I recently discovered that the Harvard video The Inner Life of the Cell may not be the only material ripped off by the producers of Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed for their antiscientific purposes. Allegedly, some sequences of gene replication were stolen from a PBS program on the topic,ERV reports. ERV compares two stills, one from a segment of Expelled, and another from a PBS documentary. They are almost identical save for the color scheme.

ERV does not mention from what documentary this sequence was taken, so I cannot fully corroborate the claim. But I did watch the full (original) video, titled "The Central Dogma: Transcription of DNA to RNA." Here it is, for your viewing pleasure:

When I saw this video, and upon re-watching it for this article, I was amazed by the way the whole process of genetic transcription worked. I tried to imagine, chemically, how all the processes happened, from the reader zipping along the DNA strand and pumping out RNA to how the ribosomes assemble and construct proteins. I knew that such videos tended to personify and choreograph processes that in real life are far more random and chaotic, and tried to understand what the more chaotic version would be like.

Still, I can comprehend how many people may disbelieve evolution after seeing a video like this one. It is such a complicated process that is portrayed as going quite smoothly—how could that have evolved? And that is a very good question, one that science is still trying to answer. It made me appreciate how counter-intuitive evolution and much of modern science is: were it not for the overwhelming evidence in the form of transitional fossils, developmental biology, homologies between organisms, and so forth, few sane people would believe we had descended from the lower animals, much less single cells and, before that, strands of self-replicating molecules. Fortunately, what we may or may not consider "likely" or "intuitive" are not sufficient grounds to declare something as possible or impossible, much less true.

Ironically, while witnessing a stylized version of transcription brings abiogenesis and pre-Eukaryotic evolution into question on an emotional level, it made it easier for me to see how evolution on the level of the organism could take place. With all of this machinery in place, it is relatively easy for changes to be made. At the beginning of the process, when the reader is speeding along the DNA strand, it synthesizes RNA from random codons—three-letter pieces of genetic code—floating throughout the cellular medium. I am no biologist, but it seems to me that if, for some reason, there is a deficiency in one kind of codon or another, it may result in another codon taking its place or the RNA segment being cut short. That would cause the ribosomes to code for a different protein, changing the function of the cell and thus changing the organism. What's difficult to get into place is all the machinery. That is probably why it took about a billion years for Eukaryotic cells to evolve after life originated. However, some simplified version of this process must have existed before then, as bacteria existed as early as a few hundred million years after the formation of life.

What I do love when people debunk pseudoscientific claims, is that I learn more about science in the process. And what is there, is wonderful.