Skeptic Tank Text Archive File

+----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Some very, very old lies, falsehoods, deliberate minconceptions, and | | long-since debunked occult prattle from superstitious Christians who | | are anti-science. Enjoy the sillyness! | +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ The Origin Of Life The First Missing Link It is often said that all the conditions for the first production of a living organism are now present, which could ever be present. But if we could conceive in some warm little pond, with all sorts of ammonia and phosphoric salts, light, heat, electricity, etc, present, that a protein compound was chemically formed ready to undergo still more complex changes ... Charles Darwin, 1859 Origin of Species An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it going. Francis Crick Ph.D., Life Itself 1981, Nobel Laureate Life. What is it? Where did it come from? What makes it different from the dust, the air and the water on earth? From the time we humans achieve self awareness there develops a fascination with the things that crawl, slither, walk, swim and fly. This fascination with the "living protoplasm" on earth is basic to our constitution. This fascination with living things leads us all to the point when we ask "where did they come from?" The question of the origin of life has been debated by philosophers, theologians, scientists for thousands of years and is at the very core of the debate between the materialists and the creationists. Creationists see the creation of life as a powerful, visible, manifestation of an awesome designer, creator, God. To the creationist, life is the product of the greatest chemist, biologist, mathematician and engineer in or out of the universe! To the materialist (atheist), life is viewed as an incredibly lucky result of billions of years of the laws of nature acting on non-living matter. As some have put it, life is "The fortuitous occurrence of accidental circumstances." In the evolutionary scenario, the chance origin of life represents the first step, i.e. the trunk, in the evolutionary tree of life on earth. However, it is at this point in the theory of evolution where the "rubber meets the road." For at this point, if the materialist cannot conceive of a naturalistic explanation for the origin of life, then his theory of evolution is dead before it enters the starting gate. Materialists assume that 3-4 billion years ago, non-living, inanimate, inorganic matter developed into highly complex living organisms, by random chance. No one knows where it happened, but it is generally assumed to have occurred somewhere on earth, in a "primordial ooze", near deep hot oceanic vents or in some shallow tidal pool. No designer, no blue prints, no instructions, no concept or purpose are allowed in the evolutionary scenario of the origin of life. Only the laws of nature, random chance and long periods of time are allowed to act on the raw materials of life. The chance appearance of life is called "spontaneous generation." According to evolutionary dogma, this first life form was probably a single celled organism similar to a bacterium. This new life form, according to evolutionists, then developed into all the increasingly complex life forms on earth, in a relentless struggle, commonly called, "the survival of the fittest." This concept of the evolutionary development of increasingly complex animals, over the last 3 billion years, is commonly depicted in biology textbooks as an "evolutionary tree." If life did arise spontaneously and evolve into increasingly complex life forms, then spontaneous generation represents the trunk of the that evolutionary tree and the branches are the various species that developed from these earlier forms. The supposed products of spontaneous generation are unimaginably complex chemical structures, i.e. living cells. Molecular biologist and evolutionist, Michael Denton, Ph.D.. wrote in 1986: It is the sheer universality of perfection, the fact that everywhere we look, to whatever depth we look, we find an elegance and ingenuity of an absolutely transcending quality, which so mitigates against the idea of chance. Is it really credible that random processes could have constructed a reality, the smallest element of which, a functional protein or gene, is complex beyond our own creative capacities, a reality which is the very antithesis of chance, which excels in every sense beyond anything produced by the intelligence of man? According to Denton, living cells are more complex than the most complex machines ever made by man, including the space shuttle or our largest super computers! Therefore, if the materialistic theory of evolution has any validity, it must explain the origin of these complex living structures, without the supernatural introduction of design, concept, codes, programs or a designer. If the origin of life cannot be shown to be plausible by the interaction of matter, chance and time alone, then the existence of an evolutionary tree is a dubious proposition at best. Invoking any metaphysical (miraculous) events into the scenario violates evolution in it's purest form. Let no one be deceived; in it's purest form, the theory of evolution was conceived to explain our existence without the need for a creator. In this report we will examine the major research in the 20th century that pertains to the question of the origin of life. We will examine whether purely natural laws can explain the origin of highly complex cellular structures as well as the codes and programs that instruct all life forms in reproduction, metabolism and self repair. Mud to Man? The notion that life could arise from inanimate non-living matter is not a recent idea. This idea was believed at the time of the ancient Greeks. In the 6th century B.C., Greek philosopher Anaximander argued that life arose from mud that was exposed to sunlight. During the dark ages people had speculated that rats and flies spontaneously arose from garbage because rats and flies were consistently found in it when garbage was left out. Others had noticed that when meat and broths were left exposed, they became covered with maggots and microorganisms. These observations led scientists to believe that these life forms arose spontaneously from non-living, inanimate matter. However, in the late 1700's scientists began to question the idea of spontaneous generation. Louis Pasteur entered the debate in 1862 when he published the results of his experiments on the question of the spontaneous generation of microorganisms in broths. Using swan-necked glass flasks, Pasteur showed that previously boiled broths remained uncontaminated with microorganisms unless the neck of the flasks were broken. Broken flasks quickly teemed with life as the broths became cloudy. The work of Louis Pasteur seemingly ended the debate on the question of the spontaneous origin of life. It is ironic that Pasteur's experiments, which were nearly universally accepted as proof against spontaneous generation, were published at the time when Charles Darwin's "On The Origin of Species" was sweeping Europe and gaining wide acceptance among scientists. Darwin's theory required spontaneous generation as it's very first step. With Pasteur's experiments widely accepted as proof against spontaneous generation, Darwin's work brought more confusion and controversy to the question of life's origin. By the end of the nineteenth century the majority of scientists believed that spontaneous generation was not possible. Loyal Darwinists, however, insisted on spontaneous generation, recognizing that it is the foundation upon which pure evolutionary theory rests. Ernst Haeckel, commonly called "Darwin's Bulldog", stated in 1876; "If we do not accept the hypothesis of spontaneous generation, then at this one point of the history of evolution we must have recourse to the miracle of a supernatural creation." During Darwin's day the living cell was viewed as no more than an "amorphous blob of protoplasm." Many, including Darwin's grandfather, Erasmus Darwin, felt that the difference between the living and the non-living world was the presence of some "life force." In fact, many thought that it was the mere presence of electricity in living matter that separated it from non-living matter. Many experiments were done with electricity to try to create life from non-living broths. This fascination led to the Frankenstein story of the late 1800's. Obviously this view that living cells were "simple blobs" was later found to be very naive. The discoveries of 20th century molecular biologists have revealed that the "simplest" life forms are complex beyond compare. The gap between non-living matter and the simplest living cells is now known to be a gap so wide, that it is inconceivable that this gap could be bridged by chance. Again, molecular biologist, evolutionist Michael Denton, Ph.D. stated in 1986; "Although the tiniest bacterial cells are incredibly small, weighing less that 10-12 grams, each is in effect a veritable microminiaturized factory containing thousands of