| The Origin of Plants Life on earth is divided into five (or sometimes six)
kingdoms by scientists. We have so far concentrated mainly on the greatest kingdom,
that of animals. In the preceding chapters, we considered the origin of life itself,
studying proteins, genetic information, cell structure and bacteria, issues that
are related with two other kingdoms, Prokaryotae and Protista.
But at this point there is another important matter we need to concentrate on-the
origin of the plant kingdom (Plantae). We find the
same picture in the origin of plants as we met when examining the origin of animals.
Plants possess exceedingly complex structures, and it is not possible for these
to come about by chance effects and for them to evolve into one another. The fossil
record shows that the different classes of plants emerged all of a sudden in the
world, each with its own particular characteristics, and with no period of evolution
behind it.
The Origin of the Plant Cell
Like
animal cells, plant cells belong to the type known as "eukaryotic." The most distinctive
feature of these is that they have a cell nucleus, and the DNA molecule in which
their genetic information is encoded lies within this nucleus. On the other hand,
some single-celled creatures such as bacteria have no cell nucleus, and the DNA
molecule is free inside the cell. This second type of cell is called "prokaryotic."
This type of cell structure, with free DNA unconfined within a nucleus, is an
ideal design for bacteria, as it makes possible the very important process-from
the bacterial point of view-of plasmid transfer (that is, the transfer of DNA
from cell to cell). Because the theory of evolutsion is obliged
to arrange living things in a sequence "from primitive to complex," it assumes
that prokaryotic cells are primitive, and that eukaryotic cells evolved from them. Before
moving to the invalidity of this claim, it will be useful to demonstrate that
prokaryotic cells are not at all "primitive." A bacterium possesses some 2,000
genes; each gene contains about 1,000 letters (links). This means that the information
in a bacterium's DNA is some 2 million letters long. According to this calculation,
the information in the DNA of one bacterium is equivalent to 20 novels, each of
100,000 words.326 Any change in the information in the DNA
code of a bacterium would be so deleterious as to ruin the bacterium's entire
working system. As we have seen, a fault in a bacterium's genetic code means that
the working system will go wrong-that is, the cell will die. Alongside
this sensitive structure, which defies chance changes, the fact that no "intermediate
form" between bacteria and eukaryotic cells has been found makes the evolutionist
claim unfounded. For example, the famous Turkish evolutionist Professor Ali Demirsoy
confesses the groundlessness of the scenario that bacterial cells evolved into
eukaryotic cells, and then into complex organisms made up of these cells:
One of the most difficult stages to be explained
in evolution is to scientifically explain how organelles and complex cells developed
from these primitive creatures. No transitional form has been found between these
two forms. One- and multicelled creatures carry all this complicated structure,
and no creature or group has yet been found with organelles of a simpler construction
in any way, or which are more primitive. In other words, the organelles carried
forward have developed just as they are. They have no simple and primitive forms.327 One
wonders, what is it that encourages Professor Ali Demirsoy, a loyal adherent of
the theory of evolution, to make such an open admission? The answer to this question
can be given quite clearly when the great structural differences between bacteria
and plant cells are examined. These are: 1-
While the walls of bacterial cells are formed of polysaccharide and protein, the
walls of plant cells are formed of cellulose, a totally different structure. 2-
While plant cells possess many organelles, covered in membranes and possessing
very complex structures, bacterial cells lack typical organelles. In bacterial
cells there are just freely moving tiny ribosomes. But the ribosomes in plant
cells are larger and are attached to the cell membrane. Furthermore, protein synthesis
takes place by different means in the two types of ribosomes.
Plants form the fundamental basis of life on earth. They
are an indispensable condition for life, as they provide food and release oxygen
to the air. | 3- The DNA structures in plant
and bacterial cells are different. 4- The DNA molecule in plant
cells is protected by a double-layered membrane, whereas the DNA in bacterial
cells stands free within the cell. 5- The DNA molecule in bacterial
cells resembles a closed loop; in other words, it is circular. In plants, the
DNA molecule is linear. 6- The DNA molecule in bacterial cells
carries information belonging to just one cell, but in plant cells the DNA molecule
carries information about the whole plant. For example, all the information about
a fruit-bearing tree's roots, stem, leaves, flowers, and fruit are all found separately
in the DNA in the nucleus of just one cell. 7- Some species
of bacteria are photosynthetic, in other words, they carry out photosynthesis.
