The cell needs usable energy to perform its functions, such as manufacturing proteins, assembling organelles, and performing cell division. Therefore, in order for the cell to have evolved by chance, the process of making usable energy had to be present. But the conversion of raw energy into usable energy is so complex that it is unfathomable that it developed by chance.

Clearly the Sun, chemicals or thermal vents could provide raw energy, but the energy would need to be stored and converted to a usable form. Similarly, a calculator can run from the Sun’s energy, but it has to be captured by a specially designed solar cell and converted into a form of energy the calculator can use.

Usable Energy Energy by itself is useless for running machines, organic or inorganic.

One could pour gasoline on the calculator and set it on fire--there’s plenty of energy--but it’s not usable energy. So it is with the living cell. It, too, needs energy that is specially converted so the cell can use it. Could chance and time in early Earth have developed usable energy spontaneously? As stated earlier, since life had not yet arisen and reproduced, there would be no mutations or natural selection to help produce these processes.

Suppose the first bacteria was something like cyanobacteria, which obtains its energy from photosynthesis. In the Online Biology Book, M. J. Farabee describes photosynthesis:

"Living systems cannot directly utilize light energy, but can, through a complicated series of reactions, convert it into C-C bond energy that can be released by glycolysis and other metabolic processes."11 [Emphasis added.]

Photosynthesis is a complicated series of reactions that uses water and carbon dioxide to make sugars. This is followed by glycolysis, which is another complicated series of reactions that takes that sugar and converts it, through ten steps, to usable energy.

Fourth Factor: DNA, RNA and Proteins

DNA, RNA and proteins cannot do their jobs without the help of at least one of the other two. DNA is a library of detailed information for the various structures within the cell. It has the information for the manufacture of each protein. RNA is a copy of instructions from the DNA and is sent as a messenger to the ribosome for making proteins. There are two types of proteins; functional proteins such, as enzymes, and structural proteins, which compose the organelles. (See the diagram on the following page for an explanation of how these three elements are interdependent.)

The Interdependent Nature of Proteins, DNA & RNA DNA, RNA and proteins work this way: 1) Replication--DNA duplication requires enzymes (functional protein). 2) Transcription--RNA needs the DNA instructions for assembling proteins. 3) Translation--the manufacture of proteins requires RNA for instructions and a supply of amino acids; it requires the ribosome (structural protein) to follow the instructions.

Living cells need all three molecules at the same time. The chance, simultaneous appearance of the three distinct, interdependent complex systems is just not possible. Therefore, prokaryote cells, no matter how simple, are still far more complex than could ever be accounted for from a materialistic view.

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