exquisitely designed pieces of intricate molecular machinery, made up altogether of one hundred thousand million atoms, far more complicated than any machine built by man and absolutely without parallel in the non-living world" The spontaneous generation debate heated up again in 1924 when Russian biochemist I.A.Oparin proposed that life had arisen from simpler molecules on the lifeless earth under much different atmospheric conditions. In 1928 English biologist J.B.S.Haldane published a paper in which he proposed that ultraviolet light, acting on the early primitive atmosphere, produced a concentrated primordial soup of sugars and amino acids in the oceans. Ernst Haeckel had argued that, although spontaneous generation was not observable under the current conditions on earth, it did take place in the past under unknown conditions. In 1952 Harold Urey observed that all the planets in the solar system had a reducing atmosphere (i.e. contains little or no oxygen) and proposed that spontaneous generation had occurred in the primeval oceans with such a reducing atmosphere. During the previous decades, organic chemists were able to synthesize many organic chemicals found only in living systems from inorganic, non-living chemicals. Oparin, Haldane and Urey drew on this knowledge in order to devise conditions on the primitive earth which might be suitable for the formation of complex organic chemicals. Urey proposed a radically different atmosphere which included methane, ammonia, acetylene and water vapor but no oxygen. The chemicals of life, such as proteins and nucleic acids, are destroyed instantly if they are out of their safe cellular environment and exposed to an oxygen containing environment. Oparin, Haldane and Urey knew this, and assumed that oxygen appeared later in the atmosphere as the result of plant metabolism. Methane and ammonia were thought to exist in Jupiter's atmosphere at that time, so the proposed primitive atmospheric conditions seemed reasonable. Energy for the chemical reactions were believed to be the result of lightning, volcanic eruptions, sunlight or deep oceanic vents. Given enough time, energy and mere chance, it was proposed that the building blocks of life would eventually become abundant in the primeval oceans. These building blocks, amino acids, nucleotides, fatty acids, sugars would combine and develop into the proteins, DNA, RNA, fats and sugars necessary for a living cell. We will look at proteins, DNA, RNA and proteins in more detail later. This chemical broth became known as the "primeval soup." Despite absolutely no experimental evidence for the soup or the process whereby the chemicals combined into more complex molecules, the Oparin-Haldane primeval soup theory became scientific dogma! These foundational assumptions have provided the framework for the modern theory of chemical evolution. Only minor modifications in the Oparin-Haldane-Urey model have been made in the last thirty years. This modern theory of chemical evolution assumes an atmosphere containing gases such as hydrogen, carbon dioxide, methane, carbon monoxide, ammonia, nitrogen, but no free oxygen. Stanley Miller's Bombshell In 1953 a graduate student named Stanley Miller, working under Harold Urey, Ph.D., set out to verify the Oparin-Haldane hypothesis with a simple but elegant experiment. The results of this experiment have been taught to every high school and college biology student for nearly three decades. Using a system of glass flasks, Miller attempted to simulate the early atmospheric conditions by boiling water which was mixed with ammonia, methane and hydrogen. This chemical mixture was passed by an electrical spark discharge which represented lightning passing through the early atmosphere. At the bottom of the apparatus was a trap to capture any organic molecules made by the reaction. This trap prevented the newly formed chemicals from being destroyed by the next spark. Of course this luxury would not be available on the early earth. Eventually, Miller and Urey were able to produce a mixture containing very simple amino acids. This experiment was seen by believers as virtual proof that organic chemicals, and ultimately life, could be produced by energy, chance and the early atmospheric assumptions. The gap between inanimate, lifeless matter and life was felt to be bridged by chemistry. Man and all life forms were then just a product of chance, simple chemistry and long time periods. Evolution, according to the purists, could now be taught as a virtual certainty. Stanley Miller's experiment brought scientific respectability to the question of the origin of life and evolutionary thought. A scientific dogma resulted: Time plus matter plus chance can produce people! We now have two generations of students who have been taught this belief. It is presented as fact, and in some cases, it is taught with the impression that Stanley Miller nearly created life itself in a test tube. The Products of the Miller-Urey Experiments % 85.00 Tar 13.00 Carboxylic acids not essential to life 1.05 Glycine 00.85 Alanine trace Leucine trace Glutamic acid trace Proline trace Aspartic acid trace Serine trace Valine trace Threonine There are about fifty organic chemicals we might call building blocks, necessary for the formation of life as we know it. The Miller-Urey experiments yielded two of them in significant amounts! Evolutionist Robert Cheaper stated in 1986: "As we have seen, the reaction product bears no resemblance to the actual content of a bacterium, which is an intricate, organized structure built using large molecules." Many other experimenters have tried to repeat the work of Miller and Urey. Some have done similar "spark and soup" experiments, and others have used a variety of other energy sources. Heat, ultraviolet radiation, light, shock waves and high energy chemical catalysts have been used, with varying degrees of success, in the attempts to create organic chemicals from inorganic ones. This body of work is summarized in detail in the book "The Mystery of Life's Origin." In general, when amino acids have been made, they occur in approximately the same proportion, with glycine and alanine predominating, as in the Miller-Urey experiments. It must be emphasized that the amino acids made in such experiments are structurally the most simple ones found in nature. These simple chemicals have in general only 1-3 carbon atoms in their structure. Most of the building blocks of life have many more carbon atoms in their structure. We will see later why this severely complicates the origin of life problem. Many scientists claim that the building blocks of DNA and RNA, called nucleotides, have been formed in such experiments. Nucleotides are one of the building blocks that contain numerous carbon atoms and are therefore much more complex than the simple amino acids made by spark and soup experiments. Regarding the presence of nucleotides in such sources, evolutionist Robert Cheaper stated in his book, "A Skeptics Guide to the Creation of Life", that the building blocks of DNA and RNA, (i.e. nucleotides): "have never been reported in any amount in such sources, yet a mythology has emerged that maintains the opposite....I have seen several statements in scientific sources which claim that proteins and nucleic acids themselves have been prepared ....These errors reflect the operation of an entire belief system ...The facts do not support this belief... Such thoughts may be comforting, but they run far ahead of any experimental validation'' The Myth of the Prebiotic Soup In recent years a number of scientists have spoken out regarding the problems with the Haldane- Oparin prebiotic soup theory and the Miller-Urey experiments. Many of the assumptions of the primordial atmosphere and the products of random chemical processes have been found to be inadequate to explain the origin of life. The Oxygen Problem The atmospheric conditions proposed by Oparin and Haldane were radically different from what we have now. They knew that oxygen would prevent the formation of the building blocks of life. Even if building blocks were formed they would be destroyed instantly by the oxygen. This led Oparin and Haldane to speculate that the early earth had an atmosphere which was "reducing." Such an early atmosphere might contain ammonia(NH), Methane(CH4), Water(H2O), Carbon Dioxide(CO2), but no free oxygen(O2). Many researchers have attempted to make cellular building blocks using these chemicals as a starting place. However, there are many problems with the assumption that there was no oxygen in the early atmosphere. Ozone: Earth's Safety Net One of the most difficult problems with the assumption of an oxygen free atmosphere is that there would also be no ozone layer over the early earth. Ozone is made of three oxygen atoms bonded together and is currently abundant in our upper atmosphere. Ozone is made when oxygen in the atmosphere interacts with ultraviolet radiation from the Sun. Ozone blocks deadly levels ultraviolet radiation from the Sun and allows life to persist on earth. O2 + Ultraviolet Light = Ozone (O3) If