The Intelligent Design of Plants (2025 Dallas Conference on Science & Faith)

We don't realize that this technology

exists all around us.

God is invisible, but we can see these

incredible machines that he has made.

And so that faith then inspires me to go

back again and discover more of what the

Lord has done.

[Music]

Emily and I are really excited to talk

about the intelligent design of plant

leaves. Um, myself, I have a background

in biology with particular interest in

ecology and the relationships between

different organisms in an ecosystem. Um,

Emily has a PhD in biochemistry. And so,

she's going to take us on a deep dive

into the biochemical pathways that

underly a lot of um, what I'm presenting

here at the beginning. So, we're really

excited to give you this kind of

two-part presentation that gives two

different layers of design when it comes

to plants. And I proposed this this talk

when we were putting together together

the conference and John West the the

mastermind said I don't know this is all

about creatures can we really be talking

about plants and so that's why we

entitled the um the presentation plants

are creatures too they count too um so

in this first part of the presentation I

I want to start by giving you a little

bit of a um scenario. So imagine that

you're a homeowner. You're home on a

Saturday morning. you hear a knock at

the door and someone, you know, steps up

to your door. It's me. I'm a solar panel

salesman from Intelligent Solutions

Incorporated and I'd like to talk to you

about the possibility of um a solar

installation on your house. I just

happen to be in the neighborhood. A lot

of your neighbors are getting an

installation. I've taken the liberty of

walking your property. I'm pleased to

say that your home would qualify for our

latest and greatest um panels. Do you

mind if I share just a few of the

features of these solar panels? I didn't

think so. So, let me tell you. So, the

first thing that you should know about

is our panels are really special. They

will actually track the direction of

sunlight throughout the day and they'll

rotate to follow the sun and maximize

their efficiency. Um, they also, you may

have heard of that feature from some

other sellers, but ours have some other

special features. For example, um if

they collect any rainwater or debris or

anything else on the panels during the

day, the panels will actually oscillate

to one side or the other at night to

shed all that debris and rain water in

order to flatten out the next morning

and and resume photo um not

photosynthesis, resume production of uh

energy for your home. Um there are also

some other features. So, for example, if

you have some limbs on the a nearby tree

that start to brush up against the

panels during a storm, the panels will

actually protect themselves by folding

up neatly into a much smaller protective

shape. Um, and there's so much more. I

could go on and on, but the most

important thing you should know about

our panels are lifetime guaranteed. And

you know what? You don't even have to

call into the hotline. If anything goes

wrong with one of the panels, if it's

damaged in any way, the system will

actually reabsorb all of the essential

components of the panel. And then a few

days later, it'll start growing a new

panel in uh in its place. And by this

point, you're going, "Okay, I think I've

heard of solar panels tracking the sun,

but I don't know about this growing a

new panel thing." You would be right to

be skeptical that that kind of

technology exists, right? And yet plants

all around us are producing this kind of

technology in the form of leaves that

can do everything I just described and

much more. It's absolutely incredible

and yet it's so easy to take for granted

because you're just looking at a simple

leaf. It's interesting. I I see somebody

left some visual aids here. Oh, I'm

losing most of them. Um so we see these

leaves all around us. Thank you to

whoever set these up here. And we don't

realize that this technology exists all

around us. Right? So that's what we're

going to be talking about today is the

incredible technology of plant leaves

and what is happening at the biochemical

level as well.

