Cellular Complexity - Dr. Georgia Purdom

Contemporaries to Charles Darwin, Thomas H. Huxley and Ernst Haeckel wrote about the idea that cells were essentially simple and formed as Darwin wrote "in some warm little pond". Review http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/tj/v18/n2/abiogenesis. With better microscopes and scientific experimentation we have come to see a whole world of complexity within the cell. The complex cell is in many ways like a city.

In this video, Jim Bendewald interviews Dr. Georgia Purdom on staff with Answers in Genesis. The discussion includes a fascinating look at the various organelles and functions of the cell. In addition to the interview are wonderful illustrations using animated graphics. In this video you will see for yourself the immense complexity built into our cells. While evolution predicts simplicity and requires simplicity, the reality is the cells contain unfathomable complexity inferring design as the best explanation.

• Wonder of the Cell

  http://www.answersingenesis.org/store/product/wonder-cell/?sku=30-9-329
  Dr. Georgia Purdom uses her intimate knowledge of the inner workings of a cell to provide you a glimpse of its amazing complexity. Detailed computer ...
  $7.99 Add to Cart
  

Georgia Purdom, Ph.D., molecular genetics, Ohio State University

AiG-US speaker and researcher

Dr. Georgia Purdom is a compelling and dynamic lecturer and well qualified to speak on the relevance of Genesis to the issue of biblical authority. She is the only female Ph.D. scientist engaged in full-time speaking and research for a biblical creationist organization in North America. Dr. Purdom states, “A proper understanding of Genesis is very important because it is foundational to biblical authority and a Christian worldview. It’s about so much more than the creation/evolution controversy. It’s about the truthfulness and authority of God’s Word.”

Education and Professional Experience

Dr. Purdom graduated with a Ph.D. in Molecular Genetics from Ohio State University in 2000. Her specialty is cellular and molecular biology. Dr. Purdom’s graduate work focused on genetic regulation of factors important for bone remodeling. She has published papers in the Journal of Neuroscience (under her maiden name Hickman), the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research and the Journal of Leukocyte Biology. She is a member of the American Society for Microbiology and American Society for Cell Biology. Following graduation, Dr. Purdom served as a professor of biology for six years at Mount Vernon Nazarene University in Ohio.

Research Interests

Dr. Purdom is a member of the Creation Research Society and serves on the editorial board and executive council of BSG: A Creation Biology Study Group. She serves as a peer reviewer for Answers Research Journal and Creation Research Science Quarterly. Dr. Purdom along with Dr. Joseph Francis of Master’s College are co-founders of the Microbe Forum. This forum sponsors research, collaboration, and conferences in the field of creation microbiology.
Dr. Purdom’s scientific research focuses on the roles of natural selection and mutation in microbial populations. She seeks to understand the original, created, “very good” roles of bacteria in the pre-Fall world and genetic mechanisms that have led to their adaptations and pathogenicity in a post-Fall world. She has presented her research in this field at two Microbe Forum conferences and the 2008 International Conference on Creationism. Dr. Purdom also has published papers in the 2008 Proceedings of the International Conference on Creationism and Answers Research Journal. In addition, she has numerous lay-friendly and semi-technical articles in Answers magazine and on the AiG website.
Dr. Purdom’s expertise in natural selection was crucial in her design of the “Natural Selection Is Not Evolution” exhibit at the Creation Museum. She is also interested in studying the formation of stromatolites, animal speciation after the Flood, and the Intelligent Design Movement.

Speaking Interests

Dr. Purdom describes herself as a “teacher at heart” and this is clearly displayed in her presentations. As a former biology professor, she has the experience necessary to make scientific concepts understandable to a wide variety of people. Dr. Purdom has both general and in-depth presentations. She is a regular speaker in the Creation Museum Speaker Series and has spoken at many AiG conferences.
Dr. Purdom also has a passion to help women understand the importance of Genesis for their roles as wives and mothers and is an excellent choice to speak to women’s groups. As a wife and mother herself she has a vested interest in understanding what Genesis has to say to women.

