With regard to the emergence of plants, evolutionists claim that the hundreds of thousands of varieties of plants all emerged from one single plant. There is no doubt that, as with other subjects, evolutionists can offer no scientific evidence to support their claims in this matter. Because the dead-end evolutionists find themselves in with regard to animals and human beings, is the same dead-end they arrive at with their scenarios of the evolution of plants.The greatest dead end that defenders of the evolution of plants come up against today is, without doubt, their inability to explain how the first plant cell evolved. Actually, the greatest dead-end evolutionists find themselves up against on every subject -, not just that of the evolution of plants, - is definitely the question of how the first cell came about.
It is known that cells are tiny living structures and that possess very complex systems. Yet there are many points that are not fully understood today regarding how these systems function. A cell has complex structures resembling a huge factory. If just one organelle is missing, or is different from what should be, the cell cannot perform its functions. Because every organelle has a particular function, and has very complex links with other organelles. There are very complex structures within the cell, from those which create energy to units where all the information regarding the cell is recorded, from transportation systems which enable substances to reach the parts where they are needed, to parts where incoming substances are broken down and parts which produce enzymes and hormones.
In the face of these structures, the evolutionist scientist W.H. Thorpe reveals his amazement in the following statement:
The most elementary type of cell constitutes a "mechanism" unimaginably more complex than any machine yet thought up, let alone constructed, by man.62
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Unfortunately, the origin of the cell remains a question which is actually the darkest point of the complete evolution theory.63It is quite impossible for a living cell to come about by chance. The science of the 20th century having revealed the unbelievable complexity in the cell shows that the emergence of such a structure by coincidence is completely beyond the bounds of possibility. And furthermore, even at the start of the 21st century, many of the secrets of the cell have still not been uncovered by modern science. Far from the cell's emerging by coincidence, a living cell, even an artificial one, cannot be produced in laboratories equipped with the most highly developed technology, even with massive expenditure of effort by expert scientists with years of experience.
As a result, even one living cell leads us to a definite and unquestionable conclusion: It must have come about as a result of creation by God, who possesses infinite intelligence and might: everything is the work of His matchless artistry and knowledge.
In this section, the subject of how a living cell could not have come about by chance will not be considered in depth. (For detailed information see Harun Yahya, The Miracle in the Cell.) The basic subject which will be considered in this book is that perfectly designed plants could not have developed from a single bacteria cell, as the result of coincidences, as the theory of evolution claims.
Evolutionists claim that, at around the time the Earth was first formed, a bacteria cell emerged by chance, and that after a period lasting millions of years, there emerged from this cell all other living creatures, birds, insects, tigers, horses, butterflies, snakes, squirrels, et al. In the same way, evolutionists claim that all the countless varieties of plants also emerged from the same bacteria cell. In this section, the falsity of these claims, and the fact that they are based on imagination and therefore unscientific, will be examined.
In the plant evolution scenario, it is claimed that the first plant cell developed from a "primitive" bacteria cell. In this scenario the "primitive cell" which is suggested as having evolved is a bacteria cell (prokaryotic cell). Before moving on to the invalidity of this claim, let us examine whether a bacteria cell is "primitive," as claimed by evolutionists, or not.
Are Bacteria, Which the Theory of Evolution Sees as Primitive, Really So?
Bacteria are tiny living things, one micrometer (a thousandth of a millimetre) long, and contain no structures but a cell membrane and a DNA strand. It may seem much simpler than other living things when their structures are compared. But this in no way means that bacteria are primitive forms of life. Inside these tiny cells very important bio-chemical events take place which enable life on Earth to continue. Bacteria play very important roles in the functioning of nature's ecological system in the world. For example, some bacteria species dismantle the remains of dead plants and animals, and turn them into basic chemical substances to be used by living organisms. Some increase the fertility of the soil. They also carry out functions such as turning milk into cheese, producing antibiotics against harmful bacteria, and synthesising vitamins.