So before we dive in too much, I want to

ask the question you may be asking what

do plant leaves have to do with science

and faith? This is a conference on

science and faith. So how does this tie

in? Well, I'd like to um kind of propose

this idea that science and intelligent

design is a place where science and

faith can really intersect and meet. And

what I mean by that is that if you go

back and you look at some of the re

revolutionaries of the scientific

revolution, people like Robert Bole,

Isaac Newton, Kepler, Galileo, these

were all men of faith who were motivated

by their belief in God to go study the

things that he had created. And so they

considered it an almost like an act of

worship or an act of devotion to go out

into nature and study the natural world

and understand it better. There's one

particular quote that I love. It's from

Robert Bole um who was a strict

sabotarian. He respected the Sabbath um

where you know he would rest on the

Sabbath. But he wrote famously in a book

called of the study of the book of

nature. He said, "I scruple not when

opportunity arises to spend some time on

the Sabbath in studying the book of the

creatures." He's talking about nature,

either by instructing myself in the

theory of nature or trying those

experiments that may improve my

acquaintance with her. Essentially, what

he's saying is that his study of the

natural world caused him to have this

awe and wonder at the one who designed

it all. And so as a result, he said, 'I

have no trouble going out and doing my

scientific investigations on the

Sabbath. After all, I'm essentially

learning about the creator himself and

um being caused to wonder at what he has

made. And then on the flip side, you

think about people of faith. Think about

the um the Hebrew authors, especially

David, some of his psalms where he's

reflecting on the beauty of the natural

world and how that again causes him to

praise. Um, this is one of my favorite

passages. This is Psalm number 104. And

David writes here, he says, 'You caused

the grass to grow for the livestock and

plants for man to cultivate that he may

bring forth food from the earth and wine

to gladden the heart of man, oil to make

his face shine, and bread to strengthen

man's heart. The trees of the Lord are

watered abundantly, the cedars of Lev

Lebanon that he planted. In them the

birds build their nests, the stork has

her home in the fur trees. Oh Lord, how

manifold are your works in wisdom you

have made them all. The earth is full of

your creatures.

Notice that he just everything he just

talked about were plants and he's

calling them creatures. So I'm just just

saying. So you see this this beautiful

intersection where the study of the

natural world causes you to have awe and

wonder for the creator and one's faith

in the creator causes one to go

investigate the way that he has designed

things in the natural world. And so

that's why I think that intelligent

design is this beautiful place where the

two kind of come together.

Now, when I said earlier that leaves are

like solar panels and I made this

analogy, you may be thinking, okay,

essentially there's some ways that

they're similar, but are they really

that similar? Well, let me just give you

a basic description of what a solar

panel is. You could describe a solar

panel as a large array of photovoltaic

cells that use direct sunlight to raise

the energy states of electrons thereby

creating an electron current which gives

rise to the potential energy in the form

of electricity. Okay, just a basic

definition of what a solar panel is

doing. Now look at the highlighted words

that I have there. If I were to replace

those green and yellow words on the

screen, you would have a really good

description of a leaf of a plant leaf. A

plant leaf could be described as a large

array of living plant cells. They use

direct sunlight to raise the energy

states of electrons, thereby creating an

electron current which gives rise to

potential energy in the form of simple

sugars. It is a very similar technology

in many ways um in terms of what it's

accomplishing and Emily will give us a

little bit of a a peak into how it's

using electron flow to accomplish this

energy conversion.

But you may also be asking, okay, so

conceptually a leaf is similar to a um a

solar panel, but surely anatomically

they're quite different. Well, sure, but

there's actually some similarities. If

you've seen a cross-section of a solar

panel like this one, you've seen that

it's got several layers of different

materials, all that accomplish different

purposes. It's got an aluminum frame, a

silicon seal, a layer of glass, it's got

the solar cells, it's got, of course,

wires that are conducting the electrical

energy from place to place. And when you

look at the cross-section of a leaf, you

see a similar thing. You see an

arrangement of particular materials or

cell types that are each accomplishing a

different function for this technology.

So at the top of the leaf, you have a

waxy cuticle. This this protective

covering. You have the upper epidermis.

You in the middle in the um misophil

section, you have the palisade cells

where photosynthesis is largely taking

place with its chloroplast. You have the

vascular bundles which are essentially

like the wires of a of a solar panel

conducting material back and forth in

the plant and then the lower lower

epidermis with all the sto or pores that

allow gas exchange with the environment.