our current ozone layer were to be suddenly eliminated, all life on earth would perish. This lack of ozone is also lethal for organic chemicals such as the building blocks of proteins, RNA and DNA. Without ozone over the earth, the newly formed building blocks of life, amino acids and nucleotides, would be destroyed soon after being produced. It doesn't matter if these newly formed building blocks are in the atmosphere on dry ground or in the waters. Ultraviolet radiation of this intensity would wipe out all of these newly formed building blocks even to a depth of 10 meters under the water. Calculations have been done to estimate how much oxygen would be needed to form an effective ozone layer. It has been estimated that in order to form an effective ozone layer the oxygen content would need to be at least 10% of the amount in our current atmosphere. However, this concentration of oxygen is also enough to quickly and effectively wipe out amino acids and nucleotides. Ultraviolet light breaks the chemical bonds of complex molecules such as amino acids and nucleotides making them useless for spontaneous generation. So we have here a major dilemma. The products of the Urey-Miller experiments would be destroyed if oxygen was present, and they would be destroyed if it wasn't! This Catch-22 has been noted by very few evolutionists and is not discussed in biology texts. Even if organic chemicals could survive intense ozone bombardment and form life spontaneously, the survival of cells or any subsequent life forms, would be very doubtful in the presence of such heavy ozone bombardment. In his book "A Skeptics Guide to the Creation of Life", evolutionist Robert Cheaper points out that contemporary living organisms would die from lethal damage to the DNA code if exposed to the same levels of UV radiation that would occur without an ozone layer. The problem of intense ultraviolet radiation cannot be overstated. If life as we know it cannot live in the presence of this degree of UV radiation, then unprotected amino acids, or any other cellular building block, will be doomed almost immediately after their production. Photo Dissociation The assumption of an oxygen free atmosphere on the early earth is even more unlikely considering the process called photo dissociation. Scientists have discovered that oxygen and hydrogen gas are made when water is bombarded with ultraviolet energy from the Sun. This is an efficient process and would have resulted in the production of large quantities of oxygen in the atmosphere in a relatively short time. Studies by the Apollo 16 space team revealed that this process is possibly the major source for the oxygen in our atmosphere. 2 H2O + UV radiation = H2 (Hydrogen) + O2 (Oxygen) This fact destroys the assumption of an oxygen free atmosphere and effectively eliminates any possibility of organic building blocks surviving on land or anywhere in the atmosphere. Finally, the assumption that there was no oxygen in the early environment has been discredited by the fact that geologists have discovered evidence of oxygen in the oldest known rocks on earth. The existence of red, oxidized rock in the oldest geologic formations known on earth, proves that when those rocks were formed, that free oxygen was present in the atmosphere. Michael Denton again: "Ominously, for believers in the traditional organic soup scenario, there is no clear geochemical evidence to exclude the possibility of that oxygen was present in the Earth's atmosphere soon after the formation of it's crust." For believers in the "primordial soup", the evidence we have seen simply would not allow it to exist. Building blocks of proteins, DNA and RNA would be destroyed in an oxygen containing atmosphere by oxidation, a process which wipes out the molecules ability to function. However, in the absence of oxygen, intense UV radiation does the same. And as just noted, the assumption of an oxygen free atmosphere is incorrect, because in the presence of UV radiation, water breaks down into oxygen and hydrogen gas. Again, Michael Denton "Considering the way the prebiotic soup is referred to in so many discussions of the origin of life as an already established reality, it comes as something of a shock to realize that there is absolutely no positive evidence for it's existence." Quoted from the Chapter The Myth of the Prebiotic Soup; Evolution: A Theory in Crisis. The Problem of Chirality Biology students are often taught about the amazing "proof of spontaneous generation" brought forth by the Miller-Urey experiment with no mention. In most cases, there is no mention of the severe difficulty that molecular caroled poses to the origin of life. The building blocks of DNA (nucleotides) and proteins (amino acids) are molecules which exists in both right handed and left handed forms. They can be pictured as mirror images of one another. Just as my two hands are mirror images of one another, so are the building blocks of life mirror images of one another. If you hold your left hand up to a mirror and look into it, you notice a right hand in the reflection. This demonstrates that your hands are mirror images of each other. In the same way, if you were to hold a left handed amino acid up to a mirror you would see a right handed reflection. Molecules that exist in both right and left hand forms are said to be chiral. This caroled is the result of carbon atoms being chemically bonded to four different substituents. A carbon atom that has four different chemical substituents is said to be an "asymmetric center." CH3 CH3 C C COOH H H COOH NH2 NH2 These mirror image chemicals are referred to as dextrorotary (D-form) and levorotary (L-form). These are commonly referred to as the right and left handed forms respectively. Simple amino acids, such as the one depicted above, have one such carbon atom. Every time you add an additional carbon atom with an asymmetric center you double the number of possible forms of that given molecule. The nucleotides of the DNA and RNA molecules exists, in all life forms, in only the right handed form. Nucleotides contain several asymmetric carbon atoms and therefore exist in dozens of different forms. The nucleotides found in life have their carbon atoms all arranged in a very specific and exact arrangement. The amino acids which make up virtually all of the proteins in living systems, with very rare exception, occur only in the left handed form. During the Urey-Miller experiments it was readily acknowledged that the chemical makeup of the products of these experiments consisted of equal portions of left handed and right handed amino acids. No one has ever been able to do a spark and soup experiment which resulted in anything other than 50% left and 50% right handed products. In the case of DNA building blocks (nucleotides), as previously noted by Robert Cheaper, nucleotides have never been produced in any of the Urey-Miller "spark and soup" type experiments. In fact, no one has even come close! The fact that both L-form and R-form building blocks are produced in equal proportions poses a great difficulty for evolutionists. There is no adequate explanation how a primordial soup composed of equal portions of right handed and left handed building blocks resulted in organisms which have 100% right nucleotides and 100% left handed amino acids! Mathematically, random chance would never select such an unlikely pure molecule. If one single left handed nucleotide finds it's way into a DNA or RNA molecule, the molecule would lose it's normal structure and would cease to function. The same is true for proteins. Complex molecules such as DNA, RNA and proteins are built by adding one building block at a time onto an ever growing chain. In a "primordial soup" made up of equal proportions of right and left hand "building blocks", you would have an equal probability, at each step, of adding either a right or left handed "building block." It becomes a case of gargantuan special pleading to think that only right handed nucleotides would be added time after time without a single left handed one being added to DNA! Mathematically there is a 50% chance of binding either a right or left handed nucleotide to the growing chain of DNA. The smallest known free living life forms, bacteria, have around 12,000,000 nucleotides in their DNA. If we were to calculate the odds of adding 12 million successive right handed nucleotides to the growing chain, without a single left handed one being added, it would be .5 raised to the 12 millionth power (.5 x 10 12,000,000)!! This calculation doesn't even include the hundreds of proteins that must be built to make a bacterium. This difficulty is rarely taught to high school and college students, perhaps because of the great difficulty that it poses to the theory of spontaneous generation. Another interesting fact about complex biological systems is the functioning of enzymes in the growth and metabolism of cells. Enzymes are proteins which act to catalyze and speed up chemical reactions in biological systems. Enzymes are used in the production of DNA, RNA, proteins and most complex