that contains an elaborate network of interlocking assembly lines, each of which is composed of a set of large protein machines. […]

Why do we call the large protein assemblies that underlie cell function protein machines? Precisely because, like the machines invented by humans to deal efficiently with the macroscopic world, these protein assemblies contain highly coordinated moving parts. Within each protein assembly, intermolecular collisions are not only restricted to a small set of possibilities, but reaction C depends on reaction B, which in turn depends on reaction A—just as it would in a machine of our common experience. […]

We have also come to realize that protein assemblies can be enormously complex. … As the example of the spliceosome should make clear, the cartoons thus far used to depict protein machines (e.g., Figure 1) vastly underestimate the sophistication of many of these remarkable devices. [Cell 92:291-294]

Yes, the cell is sophisticated, but evolutionists would continue with their "life is a fluke" assumption. And they would continue to be astounded. As one researcher exclaimed a decade later, “It’s amazing to us. We thought the cell was so simple.” Religion drives science and it matters.