The Irreducible Complexity Found in Bacterial Cell Division

Ready to dip a toe in the ocean of biological ingenuity? Dr. Jonathan McLatchie is back, this time to discuss with host Andrew McDiarmid the engineering elegance and irreducible complexity of the process of bacterial cell division. You may wonder why we should care about something so minuscule as bacterial cells. After all, something so insignificant and unseen has little bearing on our daily lives. But if we've learned anything in the biological revolution of the 20th century, it's that consequential things often come in very small packages. And if even the simplest forms of life exhibit stunning complexity and engineering prowess, all the more do we! And that complexity and design demands an adequate explanation. Here, McLatchie describes the remarkable process of cell wall breakage and re-synthesis that allows cell division to take place and explains why it's a big problem for Darwinian evolution.

[kensmith]

Even before I heard about ID, I used to wonder about the development of DNA and RNA in the cell, being there is symbiotic relationship between them. How was it that they possibly developed and where to come together and interact in evolutionary theory?
To me it seems absolutely impossible to have occurred by natural means!

[Im_No_Expert_]

Stuff like this has been so clear to me for many years. When I was a kid, this answer popped into my mind - how does a complex system that requires all of its component parts existence and functional evolve gradually over time? So that's settled the matter in my mind a long time ago and I'm no scientist. But... It's just a shame that men love darkness more than truth and will cling to any theory that absolves them from accountability to a Creator. Also the love of money and peer pressure. Will this ever change? I don't know I doubt it. But if ever it does it will be thanks to good work like this.

[OnTheThirdDay]

6:00 Beginning of the graduate level cell biochemistry

[bolapromatoqueejogodecampe]

Was any form of co-option ever demomstrared in a laboratory setting? That is, was it ever observed? Thank you

[GhostBearCommander]

Studying microbiology in college to become a Med Lab Tech didn’t undermine my faith in God, like my Biology Professor said it would.

It reinforced it.

[Vernon-Chitlen]

Just for an unguided, random process of trial and error sifting through 98 elements diluted by the 1.5 sextillion molecules per drop of water, forming the amino acids necessary for the simplest cell is incomprehensibly ridiculous. There are 500+ kinds of amino acids. How could anybody expect only the 20 specific, in only their left hand forms except for glycine, become arranged in the millions of proteins in a "primitive" cell of 10 million proteins? The simplest cell known today having 42 million. And it requires a minimum of 473 genes coding for their replication?

[sanjosemike]

Atheists always “demand” a free ride when it comes to developing complex systems. They just say “it happened” but never provide individual steps of process.

Sanjosemike (no longer in CA)

[georg]

You forgot selection, that makes it not random.
But maybe these molecules were always there.

[FLAC]

Who is the creator of ID? Where is he/her?
And who created him/her?

[arthurwieczorek]

Does 'irreducible complexity' mean 'we haven't figured it out yet', or does it mean 'God did it' ? I wonder what were some things considered to be an 'irreducible complex' in the past that are just aspects of science today?