But unlike plants, in photosynthetic bacteria (cyanobacteria, for instance), there
is no chloroplast containing chlorophyll and photosynthetic pigments. Rather,
these molecules are buried in various membranes all over the cell. 8-
The biochemistry of messenger RNA formation in prokaryotic (bacterial) cells and
in eukaryotic (including plant and animal) cells are quite different from one
another.328
The evolutionist hypothesis that prokaryotic
cells (left) turned into eukaryotic cells over time has no scientific basis to
it. |
Messenger RNA plays a vital role
for the cell to live. But although messenger RNA assumes the same vital role in
both prokaryotic cells and in eukaryotic cells, their biochemical structures are
different. J. Darnell wrote the following in an article published in Science:
The differences in the biochemistry of messenger
RNA formation in eukaryotes compared to prokaryotes are so profound as to suggest
that sequential prokaryotic to eukaryotic cell evolution seems unlikely.329
The structural differences between bacterial
and plant cells, of which we have seen a few examples above, lead evolutionist
scientists to another dead-end. Although plant and bacterial cells have some aspects
in common, most of their structures are quite different from one another. In fact,
since there are no membrane-surrounded organelles or a cytoskeleton (the internal
network of protein filaments and microtubules) in bacterial cells, the presence
of several very complex organelles and cell organization in plant cells totally
invalidates the claim that the plant cell evolved from the bacterial cell. Biologist
Ali Demirsoy openly admits this, saying, "Complex cells never developed from primitive
cells by a process of evolution."330
The Endosymbiosis Hypothesis and Its Invalidity
The
impossibility of plant cells' having evolved from a bacterial cell has not prevented
evolutionary biologists from producing speculative hypotheses. But experiments
disprove these.331 The most popular of these is the "endosymbiosis"
hypothesis. This hypothesis was put forward by Lynn Margulis
in 1970 in her book The Origin of Eukaryotic Cells. In this book, Margulis
claimed that as a result of their communal and parasitic lives, bacterial cells
turned into plant and animal cells. According to this theory, plant cells emerged
when a photosynthetic bacterium was swallowed by another bacterial cell. The photosynthetic
bacterium evolved inside the parent cell into a chloroplast. Lastly, organelles
with highly complex structures such as the nucleus, the Golgi apparatus, the endoplasmic
reticulum, and ribosomes evolved, in some way or other. Thus, the plant cell was
born. As we have seen,
this thesis of the evolutionists is nothing but a work of fantasy. Unsurprisingly,
it was criticized by scientists who carried out very important research into the
subject on a number of grounds: We can cite D. Lloyd332, M.
Gray and W. Doolittle333, and R. Raff and H. Mahler as examples
of these. The endosymbiosis hypothesis is based on the fact
that the mitochondria of animal cells and the chloroplasts of plant cells contain
their own DNA, separate from the DNA in the nucleus of the parent cell. So, on
this basis, it is suggested that mitochondria and chloroplasts were once independent,
free-living cells. However, when chloroplasts are studied in detail, it can be
seen that this claim is inconsistent. A number of points invalidate
the endosymbiosis hypothesis: 1- If chloroplasts, in particular,
were once independent cells, then there could only have been one outcome if one
were swallowed by a larger cell: namely, it would have been digested by the parent
cell and used as food. This must be so, because even if we assume that the parent
cell in question took such a cell into itself from the outside by mistake, instead
of intentionally ingesting it as food, nevertheless, the digestive enzymes in
the parent cell would have destroyed it. Of course, some evolutionists have gotten
around this obstacle by saying, "The digestive enzymes had disappeared." But this
is a clear contradiction, because if the cell's digestive enzymes had disappeared,
then the cell would have died from lack of nutrition. 2- Again,
let us assume that all the impossible happened and that the cell which is claimed
to have been the ancestor of the chloroplast was swallowed by the parent cell.
