Build a worm

Re-posting a favorite post of mine from a year ago:

C elegans is a tiny worm, such a simple animal . . or it seems that way until you find out what's going on inside it. Every cell in its body has DNA, 100 million base pairs of it,  containing coded information on its inherited traits.

In 2002 a team of three scientists received a Nobel prize for their work on this worm. One of them meticulously documented how the worm develops from its original fertilized egg all the way to the adult form. 

Says Dr. Paul Nelson (video), "For the first time in biology, we were able to see and track the development of a animal from one cell to the adult. It had never been done before." This information, right down to the individual cells, was worthy of a Nobel prize.

Starting with the first cell division into two, the daughter cells are different. They shut down most of their DNA to concentrate on one system of the complete animal. It's called cell differentiation. How does the daughter cell know what to concentrate on? Natural selection can't operate at this level.

It's like it's engineered to work toward a future goal. No wonder Francis Crick felt it necessary to warn biologists to constantly remind themselves that what they see was not designed. is a simple animal . . or it seems that way until you find out what's going on inside it. Every cell in its body has DNA, 100 million base pairs of it,  containing coded information on its inherited traits.

In 2002 a team of three scientists received a Nobel prize for their work on this worm. One of them meticulously documented how the worm develops from its original fertilized egg all the way to the adult form. 

Says Dr. Paul Nelson (video), "For the first time in biology, we were able to see and track the development of a animal from one cell to the adult. It had never been done before." This information, right down to the individual cells, was worthy of a Nobel prize.

Starting with the first cell division into two, the daughter cells are different. They shut down most of their DNA to concentrate on one system of the complete animal. It's called cell differentiation. How does the daughter cell know what to concentrate on? Natural selection can't operate at this level.

It's like it's engineered to work toward a future goal. No wonder Francis Crick felt it necessary to warn biologists to constantly remind themselves that what they see was not designed.