ENZYMES ARE NECESSARY FOR LIFE (Friday Church News Notes, November 2, 2018, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from Seeing the Non-existent: Evolution’s Myths and Hoaxes, David Cloud, copyright 2011: “The cell also requires the activity of proteins called enzymes, which are catalysts that facilitate and speed up chemical reactions. Michael Pitman, who taught biology at Cambridge, writes: ‘Leading enzymologist M. Dixon comments, “Living matter is the most wonderful chemical system in the world.” Part of its magic is that it consists of a complex network of chemical reactions and processes, arranged so that the product of each reaction is the starting material of the next link in the chain. All such reactions are brought about by enzymes, of which there are many thousands. These are special proteins, each with the power of causing specific chemical reactions that would not occur in their absence. Dixon likens enzymes to automated machine tools, each of which performs one particular operation on a product and hands it on to the next. Some production lines join up, giving rise to a network of lines with many pathways--a network called metabolism. ... Dixon confesses that he cannot see how such a system could ever have originated spontaneously. The main difficulty is that an enzyme system does not work at all until it is complete, or nearly so. Another problem is the question of how enzymes appear without pre-existing enzymes to make them. “The association between enzymes and life”, Dixon writes, “is so intimate that the problem of the origin of life itself is largely that of the origin of enzymes.” ... Certain basic pathways are common to all living systems and must have been present since life began. The glycolytic pathway in which sugar is broken down, releasing energy, is one example; respiration and many other functions basic to life also depend upon networks of metabolic pathways, usually involving dozens of complex stages, which are recognizable throughout the plant and animal kingdoms. ... Enzyme systems are doing every minute what battalions of full-time chemists cannot. The mechanisms of their actions are only just beginning to be understood and we cannot yet manipulate them with any confidence. The idea of designing enzymes for specific purposes, then synthesizing them, is futuristic. This may come: if it does it will be the product of very concentrated thought and manipulative skill by teams of dedicated scientists. Can anyone seriously imagine that naturally occurring enzymes realized themselves, along with hundreds of specific friends, by chance? Enzymes and enzyme systems, like the genetic mechanisms whence they originate, are masterpieces of sophistication’ (Pitman, Adam and Evolution, pp. 144, 145). Enzymes speed up living processes that would otherwise be impossible. The phosphatase enzyme, for example, catalyzes the hydrolysis or splitting of phosphate bonds, which are necessary for cellular life. ‘This enzyme allows reactions vital for cell signaling and regulation to take place in a hundredth of a second. Without the enzyme, this essential reaction would take a trillion years--almost a hundred times even the supposed evolutionary age of the universe (about 15 billion years)’ (Jonathan Sarfati, By Design, p. 157).”