In this case we are faced with another problem: The blueprints of all the organelles
inside the cell are encoded in the DNA. If the parent cell were going to use other
cells it swallowed as organelles, then it would be necessary for all of the information
about them to be already present and encoded in its DNA. The DNA of the swallowed
cells would have to possess information belonging to the parent cell. Not only
is such a situation impossible, the two complements of DNA belonging to the parent
cell and the swallowed cell would also have to become compatible with each other
afterwards, which is also clearly impossible. 3- There is great
harmony within the cell which random mutations cannot account for. There are more
than just one chloroplast and one mitochondrion in a cell. Their number rises
or falls according to the activity level of the cell, just like with other organelles.
The existence of DNA in the bodies of these organelles is also of use in reproduction.
As the cell divides, all of the numerous chloroplasts divide too, and the cell
division happens in a shorter time and more regularly. 4-
Chloroplasts are energy generators of absolutely vital importance to the plant
cell. If these organelles did not produce energy, many of the cell's functions
would not work, which would mean that the cell could not live. These functions,
which are so important to the cell, take place with proteins synthesized in the
chloroplasts. But the chloroplasts' own DNA is not enough to synthesize these
proteins. The greater part of the proteins are synthesized using the parent DNA
in the cell nucleus.334 While the situation
envisioned by the endosymbiosis hypothesis is occurring through a process of trial
and error, what effects would this have on the DNA of the parent cell? As we have
seen, any change in a DNA molecule definitely does not result in a gain for that
organism; on the contrary, any such mutation would certainly be harmful. In his
book The Roots of Life, Mahlon B. Hoagland explains the situation: You'll
recall we learned that almost always a change in an organism's DNA is detrimental
to it; that is, it leads to a reduced capacity to survive. By way of analogy,
random additions of sentences to the plays of Shakespeare are not likely to improve
them! …The principle that DNA changes are harmful by virtue of reducing survival
chances applies whether a change in DNA is caused by a mutation or by some foreign
genes we deliberately add to it.335 The claims
put forward by evolutionists are not based on scientific experiments, because
no such thing as one bacterium swallowing another one has ever been observed.
In his review of a later book by Margulis, Symbiosis in Cell Evolution,
molecular biologist P. Whitfield describes the situation: Prokaryotic
endocytosis is the cellular mechanism on which the whole of S.E.T. (Serial Endosymbiotic
Theory) presumably rests. If one prokaryote could not engulf another it is difficult
to imagine how endosymbioses could be set up. Unfortunately for Margulis and S.E.T.,
no modern examples of prokaryotic endocytosis or endosymbiosis exist…336
The Origin of Photosynthesis
Another matter regarding the origin
of plants which puts the theory of evolution into a terrible quandary is the question
of how plant cells began to carry out photosynthesis. Photosynthesis
is one of the fundamental processes of life on earth. Thanks to the chloroplasts
inside them, plant cells produce starch by using water, carbon dioxide and sunlight.
Animals are unable to produce their own nutrients and must use the starch from
plants for food instead. For this reason, photosynthesis is a basic condition
for complex life. An even more interesting side of the matter is the fact that
this complex process of photosynthesis has not yet been fully understood. Modern
technology has not yet been able to reveal all of its details, let alone reproduce
it. Is it possible for such a complex process as photosynthesis
to be the product of natural processes, as the theory of evolution holds? According
to the evolution scenario, in order to carry out photosynthesis, plant cells swallowed
bacterial cells which could photosynthesize and turned them into chloroplasts.
So, how did bacteria learn to carry out such a complicated process as photosynthesis?
And why had they not begun to carry out such a process before then? As with other
questions, the scenario has no scientific answer to give. Have a look at how an
evolutionist publication answers the question: The
heterotroph hypothesis suggests that the earliest organisms were heterotrophs
that fed on a soup of organic molecules in the primitive ocean. As these first
heterotrophs consumed the available amino acids, proteins, fats, and sugars, the
nutrient soup became depleted and could no longer support a growing population
of heterotrophs. …Organisms that could use an alternate source of energy would
have had a great advantage. Consider that Earth was (and continues to be) flooded
with solar energy that actually consists of different forms of radiation. Ultraviolet
radiation is destructive, but visible light is energy-rich and undestructive.
