Biology, Creation and Evolution

The connection between biology on the one part and that of creation and evolution, on the other, is very intriguing. 

Indeed Allah has created and made everything work in the minutest detail, and yet when we realise that the whole of our earth is but a very tiny part of our solar system, and in turn the solar system is a very minuscule part of our galaxy, which in turn is just an inconsequential blip in the whole universe.... And there may be an infinite number of Universes, both tangible and intangible. And that the advent of humans on this earth is in a time frame which is but a teeny weeny fraction of the life of our planet so far. Then, we cannot fail to realize that Allah's greatness is truly unfathomable. 

There is the same complexity and vastness in our own bodies comparable to that of the Universe. Just take the mitochondria for instance. They are the tiny organelles inside cells that generate almost all our energy in the form of a chemical named ATP (adenosine triphosphate) On average there are 300-400 mitochondria in every cell, giving a total of ten million billion in each human body. Through their host cells the mitochondria shape the whole fabric of life, from energy, sex, and fertility, to cell suicide, ageing, and death. Mitochondria generate energy by pumping protons across a membrane (chemiosmosis) and this process is found in all forms of life, including the most primitive bacteria. 

Energy and life go hand in hand. When we breathe the oxygen in our breath is being transported to virtually every one of the 15 trillion cells in each of our bodies. It is used to burn glucose in cellular respiration. We are prodigious energy producing machines. Gram per gram, a person, even when sitting down comfortably, converts 10,000 times more energy than the sun every second. 

When mitochondria burn up food using oxygen, sparks (free radicals) escape to damage adjacent structures, attacking the genes in our cells almost every second. Much of the damage is put right without much ado, but occasional attacks cause irreversible mutations, and these build up over a lifetime. When cells in the body become worn out or damaged, the more seriously compromised cells die, and the steady wastage underpins both ageing and degenerative disease. One of the most important functions of mitochondria is programmed cell death (apoptosis), in which individual cells commit suicide for the greater good of the body as a whole. This function is important and cancer results when individual cells declare independence and cast of the shackles of responsibility to the organism as a whole. 

The cellular death sentence is given by the mitochondria, which integrate signals coming from different sources and “decides” to activate the cell’s silent machinery of death. Swift and smooth, almost unnoticed , some 10 billion cells die by apostosis each day in the human body. The death apparatus consists of a number of protein chemicals that are released from the mitochondria into the cell, which in turn activate enzymes which dismember the cell from within, and package its contents for reuse later by other cells. Nothing goes to waste. 

Apoptosis or programmed cell death occurs even in embryos. Most strikingly. whole populations of neurons disappear in successive waves from the embryological brain. In some regions of the brain , more than 80% of the neurons formed during the early phases of development disappear before birth. Cell death allows the brain to be sculptured and “wired” with great precision, enabling the formation of neuronal networks. The sculpting of our body is achieved by subtraction rather than addition; the formation of fingers and toes , for instance is by orderly cell death between the digits. 

Mitochondria also appear to act in the interest of the species rather than just the individuals that host them. Like all cells, it is in the interest of mitochondria to proliferate. They gain nothing by killing the host cell as they cannot survive without it. There is a limit as to how much the mitochondria can proliferate within a cell before it leads to overcrowding. So the only way they can do so is when the host cell divides. They divide and multiply in tandem with the host cell. A host cell may not be able to divide if it is damaged especially if the DNA of the cell nucleus is impaired. The mitochondria are then trapped – unable to get out and multiply. They can get out only if the host cell fused with another and recombined its DNA with that of a partner. The fused cell gains a new lease of life and the mitochondria a new playground. Sexual fusion of cells tend to mask damaged DNA, as the damaged gene is likely to be paired with an undamaged copy of the same gene. The obvious value of sexual fusion is the fast dissemination of variation and beneficial adaptations, throughout a population, thus benefiting the species.

Mitochondria have many mysterious properties and can even form into branching networks, communicating among themselves. They were once thought to be free living bacteria which adapted to life inside larger cells and now control our lives in so many surprising ways.

Mashallah, this is just one aspect of one of the signs of Allah's greatness.

Dr M Tahir