³³ O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are His judgements, and His ways past finding out!

Researching Our Creator in Biology - What is Life?

What is Life? The time-honored question pondered by all the great philosophers throughout the ages.

This section will address biological life, and the commonly accepted characteristics that define what is alive.

8 Characteristics of Life:

1. Cell - the basic membrane-bound unit that contains the fundamental molecules of life and of which all living things are composed. A single cell is often a complete organism in itself, such as a bacterium or yeast. Other cells acquire specialized functions as they mature. These cells cooperate with other specialized cells and become the building blocks of large multicellular organisms, such as animals and humans. ^[2]
2. Genetic Material - genes, the fundamental units responsible for heredity. Genetics may be defined as the study of genes at all levels, including the ways in which they act in the cell and the ways in which they are transmitted from parents to offspring. Modern genetics focuses on the chemical substance that genes are made of, called deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA, and the ways in which it affects the chemical reactions that constitute the living processes within the cell. ^[3]
3. Reproduction - in a general sense, reproduction is one of the most important concepts in biology: it means making a copy, a likeness, and thereby providing for the continued existence of species. ^[4]
4. Growth and Development - the increases in cell size and number that take place during the life history of an organism. Growth is seldom random. Rather, it occurs according to a plan that eventually determines the size and shape of the individual. Growth may be restricted to special regions of the organism, such as the layers of cells that divide and increase in size near the tip of the plant shoot. Or the cells engaged in growth may be widely distributed throughout the body of the organism, as in the human embryo. ^[5]
5. Metabolism - the sum of the chemical reactions that take place within each cell of a living organism and that provide energy for vital processes and for synthesizing new organic material. ^[6]
6. Response to Stimuli - a biologic stimulus is any external change in the environment that can be detected by an organism. The ability to respond to a stimulus is called irritability and is a necessary condition for life. ^[7]
7. Homeostasis - the tendency of an organism or a cell to regulate its internal conditions, usually by a system of feedback controls, so as to stabilize health and functioning, regardless of the outside changing conditions. ^[8]
8. Adaptation - the adjustment or changes in behavior, physiology, and structure of an organism to become more suited to an environment. ^[9]

The learned people of the world tell us this all came about by chance, that there is no God or Divine Creator. The universe, and all that is in it, our world, life, has all come about by the roll of the dice, and eventually with enough time, consistently producing the perfect roll over and over and over again. What are the odds? Chance comes down to statistical propabilities. Besides obvious evidence, in many places throughout this dissertation we will use statistics and probability to show how inconceivable it would be for our existence to come about by mere chance.

A quick note: A general rule of thumb for a statistical impossibility, that is, a probability so low as to not be worth mentioning, is 1x10^{50 [10]}. And the presently accepted estimated value for the total number of atoms in the entire observable universe is somewhere between 1x10⁷⁸ and 1x10^{82 [11]}. To put those two numbers in perstective, we all know that the odds of winning the lottery are very small, 3.5x10^{9 [12][13]}, but compared to the other two numbers? Let us keep these incredibly large numbers in mind when we talk about statistical chance.

Let's take a look at the propability relating to biological life coming about by mere chance . . . ^[14]

References

1. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 2018
2. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 2018
3. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 2018
4. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 2018
5. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 2018
6. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 2018
7. What is a stimulus in biology?
8. Homeostasis
9. Adaptation
10. Borel, Emile (1943). Probability and Life, 1962. Dover, translated from the original, Les Probabilite et la Vie, 1943, Presses Universitaire de France.
11. Villanueva, John Carl (2015). How Many Atoms Are There In The Universe?. Article written: 30 Jul , 2009, Updated: 24 Dec , 2015
12. Powerball - Prizes and Odds
13. Cambium Learning Sopris West (2010). Probabilities and Scientific Notation
14. Chapman, Don, Muncaster, Ralph (2012). Statistical Impossibility of Evolution. Origins. Cornerstone TeleVision, Inc., 2018