It's an incredible technology. It relies

on each of these different cell types to

do exactly what they were designed to

do. And the amazing thing is that you

don't just see that there's this one

leaf type in the world and that somehow,

you know, evolution can explain how we

we ended up with this beautiful

canonical leaf. What you actually see is

that every unique environment around the

planet has a different leaf type that's

specially designed for that climate, for

that environment. And so what I just

showed you is kind of like a typical

canonical leaf, but if you look in all

these different environments, I've just

shown a few on the screen, you'll

actually see that there's a different

type of leaf design for each

environment. So let me just give you an

example. conifers, pine trees, um any

kind of needle um tree has several

adaptations or designs that allow it to

survive in, for example, the tundra, a

very harsh environment for for the

typical leaf. For example, these trees

actually produce antifreeze proteins

that lower the melting temperature of of

water to allow them to survive in these

environments. They have a a rounded um

leaf that allows snow and ice to slide

off more easily. Um it has a waxy

cuticle all the way around the leaf. So

not just on the top surface, but all the

way around the needle to protect it from

that freeze thaw cycle. And you could go

on and on and on. And then you compare

with something like an aerid environment

where you have pineapples, for example.

Pineapples are a CAM plant. They have

specialized um organels in their um

cells that allow the plant to open up

their pores only at night to take in as

much carbon dioxide as they can to use

that carbon dioxide to um store carbon.

And then during the day they close their

stomata so that they don't lose any um

oxygen to the heat of the day. and then

they slowly work through that carbon

dioxide reserve to power photosynthesis

um during the day. So no matter where

you go on planet Earth, no matter what

the environment, the climate, you will

find a specialized design um in plant

leaves. And so one one verse that comes

to mind for me is in in the Hebrew

scriptures in Genesis 1, it says that

each plant was created according to its

kind and it produced seeds according to

its kind. So the challenge when you're

studying plants is not to say how did

plants come about. How did we end up

with leaves? That would that would be

too easy. The question is how did you

end up with every single one of these

each of these designs specialized for

their environment?

Another dimension to the the design of

leaves that's incredible is the fact

that they're constantly sensing their

environment. So, if we go to back to

that slide where it's showing the the

sensitive plant, um you can see in this

little animation that um this particular

plant when you touch the leaves, when it

feels the pressure of an herbivore um

reaching into its branches, it will

quickly close its leaves. Similar to

what I was saying with the solar panel

being able to fold up its panels, it

will close its leaves to create the

illusion that there's really nothing

nothing to see here, nothing to munch

on. And the the herbivore will then move

along to a juicier looking plant. And

you see this throughout the plant world

that there is um that leaves are able to

sense what's going on in their

environment. Another example that some

of you may be familiar with is the

prayer plant. It's a common household

plant and there have been several

studies recently that showed that the

movement called nictus. The movement of

prayer plant leaves throughout the day

and night accomplishes several functions

for the plant. For example, shedding

rainwater that is collected during the

in the rainforest during the day.

shedding the rain water at night so that

the leaves can turn upright during the

day and continue photosynthesizing.

And one of my favorite examples comes

from a study that I did um of quaking

aspen. It's a a very important tree.

It's um a food source for Rocky Mountain

elk and it's a um clonal species which

means that it spreads through propagates

through the roots and so you can have an

entire stand of quaking aspen the size

of this room or larger that's um

genetically identical. It's basically a

single organism connected through the

roots. And one of the things we studied

um was the way that quaking aspen can

respond to the environment by sensing

whether it was being eaten by insects,

whether it was being eaten by something

like a an herbivore, a deer, an elk, or

whether it was an environment that was

free of um largely free of herbivores,

and it would have a different response.

