Complexity Within A Cell

The existence of the first cell is a physical anomaly which Atheist Evolutionists cannot address. The first cell would be the first life, unless there is life which exists or existed outside the cell. That would be necessary, unless the entire cell came into existence at once. There is a tacit recognition that the specified complexity, which is irreducible, could not have happened from the fundamentals of minerals and their properties. So pre-cellular hypotheses have been produced.

There have been two major hypotheses regarding the evolution of a living cell from pure minerals: RNA World, and Metabolite World. In each of those theories, molecules came into existence which self-replicated (RNA World) or performed metabolic functions without any recipient for energy translation (Metabolite world). These worlds hypothetically existed independently and over deep time each became attached to the other function which arose later. Together these two functions, replication and metabolic cycling, somehow got surrounded by a membrane and became a cell. Both of these theories have been dropped, probably due to the vast complexities of the individual cell which neither theory can account for, on top of the vanishing probability of having occurred in the first place.

In the case of RNA World, the replication of RNA does not occur spontaneously. Replication requires a myriad of specialized proteins and enzymes to occur, and in real life RNA does not replicate, it is derived from segments of DNA which contain the coding for RNA. Further, to get RNA from the DNA, external RNA is required to already exist, along with RNA polymerase (a catalytic, enabling enzyme). But the enzyme is made of proteins which are derived from segments of DNA also, in turn requiring the pre-existence of the enzyme to excise and replicate another copy of its type.

In other words, all the basic components of the transcription of RNA, RNA polymerase, the associated proteins, sugars and nucleotides have to pre-exist, before any of these can be produced by replication.

This is only one attribute of the massive complexity within a cell, and the paradox of natural creation out of pure minerals, elements and their properties.

Here are some videos showing animation of some of the functions inside a living cell. I particularly like the microtubules and the motor transport function.



And this is a video of the RNA function, from a different source:

http://sites.sinauer.com/cooper6e/animation0702.html (note 1)

These are indicators of why it is that living cells, even the most primitive, cannot be deduced from the properties of minerals, and why evolution and its adherents do not wish to discuss abiogenesis (first life).

Note 1: This video, and others, come attached to the excellent textbook, "The Cell; A Molecular Approach", Cooper and Hausman, Sinauer Publisher, 6th ed.