Problems with the Evolution of Life

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1) Problems with a cell developing photosynthesis:

Summary: “Biochemical sequences necessary for the evolution of photosynthesis would have required the evolution of a set of sophisticated enzymes that generated a series of useless intermediates. In the series of enzymes necessary for the manufacture of chlorophyll, these intermediates would have been lethal to the cell before the next enzyme in the series evolved to pick up and modify phototoxic material and insert it in apoproteins.”

(from Rick Swindell “Shining light on the evolution of photosynthesis”)

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2) Problems with the evolution of oxygen-producing bacteria:

“Ancient organisms stay the same. A while ago, evolutionists would not have expected to find any fossils in rocks that they thought were, say, three billion years old -- life supposedly hadn’t evolved yet. However, fossils of bacteria kept turning up in progressively ‘older’ rocks. . .which allowed less and less ‘time’ for the first life to evolve in the hypothetical, oxygen-free ‘early atmosphere.’ Now an Austrian/Swiss team of scientists has looked at rock from Western Australia’s Pilbara region, supposedly around 3.5 billion years old, and found fossilized cyanobacteria.”

(from the BBC News (internet) 27 March 1999. The West Australian, 26 March 1999.)

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3) Problems with the evolution of the nucleus and organelles:

A. Problems with the evolution of a nucleus:

Many of the problems of evolving DNA, etc., were dealt with in part 1.

B. Problems with the evolution of organelles:

“Problems abound” with the usual biology theory  of how cells obtained certain organelles such as mitochondria. “For example, how could the enveloped cells reproduce in close synchronicity? How did lateral gene transfer into the nucleus take place when the nuclear membrane is designed for the passage of mRNA (out),  and to contain DNA? If DNA were passed between the engulfed cell and the host cell, would not the host respond by degrading the foreign DNA, because it would detect it as a virus?”

These ideas were “severely dealt with in the 70’s and early 80’s, and should have died. But, what else is there for the evolutionist?”

(from Batten, “Did cells acquire organelles such as mitochondria by gobbling up other cells?”)

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4) Problems with the evolution from single cells to multi-cells

“All evolution assumes either the augmentation of some prior system to fit a new need, or lateral gene transfer adding information for the same end. . .However, there are two significant events in evolutionary history where far more would have been required--the origin of life, and the origin of co-ordinated multicellularity.”

Only multi-celled organisms have “intercellular co-ordination.” The evolution of this co-ordination is a “mystery.” The reproduction needs of single-celled organisms and multi-celled organisms are “contradictory.” “The multicellular organism seeks to control the reproduction to what is needed at a higher level of organisation; a single cell seeks to reproduce more than its competitors.”

Evolutionists suggest that “co-operative and colonial organisms” are the key to this evolution. However, Doyle points out that these colonial organisms “lack one of the essential features of true multicellularity.”

(from Shaun Doyle “Evolution of multicellularity: What is required?”)