The Complex and the Miraculous: A Closer Look at the Irreducible Complexity of Cell

Abstract

It is the “irreducible complexity” of the cells which the Darwinian Theory of Evolution fails to fathom. As the basic unit of life, a cell exists in cooperation and harmonious conjunction with several other organelles, and if any one of these organelles become dysfunctional, the cell itself ceases to function. As more and more evidences are now accumulating, it is becoming increasingly clear that the collective assemblage and functioning of all these organelles in a cell seems quite unlikely to arise from a simple, random, mutation-driven section mechanism which is at the core of the Darwinian Theory of Evolution. The first cell from which all life on Earth later arose had to be a complete cell with all its organelles and functionalities full developed. This seems miraculous since even the smallest polypeptide with a size as small as the smallest of the proteins could not have arisen spontaneously by random chance. Now, it becomes billions of times more improbable for more than a million of these proteins to come together and give rise to the first, fully functioning cell. Along with the assemblage of proteins, a cell also contains carbohydrates, proteins, nucleic acids, lipids, and other chemicals arranged in highly specific order and all attuned to fulfilling the one single purpose, which is to keep is alive.Through pure abiogenetic processes, even the formation of a single, fully functioning protein appears to be utterly unlikely, let alone a complete living cell. However, processes such as chemical evolution and self-organization can give rise to the complex macromolecules which are essential for life.