Dr. Purdom’s DVDs:

• The Intelligent Design Movement: How Intelligent Is It?
• The Code of Life: DNA, Information, and Mutation

Dr. Purdom’s DVDs in production (available in 2009-2010)

• Wonder of the Cell
• Genetics, Evolution, and Creation: Most Asked Questions
• All Creatures Great and Small: Microbes and Creation
• Hope Amid Despair: The Legacy of Eve (for women)

Dr. Purdom’s general presentations:

• Is Genesis Relevant in Today’s World?
• Only One Race: The Biblical Answer to Racism
• Biblical Authority and the Six Days of Creation
• The Power of Creation Evangelism
• Why is There So Much Pain and Suffering in the World?
• Wonder of the Cell
• The Code of Life: DNA, Information, and Mutation
• My Plans, God’s Detours (personal testimony)

Dr. Purdom’s in-depth presentations:

• The Intelligent Design Movement: How Intelligent Is It?
• Genetics, Evolution, and Creation: Most Asked Questions
• All Creatures Great and Small: Microbes and Creation

Dr. Purdom’s presentations for women audiences:

• Hope Amid Despair: The Legacy of Eve
• What’s the Big Deal? Why God’s Word Matters From the Very Beginning
• Fighting Truth Decay: Bringing the Bible to Life
• Why? Answering Life’s Toughest Questions About God and Suffering
• The Biblical Answer to Racism Meets Motherhood
• My Plans, God’s Detours (personal testimony)

Marvellous Molecular Machines | Creation Magazine LIVE! (2-12)

Through eye-popping computer animation, based on recent scientific discoveries, this week's episode explores amazing biological machines at work in our bodies.

The Creation Magazine LIVE! TV program is a ministry of Creation Ministries International. With

offices in seven countries and more PhD scientists than any Christian organization this program features cutting edge science that supports the Bible delivered in a non-technical, visually-rich, discussion-based format.

Related Articles

• ATP synthase: majestic molecular machine made by a mastermind
• Incredible Kinesin! Biological 'robots' will blow your mind!
• Meta-information An impossible conundrum for evolution

The ATP Synthase Enzyme - Super Intelligent Design!

http://creation.com | This animated sequence shows the ATP Synthase enzyme in operation. The animation is based on an incredible series of scientific discoveries. Only the colours show artistic license.

ATP, or Adenosine Tri-Phosphate, is the energy currency of the cell. ATP is produced by a tiny molecular rotary motor, rotating at up to 7,000 rpm. These are so small that 100,000 would fit side-by-side in a millimetre. A current of protons drives the motor, unlike man-made electric motors, which use electrons.

This portion of the enzyme is where Adenosine Di-Phosphate is combined with a phosphate ion, in the presence of a catalyst to produce ATP which is then released, making way for the next cycle. A top view of the enzyme shows the sequential operation. Almost every bio-chemical process in your body requires ATP.

Such a nano-machine exhibits all the characteristics of super-intelligent design. ATP is vital for life and many of these motors were needed before the first living cell could exist. An evolutionary impossibility!

Related Articles:
Design in living organisms (motors: ATP synthase): http://creation.com/design-in-living-organisms-motors-atp-synthase
ATP synthase: majestic molecular machine made by a mastermind: http://creation.com/atp-synthase
Is ATP synthase found in all life?: http://creation.com/atp-synthase-in-all-life

Related Products:
The Creation Answers Book - http://creation.com/store_redirect.php?sku=10-2-505
Creation Magazine subscription - http://creation.com/store_redirect.php?sku=90-3-003
What Darwin Couldn't Know tract - http://creation.com/store_redirect.php?sku=00-1-534
Exploring the World of Biology book - http://creation.com/store_redirect.php?sku=10-1-535

---

Design in living organisms (motors: ATP synthase)

by Jonathan Sarfati

Bacterial flagellum with rotary motor, after Ref. 1. (from The Bacterial Flagellum, docs/mm/flagellum_all.htm>)

In our everyday experience, we can usually tell whether something has been designed. The main evidence is high information content. The information content of any arrangement is the size, in bits, of the shortest algorithm required to generate that arrangement. This means that repetitive structures, like crystals, have a low information content, because all that is needed is to specify a few positions, then the instructions ‘more of the same’. The difference between a crystal and an enzyme or DNA is like the difference between a book containing nothing but ABCD repeated and a book of Shakespeare.

