Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Predator/Prey

A white blood cell chases down an invading bacterium in this fascinating video clip. We might pause to marvel at all the systems and structures which need to be present in this microscopic cell in order for it to carry out its function as a seek and destroy mechanism to guard the body against infection.

It has to have an apparatus that enables it to detect the presence of an invading microbe, it has to be able to distinguish the invader from other cells in the blood stream, and it has to have an apparatus that enables it to home in on its prey and to pursue and ingest it. All of these systems are doubtless very complex, requiring many specialized proteins, all of which require assembly mechanisms and instructions. That assembly, in turn, requires other structures to coordinate the timing and location of the necessary proteins, and all of these things arose blindly and purely by accident, according to the Darwinian narrative.

Well, maybe, but we can hardly help being skeptical. Our credulity can grant to chance and purposeless processes only so much capability before it collapses under the enormous weight the Darwinian view places upon its shoulders. After a while it just seems like we're being asked to believe in a fairy tale.

RLC