Intelligent Design and The Inner Life of the Cell

Studio Daily ^ | Jully 20, 2006 | Beth Marchant

[WhatsItAllAbout]

The Inner Life of a Cell, an eight-minute animation created in NewTek LightWave 3D and Adobe After Effects for Harvard biology students, won’t draw the kind of box office crowds that more ferocious˜and furrier˜digital creations did last Christmas. But it will share a place along side them in SIGGRAPH's Electronic Theatre show, which will run for three days during the 33rd annual exhibition and conference in Boston next month. Created by XVIVO, a scientific animation company near Hartford, CT, the animation illustrates unseen molecular mechanisms and the ones they trigger, specifically how white blood cells sense and respond to their surroundings and external stimuli.

Nuclei, proteins and lipids move with bug-like authority, slithering, gliding and twisting through 3D space. “All of those things that you see in the animation are going on in every one of your cells in your body all the time,” says XVIVO lead animator John Liebler, who worked with company partners David Bolinsky, XVIVO’s medical director, and Mike Astrachan, the project’s production director, to blend the academic data and narrative from Harvard’s faculty into a fluid visual interpretation. “First, we couldn’t have known where to begin with all of this material without significant work done by Alain Viel, Ph.D. [associate director of undergraduate research at Harvard University], who wrote and guided the focus to include the essential processes that needed to be described to complement the curriculum and sustain an interesting narrative. I’ve been in the medical animation field for seven years now, so I’m a little jaded, but I still get surprised by things. For instance, in the animation there’s a motor protein that’s sort of walking along a line, carrying this round sphere of lipids. When I started working on that section I admit I was kind of surprised to see that it really does look like it’s out for a stroll, like a character in a science fiction film or animation. But based on all the data, it’s a completely accurate rendering.”

[WhatsItAllAbout]

This new video of the "Inner Life of the Cell" speaks volumes about the "Intelligent Design" vs "Chance Evolution" debate. Especially if you consider the "Anthropic Principle" that the Universe is ideally suited for life to develop.

If you take the simplest know living organism and scale each atom up to the size of a tennis ball the diameter of that cell would exceed a mile. The thought that all those atoms could spontaneously form into a living thing boggles the mind.

I am not saying it couldn't happen, but if it did then something is at work in the process we do not currently understand.

Follow this link to the full video with an excellent narrative explaining what you are seeing. Inner Life of the Cell

[marvlus]

Later look.

[Southerngl]

I watched a program on the Science Channel last night.

It was an ID vs Darwin's Evolution Theory and showed ALL the reasons why ID was completely WRONG. And how Darwin was completely RIGHT.

Now I am not saying the earth is 10k years old. I don't believe that. But I don't believe it was all an accident either.

I know I will get ragged by the Evolutionists on this, but the whole time I was watching, my stomach didn't feel right. I cannot explain it, but my spirit was unsettled. Now my father was a staunch evolutionist, but I came from a religious family. A scientifically openminded family. My mother's theory is that we have no idea how long God's "day" is.

[zek157]

thanks

[jas3]

I know I will get ragged by the Evolutionists on this, but the whole time I was watching, my stomach didn't feel right. I cannot explain it, but my spirit was unsettled. Now my father was a staunch evolutionist, but I came from a religious family. A scientifically openminded family. My mother's theory is that we have no idea how long God's "day" is.

If you base your science on your stomach instead of your brain then it doesn't sound like any of your family's science rubbed off on you.

jas3

[WhatsItAllAbout]

Science tends to look only at the Physical explanations for things. But if you do not look at the data/information content of the processes involved you will never understand how life came into being.

The information content of the DNA code had to come from somewhere. And it seems unlikely to have sprung up spontaneously or through random mutations.

[Texas Federalist]

Gotta watch this later.

[ghostrider]

If you base your science on your stomach instead of your brain then it doesn't sound like any of your family's science rubbed off on you.

I hope you are not implying that "gut feelings" are irrevelant.

[Fairview]

Speaking as someone trained in the sciences, I don't know how you could look at that video and not believe in and thank God.

[cryptical]

And it seems unlikely to have sprung up spontaneously or through random mutations.

Unlikely isn't impossible though, and it only had to happen once.

[WhatsItAllAbout]

That is so true, "All things are possible" but just saying something could have happened is not the same as proving it did.

[reagan_fanatic]

Speaking as someone trained in the sciences, I don't know how you could look at that video and not believe in and thank God.

Thank You. My feelings as well.

[cryptical]

That is so true, "All things are possible" but just saying something could have happened is not the same as proving it did.

My problem with ID exactly.

[jas3]

If you base your science on your stomach instead of your brain then it doesn't sound like any of your family's science rubbed off on you.

I hope you are not implying that "gut feelings" are irrevelant.

Your hopes have been dashed in this case. I am not just *implying* that "gut feelings" are irrelevant, but I am *stating* that "gut feelings" are not a rational means to arrive at scientific conclusions. If more people actually studied microbiology, these threads would be far shorter. And if cells were "intelligently designed" then the designer needs some remedial training for they are models of inefficiency, duplicity of function, are wholly insecure, and are enormously information intensive.

Humans will be designing our own cells in a few years, and they will borrow from nature, but will also VASTLY improve upon so called "intelligent" design.

jas3

[mc6809e]

The thought that all those atoms could spontaneously form into a living thing boggles the mind.

Right, and nearly every evolutionist agrees that it didn't happen that way.

What is generally believed is that simple structures evolved slowly over time into more complex structures over millions of years.

It was hardly spontaneous.

[WhatsItAllAbout]

Just thinking now. Say you walked into a new Universe's Control room which contained all the controls that set the constants for that Universe, such as the speed of light, the fine structure constant, the weak and strong nuclear forces, and all the others, about 30 in all, how do you account for their settings? Any deviation of just a few percent off of any one would prevent life.

Since our Universe seems to be fine tuned for life, seemingly "Anthropic" in nature, what is the simplest explanation?

That explanation is what we seek and I for one would not rule out ID. Even if Evolution is a fact, it still doesn't account for the presence of our most hospitable Universe and the biogenesis of life.

[Solamente]

Bookmarking...

[Frapster]

What is generally believed is that simple structures evolved slowly over time into more complex structures over millions of years. It was hardly spontaneous

What 'force' drove the simple structure to evolve to more complex structures? Why?

[xenophiles]

Science tends to look only at the Physical explanations for things. But if you do not look at the data/information content of the processes involved you will never understand how life came into being.

How life first came into being is something we (scientists) don't know for certain. We have theories, but not enough evidence. Maybe we'll know some day, maybe we never will. But if you can suggest an information-theoretical approach that actually sheds some new light on it, we'll be much obliged to you. (Creationists, please be aware that we have high standards.)

The information content of the DNA code had to come from somewhere. And it seems unlikely to have sprung up spontaneously or through random mutations.

Useful, meaningful information can arise through random mutation and selection. This can be (and has been) demonstrated in a test tube. If you don't want to believe in evolution, fine, don't. But if you want to look at the question scientifically you'll have to put in a little bit of effort.

[WhatsItAllAbout]

Replace the word spontaneous with at some point in time, and it still boggles the mind. And many believe based upon the variables involve there will not be enough time in the Universe for a biogenesis to happen.