Page 22 - The Miracle in the Cell Membrane
P. 22
The Mir a cle in the Cell Mem brane
Dar win ism's blind mech a nisms, that is nat u ral selec tion
and muta tion.
Today, the known fact that molec u lar biol o gy has
inval i dat ed the claims of Dar win ism has been stat ed in a
wide-ran ging man ner by many biol o gists who ques tion
the the o ry. One point that fre quent ly escapes notice,
how e ver, is that coin ci dence and nat u ral laws can not
explain not only the ori gins of the molec u lar machin ery
and other extraor di na ry enti ties with in the cell, but also
the way these struc tures func tion.
To clar i fy this with an exam ple, con sid er DNA, the
cell's data bank. DNA is a long molec u lar chain in the
form of a spi ral stair case, present in every cell. All the
data regard ing that cell's phys i cal and chem i cal struc -
ture—as well as the entire organ ism to which the cell
belongs—are encod ed along that chain. On its own, how -
e ver, the pres ence of such a data bank inside the cell has
no sig nif i cance. The use of that data bank is also of the
great est impor tance. In other words, the data it con tains
must be read in the cor rect man ner and actions taken
accord ing to the infor ma tion obtained.
Some of the molec u lar machines in the cell charged
with this task are known as enzymes. These find the nec -
es sa ry infor ma tion for the pro duc tion of pro teins that the
long DNA chain requires, and then open up the DNA, in
order to read it. They pro duce a copy of the infor ma tion
in the appro pri ate region of the DNA and mean while,
twist the DNA in order to skip past unnec es sary sec tions.
When this read ing has been com plet ed, they fold the
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