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Consider the 20 kilobase TP53 gene named for its massive initially-believed 53 kilodalton protein product (later found to be 43 kilodaltons - see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TP53).

Something that complex and of that length doesn't just "happen" on its own. Considering there are 2^40K unique DNA strings of that length (enumerating every permutation), you could easily spend orders of magnitude more than the age of the universe waiting. Simply put, the odds of randomly generating that are none for all practical purposes.

Also consider apoptosis - where a cell recycles itself when it detects too much damage.

The principle of "survival of the fittest" would intuitively rule out the development of apoptosis - there's no reason for a cell or species to develop that feature on its own because that would damage its ability to replicate. Survival of the fittest would actually encourage cells to proliferate as tumors, because they're preserving their genomes and eating everything else out of existence.

The only logical conclusion is that apoptosis and tumor-prevention was purposefully built-in through intelligent design. There's no way that mutations alone could "figure out" that self-recycling (taking one for the team) would increase fitness. Even if 1 pre-tumor cell in a complex life form suddenly decides to recycle itself, chances are that dozens of other pre-tumor cells disagree (sinking the whole life-form). In the absence of that, the pre-tumor cell that recycles itself never survives to hand that ability on.

Additionally, it's even more implausible for mutations alone to "invent" apoptosis mechanisms and 20 kilobase mutation/damage scanners purpose-built for them.

Then you have cell differentiation. Take for example a simple 2-cell system where both cells are joined together and are specific-purposed for different tasks. If 1 of them cells breaks, the other one can't survive on its own. Obviously, decreasing a cell's survivability wouldn't increase its fitness, considering all the types of disasters and damage that could split the 2-cell system.

From a fitness perspective, you would expect any cell to retain the ability to take over the tasks of a different cell type suddenly found to be in short supply, however that often doesn't happen in more complex life forms. Mammals in particular are notorious for relative inability to regenerate large amounts of damage. The only logical conclusion is that the different cell types were purpose-built (read: intelligently designed) to work that way.

With that mountain of evidence for intelligent design, how do macroevolutionists continue to justify fooling themselves?

user1258361
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    "The principle of "survival of the fittest" would intuitively rule out the development of apoptosis" - Apoptosis is a normal part of development of multicellular organisms, and is entirely consistent with the concept of selection. For multicellular organisms, selection does not act only at the single-cell level but at the level of the entire organism. There is a mountain of evidence for evolution, not for intelligent design, and arguments for intelligent design, including yours, are either based entirely on religion or based on a misunderstanding of evolution. – Bryan Krause Jun 16 '17 at 17:00
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    umm.... why am I being accused of basing my argument on religion? considering I never even mentioned religion in the original post. All of my arguments were based on basic arithmetic and logic, something that most computers and STEM majors would be proud of. – user1258361 Jun 16 '17 at 17:25
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    I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it is not a question in the terms of SE Biology but an opinion/rant pretending to be a question. It is a clear abuse of this site. – David Jun 16 '17 at 17:34
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    @user1258361 No, your argument falls under the latter of misunderstanding evolution. See Remi.b's answer which is making exactly the same point. – Bryan Krause Jun 16 '17 at 18:23
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    @David I disagree that the post should be closed, because posts like this can often generate good responses, like the one Remi.b posted. I fear that closing posts like this without a robust refutation seems a bit like censorship and there is benefit to engaging to some extent. Not all such posts are acceptable, of course, but this one contains many easily refuted points and demonstrates a clear misunderstanding of selection and evolution as a whole. – Bryan Krause Jun 16 '17 at 18:25
  • @BryanKrause — Please re-read the introduction to SE Biology to refresh your understanding of its purpose and what constitutes a good question. That is what determines whether a question is off-topic, not whether you think someone has made a good point feeding the trolls. – David Jun 16 '17 at 21:02
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    @David "general questions about biological concepts" - Isn't evolution and selection a biological concept? I know, my first reaction to these types of posts is a face-palm, but it's nice to have good answers to point to in the future to refute these types of arguments. That's my opinion, I understand yours, and I disagree. There has been disagreement in the community as a whole, too. – Bryan Krause Jun 16 '17 at 21:11
  • @BryanKrause — I am away from my desktop, so chapter and verse will be delayed. But it cuts no ice to say "there is disagreement" when the purpose and mores of the list are perfectly clear. – David Jun 16 '17 at 21:16
  • @BryanKrause — for the record (as you already know) I have expressed my arguments on meta – David Jun 18 '17 at 22:21
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    @BryanKrause Questions about biology and evolution are of course not off-topic. Troll questions spreading intelligent design and which are obviously not interested in the answer (see the comment on Remi.B's answer) are off-topic, should be closed and not answered. – Chris Jun 19 '17 at 08:23