biological reactions. Enzymatic reactions occur like a lock and key mechanism. An enzyme (the lock) has a three dimensional highly specific shape which will only allow certain chemicals (the key) to interact and result in a reaction. As noted before, DNA and RNA are made up of right handed nucleotides. These nucleotides fit into enzymes which have an "active site" that can only receive and react with right handed nucleotides. Left handed nucleotides will not fit properly into the active site and result in a chemical reaction. In fact, the presence of left handed nucleotides will irreversibly damage an enzyme in some cases. This highly complex lock and key mechanism is very difficult to explain from an evolution point of view. A dilute primordial soup of 50% left handed and 50% right handed building blocks, seems to many chemists and physicists, to be an impossible starting point for the development of 100% left handed proteins, 100% right handed DNA or the complex lock and key mechanisms in enzymes. Toxic Waste Wipes Out Spontaneous Generation Anyone who has a significant background in chemistry knows that the presence of impurities in a chemical mixture will ruin a chemical experiment and destroy the function of enzymes. The Miller Urey experiments contained, as it's major products, "chemical junk", such as the tar and thousands of other organic hydrocarbons and acids. This mixture contains what could be compared to 97.5% chemical waste. This is the kind of chemical poison that the US. government is spending billions of dollars to clean up in neighborhoods all around the country. Why are they cleaning it up? Because it is toxic to humans. Why is it toxic? Because it damages DNA, causing cancer, and it poisons our enzymes by irreversibly binding to the active site. The result: Death! So how could life have started in an watery environment that contained mostly lethal chemical pollution? Assuming a body of water filled with DNA, RNA and protein building blocks could survive the presence of oxygen or destruction by intense UV radiation, any proteins or DNA produced would then have to survive the damaging effect of billions of enzyme inhibiting chemicals produced by the spark. Any "primordial soup" body of water would be filled with these "side reaction products." This would prevent the functioning of DNA, RNA and proteins. Not to mention the fact that no living cell on earth can survive in an environment filled with what amounts to the equivalent of a crude oil spill with toxic acids! Yet, this is essentially what is made as the major product in the Miller-Urey type experiments. Saved By The Trap! A problem seldom noted by evolutionists is that the chemical reactions that formed these building blocks in the Miller-Urey experiments are reversible. The same processes that cause the formation of organic "building blocks" will also destroy those same building blocks unless they are removed from the environment where they were formed. This was foreseen by Miller and Urey, so they included an amino acid trap that removed the newly formed chemicals before the next spark. Of course this luxury would not be available in the early earth. Those same lightning bolts, hot under sea vents, or waves of energy from the Sun that formed the building blocks of life, would immediately destroy those same chemicals if they are not immediately removed from the environment. The Rocks Speak For over twenty years geologists have searched the oldest rocks on earth for signs of organic chemicals formed in the Prebiotic soup. To date they have done so in vain. Evolutionist Michael Denton points out in his book, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis: "Rocks of great antiquity have been examined over the last two decades and in none of them has any trace of a biotically produced organic compounds been found" Equilibrium the Villain of the Plot So far we have seen that the building blocks of DNA are not produced at all by spark and soup experiments. Amino acids can be produced in very low yields, but would be destroyed with or without the presence of oxygen. We have seen that it is a mathematical miracle for one to think that a 100% left handed long chain molecule could result from a soup that contained 50% right and 50% left handed molecules. And if this were not enough, life could not exist in an environment that contained the chemical pollution which is the main product of the Miller-Urey type experiments. Despite all this evidence against the existence of a viable soup, I'll give it to you any way, for the purpose of our next argument. Even if a thick soup of "building blocks" was able to accumulate from Miller-Urey like assumptions, these building blocks would need to combine into long chains of bonded molecules to form DNA, RNA and proteins. These molecules are made by the addition of one building block at a time and result in a gradual lengthening of the chain. Each amino acid or nucleotide that is added generates a molecule of water, H2O, a process called a dehydration reaction. A major problem for believers in spontaneous generation is that the reactions that form these long chains are reversible reactions! Building blocks are broken off of the chain just as easily as they are added. So the building blocks, if they survived, would constantly be combining and uncombining in the soup. This constant combining and un-combining of the chemicals proceeds until a state of equilibrium is reached. Lets look at an example to get a feel for the concept of equilibrium. The concept of equilibrium is one that we are all familiar with even if you've never taken a chemistry course. In any broth or solution, we notice that there is the tendency for the materials to become evenly distributed with time. For example, a drop of red food dye dropped into a container of water gradually turns the entire solution a dilute red color. The larger the volume of the solvent (e.g. the water in our dye experiment) the more dilute will be the solution once the dye particles have become evenly distributed. This tendency for chemicals to become evenly distributed in solutions is referred to as the development of equilibrium. As we saw in the Miller-Urey experiment, the two amino acids produced were in concentrations of less than 2%. As noted above, the processes that created the amino acids will break them down as well. Given the fact that solutions always go towards a state of maximum diluteness (equilibrium) as well as the fact that the chemicals formed are being broken down by excessive ultraviolet radiation, oxygen or electricity, it is very difficult to imagine how a primordial soup could ever become concentrated enough for building blocks of DNA and proteins to ever come in contact with each other. Equilibrium results in the building blocks diffusing away from their site of origin in an attempt to equilibrate the solution. This equilibration process, along with the rapid breakdown of nucleotides and amino acids, makes it almost biochemically impossible to imagine how, in a watery environment, biochemical precursors could combine, stay combined and continue to build upon each other in the face of the concept of chemical equilibrium. The reversibility of biochemical reactions is a concept to which is well known to all chemistry students but rarely discussed in the context of the spontaneous generation of life. During the formation of complex biochemical structures such as proteins and DNA, the biochemical reactions are not only reversible but tend to go in the direction of the lower energy state. This lowest energy state, in the case of biological reactions, is the state of greatest randomness. In the case of long chain molecules like DNA and proteins, the lowest energy state, is a chemical broth consisting of the individual un-bonded building blocks, separate from one another, and not in long chains. Just as concentrated red dye will disperse when dropped into water, building blocks of DNA and protein will also diffuse until equilibrium is reached. At this point you would have billions of water molecules for every one building block. We noted that in the ideal conditions of the Miller-Urey experiments, the concentrations of the only two amino acids formed were less than 2%. The reaction conditions were hardly the result of random chance either. They were carefully designed by the experimenters as they adjusted the concentration of hydrogen, methane and water vapor so that the best possible products could be obtained. The formula used by Miller and Urey was time, plus matter, plus energy, plus biochemical expertise! Chance was eliminated from the experiment. Biochemical expertise is not part of the evolutionists formula for the origin of life. Chance is the antithesis of biochemical expertise! H2O Washes Up Spontaneous Generation In the previous section we noted that when DNA and protein "building blocks" are combined, a molecule of water is generated. At the same time it is true that when two "building blocks" uncombine, a molecule of water is absorbed from the broth. As we shall see, this seldom discussed fact poses