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This article was originally published as a chapter in the book “Design and Catastrophe: 51 Scientists Explore Evidence in Nature"
What is a natural chemical reaction? Are all the chemical reactions found on planet Earth considered to be natural? If not, how does one decide what is naturally occurring or not? The way we speak about “nature” and “natural” leads scientists and non-scientists to a confusing and inconsistent way of applying these words. Understanding the limits of spontaneous chemical reactions informs on what can happen naturally, or without additional energy or engineered contrivances. I would like to propose that cyanobacteria, plants, and any other photosynthetic organisms can be considered unnatural chemical factories since they combine a series of unfavorable reactions to make unnatural end products.
There are many important chemical reactions happening around us all the time, some of which are spontaneous. How does one discover whether a reaction is spontaneous or not? Chemists define spontaneous reactions as those whose Gibbs free energy is favorable based on the combination of enthalpy (emitting or absorbing heat) and entropy (spreading out or coming together of atoms), along with the temperature. All chemical reactions fall into four categories that are combinations of the two enthalpy options and the two entropy options. Three types are spontaneous. The fourth non-spontaneous category describes much of the reactions found in living systems, and no amount of time, temperature, and energy can make these happen. Only a coordinated effort involving the proper ingredients, concentrations, viscosity, mixing, temperature, type of energy, pH, purity, and proper molecular geometry will make these non-spontaneous reactions happen. Intelligence is able to devise a way to make these reactions happen. Photosynthesis falls under this non-spontaneous category along with a number of critical life-supporting reactions such as the formation of DNA, RNA, and proteins.
In order for photosynthesis to work, at least eight subsystems need to be in place at the right time and place. This is another example of molecular irreducible complexity as defined by Behe and others.[1] The ingredients, carbon dioxide and water, need to be placed in the correct chemical location and amounts along with the proper temperature in order to manufacture glucose and oxygen.
Photosystem I subsystem needs 417 chemical components that are specifically arranged and aligned to capture light and begin the process of creating chemical energy. These 417 molecules consist of beta-carotenes and porphyrin molecules that have to be precisely positioned in order to collect sunlight of the proper energy and funnel it to the correct location. If the molecular spacing and relative orientations are off by the distance of a few atoms, the process will not work. Porphyrins (chlorophyll) are some of the best molecules known to humans at absorbing light, and these just so happen to be what are found inside of Photosystem I.
Photosystem II is not much simpler.[2] Photosystem II (of cyanobacteria and green plants) is composed of around 20 subunits as well as other accessory, light-harvesting proteins. Each Photosystem II contains at least 99 cofactors comprised of 35 chlorophyll a, 12 beta-carotenes, two pheophytins, two plastoquinones, two hemes, one bicarbonate, 20 lipid molecules, the Mn4CaO5 cluster, one non-heme Fe2+, and two putative Ca2+ ions per monomer. Most of these molecules need to be created and precisely positioned by the organism.
ATP synthase, cytochrome B6F, plastaquinone, plastocyanon, ferredoxin, and ferredoxin NADP+ reductase are all needed, finely tuned, and full of specialized chemicals as with Photosystems I and II. All of these systems need to be embedded in a membrane in the correct orientation and spacing to work together. The glycolic cycle is populated during this process to continually produce various chemicals such as glucose, which the photosynthetic organism uses as a structural chemical and energy storage.
According to the Darwinian narrative, bacteria figured out how to get energy from sulfur, methane, or some other chemicals next to thermal vents in the ocean, and then through natural selection and adaptation, they discovered how to manufacture glucose and dioxygen from carbon dioxide and water using photosynthesis. This process seems so naturally straightforward, how could it be wrong? Unfortunately, the actual chemistry of photosynthesis within living systems does not occur spontaneously. A brief but careful look at photosynthesis quickly shows that it is not possible to design and successfully implement this irreducibly complex set of chemical parts and chemical reactions without the involvement of intelligence.
Most of the chemical parts to the photosynthetic reaction center require intelligent design to make. These chemicals need to be manufactured within the plant by proteins and enzymes and then taken to the exact location where they will be used, properly positioned, and correctly connected. These chemical parts will fail or degrade if not properly aligned, even if all the correct chemicals are present and light energy is available. These parts do not just snap into place. Each part is carefully constructed, checked for quality, transported to the correct location, inserted properly, and integrated by chaperone proteins.
This chemistry “found in nature” continues to provide examples of some of the most unlikely and unfavorable chemical reactions, but their production has been automated. Automated processes “feel like” they are easy, routine, highly probable, and spontaneous, so most people would call this natural. This is far from the chemical reality, and a more rigorous definition of “natural” is needed.
We need chemists, biochemists, molecular biologists, and physicists who continue researching the limits of spontaneous chemical reactions so that we can know what is possible with or without intelligence. Currently, the status quo in science is that any chemical system is possible given enough time and energy. However, the natural laws of chemistry and physics can only do so much on their own. Evidence built on decades of research shows how the elaborate nanoscale systems found in photosystems are far beyond the chemical reach of spontaneity. We are living in a time that allows a very detailed view of the incredible Intelligence that designed and implemented the unnatural chemical manufacturing system known as photosynthesis.
NOTES
[1] Intelligent Design and Evolution Awareness Center. Irreducible complexity: the challenge to the Darwinian evolutionary explanations of many biochemical structures, 2004; p. 2. http:// www.ideacenter.org/contentmgr/showdetails.php/id/840 [accessed June 15, 2020]; MJ Behe. Darwin’s black box: the biochemical challenge to evolution. New York: Free Press; 1996, pp. 39–40.
[2] Wikipedia, Photosystem II. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosystem_ II#:~:text=Photosystem%20II%20(or%2water%2Dplastoquinone,plant%2C %20 algae%2C%20and%20cyanobacteria [accessed June 24, 2020].
Ryan T. Hayes is a professor of chemistry at Andrews University. He holds a PhD in Chemistry from Northwestern University. He has published papers in the areas of molecular electronics, photoinduced electron transfer, and chemical education. Dr. Hayes currently researches new properties of nanomaterials called dendrimers in addition to exploring the chemical design of life on Earth.