Evolutionist Artificial Cell Membrane Is a Cheap Fake

A “membrane” concocted by evolutionists
cannot meet the requirements for life

 

 

 

by Jerry Bergman, PhD

Trying to come up with plausible explanations for the origin of life has been a challenge ever since Darwin opened up the doorway to speculations about chemicals assembling in a “warm little pond.”

Notions of spontaneous generation have had a long history. In earlier centuries, some speculated that complex organisms such as mice could arise from straw, fleas could arise from dust, or that maggots could arise from putrid meat. Controlled experiments by Francesco Redi and Antony van Leeuwenhoek showed those ideas to be mistaken. They demonstrated that the organisms always hatched from eggs laid by parents. Louis Pasteur refuted the last vestiges of spontaneous generation of microbes and bacteria through his experiments with swan-necked flasks (see biography).

Abiogenesis is the modern equivalent of spontaneous generation where life can arise out of non-living molecules. Abiogenesis, also known as chemical evolution, proposes that the original life-forms were all very simple and gradually became increasingly complex through chemical interactions. Many such theories have been proposed and debunked during the last century as discussed in one of my books.[1] Nonetheless, new attempts are regularly proposed because abiogenesis is a central plank in the naturalistic evolutionary worldview. For Darwinian evolution to occur, life must have emerged at some time on the prebiotic Earth. Having rejected intelligent design, the authors of proposals like this assume that it happened somehow:

Few questions have captivated humankind more than the origin of life on Earth. How did the first living cells come to exist? How did these early protocells develop the structural membranes necessary for cells to thrive and assemble into complex organisms?[2]

Many difficulties have been found in all past attempts to support abiogenesis. Two scientists stated in 2020, “Abiogenesis became impossible once the present composition of the Earth was achieved.”[3] Nonetheless, efforts continue to propose chemical evolution scenarios. One approach is to tackle parts of the problem separately.

Can Abiogenesis Produce a Cell Membrane?

Rather than trying to come up with a working cell in its entirety, origin-of-life researchers often try to solve the emergence of specific parts of a cell. One of the most recent examples was the attempt to figure out how the cell membrane came to exist. Christy J. Cho and seven colleagues published their ideas in Nature Chemistry on October 30, 2024.[4]

The cell membrane is a critical part of the cell: “All known forms of life are composed of cells, whose boundaries are defined by lipid membranes that separate and protect cell contents from the environment.”[5] The degree of the problem is the following, as admitted by Cho et al:

It is unknown how the earliest forms of life were compartmentalized. Several models have suggested a role for single-chain lipids such as fatty acids, but the membranes formed are often unstable, particularly when made from shorter alkyl chains (≤C₈) that were probably more prevalent on prebiotic Earth.[6]

The new Cho research found that

the amino acid cysteine can spontaneously react with two short-chain (C₈) thioesters to form diacyl lipids, generating protocell-like membrane vesicles. The three-component reaction takes place rapidly in water using low concentrations of reactants. Silica can catalyze the formation of protocells through a simple electrostatic mechanism. Several simple aminothiols react to form diacyl lipids, including short peptides. The protocells formed are compatible with functional ribozymes, suggesting that coupling of multiple short-chain precursors may have provided membrane building blocks during the early evolution of cells.[7]

Although some media outlets acted all excited about the experiments, it is apparent that this artificial membrane made in Cho’s lab is very inferior to the actual lipid membranes surrounding cells today. One serious problem is this: a cell membrane must be semi-permeable because a membrane without active transport channels is a death trap. The membrane must be able to bring in nutrients and oxygen and expel waste products and toxins.[8] And it must be able to achieve this from day one for the cell to survive.[9]

The cell membrane performs seven major functions:

1. Protection of the intracellular components, a primary function.
2. Selective permeability which can be either passive or active
3. The removal of toxins and waste matter by a process called exocytosis and the bringing in of nutrients.
4. The housing and maintenance of cell surface receptors using complex proteins and the assisting in cell recognition/binding and other intracellular processes.
5. Cell signaling, required to communicate with other cells.
6. Cell recognition being a part of the cellular complex.
7. Cell adhesion to connect with other cells by three means, namely occluding junctions, anchoring junctions, and communicating junctions.[10]

The membrane produced by Cho et al is shown at right. Notice that it cannot perform 6 of the 7 required functions of a cell membrane.

The Results

What was obtained by the Cho experiment were microscopic structures that formed a membrane which had only one putative function: protection of the intracellular components. No intra-cellular organelles existed in their experimental membranes: no genetic code, no nucleus, and no active transport. The researchers confessed that “one possible explanation for this [membrane] result is that the favorable electrostatic interactions between the positively charged amines on the glass surface and the negatively charged head group of the diacylcysteine product inhibits the detachment of membranes into solution.”[11] Thus, if this conclusion is true, the membrane will form only when on a glass slide with a cover glass! That is hardly a realistic scenario on the early earth.

The results do not even approach the overblown claims mentioned in the University of California San Diego press release, which stated that “New research provides a possible explanation on the development of early Earth protocells.”[12]

Summary

The actual result of this research illustrates the difficulty of getting a semi-permeable cell membrane – one cell component without which a cell could not live. “Protocells” are imaginary pre-cells that evolutionists propose as progenitors to living cells. They exist only in the imaginations of materialists. This study by Cho et al. stretches the abiotic origin scenario of the first cell’s outer membrane past its bursting point—indeed, past all credibility.

 

References

[1] Bergman, J., The Three Pillars of Evolution Demolished: Why Darwin Was Wrong, WestBow Division of Thomas Nelson and Zondervan, Bloomington, IN, 2022.

[2] Franklin, M., On the origin of life: How the first cell membranes came to exist, University of California-San Diego Today, https://today.ucsd.edu/story/first-cell-membranes, 13 November 2024.

[3] Kumar, D., Steele, E.J., and Wickramasinghe, N.C., Preface: The origin of life and astrobiology. Advanced Genetics 106:xv-xviii, doi: 10.1016/S0065-2660(20)30037-7, PMID: 33081930, PMCID: PMC7568464, 2020.

[4] Cho, C.J., An, T., Lai, Y.C., et al. Protocells by spontaneous reaction of cysteine with short-chain thioesters, Nature Chemistry, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41557-024-01666-y, 30 October 2024.

[5] Franklin, 2024; ref. 2.

[6] Cho, et al., 2024; ref. 4.

[7] Cho, et al., 2024; ref. 4.

[8] Fox, F., The structure of cell membranes, Scientific American 226(2):30-39.

[9] Andreoli, T., et al., Membrane Physiology, 2^nd edition, Plenum Medical Book Company, New York, NY, 2013.

[10] Andreoli, et al., 2013; ref. 9.

[11] Andreoli, T., et al., 2013; ref. 9.

[12] Franklin, 2024; ref. 2.

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Dr. Jerry Bergman has taught biology, genetics, chemistry, biochemistry, anthropology, geology, and microbiology for over 40 years at several colleges and universities including Bowling Green State University, Medical College of Ohio where he was a research associate in experimental pathology, and The University of Toledo. He is a graduate of the Medical College of Ohio, Wayne State University in Detroit, the University of Toledo, and Bowling Green State University. He has over 1,900 publications in 14 languages and 40 books and monographs. His books and textbooks that include chapters that he authored are in over 1,800 college libraries in 27 countries. So far over 80,000 copies of the 60 books and monographs that he has authored or co-authored are in print. For more articles by Dr Bergman, see his Author Profile.