a great difficulty for the origin of life by spontaneous generation.. AMINO ACID + AMINO ACID = DIPEPTIDE + H2O NUCLEOTIDE + NUCLEOTIDE = DINUCLEOTIDE + H2O In previous sections we have seen that neither air nor land are safe havens for the newly formed building blocks of life. This is of course because of their certain destruction by oxygen or intense UV radiation. So, believers in spontaneous generation have concluded that perhaps some deep sea vent, safe from oxygen and UV radiation, was the site for spontaneous generation. Although a water environment may at first seem like a safe place for the formation of life, it is the water that ultimately creates perhaps the most difficult problem for spontaneous generation on planet earth. Every first-year chemistry student is taught that reversible chemical reactions will never proceed in a direction that produces a product that is already present in excess amounts in the reaction vessel. This is called the law of mass action. As we can see by the reaction above, in order to make a long chain of nucleotides or amino acids, one will generate a large number of water molecules. The problem with the oceanic vent theory is that there is already an abundance of water. According to the law of mass action, a reversible reaction occurring in an environment with excess amounts of water will never go in the direction which is going to produce more water. In fact, the laws of chemistry and thermodynamics demand that the reaction go in the opposite direction! So we have a dilemma. Oxygen and UV radiation eliminate the possibility of life forming on land and water eliminates the possibility of forming any long chains of nucleotides or amino acids in the ocean or any body of water. So, how and where on earth did the building blocks of DNA and protein combine into long chains without being exposed to oxygen or water? This dilemma is not often discussed in college chemistry or evolution classes, but is a well known dilemma to origins researchers. This devastating dilemma has led some researchers to conclude that DNA, RNA and proteins must not have been the chemicals upon which the first life was built. But there is not one shred of evidence for this. This is simply the rampant speculation of men trying to cling to a paradigm that has exploded in their face. We might as well invoke the tooth fairy or some other supernatural force as the cause for life. But this is not science. After all, wasn't evolution supposed to eliminate the need for a supernatural cause? The Chicken or the Egg Any discussion of the origin of life would not be complete without a look at the greatest paradox of all: What came first; DNA or the proteins essential for the production of DNA? The DNA molecule, Deoxyribonucleic Acid was discovered in 1953 by Lyall Watson and Francis Crick. They later received the Nobel Prize in Biology for their efforts. During the last four decades since it's discovery, scientists have discovered many of the highly complex systems involved in the production and duplication of DNA. It has been conclusively proven that the DNA molecule is a spiral double helix (like a long ladder that has been twisted). We also know that it requires as many as twenty enzymes (specific proteins) to make a copy of itself. It has also been proven that DNA supplies the codes for the production of all proteins. So which came first: The DNA or the proteins necessary to make DNA. In order to make DNA you need highly specific proteins, each with their own assignment. But you cannot have these highly functional proteins unless you have a system in place to code for and build them in the first place. The process of copying a DNA molecule is very complex and will only be summarized here. First the DNA molecule must be unwound by a highly specific enzyme designed for this job. Once uncoiled, another set of enzymes "unzips" the DNA into its two halves. After this has begun another enzyme comes along and brings the necessary nucleotide building blocks to duplicate the DNA. After the DNA has been copied, another enzyme moves along the two newly produced molecules and screens for copying errors. If an error is found, known as a mutation, then that nucleotides is removed and the proper one is put in its place. Then, still more enzymes recoil the DNA into it's tightly wound form. As stated above, there are at least twenty enzymes necessary for this process. The copying process for the six billion nucleotides in a human cell can take only an hour or less. Modern computers can't copy a piece of code six billion letters long in that amount of time with the same accuracy! And we are asked to believe that this DNA protein system just happened by chance. This entire system is a complex digital code. The DNA code stores information for the production of all the characteristics of living creatures including: color of the hair, color of the eye, color of the skin, size and shape structure and function of all the organs in the body. This is accomplished by translating DNA into another highly complex molecule called Ribonucleic Acid (RNA) RNA then translates the DNA's instructions into the production of proteins using an apparatus called a Ribosome. This protein production machinery is no simple apparatus. It too is a complex three dimensional protein structure. The ribosome translates the instructions on the RNA molecule and bonds together the appropriate sequence of amino acids. The result is a highly specific three dimensional structure: a protein. This amazingly complex mechanism for the transcription and translation of DNA, as well as the production of proteins, is as complex in detail as any man-made manufacturing process in the world. We are asked to believe that this highly complex machinery arose as the result of chance. The problem that has become obvious is this: how did DNA arise, with it's instructions, without the existence of the necessary proteins to make it? The problem is obvious. You can't make DNA without proteins; but you can't make proteins without DNA! No adequate solution to this problem has been proposed. The Odds The above difficulties with the Urey-Miller primordial soup hypothesis have led some very prestigious scientists to calculate the probabilities of the origin of life by chance in such a primordial soup. Sir Frederick Hoyle, a world famous astronomer, knighted by the Queen of England, along with some graduate students, set out to calculate the probability of the origin of a single bacterium, by chance in a primordial soup. Using the laws of chemistry, probability, thermodynamics and a computer, they calculated the odds of the spontaneous generation of the simplest known free-living life form on earth, a bacterium. Prior to this project Hoyle was a firm believer in the spontaneous generation of life. This project however, changed his opinion 180 degrees. Hoyle and his associates knew that the smallest conceivable free-living life form needed at least 2000 independent functional proteins in order to accomplish cellular metabolism and reproduction. Starting with the hypothetical primordial soup, which in Hoyle's experiment contained all the 20 necessary amino acids, he calculated the probability of the spontaneous generation of just the proteins of a single amoebae. He determined that the probability of such a feat is one chance in ten to the 40,000th power i.e. 1 in 10 40,000! A 1 with 40,000 zeros after it. Mathematicians tell us that if an event has a probability of greater than one chance in 10 50,then that event is mathematically impossible, and if it were to occur, it would be considered a miracle! Consider that to win a state lottery you have odds of about 1 in 107. The odds of winning the state lottery every single week of your life from age 18 to age 99 is 1 in 4.6 x 1029,120. If you won the state lottery every week consecutively for eighty years this would be more likely than the spontaneous generation of just the proteins of an amoebae! In the calculations, Hoyle assumed that the primordial soup consisted only of left handed amino acids. As we noted before, all of the Miller-Urey spark and soup experiments always yielded 50% left and 50% right handed building blocks. Hoyle knew that if the soup consisted of equal portions right and left handed molecules, called a racemic mixture, that the mathematical probability of the origin of pure left handed proteins and pure right handed DNA would be exactly zero! After completing these calculations Hoyle stated that the probability of the spontaneous generation of a single bacteria: "is about the same as the probability that a tornado sweeping through a junk yard could assemble a 747 from the contents therein. " A Skeptics Guide to the Creation of Life, Robert Cheaper This research also led Hoyle to say: "The likelihood of the formation of life from inanimate matter is one to a number with 40 thousand knots after it. It is enough to bury Darwin and the whole theory of evolution. There was no primeval soup neither on this planet nor on any other, and if the beginnings of life were not random they must therefore have been