These are only a few of the countless tasks carried out by bacteria. Although the cells of the bacteria which carry all this out appear simple, when they are examined it is seen that they are not so at all. A bacterium has about 2,000 genes. Each gene has about 1000 letters (links) in it. So the bacterium's DNA must be at least 2 million letters in length. What does this mean? According to this calculation, the information in the DNA of one bacterium is equivalent to 20 average novels, each of 100,000 words.64
 Prokaryotic cells, one of which is seen in plan form here, are bacteria-resembling cells with few organelles in them. It is impossible, of course, for all living things to have evolved out of such a simple cell, as evolutionists claim. |
One of the most difficult stages to be explained in evolution is to scientifically explain how organelled and complex cells developed from these primitive creatures. No transitional form has been found between these two forms. One and multi-celled creatures carry all this complicated structure, and no creature or group has yet been found with organelles of a simpler construction in any way, or which are more primitive. In other words, the organelles carried forward are developed by all means. They have no simple and primitive forms.65The question: "What is it that encourages the evolutionary scientist, Professor Ali Demirsoy, to make such an open admission?" may come to mind. The answer to this question can be given quite clearly when the great structural differences between bacteria and plant cells are examined:
1. While the walls of bacterial cells are formed of polysaccharide and protein, the walls of plant cells are formed of cellulose, a totally different structure.
2. While plant cells possess many organelles, covered in membranes and possessing very complex structures, bacterial cells lack typical organelles. In bacteria cells there are just freely moving tiny ribosomes. But the ribosomes in plant cells are larger and are attached to the cell membrane. Furthermore, protein synthesis takes place by different means in the two types of ribosomes.66
3. The DNA structures in plant and bacterial cells are different.
4. The DNA molecule in plant cells is protected by a double-layered membrane, whereas the DNA in bacterial cells stands free within the cell.
5. The DNA molecule in bacterial cells resembles a closed loop; in other words, it is circular. In plants, the DNA molecule is linear.
6. There is relatively little protein in the DNA molecule in bacterial cells. But in plant cells the DNA molecule is linked from one end to the other by proteins.
7. The DNA molecule in bacterial cells carries information belonging to just one cell, but in plant cells the DNA molecule carries information about the whole plant. For example, all the pieces of information about a fruit-bearing tree's roots, stem, leaves, flowers, and fruit are all found separately in the DNA in the nucleus of just one cell.
8. Some species of bacteria are photosynthetic, in other words, they carry out photosynthesis. But unlike plants, in photosynthetic bacteria (cyanobacteria, for instance), there is no chlorophyll and photosynthetic pigments. Rather, these molecules are buried in various membranes all over the cell.
9. The biochemical structures of mRNAs in bacterial cells and in plant/animal cells are quite different from one another.67
The mRNA, or messenger RNA, is perhaps the most important of the three types of RNA. DNA does not directly synthesize protein. It synthesizes the mRNA molecule, which contains the information necessary for the production of polypeptide amino acid chains. When this information contained by mRNA reaches the relevant place, and proteins are produced from the amino-acid building blocks.
Messenger RNA plays a vital role for the cell to live. But although messenger RNA assumes the same vital role in both prokaryotic (bacterial) cells and in eukaryotic (including plant and animal) cells, their biochemical structures are different. An article by J. Darnell published in Science says:
The differences in the biochemistry of messenger RNA formation in eukaryotes compared to prokaryotes are so profound as to suggest that sequential prokaryotic to eukaryotic cell evolution seems unlikely.68
The structural differences between bacterial and plant cells, of which we have seen a few examples above, lead evolutionist scientists to another dead end. Although plant and bacteria cells have some aspects in common, most of their structures are quite different from one another. In fact, since there are no membrane-surrounded organelles or a cytoskeleton (the internal network of protein filaments and microtubules) in bacterial cells, the presence of several very complex organelles and cell organization in plant cells totally invalidates the claim that the plant cell evolved from the bacterial cell.
Biologist Ali Demirsoy openly admits this, saying "Complex cells never developed from primitive cells by a process of evolution."69
The Invalidity of Evolutionists' Claims on This Subject
Although it is definitely impossible for plant cells to have evolved from a bacteria cell, evolutionist scientists have tried to ignore this fact and have put forward a large number of debatable hypotheses. But experiments overturn these hypotheses. The most popular of these is the "endosymbiosis" hypothesis.
This hypothesis was put forward by Lynn Margulis in 1970 in her book The Origin of Eukaryotic Cells. In this book, Margulis claimed that as a result of their communal and parasitic lives, bacterial cells turned into plant and animal cells. According to this theory, plant cells emerged when a photosynthetic bacterium was swallowed by another bacterial cell. The photosynthetic bacterium evolved inside the parent cell into a chloroplast. Lastly, organelles with highly complex structures such as the nucleus, the Golgi apparatus, the endoplasmic reticulum, and ribosomes, evolved, in some way or other. Thus, the plant cell was born.