Thus, as organic compounds became increasingly rare, an already-present ability
to use visible light as an alternate source of energy might have enabled such
organisms and their descendents to survive.337 The
book Life on Earth, another evolutionist source, tries to explain the emergence
of photosynthesis: The bacteria
fed initially on the various carbon compounds that had taken so many millions
of years to accumulate in the primordial seas. But as they flourished, so this
food must have become scarcer. Any bacterium that could tap a different source
of food would obviously be very successful and eventually some did. Instead of
taking ready-made food from their surroundings, they began to manufacture their
own within their cell walls, drawing the necessary energy from the sun.338 In
short, evolutionist sources say that photosynthesis was in some way coincidentally
"discovered" by bacteria, even though man, with all his technology and knowledge,
has been unable to do so. These accounts, which are no better than fairy tales,
have no scientific worth. Those who study the subject in a bit more depth will
accept that photosynthesis is a major dilemma for evolution. Professor Ali Demirsoy
makes the following admission, for instance: Photosynthesis
is a rather complicated event, and it seems impossible for it to emerge in an
organelle inside a cell (because it is impossible for all the stages to have come
about at once, and it is meaningless for them to have emerged separately).339
Plant
cells carry out a process that no modern laboratory can duplicate-photosynthesis.
Thanks to the organelle called the "chloroplast" in the plant cell, plants use
water, carbon dioxide and sunlight to create starch. This food product is the
first step in the earth's food chain, and the source of food for all its inhabitants.
The details of this exceedingly complex process are still not fully understood
today. | The German biologist
Hoimar von Ditfurth says that photosynthesis is a process that cannot possibly
be learned: No cell possesses
the capacity to 'learn' a process in the true sense of the word. It is impossible
for any cell to come by the ability to carry out such functions as respiration
or photosynthesis, neither when it first comes into being, nor later in life.340 Since
photosynthesis cannot develop as the result of chance, and cannot subsequently
be learned by a cell, it appears that the first plant cells that lived on the
earth were specially designed to carry out photosynthesis. In other words, plants
were created with the ability to photosynthesize.
The Origin of Algae
The theory of evolution hypothesizes that single-celled
plant-like creatures, whose origins it is unable to explain, came in time to form
algae. The origin of algae goes back to very remote times. So much so, that fossil
algae remains from 3.1 to 3.4 million years old have been found. The interesting
thing is that there is no structural difference between these extraordinarily
ancient living things and specimens living in our own time. An article published
in Science News says: Both
blue-green algae and bacteria fossils dating back 3.4 billion years have been
found in rocks from S. Africa. Even more intriguing, the pleurocapsalean algae
turned out to be almost identical to modern pleurocapsalean algae at the family
and possibly even at the generic level. The
German biologist Hoimar von Ditfurth makes this comment on the complex structure
of so-called "primitive" algae: The
oldest fossils so far discovered are objects fossilized in minerals which belong
to blue green algae, more than 3 billion years old. No matter how primitive they
are, they still represent rather complicated and expertly organized forms of life.342 Evolutionary
biologists consider that the algae in question gave rise over time to other marine
plants and moved to the land some 450 million years ago. However, just like the
scenario of animals moving from water onto the land, the idea that plants moved
from water to the land is another fantasy. Both scenarios are invalid and inconsistent.
Evolutionist sources usually try to gloss over the subject with such fantastical
and unscientific comments as "algae in some way moved onto the land and adapted
to it." But there are a large number of obstacles that make this transition quite
impossible. Let us have a short look at the most important of them. 1-
The danger of drying out: For a plant which lives in water to be able to live
on land, its surface has first of all to be protected from water loss. Otherwise
the plant will dry out. Land plants are provided with special systems to prevent
this from happening. There are very important details in these systems. For example,
this protection must happen in such a way that important gases such as oxygen
and carbon dioxide are able to leave and enter the plant freely. At the same time,
it is important that evaporation be prevented. If a plant does not possess such
a system, it cannot wait millions of years to develop one. In such a situation,
the plant will soon dry up and die. 2- Feeding: Marine
plants take the water and minerals they need directly from the water they are
in. For this reason, any algae which tried to live on land would have a food problem.
They could not live without resolving it. 3- Reproduction:
Algae, with their short life span, have no chance of reproducing on land, because,
as in all their functions, algae also use water to disperse their reproductive
cells. In order to be able to reproduce on land, they would need to possess multicellular
reproductive cells like those of land plants, which are covered by a protective
layer of cells. Lacking these, any algae which found themselves on land would
be unable to protect their reproductive cells from danger.