So, for example, if insects were feeding

on the leaves, it would start producing

new leaves that had a high tannin

content, a a chemical compound that

would turn away the insects. Basically,

it's impalatable to the insects. And so,

that would be its response to insect

herbivy. If, on the other hand, the

plant decided that or could sense that

it was being fed on by something like a

deer, well, there's no good in producing

more tannin. The deer will just chew

right through that. What the plant

instead will do, it'll shoot up a new

leader. So, if we're talking about the

young um young trees, it'll shoot up a

new leader until it gets about 6 7 feet

tall, just above the b browse height of

a deer, and then it will branch out and

start producing new leaves. So, it can

sense the the danger and start producing

leaves at a at a safe height. And then

in an environment where you have neither

of those things going on, it will follow

kind of a normal growth pattern and um

really flourish in that environment. So

it's a amazing that the leaf is doing a

lot of what the solar panel is doing but

so much more right it's also sensing and

responding to its environment

and then just a few more examples here

when I say leaves are solar panels but

also so much more think about what else

the leaf is accomplishing so let me give

you a few examples leaves often take on

a particular shape sometimes we mistake

them for flowers because they're very

ornate leaves and um one example is the

bee orchid that actually mimics the the

female bee so that a male bee will come

to the flower and pollinate and um

spread from flower to flower and help it

propagate. Another example is

transpiration. The leaf is actually

taking as it's taking in oxygen from the

environment, it's also evaporating

water. And what that allows the plant to

do through capillary action is actually

to pull water all the way from the

ground through the roots up the tree. It

could be a 300t tall tree and it will

passively pull water from the ground

using this process of transpiration. And

that's all happening because of the

design of the leaf, because of how it's

designed for gas exchange. And I could

go on and on with all these incredible

examples. Um, if we have time in the

Q&A, ask me about disguise and plants

that have been discovered that can

actually disguise themselves as other

plants. An incredible feat that we still

don't quite understand. And then of

course the plant is doing so much more

even for the environment. It's capturing

carbon out of the atmosphere which is

very important for maintaining the

climate. It's producing tons of food

material. It's um regenerating the soil.

It's producing shade for larger

organisms. And then the incredible thing

the the cudra so to speak of this

technology that we find in leaves is

that if you compare it to human

technology it's like the the holy grail

of sustainable technology because it's

renewable. It's using basically infinite

solar power to run all this technology.

It's recyclable meaning all the material

that it produces in these leaves can

also be pulled back into the plant and

reused in the production of new leaves

through a process of scessence. And it's

what we call zero residue. Basically, it

means there's no waste. Any of the the

plant material that falls to the ground,

leaves, limbs, etc., all of that very

quickly becomes part of the soil and

part of the ecosystem. And so, again,

it's amazing when you compare a leaf to

something like a solar panel. It's

amazing to see that it's accomplishing a

lot of the same things, but also so much

more. Well beyond anything we could

imagine. It's like me trying to sell you

a solar panel and then at the end of my

sales pitch saying, "Oh, I forgot to

mention this solar panel is also a whole

house air conditioning unit and a

missile defense unit and a you know, all

sorts of other things, right?" Like what

an incredible thing that this one

technology can accomplish so many

things. So, with that, we're going to

dive into the the the micro level here.

So, I'm going to ask Emily to come up on

stage here, and she's going to take us

into the micro world of photosynthesis

to explain what's going on. um

biochemically.

[Applause]

Well, hello everyone. It's great to be

here this afternoon. Hello, Texas. I I

had the privilege of spending six years

in Texas when I pursued my graduate

studies at Texas A&M. So, it's always

great to be back in Texas. Howdy, y'all.

Um, so thank you Daniel for that

incredible showcase of the macroscale

design of photosynthesis. And now I'm

we're going to turn our attention, as

Daniel said, to the micro scale. And

specifically today, we're going to be

looking at photosynthesis, which is the

process by which plants turn the energy

from the sun into a more use of energy,

usable form of energy for themselves

that we sometimes call sugar or glucose.

Okay.

So, sunlight is what we call a primary

energy source. Let me go forward here.

Sunlight is what we call a primary

energy source. Other primary energy

sources are things like fossil fuels,

nuclear energy, wind energy, and hydro

power. Now, these when what I mean by

primary is these are like raw forms of

energy. They're types of energy that

haven't yet been converted or

transformed.

And then what secondary energy sources

are are they are forms of energy that

are actually more usable for end

purposes. For example, something like

electricity. Now, electricity is

something that you can use to power your

microwave. You can use it to power your

cell phone or your TV, right? It's

usable for lots of different end

applications.

So, we have these two forms, primary and

secondary of energy. Now, in order to

convert a primary energy source into a

secondary energy source, you need two

little magical words, machines and

engineering. Okay? So, you need

engineering.