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You are mixing up a bunch of different subjects so that your question is very broad. The post should be closed as too broad.. I will just briefly say a few words about each misunderstanding and hopefully you'll be curious to further your understanding in each of these subjects.

The principle of "survival of the fittest" would intuitively rule out the development of apoptosis

Yes, there is. You are confusing germ lines with soma line.

A cell does not proliferate. It will just do whatever it has to do to all cells in the testes and ovaries (if we're talking about a mammal) to proliferate. Just like a worker ant can commit suicide, a cell can commit suicide. There is no contradiction between the existence of cell apoptosis and the theory of evolution.

Additionally, it's even more implausible for mutations alone to "invent" apoptosis mechanisms and 20 kilobase mutation/damage scanners purpose-built for them.

Clearly, life does not explore all of these possibilities. It only explore a little subset of it. But it does not do that by randomly picking sequence from this gigantic set of possible sequences. New sequences are created via "small modification" (actually such modification can be rather important in reality) of previously existing sequences.

Obviously, decreasing a cell's survivability wouldn't increase its fitness, considering all the types of disasters and damage that could split the 2-cell system

Same issue as above, you need to learn about the soma line germ line differentiation. It will then bring you to the field of social evolution (evolution of traits that affect other's fitness) but you'll probably have to start with an intro to evolutionary biology before going into the field of social evolution.

From a fitness perspective, you would expect any cell to retain the ability to take over the tasks of a different cell type suddenly found to be in short supply

Just google why do cells specialize, you'll get tons of hits.

With that mountain of evidence for intelligent design,

There exist no evidence for Inteligent Design mainly because Intelligent Design does not do any falsifiable and testable claims

how do macroevolutionists [..]?

The macroevolution / microevolution distinction is not used very often in evolutionary biology actually. Today, it is a distinction mainly done by religious extremists to attack the theory of evolution based on a logical fallacy called argument from incredulity

how do macroevolutionists continue to justify fooling themselves?

Maybe you should learn a little bit about science and evolutionary biology before calling scientists fool :)

This sentence suggests that you have an opinion and will not reconsider it based on evidence but I might be wrong here. Maybe you'll be able to rethink your representation of the world based on what observation of this world are being made. Good luck!

Want to learn about evolutionary biology

Understanding Evolution by UC Berkeley is a short very introductory course to evolutionary biology. You should have a look at it.

On Biology.SE, you might want to have a look at the post Is evolution a fact?.

Remi.b
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    Please don't feed the trolls. – David Jun 16 '17 at 17:35
  • Your post has more holes in it than a rag. The original question specifies 2^40K strings (K=1000) which you obviously failed to read. "A cell doesn't proliferate" -> that already violates the principle of survival and replication. A non-intelligent cell has no way of knowing the consequences of unlimited exponential replication. "Life only explores a subset of possibilities" Weakest argument ever. There is no way for a blind random process to selectively explore a subset of possibilities short of failing everything else - in fact the existence of such a subset implies intelligent design. – user1258361 Jun 16 '17 at 17:35
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    Indeed, I missed the K but you could remain polite when pointing it. For the rest, obviously, you are opinion-based and will refuse any evidence, so there is really no point about talking any further. I will be happy to help you learn about evolutionary biology when you'll be ready to learn. FYI, I (like several other users of this website) am researcher in evolutionary genetics and know a thing or two about evolutionary processes. Following @David's advice, I will not react any further unless you show good will to learn. Cheers, – Remi.b Jun 16 '17 at 17:44
  • @user1258361 I've actually never seen a rag with a hole in it. – Praearcturus Dec 03 '20 at 16:18