As we have seen, this thesis of the evolutionists is nothing but a work of fantasy. Despite its fairy-tale nature, it was essential, from the evolutionists' point of view, that this scenario be put forward; evolutionists had to be able to explain how the most vital reactions, such as photosynthesis, in the living world came about, in a structure as complicated as the plant cell. This theory of Margulis appeared to be more advantageous than other claims, because it was based on a feature possessed by the cell. For this reason, many evolutionist scientists saw the thesis put forward by Margulis as a means of escape from the dead-end.
Evolutionists defended this theory on the basis of one feature of plant cells. This feature, when considered on its own, without taking the whole of the cell into account, is one which was very useful for deceiving people who do not possess much information on the subject. Unsurprisingly, it was criticized by scientists who carried out very important research on the subject on a number of grounds: We can cite D. Lloyd, M. Gray and W. Doolittle, and R. Raff and H. Mahler as examples of these.70
The endosymbiosis hypothesis is based on the fact that the mitochondria of animal cells and the chloroplasts of plant cells contain their own DNA, separate from the DNA in the nucleus of the parent cell. So on this basis, it is suggested that mitochondria and chloroplasts were once independent, free-living cells. However, when chloroplasts are studied in detail, it can be seen that this claim is nothing but a scenario. The points which invalidate Margulis' endosymbiosis hypothesis are as follows:
1. If chloroplasts were engulfed by a large cell when, in the past, they were independent cells, that could only have one outcome: namel, it would have been digested by the parent cell and used as food. This must be so, because even if we assume that the parent cell in question took such a cell into itself from the outside by mistake, instead of intentionally ingesting it as food, nevertheless, the digestive enzymes in the parent cell would have destroyed it. Of course, some evolutionists have gotten around this obstacle by saying, "The digestive enzymes had disappeared." But this is a clear contradiction, because if the cell's digestive enzymes had disappeared, then the cell would have died from lack of nutrition.
2. Again, let us assume that all the impossible happened and that the cell which is claimed to have been the ancestor of the chloroplast was swallowed up by the parent cell. In this case we are faced with another problem: the blueprints of all the organelles inside the cell are encoded in the DNA. If the parent cell were going to use other cells it swallowed as organelles, then it would be necessary for all of the information about them to be already present and encoded in its DNA. The DNA of the swallowed cells would have to possess information belonging to the parent cell. Not only is such a situation impossible, the complements of DNA belonging to the parent cell and the swallowed cell would also have to become compatible with each other afterwards, which is also clearly impossible.
3. There is great harmony within the cell, which random mutations cannot account for. There are more than just one chloroplast and one mitochondrion in a cell. Their number rises and falls according to the activity level of the cell, just like with other organelles. The existence of DNA in the bodies of these organelles is also of use in reproduction. As the cell divides, all of the numerous chloroplasts divide too, and the cell division happens in a shorter time and in a more swift fashion.
4. Chloroplasts are energy generators of absolutely vital importance to the plant cell. If these organelles did not produce energy, many of the cell's functions would not work, which would mean that the cell could not live. These functions which are so important to the cell take place with the proteins synthesized in the chloroplasts. But the chloroplasts' own DNA is not enough to synthesize these proteins. The greater part of the proteins are synthesized using the parent DNAin the cell nucleus.71
While the situation envisioned by the endosymbiosis hypothesis is occurring through a process of trial and error, what effects would this have on the DNA of the parent cell? As we have seen, any change in a DNA definitely does not result in a gain for that organism; on the contrary, any such mutation would certainly be harmful. In his book, The Roots of Life, Mahlon B. Hoagland explains the situation:
You'll recall we learned that almost always a change in an organism's DNA is detrimental to it; that is, it leads to a reduced capacity to survive. By way of analogy, random additions of sentences to the plays of Shakespeare are not likely to improve them!... The principle that DNA changes are harmful by virtue of reducing survival chances applies whether a change in DNA is caused by a mutation or by some foreign genes we deliberately add to it.72
The claims put forward by evolutionists are not based on scientific experiments, because no such thing as one bacterium swallowing another one has ever been observed. Evolutionist scientist P. Whitfield describes the situation in this way:
Prokaryotic endocytosis is the cellular mechanism on which the whole of S.E.T. (Serial Endosymbiotic Theory) presumably rests. If one prokaryote could not engulf another it is difficult to imagine how endosymbioses could be set up. Unfortunately for Margulis and S.E.T., no modern examples of prokaryotic endocytosis or endosymbiosis exist… 73