the product of purposeful intelligence." Quoted in A Skeptics Guide to the Creation of Life, Robert Cheaper Hoyle s calculations may seem impressive, but they don't even begin to approximate the difficulty of the task. In his calculations, he only calculated the probability of the spontaneous generation of the proteins in the cell. He did not calculate the chance formation of the DNA, RNA or the cell wall that holds the contents of the cell together! A more realistic estimate for spontaneous generation has been made by Harold Morowitz, a Yale University physicist. Morowitz imagined a broth of living bacteria that were super heated so that all the complex chemicals were broken down into their basic building blocks. Then after cooling the mixture, he calculated that chance that a single bacterium might re-assemble. The answer computed was 1 one chance in 10 100,000,000,000 ! This number is so large that it would require several hundred thousand blank books just to write out this number. You and your entire extended family are more likely to win the lottery every week for a hundred years than to form a bacterium by chance. In his book, "A Skeptics Guide to the Creation of Life", Robert Cheaper gives a very realistic illustration of how one might estimate the odds of the spontaneous generation of life. Using the assumption that the earth is 4-5 Billion years old, and that life has been on the earth for 3.5 Billion years, he allows one billion years (5 x 1014 minutes) for the amount of time available for life to arrive by chance. Next he notes that a simple bacterium can make a copy of itself in twenty minutes, but assumes that the first life was much simpler. So he allows each trial assembly of a bacterium to last one minute, so we would have 5 x 1014 trial assemblies in 1 billion years to make a bacterium. Next he allows the entire ocean to be used as the reaction chamber. If we divided the ocean into reaction flasks the size of a bacterium we would have 1036 separate reaction flasks. If each reaction flask were to be filled with all the necessary building blocks of life, and be allowed to go through one minute trial assemblies for one billion years, we would have 10 51 tries. According to Morowitz we need 10 100,000,000,000 trial assemblies!. Regarding the probabilities calculated by Morowitz, Robert Cheaper wrote: "The improbability involved in generating even one bacterium is so large that it reduces all considerations of time and space to nothingness. Given such odds, the time until the black holes evaporate and the space to the ends of the universe would make no difference at all. If we were to wait, we would be truly be waiting for a miracle." Skeptics guide p. 128 Despite these incredible odds, and the seemingly insurmountable problems we have discussed, spontaneous generation is taught as fact from grammar school to university. In fact, NASA scientists reported to the press in 1991 that life spontaneously arose not once, but multiple times, because previous attempts were wiped out by cosmic catastrophes! Readers Digest May 1991. The reason for this fanatical adherence to spontaneous generation is eloquently pointed out by Professor George Wald, Ph.D., from Harvard University, evolutionist and winner of the Nobel Prize for biology who stated: "When it comes to the origin of life there are only two possibilities: Creation or spontaneous generation. There is no third way. Spontaneous generation was disproved one hundred years ago, but that leads us to only one other conclusion, that of supernatural creation. We cannot accept that on philosophical grounds: therefore, we choose to believe the impossible: That life arose spontaneously by chance!" Quoted in A Skeptics Guide to the Creation of Life. Robert Cheaper So George Wald says that it's not a matter of the evidence; it's a matter of philosophy! Evolutionists do not like, and cannot accept the alternative: that all the life on earth was created by a transcendent superior being. Why? Because special creation implies we are not on top of an evolutionary tree and we are subject to that higher being. The Origin of Codes and Programs So far we have seen that the primordial soup is mere wishful thinking because life's building blocks aren't safe on land, air or water. Even if they could survive the destructive effects of oxygen and UV radiation, they would never form long chains in a water environment. The law of mass action prevents the formation, in a reversible reaction, of any substance that already exists in excess. Since water is produced when life's building blocks are combined, this reaction will never go in the net direction of forming long chains of life's building blocks. Secondly, equilibrium forces molecules in a solution to disperse and not form long chains. Despite all of these barriers to the formation of DNA, RNA and proteins, for the sake of argument, I'll allow that somewhere on earth, long chains of DNA arose spontaneously by chance! Understand that here I'm essentially allowing a mathematical miracle. The question is now this: Would the DNA molecule, that, for the sake of argument, arose by chance, have any codes, programs, instructions, information on it? Let us examine this question next. Encyclopedia on a Pinhead: Chance or Design Modern day information engineers have examined the genetic code and come to the conclusion that it is a digital coding system. The amount of information in the fertilized egg, at the moment of conception, has been estimated to contain the equivalent of six billion letters. This is enough to fill all the volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica in print so small you would need a microscope to read it! The DNA coding system can be compared to the coding system involved in the production of music on a compact disc. The music on a compact disc can only be appreciated if you have a language convention established for the translation of the information on the disc as well as a machinery which functions to translate that code into music. In a compact disc player, this decoding process involves dozens of electronic and moving parts. In the living cell it isn't much different. The information on the DNA code, as we have seen, gives the instructions for the production of all the structures and functions of the human body. When one looks at a compact disc, we see no evidence of the information content on the disc's surface. We simply see the pretty rainbow color effect on the surface of the disc. Without the knowledge of the language convention on the disc, and the machinery to translate it, we must simply be content with the pretty rainbow surface. This is exactly the same dilemma we face with the genetic code. If you look simply at the sequence of nucleotides on the DNA molecule, they simply have the appearance of a long chain of chemicals and not the appearance of a message system or a code. Why? It is only when you know the language convention and have the machinery available to translate the coded information on the DNA molecule, that it becomes understandable. Therefore, the problem for evolutionists, is trying to explain how a language convention and the necessary cellular components to translate the information, arose by chance. Information engineers know that language conventions will not, can not, and do not arise by chance. Every information engineer or computer programmer knows that chance must be eliminated if one is to successfully write a code or program. By allowing you the spontaneous generation of long chains of DNA, what would you have? Are those chains of nucleotides a code or a program? Of course not. What you have is an admittedly complex chemical which has the potential of carrying a code or information! When one goes to his local computer store and buys a blank computer floppy disc, what have you purchased? Have you purchased a code or program? No! You have purchased a chemical medium which has the potential of carrying a code or a program. The floppy disc must be formatted by a computer which was in turn programmed to do this procedure. The code or program is not inherent to the iron atoms present in the disc. The abstract concept called "the program" is placed on the disc from an intelligent source who is outside and separate from it. By giving you spontaneously derived DNA, I have essentially given you blank floppy discs! In order for the DNA molecule to carry information, it's molecules need to be arranged in a specific sequence which is predetermined by the code or language convention. But the language convention must exist first. A language convention is an abstract concept that does not exist inherently in the matter upon which it is written. A code, a program or language convention has no mass, no energy, no form or shape. It is an idea or concept, is an abstract entity, which only comes from an intelligent source--a mind! Another way to demonstrate this concept is with the Morse code. If I were to hold up a rope in which I tied knots in the sequence dot-dot-dot-dash-dash-dash-dot-dot-dot, and if you were knowledgeable in the Morse code, you