Um let's just take wind energy for

example. In order to convert wind energy

into electricity, you have to have lots

of engineering, right? To build a

machine that we call a wind turbine. And

then that wind turbine is able to in an

efficient controlled way convert wind

energy into electricity.

Now this turns out to also be true for

biology. So in biology in order in the

process of photosynthesis that we're

talking about today in order to convert

solar energy into a more usable form of

energy for the cell like ATP or glucose

this process requires machines and

engineering.

Now the design implication here is that

the only source we know of that can

create machines or do engineering is a

mind or an intelligence.

So photosynthesis takes place in a

three-dimensional compartment that

Daniel mentioned called the chloroplast.

Right? And that's shown here. The

chloroplast is composed also of smaller

subcompartments. We call these gran. And

these gran are wrapped in something

called a philyloid membrane. And within

that membrane, as we're going to see,

there's lots of little molecular

machines. Now, when photon energy from

the sun strikes those molecular

machines, what happens is they're able

to convert that photon energy into a

more usable form of energy for the cell

called ATP. We're going to look at that

process in more detail. And another

important molecule that's created in

this process is called NADPH. This is

something that cells need in order to be

able to build like DNA and lipids in the

cell. Now the second part of

photosynthesis, what happens in this

part is you actually take carbon dioxide

in from the atmosphere and it gets fixed

onto a carbon backbone molecule. It's

something called the Calvin cycle. And

then that eventually becomes the

molecule that we love so much of

glucose. Right? So this is kind of an

overview of photosynthesis. Now we're

going to zoom in and start to see some

of the incredible machines and

engineering in the early part of this

process. Okay. So here we're we're there

now. This is the philyloid membrane. And

the first protein that we're going to be

looking at is called PS2 or photosystem

2. This is a complex protein structure.

It's composed of lots of different

subunits as we'll see in a minute. And

it really is nothing short of amazing.

So, for example, did you know that

photosystem 2 is the only enzyme in

nature that is known to be able to split

a water molecule into hydrogen and

oxygen. That means that this little

enzyme that's in the gran in plant

leaves is responsible for producing over

99% of all the oxygen in Earth's

atmosphere. So without this little guy,

we could not breathe. So here's more of

a closeup.

So as I said before, this is a protein

structure. It's composed of 25 to 30

individual protein subunits. So you see

all those like ribbon- like structures

there? Those are the protein subunits.

And then interspersed between these you

see the green molecules. Those are

called pigment. Pigments. You say, "What

are pigments?" Pigments are

very complex molecules like this that

absorb unique spectrums of light. Okay?

And as you saw in that picture, you can

have lots and lots and lots of them in

this protein. Now, they're a little bit

different, each one from another. And

that's really important because it

allows when you have different ones,

they absorb different spectrums. So,

here on this slide, I'm showing you um

chlorophyll A and chlorophyll B. And

these molecules absorb slightly

different spectrums of light. And when

you overlap them or have them together

in a complex, that means overall the

complex can absorb a broader spectrum of

light.

Now, now I want to talk a little bit

about how this process happens because

it's really quite incredible. So, when a

photon of light strikes, let me go

forward here. When a photon of light

strikes in this protein,

what happens? Like let's say it strikes

towards the outer part of the protein.

There's something called resonance

energy transfer whereby the photon

energy gets shuffled from the wherever

it struck the antenna complex into

what's the reaction center of this

protein. So it moves from like the

outside inward. And

this happens extremely fast. Okay. So

this actually happens in it transfers

this energy in a billionth of a second.

Okay. And this prevents energy loss and

it allow allows the ATP synthesis that

we'll see in a minute to be very

efficient.

Okay. So once energy reaches

that reaction center there we are um

what happens is there's a there's a

unique pair of molecules. In fact we

call them the special pair. And when the

energy reaches that special pair, it

causes an electron to be ejected into

what I call a biochemical wire. Okay?

And this process, so photosystem 2, it

nearly always transfers one electron

when one photon is absorbed. So it's

nearly a perfectly perfect energy

conversion rate. So if that's not an

incredible molecular machine, I am not

exactly sure what is. So in fact many

years scientists were really baffled at

the efficiency at which this occurred.

