Biologists have misled us in many different ways. I describe dozens of those ways in my post here. One of the worst ways in which biologists have misled us is by again and again visually misrepresenting the degree of complexity and organization in cells. Again and again in the books and articles and school lessons of biologists, we see phony cell diagrams that make cells look 1,000 times simpler than they are. Such diagrams give people the idea that cells contain only a few components called organelles. Most of the more complex cells in the human body contain more than 100,000 organelles, of many different types.
- A cell diagram will typically depict a cell as having only one or a few mitochondria, but human cells typically have many thousands of mitochondria, as many as a million.
- A cell diagram will typically depict a cell as having only only one or a few lysosomes, but human cells typically have hundreds of lysosomes.
- A cell diagram will typically depict a cell as having only a few ribosomes, but a human cell may have up to 10 million ribosomes.
- A cell diagram will typically depict one or a few stacks of a Golgi apparatus, each with only a few cisternae. But a cell will typically have between 10 and 20 stacks, each having as many as 60 cisternae.
- A cell diagram will rarely even depict a microtubule, although according to the paper here "cells can contain from just a few to many hundreds of microtubules (Aikawa, 1971; Osborn & Weber, 1976)."
- The membranes of cells are extremely complicated structures, consisting of four layers, with each layer being populated by many types of proteins each consisting of hundreds of well-arranged parts. Some of this complexity could easily be shown by a "closeup circle" in a cell diagram, showing a closeup of part of the membrane. But we rarely see any such depiction of the complexity of the cell membrane, and cell diagrams almost always have cell membranes depicted as featureless things looking as simple as the surface of a balloon.
- The cytosol of a cell is typically depicted as if it were a simple fluid like water. But the cytosol is actually loaded with many types of complex protein molecules needed for cell function.
On the day I started to write this post I read once again what I read many times every month: a glaring example of a biologist lying. The biologist who I won't name was attacking a very serious thinker who says that Darwinism is utterly insufficient to explain the origin of biological innovations. As part of his rebuttal, the biologist drew attention to a claim of the Darwinism critic, the claim that new anatomical structures require new cell types. The biologist told us that such a claim was false. But the biologist lied. In general, new types of anatomical structures do require some new cell types. Typically a new type of anatomical structure will require some combination of cell types used elsewhere in the body and also one or more cell types used only by that anatomical structure.
To prove my point, I present the table below. In the left column, we see the main types of anatomical structures in the human body. In the right column we see only some of the cell types that are needed for such structures. Almost every type of anatomical structure listed requires at least one cell type used only by that structure. Most of the cell types that are listed are used by only one of the anatomical structures. My source for the information below is mainly the wikipedia.org article on human cell types, which you can read here. The listing here is by no means comprehensive, and I'm sure a complete list would list many additional cell types in the "cell types required" column.
Anatomical structure | Cell Types Required |
Duodenum | Brunner's gland cell |
Respiratory Tract | Insulated goblet cell, "ciliated, non-ciliated secretory cells, and basal cells" (link). |
Digestive Tract | Insulated goblet cell, enterocytes, chief cells, enteric glial cells |
Stomach | Foveolar cell, chief cell, parietal cell, Enterochromaffin cell, Enterochromaffin-like cell |
Pancreas | Pancreatic acinar cell, Centroacinar cell, Pancreatic stellate cell, alpha cell, beta cell, delta cell, epislon cell |
Small intestine | Paneth cell, tuft cells |
Lungs | Type II pneumocyte, Club cell, Type I pneumocyte, Kultschitzky's cells |
Gall bladder | Gall bladder epithelial cell |
Tongue | Von Ebner's gland cell, surface epithelial cell, taste receptor cells |
Ear | Ceruminous gland cell, Planum semilunar epithelial cell, Organ of Corti interdental epithelial cell, Elastic cartilage chondrocyte, Inner pillar cells of organ of Corti, Outer pillar cells of the organ of Corti, Inner phalangeal cells of organ of Corti, Outer hair cells of vestibular system of ear, Inner hair cells of vestibular system of ear, Outer phalangeal cells of organ of Corti, Border cells of organ of Corti, Hensen's cells of organ of Corti |
