Page 478 - Atlas of Creation Volume 3

The Amazing Complexity of Life

The most important starting point that caused the fact of Creation to be
clearly known by everyone is the complexity of life that could not even have
been imagined in Darwin's time. In his 1996 book Darwin's Black Box, Michael

Behe, a professor of biochemistry at Lehigh University, writes about the dis-
covery of the complexity of living things:

Since the mid-1950s biochemistry has painstakingly elucidated the workings
of life at the molecular level. . . .

Nineteenth century science Gerald Schroeder, the Israeli
could not even guess at the physicist and molecular biologist
mechanism of vision, immunity, or move-
ment, but modern biochemistry has identified the molecules

that allow those and other functions. It was once expected that the basis
of life would be exceedingly simple. That expectation has been
smashed. Vision, motion and other biological functions have proven
to be no less sophisticated than television cameras and automobiles.

Science has made enormous progress in understanding how the
chemistry of life works, but the elegance and complexity of bio-
logical systems at the molecular level have paralyzed science's at-
tempt to explain their origins. . . Many scientists have gamely

asserted that explanations are already in hand, or will be sooner or
later, but no support for such assertions can be found in the pro-
fessional science literature. More importantly, there are com-
pelling reasons—based on the structure of the systems

themselves—to think that a Darwinian explanation for the mecha-
nisms of life will forever prove elusive. 13

So, what is so complex in a cell? Behe answers:

Shortly after 1950, science advanced to the point where it could deter-
mine the shapes and properties of a few of the molecules that make up
living organisms. Slowly, painstakingly, the structures of more and

more biological molecules were elucidated, and the way they
work inferred from countless experiments. The cumulative re-
sults show with piercing clarity that life is based on machines—
machines made of molecules! Molecular machines haul cargo
from one place in the cell to another along "highways" made of

other molecules, while still others act as cables, ropes, and pul-
leys to hold the cell in shape. Machines turn cellular switches on
and off, sometimes killing the cell or causing it to grow. Solar-pow-

ered machines capture the energy of photons and store it in chemi-
cals. Electrical machines allow current to flow through nerves.
Manufacturing machines build other molecular machines, as well as
themselves. Cells swim using machines, copy themselves with machinery,
ingest food with machinery. In short, highly sophisticated molecular ma-

chines control every cellular process. Thus the details of life are finely
calibrated, and the machinery of life enormously complex. 14

Gerald Schroeder, an Israeli physicist and molecular biol-
ogist, emphasizes this extraordinary complexity:

476 Atlas of Creation Vol. 3