They were like how does the energy get

from out there to in here so

efficiently?

But in recent years, it's been

discovered that actually what's

happening is that the photosynthetic

proteins, they actually manipulate the

distances and the angles between those

pigment molecules to enable the

processes of light harvesting and charge

separation to occur at nearly 97%

efficiency. And you can kind of envision

how this works by thinking of the

pigment molecules like mirrors. That's

why I have this animation of mirrors up

here. so that when the mirrors are

tilted at just the right angle, it

causes the light to bounce off one to

another and transfer the energy from one

point to another in a really efficient

way.

Okay, another amazing thing about these

complexes is that they are dynamic and

they can change under different light

situations. This means that when you

have a situation of highlight, these

complexes can detect that and they

actually lose some of the energy to

prevent damage to the system. Just like

solar panels wear out, leaves also will

wear out. And so when they there's too

much sun, they actually dissipate some

of the energy. Now, contrast that when

they're in a low light condition,

they're actually able to harvest nearly

every available photon to keep their

energy processes going.

Okay, let's go back to the big picture

here. So, once the high energy electrons

start to flow through that biochemical

wire that I showed you, and you can see

it here in blue, as electrons flow, they

are able to do work. And in this case,

some of the work that they're doing is

they enable these protons to be pumped

from one side of the membrane to the

other. Okay? So in this case, they're

going from the stroma to the lumen.

So what happens to the protons here is

really analogous to what's happening to

a water dam. Okay? Just like in a water

dam, you have the the water upstream of

the dam has a lot of high potential. It

has high potential energy because it

wants to get down into the river below,

right? And that potential energy can be

harnessed by when it flows, it can be

used to spin like a hydroelect electric

uh generator and that's used to make

electricity. And the exact same thing is

actually happening with this

in the chloroplast of the of the plant

cells and specifically for this

philyloid membrane.

So what what happens here is analogous

to what's happening with the water dam.

So the membrane you can kind of think of

this is like the concrete part of the

dam. Okay. And

when you have all the protons like built

up there on that side they have a lot of

potential energy in the sense of they

want to get back to the other side of

the membrane. Okay. Now, in order to do

this, there's only one way that they can

get back to the other side of the

membrane, and that is by flowing through

this little nanocale generator called

ATP synthes. Okay, so here's a closeup.

This is really an incredible molecular

machine.

Let's see here.

So this is a nanocale hydro power

generator. Okay. It transforms

rotational energy into chemical energy.

Just like that generator in the dam

transforms rotational energy into

electricity. It is making chemical

energy in the form of ATP. This little

guy spins 130 revolutions per second.

It's shown spinning kind of slowly in

this animation, but it actually is going

130 times per second. And that makes

around 390 ATP per second.

Truly another incredible display of a

machine that is brilliantly designed.

Okay. Now, before moving into the second

part of photosynthesis, I want to talk

about the irreducible complexity of the

system. You guys have heard that term

thrown out around a little bit today.

And so maybe you're wondering like what

is irreducible complexity.

So this is the concept that was

popularized by Michael Beehe says that

systems which require a minimum number

of parts to function cannot be built in

a step-by-step manner. And Beehey gave

us the example of a mouse trap to

illustrate this. So for example with a

mouse trap if you remove any single part

of that mouse trap you don't catch 50%

as many mice in fact you don't catch any

mice right and this is the idea behind

irreducible complexity which is that

every single you need every single part

of that mouse trap in order to have the

selective advantage of being able to

catch mice and photosynthesis

is much the same way we can do a little

thought experiment just now for example

we have seen that photo system 2 or the

beginning of the complex is required in

order for generating oxygen and starting

that electron flow. If you didn't have

photos system 2, you wouldn't have

electrons moving through the biochemical

wire. If you didn't have photosystem

one, which is the end point or like the

acceptor point for the electrons,

there would be nowhere for them to go.