On a practical level, the information specifies the many parts needed to make machines work. Often, the removal of one part can disrupt the whole machine. Biochemist Michael Behe, in his book Darwin’s Black Box (right), calls this irreducible complexity.¹ He gives the example of a very simple machine: a mousetrap. This would not work without a platform, holding bar, spring, hammer and catch, all in the right place. The thrust of Behe’s book is that many structures in living organisms show irreducible complexity, far in excess of a mousetrap or indeed any man-made machine.

Motors: a case study

Motors are irreducibly complex, because they need many parts working together to function. For example, an electric motor needs a power source, fixed stator, movable rotor, and a commutator or slip rings.

ATP synthase motor, after Ref. 4. (from ATP Mechanisms Revealed, docs/mm/atpmechanism.htm>)

The more parts needed for a machine, the harder it is to make it smaller. Miniaturisation is such a vital part of the computer industry, and the best human minds are constantly working at it. And though miniaturised motors would be very useful, e.g. for unblocking clogged arteries and blood cleaning, the number of parts makes it difficult to make them below a certain size. But ingenious scientists are making them smaller all the time.²

However the design in living organisms has far exceeded our most painstaking efforts. Bacteria propel themselves using flagella (singular flagellum, from the Latin for whip), filaments propelled by a true rotary motor. This motor is only the size of a virus, thus far smaller than anything man-made. Yet it can rotate at over 1000 times per second.³

But even this impressively tiny motor is not the tiniest in God’s creation. In a paper published in March 1997, Hiroyuki Noji et al. directly observed the rotation of the enzyme F₁-ATPase, a subunit of a larger enzyme, ATP synthase.^4,5 This had been suggested as the mechanism for the enzyme’s operation by Paul Boyer.⁶ Structural determination by X-ray diffraction by a team led by John Walker had supported this theory.⁷ A few months after Noji et al published their work, it was announced that Boyer and Walker had won a half share of the 1997 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for their discovery.⁸
The F₁-ATPase motor has nine components—five different proteins with the stoichiometry of 3a:3b:1g:1d:1e. In bovine mitochondria, they contain 510, 482, 272, 146 and 50 amino acids respectively, so M_r = 371,000. F₁-ATPase is a flattened sphere about 10 nm across by 8 nm high—so tiny that 10¹⁷ would fill the volume of a pinhead. This has been shown to spin ‘like a motor’ to produce ATP, a chemical which is the ‘energy currency’ of life.⁹ This motor produces an immense torque (turning force) for its size—in the experiment, it rotated a strand of another protein, actin, 100 times its own length. Also, when driving a heavy load, it probably changes to a lower gear, as any well-designed motor should.

ATP synthase also contains the membrane-embedded F_O subunit functioning as a proton (hydrogen ion) channel. Protons flowing through F_O provide the driving force of the F₁-ATPase motor. They turn a wheel-like structure as water turns a water wheel, but researchers are still trying to determine precisely how. This rotation changes the conformation of the three active sites on the enzyme. Then each in turn can attach ADP and inorganic phosphate to form ATP. Unlike most enzymes, where energy is needed to link the building blocks, ATP synthase uses energy to link them to the enzyme, and throw off the newly formed ATP molecules. Separating the ATP from the enzyme needs much energy.

Note: the names of the two components are historical. The F₁ unit comes from the term ‘Fraction 1’, and the name F_O (written as a subscript capital O, not zero) is due to its being the oligomycin-binding fraction.

ATP synthase is the central enzyme in energy conversion in mitochondria (where they are embedded into the cristae, folds in the mitochondrion’s inner membrane), chloroplasts and bacteria. This probably makes ATP synthase the most ubiquitous protein on Earth. Since energy is required for life, and all life uses ATP as its energy currency (each of us synthesizes and consumes half our bodyweight of ATP per day!), life could not have evolved before this motor was fully functional. Natural selection by definition is differential reproduction, so requires self-reproducing entities to start with. So even if a series of gradual steps could be imagined up this peak of ‘Mount Improbable’, there would be no natural selection to enable that climb.

One of the Nature articles was appropriately entitled ‘Real Engines of Creation’. Unfortunately, despite the evidence for exquisite design, many scientists (including the editor of Nature) still have a blind faith that mutations and natural selection could build such machines.

Animation of ATP synthase.

Would any evidence convince evolutionists?

