Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed Page #5

Darwin's theory

doesn't begin

Until you have

the first cell.

Does someone have a theory

about how life began?

[explosion]

Man:
this is the story

of a small planet in space

Called earth.

Stein:
for a typical

darwinian explanation

Of how life originated,

Dr. Wells directed me

toward this documentary.

Man:
the chemical elements

essential for life--

Hydrogen, oxygen,

carbon, and nitrogen--

Were now in place.

What was needed was

a way of combining them.

Perhaps the energy

came from lightning.

- whatever it was--

- [film pauses]

Stein:
excuse me?

- [film resumes]

- man:
whatever it was,

Energy managed to arrange

these chemical ingredients

In just the right way.

Stein:
"whatever it was"?

I was hoping for something

a little more scientific.

The most popular idea

Has been that life

emerged spontaneously

From primordial soup.

In 1953, stanley miller

Mixed water, methane,

ammonia, and hydrogen

To simulate

the early earth's atmosphere.

Then he ran electricity

through it

In an attempt

to jump-start life.

It's alive!

It's alive!

It's alive!

It didn't work.

While the initial results

seemed promising,

50 years later

most serious scientists

Have abandoned this approach

In favor

of alternate theories.

Prominent darwinist

michael ruse

Attempted to explain

one of them to me.

He wasn't kidding.

How did we get

from an inorganic world

To the world of the cell?

Well, one popular

theory is that it

Might have started off

on the backs of crystals.

My crystal ball.

Molecules piggybacked

on the back of crystals forming,

And that this led

to more and more complex--

But of course the nice thing

about crystals

Is that every now and then

you get mistakes--mutations--

And that this opens the way

for natural selection.

But--but at one point

there was not

a living thing,

And then there was

a living thing.

How did that happen?

Well, that's just a--

i've just told you.

I don't see any reason

why you shouldn't go

From very simple

to more and more complex

to more and more complex--

I don't either.

But I don't know

how you get from mud

To a living cell.

That's my question.

Yes, well, i've told you.

I'll try one more time.

You think it was on

the backs of crystals.

On the backs of crystals is

at least one hypothesis, yes.

So that's your theory,

and you think that

is more likely

And less far-fetched

than intelligent design.

I think it is.

I wouldn't put

ben stein's money

On dr. Ruse's

joyriding crystals,

But it did make me wonder

What were the chances of life

arising on its own?

Bradley:
it's been

speculated that probably

There would have to be

A minimum of

about 250 proteins

To provide

minimal life function.

Um, if that's

really true,

Then I think it's

almost inconceivable

That life could've happened

In some simple,

step-by-step way.

Okay,

so the simplest form of life

Requires at least

250 proteins to function.

What's so difficult

about that?

[1950s school filmstrip

music plays]

Filmstrip narrator:

welcome to the casino of life.

Who wants to spin

for a chance to win?

Oh, sure.

I'll give it a shot.

What do I win?

Take a look at this.

- [man in audience

wolf-whistles]

- huh?

How 'bout the world's

first single-cell organism?

This perfectly aligned

string of proteins

Could be yours.

Now, take a spin.

- [bell rings]

- I won!

[laughs]

Tina, tell him

how many times

He needs to do that

to win the prize.

Two hundred and fifty.

- [audience boos]

- show host:

that's right, folks.

And all

in the correct order.

But that's impossible.

[laughs] we've

heard that before,

Haven't we, richard?

[like dawkins] come on,

mother nature, do your thing.

[machine buzzes]

You stupid machine!

I hate you.

We're talking about something

that's staggeringly improbable,

Roughly one in a trillion,

trillion, trillion, trillion,

trillion, trillion.

Let all of life chose

a million, a trillion,

A trillion trillion--

The number is

essentially zero.

Something has to skew nature

to chose the ones that work.

So, in the game of life,

It looks

as if the house always wins.

Luckily, some serious

scientific minds

Have figured out a way

to beat the odds.

[man reads

in ominous voice]

Stein:
when faced with

the overwhelming problem

Of the origin of life,

Nobel prize-winner

francis crick

Proposed this theory--

That life

was "seeded" on earth,

Which basically means

aliens did it.

Crystals?

Aliens?

I thought we were talking

about science,

Not science fiction.

We don't know what

caused life to arise.

Did it arise by a purely

undirected process,

Or did it arise

by some kind

Of intelligent guidance

or design?

And the rules of science

Are being applied

to actually foreclose

One of the two

possible answers

To that very

fundamental and basic

and important question.

So the rules

of science say

We will consider

any possibility

- except one that is guided.

- exactly.

No matter

how life began,

On the backs of crystals

Or in the test tube

of some intelligent designer,

Everyone agrees

it started with a single cell.

But what is a cell?

- let me ask you a question.

- yeah.

Darwin wrote

the origin of species

in 1859--

Published it in 1859.

He had an idea of the cell

as being quite simple, correct?

Yeah, everybody did.

Okay, if he thought of

the cell as being a buick,

What is the cell now

In terms of its complexity

by comparison?

A galaxy.

If darwin thought a cell

Was, say, a mud hut,

What do we now know

that a cell is?

More complicated

than a saturn v.

So what is in a cell

as far as we know now?

A world that darwin

never could've imagined.

I needed someone who could

Give me a glimpse

into this world,

So we went to molecular

biologist doug axe.

Axe:
think of a cell

as being a nanofactory,

A factory where,

on a very small scale,

Digital instructions

are being used

To make the components

of the factory.

Here we have the famous

dna double helix.

You can see

the two helical strands

That are intertwined

and wind around each other

On the outside

of the molecule.

This is the material

that stores

All of our genetic

information.

In higher life forms,

this would be the equivalent

Of something like

a gigabyte of information

Stored in the molecules

That form

the individual chromosomes,

All packed

within the nucleus,

Which is a tiny fraction

of the entire cell size.

So what does dna do?

Well, the information in dna

Ends up providing

the information

For sequencing the amino acids

to make protein.

We have information

in a one-dimensional form

That provides the information

for a three-dimensional form.

[whooshes]

[liquid gurgling]

[fluttering]

I'm finally

just beginning to grasp

The complexity of the cell.

Are there systems

within the cell

That go well beyond

darwinian evolution,

Some type

of cellular technology

That drives

adaptation, replication,

Quality control,

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