If you didn't have ATP synthes, there

would be no point in pumping protons

across because then you wouldn't have

like there would be no need for a

gradient to make ATP. If you didn't have

a membrane, you wouldn't have any way

for the protons to build up. So many

aspects of photosynthesis are also

irreducibly complex.

And the design implication here is that

irreducibly complex systems require a

mind to accomplish the planning and the

foresight that is necessary for such an

interdependent system to be created.

Okay, at this point we've seen some of

the beauty and the wonder of the first

part of photosynthesis. What are some

sometimes called the light reactions.

Okay. Now, I will turn to describing in

brief what are sometimes called the dark

reactions since these do not capture

light.

These reactions, I should say, they're

called dark reactions. They they happen

in light, too, but they just don't

require light. So, that's sometimes

while they're quiet, they are called the

dark reactions.

So in the dark reactions as I mentioned

before this is where carbon dioxide is

brought in and it's fixed onto this

carbon this molecule that has a carbon

backbone and that's what becomes

glucose. Now we're going to spend most

of our time today just talking about the

very first step of this process which is

where um which requires a really

important and indeed the most abundant

protein on this planet called rubiscoco.

So here's rubiscoco. Rubiscoco is really

one of a kind. It has this incredibly

hard job of pulling CO2 from the

atmosphere and attaching that onto a

molecule. Okay. But I want to tell you

guys a little secret about rubiscoco. In

many circles, especially biochemistry

circles, rubiscoco has been touted as an

example of poor design. And here's why.

Two reasons. So this protein is actually

this enzyme is very slow compared to

most proteins and enzymes. So most

enzymes can turn over like a thousand

molecules a second which is really

really fast right but rubiscoco can only

turn over three molecules per second. So

it is kind of slow.

Second when it gets hot rubiscoco is not

able to work as well. In fact, instead

of binding CO2, it starts to bind

oxygen. And so, for these two reasons,

people have said over the years or said

that it's

notoriously inefficient or sluggish

these types of words. I heard them in in

some of my own biochemistry classes that

I was that I took.

Now, I want to make a slightly different

case for this incredible enzyme. For

over 50 years, we've been studying this

amazing molecular machine and no one has

been able to improve it. Nobody's been

able to make it better. All the best

biochemists and bioengineers, you can

imagine in today's world, we really want

to be able to capture CO2 better. And

so, people have been working on this,

but without success. Um, we have not

been able yet to make Rubisco any better

than it currently is. So this gives us

some insight that maybe the actual task

of fixing carbon dioxide from the

atmosphere is very challenging and that

even though rubiscoco is slow compared

to most enzymes and when it gets hot it

doesn't work as well. It binds oxygen

maybe it's just a really hard job that

it has to do and it's not actually

poorly designed after all. For example

solar panels they're using sunlight.

They're making electricity, but they're

not also capturing CO2, right? So, this

is it's a hard job to capture CO2 from

the atmosphere. And what we've learned

over 50 years is that Rubiscoco is

pretty darn good.

Okay,

so this concludes our brief tour of the

micro scale of photosynthesis. We've

seen how a primary energy source

converts to a secondary energy source by

engineering and machines. which can only

come from intelligence. We've seen how

photosynthesis uses advanced dynamics to

achieve high efficiency of photon

capture. And we've seen how

photosynthesis has this irreducibly

complex array of molecular machines,

including the molecular generator ATP

synthes. And we've also seen how a

molecular machine in photosynthesis does

what no solar panel currently does,

pulling CO2 from the atmosphere.

So, where does all this incredible

handywork leave me? Having seen the

engineering that's required for these

molecular machines to convert sunlight

into energy, I really am left in awe.

And when I look at this, I know that

someone smarter than myself designed

this incredible system, having carefully

thought through, right, and orchestrated

each part of this so that all of them

can work together to maintain this

incredibly complex system. So just

observing these machines really bolsters

my faith in God who is invisible, right?

God is invisible. But we can see these

incredible machines that he has made.

And so that faith then inspires me to go

back again and discover more of what the

Lord has done. So thank you guys so

much. Um and I look forward to taking

any questions you might have.

[Applause]