would know that this means SOS, and that I am in trouble. If I take that rope to a tribe of Indians in South America and show it to them, they will see nothing but a rope with knots tied on it. There will be no information content transmitted to them without the knowledge of the language convention we call the Morse code. Similarly, if I were to take a book written in English and hand it to them, it would make absolutely no sense without a knowledge of the English language convention. Just like the knots on the rope, the 26 letters of the English language have no inherent information in them. Their shapes are meaningless. It is when you "shepherd" the letters into specific sequences (determined by the previously existent language convention), that their non-random arrangement begins to have meaning. Unless the language convention exists first, the arrangement of the letters can have no meaning. Codes by Chance? The difficulty of the question of the origin of life really comes down to a question of the origin of the codes, programs, concept, information, and the teleonomy (purposeful design) that has been placed on the DNA molecule. There will always be new theories on the origin of chemicals capable of storing information. But theories on the origin of codes, programs and intelligence are few and far between. Materialists protest when they hear creationists claim the codes and programs can only be the result of intelligence (although most information engineers have no problem with this statement). Perhaps the most celebrated theories on the origin of codes by chance come from materialist Manfried Eigen. In his book Das Spiel, Eigen attempts to show how a code or program might develop by chance. Eigen argues that if the letters of the genetic code can arise by chance, then why not the words, sentences, paragraphs and the entire book. Eigen's theory goes something like this: Imagine a machine that is filled with letters which arose by chance. This machine has the ability to randomly shuffle and combine letters for millions of years without breaking down. After examining the volumes of randomly generated letters we find some rather amazing combinations. The machine has generated "AND", "MAN", "DOG", "CAT", "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want...." We stand back and see that, in fact, this machine has generated meaningful sentences. Eigen argues that this is proof of the random chance formation of information. Well is this true? A.E.Wilder-Smith in his book, "The Natural Sciences Know Nothing of Evolution", beautifully demonstrates the fallacy of this type of argument. Wilder-Smith invites a non-English speaking friend from Switzerland to examine the output of the machine. Again the machine puts out some of the highly unlikely sequences such as "HAT", "FISH", "BOY" etc. His Swiss friend stares at the machine with a blank look, quite unlike the smile an Englishman might carry. The Englishman stands amazed at the randomly generated information and a meaningful code. Our Swiss friend points out that the sequences have no meaning to him because he has no knowledge of the English language convention. Eigen's argument that information has been generated is entirely dependent on the highly unlikely, but admittedly random sequences, being interpreted in the framework of a previously existing language convention we call the English Language. Wilder-Smith points out that the letters have meaning only when we "hang" the rules and conventions of a language on the sequences themselves. Just as dots and dashes are meaningless without a knowledge of the Morse code, so too are the random arrangements of any letters, chemicals, beads, magnetic medium meaningless without rules and conventions by which we interpret the sequences. Conventions are essentially rules which result when at least two intelligent beings make an agreement that certain sequences of letters, beads on a string or sequence of nucleotides have a particular meaning. Therefore, a language convention, with it's rules and regulations, must be devised first. These rules and regulations are the foundation or basis for the language or code. So the question of the origin of life really boils down to the question of the origin of codes and programs! In thinking about the development of an information storage and retrieval system there is another decision that must be made. One must decide what medium will your message system will be tied to. Some message systems use letters in a book, knots on a rope or iron atoms on a floppy disc. So the creator of the genetic code must have consciously and systematically developed and planned the not only the code and the program but also the actual medium upon which the program will be carried. For evolutionists to imply that the language convention, we call the genetic code, can arise by chance, by the random combining and un-combining of nucleotides, in a primordial soup, is equivalent to saying that the ink on a page of a book wrote that book and not an intelligent source which is outside and separate from the book! The nucleotides that combine to produce the DNA are equivalent to the black dots of ink that combine to make the letters of text and ultimately the words, the sentences, the paragraphs, and chapters of the book. Everyone knows that the ink cannot, and will never, write a book by itself. However, this is exactly what evolutionists proposed in saying that random, senseless, unintelligent nucleotides, by chance, produced a language convention called the genetic code. This problem is recognized by information engineers and is the greatest difficulty in explaining the origin of life. The Monkey and the Typewriter The argument over the origin of the code of life goes back to the late 1800's, long before the actual chemical that supplies the codes for life was discovered. In 1860 Archbishop Wilberforce debated evolutionist Aldous Huxley on this very topic. Evolutionists had argued, that given enough time, anything was possible, even the origin of complex codes and information for the production of life. Creationists had argued, starting with William Paley that, where you see design and codes, you must have a designer or an architect of that code. During the debate Aldus Huxley asked for several assumptions to be allowed. He asked for six monkeys that would live forever. He asked for six typewriters that would never wear out. He asked for an unlimited supply of paper, and he asked for an unlimited supply of ink. He then proceeded to argue that these monkeys, given an infinite amount of time, would eventually type all of the books in the British Library, based on the laws of probability. Using the mathematical law of probability he showed that if time ("T") is infinite, then the probability ("P") of an event happening is equal to one (1). That is, the probability of any event occurring is one hundred percent if the time allowed is infinite. Although Bishop Wilberforce argued eloquently that structures such as machines and codes, which exhibit tremendous evidence of design, need to have a designer, he was unable, at the time, to see the flaws in Huxley's argument and in the eyes of the spectators, lost the debate and never debated this topic again. Again, A.E.Wilder-Smith, Ph.D., in his book The Natural Sciences Know Nothing of Evolution, shows that the typewriter Huxley used was not an accurate representation of how the code of life would be written. According to Wilder-Smith, a more appropriate typewriter, to demonstrate biological reactions, would be one in which the ink is placed on the paper with the key stroke, and when the key stroke is released the ink jumps back onto the hammer of the typewriter and leaves the paper reversibly. This is, in fact, a more accurate demonstration of what happens in biological reactions. Any first year chemistry student is taught that biological reactions, such as the combining of amino acids and nucleotides, are reversible and always tend towards equilibrium. As discussed above, equilibrium is the state of lowest energy, highest disorder i.e. highest entropy state. Therefore, for the typewriter argument to be valid, we must have a typewriter that places the letters on and off the paper with equal ease. In a chemical medium of amino acids or nucleotides, combining and un-combining, according to the laws of mass action and equilibrium, you will have "typed" as much in one minute as you would in 5 billion years! Therefore, the existence of long time periods does nothing to increase the probability of rare events happening if the steps on that path are all equally reversible! If every time you add a letter to a piece of paper, the letter comes off just as easily as it went on, you can make no progress in typing a book. No matter how much time passes, you won't have progressed. The problem is even worse for biological systems because our chemical reactions "un-type" far more efficiently than they "type in." Time The Hero of The Plot ? One of the primary foundations upon which the evolutionary scenario rests, is the belief that given a long enough