Some evolutionists have postulated that simpler forms of life (ancient early cells) engulfed other simpler forms of life (two common examples hypothesized are mitochondria and chloroplasts) to become bigger and more complex cells – like eukaryotic cells today.
Is that really possible??
Can one simpler blob of life with specific evolved genetic code engulf another simpler blob of life with it’s own specific evolved genetic code and then the host would have to incorporate the genetic code of the engulfed one…how?
Maybe you could say that that is possible, but is it likely – No.
Here’s what one researcher explains the idea: “It is alleged that at some point in the distant past, a prokaryotic cell (perhaps an archaea) engulfed a bacterium (perhaps a proteo-bacterium), and then, invoking a magical jump in lieu of any scientific explanation, hundreds of genes were somehow “retailored” to new purposes. In addition, many thousands of genes were also thought to be transferred into the cell’s nucleus, while others were discarded.”1
In fact, as we know from current observations today, the more simpler forms of life (including bacteria) would have enzymes that would more likely destroy foreign genetic material.
Also “detailed studies of the DNA base sequences have shown that the pattern of similarity between eukaryote and prokaryote is not what would be expected from the endosymbiosis hypothesis. Doolittle said, ‘Many eukaryotic genes turn out to be unlike those of any known archaea or bacteria; they seem to have come from nowhere.’ (Doolittle, D.F., Uprooting the tree of life, Scientific American 282(2):72–77, 2000.).”2
Today’s eukaryotic cells are amazingly complex – and that causes scientists to either conclude that they were designed or that somehow in some unknown ways, though highly unlikely – against the odds, simpler forms of life must have somehow built up into more complex things.
Let’s keep studying these amazingly complex things, but currently, it makes the idea of design reasonable!
Sources:
1 https://www.icr.org/article/endosymbiosis-theory-crisis
2 https://creation.com/did-cells-acquire-organelles-such-as-mitochondria-by-gobbling-up-other-cells
Picture from: https://pixabay.com/photos/bacteria-salmonella-pathogens-67659/ accessed 1/6/23.
