This drawing depicts the interior of a plant cell. The green structures are chloroplasts.
This drawing depicts the interior of a chloroplast. The ladder-like structures are grana, which consist of stacks of tykaloid membranes. The membranes contain chlorophyll and other compounds necessary for trapping and storing light energy. All life on earth is dependent upon the ability of plant cells to trap and store energy from the sun.
The above drawing illustrates the structure of the thykaloid membrane. Four different protein complexes are embedded in the membrane. The green and turquoise structures are photo systems one and two. Notice that hundreds or thousands of these four protein complexes are present in this drawing, like a miniature city of skyscrapers.1
The drawing above illustrates a protein. Proteins are the basic building blocks of life. Each protein complex present in the thykaloid membrane contains many proteins. Proteins are made up of specific combinations of twenty possible amino acids. A typical protein contains around 300 amino acids. The position of every individual amino acid is very important, since the sequence determines how the protein will fold which determines how it will function. Even one substitution can greatly change the shape of a protein and destroy its ability to function as needed. The probability of even a smaller, 100-amino-acid protein forming by chance is around one in 10158. 2 That is ten with 158 zeros after it. It is estimated that there are only 1089 elementary particles (electrons, protons, and neutrons) in the known universe.3 So, even if every elementary particle in the known universe was an amino acid and even if all of them could combine at the staggering rate of 1,000 times a second for the supposed age of the universe (30 billion years), the chance of forming any particular 100 amino acid protein would be about one in 1048. 4 In other words, such a ludicrously large number of amino acids combining at such a fantastic rate would not have the ghost of a chance of forming even a single protein in 30 billion years. Yet for photosynthesis to occur and energy to be stored in even one plant cell, hundreds or thousands of very specifically designed proteins must be present. The impossibility of proteins forming by chance in our universe is the little-talked-about Achilles heel of the idea that life arose by random processes. The emperor has no clothes, folks! There is, indeed, intelligence in life and there is, indeed, an intelligent designer.
2http://www.icr.org/article/probability-order-versus-evolution/ This probability involves the generous assumption that of the 200 amino acids that would form randomly, only the 20 found in life as we know it were involved.
3 http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080522130927AAANHh2
4 There are a little less than 1020 seconds in 30 billion years. With 1,000 combinations a second that is 1023 combinations. Multiplying this by 1087 groups of 100 amino acids yields 10110 total combinations of 100 amino acids. So the chance of forming a specific 100 amino acid protein would be 10 158 divided by 10110 or 1048.
5 For further analysis of the Miller-Urey experiment that has been widely used as evidence that life could have arisen by chance see http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/nab2/natural-processes-origin-of-life
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