Friday, August 31, 2012

Ribosome


Proteins are produced as the result of highly detailed processes inside the cell, with the assistance of many enzymes, in an organelle called theribosome. The ribosome itself consists of proteins. This therefore brings with it an unrealistic hypothesis that the ribosome came into being by chance. Even Jacques Monod, a Nobel prize-winner and well-known advocate of the theory of evolution, describes how protein synthesis cannot  be reduced solely to information in nucleic acids:
The code [in DNA or RNA] is meaningless unless translated. The modern cell's translating machinery consists of at least 50 macromolecular components, which are themselves coded in DNA: the code cannot be translated otherwise than by products of translation themselves… When and how did this circle become closed? It is exceedingly difficult to imagine. 204
The genetic system requires the enzymes to read this code from the DNA, the mRNA to be manufactured through the reading of these codes, the ribosome to which the mRNA with the code will go and bind to for production, a transporter RNA that carries the amino acids to be used in production to the ribosome, and the exceedingly complex enzymes that ensure the countless other intermediate processes in the same environment. Bear in mind that such a controlled environment needs to be completely isolated and also to contain all the requisite energy sources and raw materials, and the invalidity of the claims of chance can be seen only too clearly.
204. Monod, Jaques, Chance and Necessity: An Essay on the Natural Philosophy of Modern Biology, 1971, London Penguin:1997, reprint, p. 143.

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