Reasons To Believe - Spokane Chapter

February 2006 Newsletter

Chapter Meeting: Sunday February 19, 3-5 P.M.

We invite you to attend our monthly meeting.

A presentation is offered to the group, followed by discussion and questions, and we conclude with snacks and a little club business. This month we'll watch the second half of a new video from the Ankerberg Show that we started last month, called All in a Day's Work: the Meaning of Genesis One. Dr. Ross and Dr. Walt Kaiser, a Hebrew scholar, discuss the words in Genesis 1 that point to an old earth.

  • Date: February 19, 2005 (Sunday)
  • Time: 3 - 5 P.M.
  • Hosts: Dan and Cathy Bakken
  • Location: 13003 N. Miami Ct, Mead
  • Phone: 466-2693 (for directions, etc.)

The City of the Cell

By Cathy Bakken

Whoever first thought of the analogy of a city to a cell came up with an imaginative way to understand a little of what goes on in this miniature realm, which can be hard for the lay person to grasp. The terms used to describe the parts of the cell are not really linked to words we use in ordinary life.

Michael Denton says in his book, Evolution: a Theory in Crisis (1985),

"To grasp the reality of life as it has been revealed by molecular biology, we must magnify a cell a thousand million times until it is twenty kilometers in diameter and resembles a giant airship big enough to cover a great city like London or New York. What we would then see would be an object of unparalleled complexity and adaptive design."

The cell can indeed be compared to a city. Different activities are grouped into different areas (e.g. business district, educational district, manufacturing district), raw materials are transported to building sites where new structures are put together (construction site), energy is produced (e.g. power plant), waste is removed and disposed of, and information is communicated (mail and package delivery systems).

The basic structures and organization of cells are similar in the many types of cells - animal, plant, bacteria, etc. They have many features in common. So let's take a look at some of the parts of the cell using this "city" analogy.

Cell Membrane: City Border or Wall

In the cell, an outer membrane performs a similar function to a city wall. It completely surrounds the cell and provides the boundary between one cell and the next. It is constructed from molecules called lipids, which form a thin, flexible and strong covering.

For the cell to survive, materials have to be allowed into and out of the cell. Fuel, raw materials and signaling molecules have to come in, and waste products and some manufactured goods have to leave. Some things have to be prevented from entering at all.

Therefore, within the membrane there are different types of gate designed to allow the free passage of different types of molecules.

Mitochondria: Energy Plants

In a city, energy is converted in a power station from several possible kinds of fuel (coal gas, etc.) into electricity. Electricity is then distributed throughout the city by power lines.

Like cities, cells need a constant supply of energy and they produce it the same way: by converting fuel. The power stations of the cell are called mitochondria, and the most common fuel that they consume is sugar (glucose). In this case the energy generated is passed on, not as electricity, but as small universal molecules called ATP. Carbon dioxide and water are the waste products.

Nucleus: City Hall

At the center of the cell lies the nucleus. The nucleus acts as the command center, the planning department and the central library - roughly equivalent to City Hall.

Inside the nucleus are the chromosomes that carry the genetic instructions. They are a sort of master plan that specifies how the cell should develop. A special code is used, based on very long chain molecules of DNA - deoxyribonucleic acid.

DNA: Blueprints of the City

For the information in the DNA to be used by the cell to manufacture something, a copy of the correct instructions is needed for the factory. Short copies of the correct portion of DNA are made within the nucleus. These copies, called RNA, are transported out of the nucleus, through special holes or pores, into the rest of the cell. Each message contains the information needed to manufacture a protein.

Ribosomes: Factories

Inside each cell there are production lines manufacturing many different kinds of proteins. RNA acts as a blueprint. Ribosomes act as machines assembling the protein according to the directions in the RNA.

Proteins: Building Supplies

Amino acids are the building blocks used by the ribosomes to make proteins. As in cities where products made in factories are used within the city, so the completed proteins are often for home consumption, but others may be exported outside the cell for use elsewhere.

An average cell possesses about a billion protein molecules. There are thousands of different types of proteins which are used in thousands of ways - building blocks of the cell and its many different parts, molecules used to communicate with other cells, etc. These proteins constantly need replacement.

Endoplasmic Reticulum and Golgi Bodies: Delivery System

The Golgi decides whether a given protein will leave the cell or be delivered to a destination within the cell. Not only does it decide what goes where, but also how the parcels should be packaged for transport and how to apply the molecular tags that label them for proper delivery.

The endoplasmic reticulum resembles a network of tube-like passageways through which some of these parcels are transported to the various areas of the cell.

There is actually a zip code system in the cell. Each newly made protein has a specific address, a stretch of the protein that matches with receptors in different activity zones of the cell.