Nose | Bowman's gland cell,Olfactory epithelium supporting cells, Olfactory ensheathing cells |
Cornea (eye) | Surface epithelial cell, Corneal fibroblasts |
Iris (eye) | Smooth muscle cell, iris pigment epithelium, stroma |
Retina (eye) | Retina horizontal cells, cone cells, rod cells, bipolar cells, ganglion cells, horizontal cells, amacrine cells |
Adrenal gland | Chromaffin cells |
Mouth | Surface epithelial cell, stromal cells, endothelial cells |
Nasal cavity | Surface epithelial cell, squamous cells |
Salivary glands | Striated duct cell, acinar cells, ductal cells, myoepithelial cells |
Mammary glands, breasts | Lactiferous duct cell, myoepithetial cell |
Central nervous system | Many types of neurons, stellate cell, microglial cell |
Heart | White fat cell, cardiac muscle cell, SA node cell, Purkinje fiber cell |
Ovary | Theca Interna cell, Corpus luteum cell, Granulosa lutein cells, Theca lutein cells |
Male reproductive system (e.g. testes) | Leydig cell, seminal vessicle cell,Bulbourethral gland cell, duct cell, efferent duct cells, Epididymal principal cell, Epididymal basal cell, Spermatid, Spermatocyte, Spermatogonium cell, Spermatozoon, Sertoli cell |
Prostate gland | Prostate gland cell, duct cell |
Female reproductive system | Oogonium/oocyte, granulosa cell, |
Vagina | Bartholin's gland cell, basal cells, parabasal cells, superficial squamous flat cells |
Uterus | Uterus endometrium cell |
Urethra | Gland of Littré cell |
Kidney | Macula densa cell, Peripolar cell, Principal cell, Mesangial cell, Kidney distal tubal cell, Intercalated cell, Interstitial kidney cells |
Urinary system | Parietal epithelial cell,Podocyte, Proximal tubule brush border cell, Loop of Henle thin segment cell |
Bladder | Transitional epithelium, urothelial cells, |
Circulatory system | Endothelial cells, vascular smooth muscle cells, lymphatic endothelial cells |
Tendons | Tendon fibroblasts, |
Bones (including bone marrow) | Erythrocyte, monocyte,Bone marrow reticular tissue fibroblasts.Osteoblast/osteocyte, Osteoprogenitor cell, Megakaryocyte, osteoclast |
Liver | Hepatic stellate cell, liver lipocyte, Kupffer cells, Cholangiocytes, progenitor cells, NK cells |
Intevertebral disc | Nucleus pulposus cell |
Adipose organ (fat system) | White fat cell, brown fat cell |
Muscles | Red skeletal muscle cell (slow twitch), White skeletal muscle cell (fast twitch), Intermediate skeletal muscle cell,Nuclear bag cell, Nuclear chain cell |
Endocrine glands | Myoepithelial cell |
Immune system | Macrophages, dendritic cell, Epidermal Langerhans cell, Neutrophil granulocyte, Basophil granulocyte, Mast cell, Helper T cell, Regulatory T cell, Cytotoxic T cell, Natural killer T cell, B cell(/lymphocyte), Plasma cell, Natural killer cell |
Skin and hair | Epidermal Langerhans cell, Keratinocyte, Epidermal basal cell, Melanocyte, Trichocyte, Medullary hair shaft cell, Cortical hair shaft cell, Cuticular hair shaft cell, Huxley's layer hair root sheath cell, Henle's layer hair root sheath cell, Outer root sheath hair cell |
Thymus | Epithelial reticular cell, |
Thryoid/Parathyroid | Thyroid epithelial cell, Parafollicular cell, Parathyroid chief cell |
Peripheral nervous system | Schwann cells, Satellite glial cells, |
Interneurons | Basket cells, Cartwheel cells, Stellate cells, Golgi cells, Granule cells, Lugaro cells, Unipolar brush cells, Martinotti cells. Chandelier cells, Cajal–Retzius cells, Double-bouquet cells, Neurogliaform cells |
Pituitary gland | Corticotropes, Gonadotropes, Lactotropes, Melanotropes, Somatotropes, Thyrotropes |
ORGANELLE TYPE |
NUMBER OF TYPES OF PROTEINS IN EACH ORGANELLE |
Intermediate filaments |
163 |
Actin filaments |
237 |
Focal adhesion sites |
138 |
Microtubules |
262 |
Microtubule ends |
6 |
Cytokinetic bridge |
159 |
Midbody |
53 |
Midbody ring |
25 |
Cleavage furrow |
1 |
Mitotic spindle |
93 |
Centriolar satellite |
194 |
Centrosome |
396 |
Mitochondria |
1121 |
Aggresome |
19 |
Cytosol |
4883 |
Cytoplasmic bodies |
73 |
Rods & Rings |
20 |
Endoplasmic reticulum |
542 |
Golgi apparatus |
1163 |
Vesicles |
2238 |
Peroxisomes |
23 |
Endosomes |
17 |
Lysosomes |
19 |
Lipid droplets |
39 |
Plasma membrane |
2074 |
Cell Junctions |
330 |
Nucleoplasm |
6166 |
Nuclear membrane |
276 |
Nucleoli |
1075 |
Nucleoli fibrillar center |
311 |
Nucleoli rim |
151 |
Nuclear speckles |
493 |
Nuclear bodies |
588 |
Kinetochore |
6 |
Mitotic chromosome |
74 |
Total number of types of proteins used in human cell organelles |
13147 |
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