time period, anything can happen. George Wald, Ph.D., Nobel Laureate, from Harvard University, said in a Scientific American article in 1954, "Time is in fact the hero of the plot. Given so much time the impossible becomes possible, the possible probable, and the probable virtually certain. One has only to wait: Time itself performs the miracles."Quoted in the Skeptics Guide to the Creation of Life. Robert Cheaper, 1986 Whenever one questions the plausibility or probability of the origin of complex molecules, the magic ingredient of time is invoked. The second law of thermodynamics, mathematical probability and equilibrium are often left out of discussion of spontaneous generation, with the assumption that the magic ingredient, time, will overcome these negative forces. Is this time assumption reasonable? As we have seen, the mathematical probabilities involved in the formation of the DNA and proteins are astronomical. And, as we have seen, equilibrium always tends to push chemical reactions in the direction of the lowest energy state and the highest degree of disorder. In order for spontaneous generation to happen the exact opposite must occur. Randomly ordered molecules must spontaneously overcome the second law of thermodynamics, which says all things go towards disorder, as well as the concept of equilibrium, in order to form complex highly structured biological molecules. This problem has been recognized and honestly discussed by only a few evolutionists. Dr. Harold F. Blum in 1955 wrote a book called "Times Arrow and Evolution" in which he states: "I think if I were rewriting this chapter on the origin of life completely I should want it to change the emphasis somewhat. I should want it to play down still more the importance of a great amount of time available for highly improbable events to occur. One may take the view that the greater the time elapsed the greater should be the approach to equilibrium, the most probable state, and it seems that this ought to take precedence in our thinking over the idea that time provides the possibility for the occurrence of the highly improbable." Dr. Blum recognizes that allowing greatly increased time spans for an improbable biological equilibrium reaction will not increase the probability of the production of an improbable end product. Dr. Blum is here effectively saying that time is not the evolutionists magic bullet. In effect, he is saying, that time is actually the enemy of the spontaneous generation plot. The longer the time periods the more likely the chemical primordial soup is going to tend towards equilibrium. And this equilibrium state is not a state where you would find end products of highly complex chemicals such as DNA, RNA and proteins. The equilibrium state, in biological reactions, is in fact, the existence of largely un-bonded building blocks in solution. The bonded building blocks are the exception and not the rule. The argument that Huxley, and many other evolutionists put forward, that long time periods is the magic ingredient for the spontaneous origin of life, is totally contradicted by Dr. Blum and other evolutionists. The books hypothetically typed out by the monkey's typewriters are stable end products and do not decompose into their individual letters. The building blocks in biological reactions, however, are constantly combining and uncombining. It is this fact, the reversibility of biological reactions, which invalidates the mathematical argument of Huxley. ET The Sower of Life ? In the last couple decades a number of world renown scientists, including astronomer Sir Fredrick Hoyle and Nobel Laureate, Francis Crick, Ph.D., have recognized the severe difficulties we have discussed and have proposed a radical new idea for the origin of life on earth--Life on earth came from outer space! Crick, the co-discoverer of DNA in the 1950's is one of the most knowledgeable and respected molecular biologists in the world. In 1973 Francis Crick and Leslie Orgil published a book in which they discussed the difficulty of the spontaneous origin of life. The conclusion in Crick's book was that with the known laws of chemistry, biology, physics, thermodynamics and mathematical probability it is virtually impossible that life could have arisen by chance in a primordial soup on planet earth at any time in history. Similar conclusions were drawn by Hoyle in his book Life From Space. Since natural forces on earth couldn't do it, one might suspect that these men would therefore invoke a supernatural intelligence for the origin of life. However, this was not the case. These men concluded that, since life could not have arisen by chance, then it must have been delivered to planet earth billions of years ago by aliens from another planet or by meteorites! The frightening thing here is that these men, and their collaborators, are some of the most respected scientists of the last thirty years in the fields of modern molecular biology and astronomy. For evolutionists, the embarrassing aspect of this is that these greatest minds have admitted that the primordial soup theory is totally inadequate to explain our origin and that none of the earth based ideas proposed for the origin of life are probable. It is also disheartening, to evolutionists, that these two men say we need to look outside of planet earth for the origin of life. The problem with this idea, as I see it, is that they have only placed the question of the origin of DNA, RNA, proteins, codes and programs back one more planet. If we were in fact seeded by intelligent beings from another planet, this theory doesn't explain the origin of those beings and the code of life that they possess. In order to make such a theory credible, they must assume that the laws of chemistry, biology, thermodynamics, and mathematical probability are different elsewhere in the universe. This thought is totally inconsistent with the current knowledge of science at this time. Science as Religion For science, it is a sad state of affairs when some of the world's most prominent scientists are forced to conclude that life on earth had an extraterrestrial origin. By invoking such a cause they are admitting that natural laws, acting on matter with long time periods will not result in highly organized machines. If natural laws on earth cannot produce life then you have only two other possible explanations for how life arose. One must assume that either the laws of nature are different somewhere else in the universe or that life is the product of a supernatural first cause. Regarding the first option, there is not a shred of evidence that the laws of nature are different anywhere else in the universe. To invoke such an explanation is certainly not an appeal to a "natural" cause, it is an appeal to an unnatural cause, i.e. an appeal to the supernatural. Again, we might as well invoke the Tooth Fairy or Santa Claus. To propose that the laws of nature are different somewhere else in the universe is really an appeal to an unprovable, untestable, unobservable, supernatural first cause. By default we have arrived at the third option-a miraculous, supernatural, i.e. metaphysical cause for life on earth. But wait a minute. The theory of spontaneous generation is an attempt to explain away a supernatural cause for the origin of life. Yet we have arrived at the place where scientists are appealing to just such a cause. Just as the evidence for the origin of the universe pointed to a supernatural cause, so does the evidence for the origin of life point to an intelligent designer. This designer must demonstrate he exists outside our time-space domain and he must be able to infuse intelligent design onto matter to create codes, programs, and therefore life. The God of the Bible fulfills both of these requirements. He demonstrates that he exists outside time and declares that he used his intelligent design through his Son, Jesus Christ, to make the universe and all life in it. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. John 1:1-3 References 1. Evolution: A Theory in Crisis; Michael Denton, 1986, pg. 342. 2. In the Minds of Men; Ian Taylor, 1987. 3. Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, Michael Denton, 1986, pg. 250 4. A.I. Oparin, 1924. Proiskhozhdenie Zhizni, Izd. Moskovski Rabochi, Moskow translation Origin of Life, Macmillan,1938 5. J.B.S. Haldane, 1928. Rationalist Annual 148:3-10 6. Harold C. Urey, 1952 The Planets Their Origin and Development. Yale University press 7. A Skeptics Guide to the Creation of Life; Robert Cheaper ,1986, pg 99 8. ibid. pg l05. 9. ibid. pg 108. 10. The Mystery of Life's Origin; C. Thaxton, W.Bradley, R. Olsen Chapt 3 11. A Skeptics Guide to the Creation of Life; Robert Cheaper, 1986 pg 109 12. Evolution: A Theory in Crisis; Michael Denton, 1986, pg 261 13. Evolution: A Theory in Crisis; Michael Denton, 1986, The Myth of the Prebiotlc Soup Chapter 14 . A Skeptics Guide to the Creation of Life; Robert Cheaper, 1986 pg 128 15. Tirnes Arrow and Evolution, Harold Blum, 1955 16. Life Itself, 1971, Francis Crick and Leslie Orgel 17. Life from Space; Fred Hoyle, 1981.