Complexity Examples - Cell Life and Features
Questions:
- What is meant by complexity and 'irreducibly complex?'
- If we can find examples in life for what is complex, then what does that suggest?
- Is there an origin for something that is complex in this way?
Short Answer:
The concept of complexity can be appreciated from two different perspectives. First, when science moved from light microscopes to electron microscopes, the inner cell revealed features that were immensely more complex than previously imagined. second, molecules in cells, such as proteins that function as enzymes, are themselves specifically complex such that a single protein can be considered a cellular machine. And complexity builds as these proteins are found combined or co-located in a way that is analogous to machines placed on a factory floor. Complexes, specific machine like function, and compartment location in cells makes for life's chemistry as more efficient than anything in a test tube.
Elsewhere in the window we examine the term "irreducibly complex." To some, this term may not resonate, not until we really look at the broader array of complexity that can be seen. Pictures, videos, help to accentuate the view here. Some features in cells will not work if a part was missing ... and all parts are necessary ... and that is part of what makes some features irreducible to maintain their function. But let's take a look at overall complexity through images of living cells.
The short answer includes an eye opening view of something so organized as to leave one saying there is organization, coordination, and apparent design. All this lends little to cells being the product of chance and more the example of sophistication that is orders of magnitude than a product of random events.
Consider This:
The following videos all bring to light the highly ordered nature of cells. Take some time to view the images and consider that what you see is what makes you possible! What you see speaks to the incredible nature to what makes life possible ... and allows all of us to ask important questions about how this came into being!
The animations show details, organization, and if we could point out some of the activities ... we'd have to use terminology to describe it all like the inner working of a fine tuned machine. The first video was obtained from YouTube and is a clip from the film 'Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed' ... the voice is that of Ben Stein ...
Incredible animation of the cells, structures, and the intricacies of cell division. All of these processes and resultant structures are "driven" or "devised" through a base of information housed within cells. Information, which is not material, is the layer of existence that makes a material being possible. Ask yourself: "Where does the information come from?" "Where did the instructions originate?" Think about these questions and a related presentation follows this one!
Cell information housed in DNA leads us to another set of observations ... here narrated by Dr. Douglas Axe:
Cell animation without verbal narration, only labels appear, but watch the images to absorb how complex the chemical and structures are in cells. What would Darwin have thought had he been able to see what you are looking at today? All this goes to levels of complexity and detail he never imagined. Could such specific detail be by random selection and chance? What would he tell you if he had seen this first?
Cells are highly compartmented and subcelluar organelles, like the hypochondria, have huge roles to play in powering life. Notice the way the organelle travels along a microtubule, a cellular guide like a rope guiding the organelle across the cell. This traversing of the inner dimensions of the cell is not random. What organizes such behaviors? The cell like a factory has units of labor, subdivisions of specialty, and rooms and platforms upon which life's processes are organized.
Writer / Editor: Dr. T. Peterson, Director, WindowView.org
(062213)
