Mitochondria and Intelligent Design

[genovese]

Mitochondria and intelligent design

Mitochondria are essential organelles, without which most of the known animals and plants would not have evolved.

Over recent years scientific theory seems to think that these organelles were once separate orgnaisms which then became incorporated in a symbiotic relationship.

I would like to know if this theory is accepted by people who adhere to the views of intelligent design.

[anfiosso]

I asked myself if the people who adhere to the views of intelligent design know the above theories

[kotoreru]

No offence to anyone, but I imagine most people who adhere strictly to ID theory don't know what a mitochondrion is.

[Darby]

I'm not sure that you'll find a lot of IDers in the groups here. There are definitely people of faith, but I don't know how many of them adhere to the concepts of ID, which is a specific subset.

From what I understand, since ID often uses the approach of "irreducible complexity," the "jump" of mitochondria or chloroplasts into larger cells doesn't give them much to work with - there's hardly a gap to insert a designer into.

[alextemplet]

I'm not sure that you'll find a lot of IDers in the groups here. There are definitely people of faith, but I don't know how many of them adhere to the concepts of ID, which is a specific subset.

From what I understand, since ID often uses the approach of "irreducible complexity," the "jump" of mitochondria or chloroplasts into larger cells doesn't give them much to work with - there's hardly a gap to insert a designer into.

Well I do believe that the universe was created by an "intelligent designer" ie God, but I do not refer to myself as an IDer to avoid being confused for those anti-evolution types. Most of what is commonly called ID theory is, in my opinion, simply bad science at best.

[genovese]

When I first learnt of the theory I was amazed for two reasons.
Firstly I thought of this possibility 40 yrs ago when doing biochemistry as a medical student.
Secondly, I thought then, as I do now, that it was going to be a difficult concept accepting that God could have made us up out of spare part bits from other animals. Was there a hint of tiredness in the creator or lack of imagination on his part?

[genovese]

What percentage of the weight of a cell is represented by the mitochondria? I would imagine it is quite a fair proportion. If that means that a great chunk of us is made up from another species is there anybody out there who is not as surprised as I am.? We are not talking here about a few mutations over millions of years- we are talking science fiction.

[Darby]

They haven't been separate species for a really really long time, and most of the original genome has been either shipped out to the nucleus, or nuclear genes have substituted.

And their proportion in a cell depends upon what the cell is doing - mitochondria are good indicators of where the energy-intensive processes are.

[scibtag]

If that means that a great chunk of us is made up from another species is there anybody out there who is not as surprised as I am.? ... we are talking science fiction.

If you're surprised about a lot of you being something else, then mitochondria are the lesser of your worries. Think about all the bacteria coexisting with you inside your body; most particularly the subset that exist in your stomach to break down food.

You're not just a single organism, more like a whole village living in harmony for a higher purpose.

[genovese]

scibtag wrote "If you're surprised about a lot of you being something else, then mitochondria are the lesser of your worries. Think about all the bacteria coexisting with you inside your body; most particularly the subset that exist in your stomach to break down food".

All those other organisms however are not inside our body. The gastrointestinal tract is an open ended tube. Similarly, bacteria living on our skin or in our mouths are not part of our body system. Mitochondria (and chloroplast in plants) are unique in that they have managed to live within our cells. Apart from viruses (are they alive?).

Without mitochondria, we wouldn't be here. I do not think that statement applies to other bacteria taking a ride on us.

[alextemplet]

We also wouldn't be here without the bacteria that live within our gut; be they technically "inside" our body or not, we still can't live without them.

[genovese]

I'm not 100% sure which bacteria in the gut you are referring to as being incompatible with life if they were not present?

Whichever ones they are - they are certainly not in the same league as mitochondria or chloroplasts. A lot of bacteria are beneficial simply by keeping other potentially pathogenic bacteria out. However without mitochondria I doubt if we would have got as far as developing what we know as a gut.