The famous British evolutionist (and communist) J.B.S. Haldane claimed in 1949 that evolution could never produce ‘various mechanisms, such as the wheel and magnet, which would be useless till fairly perfect.’¹⁰ Therefore such machines in organisms would, in his opinion, prove evolution false. These molecular motors have indeed fulfilled one of Haldane’s criteria. Also, turtles¹¹ and monarch butterflies¹² which use magnetic sensors for navigation fulfil Haldane’s other criterion. I wonder whether Haldane would have had a change of heart if he had been alive to see these discoveries. Many evolutionists rule out intelligent design a priori, so the evidence, overwhelming as it is, would probably have no effect.

Animations (off-site)

• CMI’s own animation is on the right
• ATP Synthase: an interpretation by Donald Nicholson
• F₁–F_O ATPase, Harvard multimedia
• Virtual Cell Animation Collection, Molecular and Cell Biology Learning Center

Related articles

• Is ATP synthase found in all life?
• Nano-scale aligning tool used in the assembly of actin filaments

References

1. Behe, M.J., 1996. Darwin’s Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution, The Free Press, New York. Reviewed by Ury, T.H., 1997. Journal of Creation 11(3):283–291. Return to text
2. Hogan, H., 1996. Invasion of the micromachines. New Scientist 150(2036):28–33. Return to text
3. For a good description, see Behe, Ref. 1. Return to text
4. Hiroyuki Noji et al., 1997. Direct observation of the rotation of F₁-ATPase. Nature 386(6622):299–302. Comment by Block, S. Real engines of creation. Same issue, pp. 217–219. Return to text
5. Wu, C., 1997. Molecular motor spins out energy for cells. Science News 151(12):173. Return to text
6. Boyer, P., 1993. Biochim. Biophys. Acta 1140:215–250. Return to text
7. Abrahams, J.P. et al., 1994. Structure at 2.8 Å resolution of F₁-ATPase from bovine heart mitochondria. Nature 370(6491):621–628. Comment by Cross, R.L. Our primary source of ATP. Same issue, pp. 594–595. Return to text
8. Service, R.F., 1997. Awards for High-Energy Molecules and Cool Atoms. Science 278(5338):578–579. The third winner is Jens Skou of the University of Aarhus in Denmark. Forty years ago, he was the first to identify an enzyme that moves substances through cell membranes (in this case, sodium and potassium ions). This is a key function of all cells. Return to text
9. ATP stands for adenosine triphosphate. It is a high energy compound, and releases this energy by losing a phosphate group to give ADP, adenosine diphosphate. Return to text
10. Dewar, D., Davies, L.M. and Haldane, J.B.S., 1949. Is Evolution a Myth? A Debate between D. Dewar and L.M. Davies vs. J.B.S. Haldane, Watts & Co. Ltd / Paternoster Press, London, p. 90. Return to text
11. Sarfati, J.D., 1997. Turtles can read magnetic maps. Return to text
12. Poirier, J.H., 1997. The Magnificent Migrating Monarch. Creation 20(1):28–31. But monarchs only use the earth’s magnetic field to give them the general direction, while they rely on the sun’s position for most of their navigation. Return to text

The Kinesin Linear Motor - Intelligent Design

http://creation.com
Inside a living cell is an amazing transportation system. Proteins have to be delivered to the correct part of the cell to perform their intended functions. This animation, based on a lot of clever research over a number of years, shows how it happens.

Highways, made of microtubules, are assembled by interlocking proteins, each manufactured in accordance with the coded instructions on the cells DNA. Marching along a microtubule is the kinesin motor, the hero of our story, carrying a huge sack of proteins to be delivered to a pre-determined place in the cell. Here the proteins will be released to fulfil their functions.

A kinesin linear motor uses one ATP to provide the energy for each step and takes 125,000 steps to cover one millimetre!

This amazing machine shows all the hallmarks of design!

Related Articles:
Incredible Kinesin - http://creation.com/incredible-kinesin
Fantastic voyage - http://creation.com/fantastic-voyage
DNA repair enzyme - http://creation.com/DNA-repair-enzyme
15 questions for evolutionists - http://creation.com/15-questions

Related Products:
The Creation Answers Book - http://creation.com/store_redirect.php?sku=10-2-505
Creation Magazine subscription - http://creation.com/store_redirect.php?sku=90-3-003
What Darwin Couldn't Know tract - http://creation.com/store_redirect.php?sku=00-1-534
Exploring the World of Biology book - http://creation.com/store_redirect.php?sku=10-1-535