Free-swimming algae
in
the ocean. | 4- Protection from
oxygen: Any algae which arrived on land would have taken in oxygen in a decomposed
form up until that point. According to the evolutionists' scenario, now they would
have to take in oxygen in a form they had never encountered before, in other words,
directly from the atmosphere. As we know, under normal conditions the oxygen in
the atmosphere has a poisoning effect on organic substances. Living things which
live on land possess systems which stop them being harmed by it. But algae are
marine plants, which means they do not possess the enzymes to protect them from
the harmful effects of oxygen. So, as soon as they arrived on land, it would be
impossible for them to avoid these effects. Neither is there any question of their
waiting for such a system to develop, because they could not survive on land long
enough for that to happen. There is yet another reason why
the claim that algae moved from the ocean to the land inconsistent-namely, the
absence of a natural agent to make such a transition necessary. Let us imagine
the natural environment of algae 450 million years ago. The waters of the sea
offer them an ideal environment. For instance, the water isolates and protects
them from extreme heat, and offers them all kinds of minerals they need. And,
at the same time, they can absorb the sunlight by means of photosynthesis and
make their own carbohydrates (sugar and starch) by carbon dioxide, which dissolves
in the water. For this reason, there is nothing the algae lack in the ocean, and
therefore no reason for them to move to the land, where there is no "selective
advantage" for them, as the evolutionists put it. All
of this shows that the evolutionist hypothesis that algae emerged onto the land
and formed land plants is completely unscientific. The Origin of Angiosperms When
we examine the fossil history and structural features of plants that live on land,
another picture emerges which fails to agree with evolutionist predictions. There
is no fossil series to confirm even one branch of the "evolutionary tree" of plants
that you will see in almost any biological textbook. Most plants possess abundant
remains in the fossil record, but none of these fossils is an intermediate form
between one species and another. They are all specially and originally created
as completely distinct species, and there are no evolutionary links between them.
As the evolutionary paleontologist E. C. Olson accepted, "Many new groups of plants
and animals suddenly appear, apparently without any close ancestors."343 The
botanist Chester A. Arnold, who studies fossil plants at the University of Michigan,
makes the following comment: It
has long been hoped that extinct plants will ultimately reveal some of the stages
through which existing groups have passed during the course of their development,
but it must be freely admitted that this aspiration has been fulfilled to a very
slight extent, even though paleobotanical research has been in progress for more
than one hundred years.344 Arnold
accepts that paleobotany (the science of plant fossils) has produced no results
in support of evolution: "[W]e have not been able to track the phylogenetic history
of a single group of modern plants from its beginning to the present."345
This fossil fern from the Carboniferous was found in the
Jerada region of Morocco. The interesting thing is that this fossil, which is
320 million years old, is identical to present-day ferns. | The
fossil discoveries which most clearly deny the claims of plant evolution are those
of flowering plants, or "angiosperms," to give them their scientific name. These
plants are divided into 43 separate families, each one of which emerges suddenly,
leaving no trace of any primitive "transitional form" behind it in the fossil
record. This was realised in the nineteenth century, and for this reason Darwin
described the origin of angiosperms as "an abominable mystery."
All the research carried out since Darwin's time has simply added to the amount
of discomfort this mystery causes. In his book The Paleobiology of Angiosperm
Origins, the evolutionary paleobotanist N. F. Hughes makes this admission: …
With few exceptions of detail, however, the failure to find a satisfactory explanation
has persisted, and many botanists have concluded that the problem is not capable
of solution, by use of fossil evidence.346 In
his book The Evolution of Flowering Plants, Daniel Axelrod says this
about the origin of flowering plants, The
ancestral group that gave rise to angiosperms has not yet been identified in the
fossil record, and no living angiosperm points to such an ancestral alliance.347
All this leads us to just one conclusion: Like all living things, plants were
also created. From the moment they first emerged, all their mechanisms have existed
in a finished and complete form. Terms such as 'development over time," "changes
dependent on coincidences," and "adaptations which emerged as a result of need,"
which one finds in the evolutionist literature, have no truth in them at all and
are scientifically meaningless. | 
