By: Dr. Jerry Bergman
Montpelier, Ohio
Much of my medical school work involved attempting to understand how the genome works, and especially what happens when parts of the genome are damaged by mutations. In short, mutations cause disease, and that is why we studied them.
Our focus was on how and why mutations cause cancer, and how cancer can be detected early when it has a much better likelihood of being treated.
Geneticists once thought we had a very good handle on how the genome functions. As we learned more, though, we realized that the genome is far more mysterious and complex than we had assumed when I was working at medical school.
The genome is so enormously complex that it even confounds the most intelligent brain in the world: AI’s. My impression when I worked in the field of medicine was that genes behaved like intelligent people, evaluating conditions in the cell, and making decisions based on those evaluations.
The fact is, mutations affect the cell’s ability to make proper decisions for the cell. For example, p53 is a critical tumor suppressor gene that protects the body from cancer.
Called the “guardian of the genome,” its primary role is to regulate the cell cycle, repair damaged DNA, and trigger cell death. The importance of p53 is illustrated by the fact that p53 mutations are implicated in over half of all human cancers. Without p53 life would soon become extinct!
P53 IS REQUIRED TO MAKE NUMEROUS LIFE-THREATING DECISIONS
The human body grows and also replaces damaged and worn-out cells by making new cells. Cells divide by producing a copy of themselves by a process called the cell cycle.
The cell cycle is an ordered series of growth and division stages that living cells undergo to duplicate their DNA and separate into two identical daughter cells. This process functions like an intelligent person in making decisions.
The steps are (Gap 1) G1, is where the control system causes intense metabolic activity, the cell increases in size, synthesizes proteins and lipids, and duplicates organelles including mitochondria and ribosomes in preparation for DNA replication.
The next step in cell division is synthesis (S), where the cell is directed to replicate its DNA to ensure that each future daughter cell receives a complete set of chromosomes.
If a single small mistake is made, the cell will die. Then comes Gap 2, where the system directs the cell to continue to grow until fully grown. It then will synthesize proteins for the final preparations required for cell division.
Cells that are not preparing to divide enter a resting state called Gap 0. During this stage, the cell is directed to perform the hundreds of routine jobs cells are designed to do. A few examples include secretory cells that secrete mucus, and intestinal cells that absorb nutrients from food.
Cell cycle checkpoints, like people, monitor internal and external conditions, ensuring a cell only divides if it is large enough, has an adequate supply of nutrients, and possesses undamaged DNA.
These checkpoints act as quality-control stations to prevent genetic instability and diseases like cancer. To achieve this p53 guardian of the genome checks the entire cell cycle, and, if the p53 system determines the cell needs repair, it initiates the required repair process to repair the cell.
When p53 determines by what amounts to a careful on-site inspection that the repairs are successful, it initiates cell division.
If p53 determines that the repair process is not successful, or the damage to the cell is too great to be repaired, it initiates the process of cell self-suicide called apoptosis.
Apoptosis is the process involving a very orderly complex and clean system to prevent spreading harmful debris in the cell. P53 first causes the cell to condense its internal DNA and shrink in size.
Next, the apoptosis program causes the cell membrane to bleb, meaning break up into small, enclosed packets to ensure that the damaged cell parts do not damage other cells.
The pockets of cell debris are called apoptotic bodies. Lastly, immune cells engulf the apoptotic bodies to ensure that no harmful waste spills out.
It then recycles the contents of these packets to reuse the good cell parts. This complex, well-designed system allows the body to eliminate old, unnecessary, or irreparably damaged cells in a clean, controlled manner without causing inflammation of surrounding tissues. In contrast, cell death by injury spreads damaged cell debris, a process called necrosis.
One problem is that to view reality as it exists geneticists must remove their evolution glasses so as not to distort reality which is caused by the evolutionary worldview.
Science writer Philip Ball describes the evolution conclusion, which is “our genome is the product of around 4 billion years of evolution. … evolution doesn’t have the foresight to design with efficiency and transparent logic, but merely tinkers with what it has already available.”
As Ball admits, the fact is, the genome does not look like it came about by tinkering with what was already there. Instead, it exhibits an irreproducible complexity which we are just beginning to understand.
Paraphrasing Ball’s words: “The design of the human genome is less a script than a puzzle that gets more complex the closer we look. The sequence in the human genome is more like what computer scientists do… It has gradually become clear, though, that in complex eukaryotic organisms like us, gene regulation is far more complicated, involving overlapping systems of oversight and control, each with its own intricacies.”
SUMMARY
The process of cell control and reproduction defies evolution and speaks to order, design, and irreducible complexity, as science writer Philip Ball has eloquently documented.
As I have often said, evolution will be falsified, not by creationists but by the evolutionists themselves, and this is one more example.
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Dr. Bergman is a multi-award-winning professor and author. He has 9 degrees and has taught at both the graduate and undergraduate level for over 40 years. His over 2,100 publications are in both scholarly and popular journals. Dr. Bergman’s work has been translated into 15 languages. He has spoken over 2,000 times to college, university and church groups in America, Canada, Europe, the South Sea Islands, and Africa. He lives in Montpelier and is available to present in churches and schools. Jerry can be reached at JerryBergman30@yahoo.com Bergman’s website is: https://crev.info/author/jbergman/