Lysosomes: Waste Disposal/Recycling

The wastes of the cell need to be disposed of. Carbon dioxide and water - the by-products of energy production - are expelled and disposed of elsewhere. Many components of the cell eventually wear out, and need to be broken down and the parts recycled. This activity takes place inside the cell in specialized compartments called lysosomes.

International Communications

Cells depend on communication. The ability of a cell to interact with its neighbor cells - international communications - is as important as communication within the cell.

Cells constantly exchange information in the form of chemical message or electrical signals. These signals are used, not simply to tell their neighbors where they are, but to help them grow and survive. The cells in our bodies are in touch with their nearest neighbors and with cells in distant parts. The brain in our head registers a toe twitching; our hand knows where to scratch an itchy back. There are elaborate systems for conveying these messages between individual cells around the body.

Conclusion

Michael Denton adds, "...What we would be witnessing would be an object resembling an immense automated factory, a factory larger than a city and carrying out almost as many unique functions as all the manufacturing activities of man on earth. However it would have a factory which would have one capacity not equaled in any of our own most advanced machines, for it would be capable of replicating its entire structure within a matter of a few hours." (Evolution: a Theory in Crisis, 1985.)

We can see that cells are highly organized and exceptionally efficient. They pass on knowledge from one generation of cells to the next, and can also communicate with other cells. Is it really credible that random processes could have constructed a complex system that so completely overshadows any city mankind has built?

(Note: This is an incomplete and extremely simplified list of the functions of the cell. You'll find a lot more information on the internet if you search under "city of the cell" in a search engine.)

Here We Go Again! Another "Earthlike" Planet?

By Cathy Bakken

In late January, the headlines rang out: "Scientists Spot a New Earthlike Planet", "An Earthlike Planet Excites as it is Glimpsed, then Gone".

This kind of headline and language automatically makes most people think of a beautiful, blue-green-white ball, with continents and oceans, maybe even bacteria, plant life, and possibly more. But is that really what we should imagine when we hear these headlines? What do we really know about this recently spotted planet? The scientists describe it as "a ball of rock and ice only about 5.5 times as massive as the earth". The last "most earthlike planet" found was 7 times as massive as the earth, that hugs its home star in a lethally hot and close orbit. In fact, most extrasolar planets orbit their stars more closely than Mercury orbits our sun. This close of an orbit tidally locks the planet so that one side always faces the sun and 'fries', and the other side always freezes.

This new planet, denoted as OGLE-2005-BLG-390Lb, orbits its star about 230 million miles out - comparable to the asteroid belt in our solar system. There the estimated temperature is a much colder minus 370 degrees F.

Most extrasolar planets are also gas planets. Very few have been found that are actually made of solid materials - rock and ice. It is this characteristic - the material the planet is made of - that usually earns a planet its distinction of being earth-like. But that's a far cry from anything truly similar to Earth. The "earthlike" planets discovered so far would have much greater gravity, which would be a great obstacle for delicate life. If they have an atmosphere, the air pressure would be too great to allow for lung function for animals.

This planet orbits a star that is a red dwarf, an extremely common type of star in the universe. Because we have found one planet around a red dwarf, scientists are suggesting that rocky, "earthlike" planets may be very common in the universe. However, red dwarf stars don't emit enough energy to support photosynthesis. We know that on the Earth, photosynthesis was important to life processes from the beginning.

These facts are all knockout punches for the possibility of life on these planets. But scientists will keep looking - and hoping!

Who We Are and What We Do: Your Local Reasons To Believe Chapter

We're here to answer your questions and help local Christians and churches get more answers about science and the bible issues.

  • We offer trained apologists and bring in national speakers to speak at local churches and other events to share these exciting discoveries.
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  • We help Christians overcome their fear of science and equip them to use it as an effective tool in spreading the Gospel.
  • We reach out to skeptics and non-believers with gentleness and respect, encouraging them to evaluate their worldviews.

Contact Information

For more information about the Reasons To Believe Spokane Chapter, contact:

  • Phone: Dan Bakken (509) 466-2693
  • Email:

  • Web Page: www.reasons.org/chapters/spokane

  • Newsletter Editor: Cathy Bakken, cgbakken@yahoo.com

Resources To Know About

www.reasons.org: Many useful documents are available, as well as their daily new "reason to believe" from the latest scientific research.

Reasons' Web Store: Buy the books you read about here! http://store.reasons.org/

Reasons Institute: RTB's online distance learning program. Take college-level apologetics courses. Contact RTB for information at 626-335-1480.

Reasons To Believe television show: Thursday mornings, 3:00 A.M. Pacific time on TBN. An archive of recent shows is at www.reasons.org.

Creation Update Web Radio Show: http://www.oneplace.com/ministries/creation_update/Archives.asp.