- Millions of high school and college biology textbooks
imply that Stanley Miller, in the 1950's, showed that life could arise
by chance. Nothing could be further from the truth.
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- Miller, in his famous experiment in 1953, showed that
individual amino acids (the building blocks of life) could come into existence
by chance. But, it's not enough just to have amino acids. The various amino
acids that make-up life must link together in a precise sequence, just
like the letters in a sentence, to form functioning protein molecules.
If they're not in the right sequence the protein molecules won't work.
It has never been shown that various amino acids can bind together into
a sequence by chance to form protein molecules. Even the simplest cell
is made up of many millions of various protein molecules.
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- Also, what many don't realize is that Miller had a laboratory
apparatus that shielded and protected the individual amino acids the moment
they were formed, otherwise the amino acids would have quickly disintegrated
and been destroyed in the mix of random energy and forces involved in Miller's
experiment.
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- There is no innate chemical tendency for the various
amino acids to bond with one another in a sequence. Any one amino acid
can just as easily bond with any other. The only reason at all for why
the various amino acids bond with one another in a precise sequence in
the cells of our bodies is because they're directed to do so by an already
existing sequence of molecules found in our genetic code.
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- In Nature there are what scientists call right-handed
and left-handed amino acids. However, life requires that all proteins be
left-handed. So, not only do millions of amino acids have to be in the
correct sequence, they also all have to be left-handed. If a right-handed
amino acid gets mixed in then the protein molecules won't function. There
won't be any life!
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- If the cell had evolved it would have had to be all at
once. A partially evolved cell cannot wait millions of years to become
complete because it would be highly unstable and quickly disintegrate in
the open environment, especially without the protection of a complete and
fully functioning cell membrane. And even having a complete cell doesn't
necessarily mean there will be life. After all, even a dead cell is complete
shortly after it dies!
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- Of course, once there is a complete and living cell then
the genetic code and other biological mechanisms exist to direct the formation
of more cells. The question is how could life have arisen naturally when
there was no directing mechanism at all in Nature.
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- The great British scientist Sir Frederick Hoyle has said
that the probability of the sequence of molecules in the simplest cell
coming into existence by chance is equivalent to a tornado going through
a junk yard of airplane parts and assembling a 747 Jumbo Jet!
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- Thanks to popular evolutionist writers like Richard Dawkins,
many in society have come to believe that natural selection will solve
all of evolution's problems.
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- Natural selection cannot produce anything. It can only
"select" from what is produced. Furthermore, natural selection
operates only once there is life and not before.
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- Evolutionists believe that chance mutations in the genetic
code will produce increasingly more complex genes for natural selection
to use so that life can evolve from simpler species to more complex ones.
There is no evidence that chance mutations can or will provide increasingly
more complex genes for natural selection to act upon so that evolution
would be possible from simpler species to more complex ones. It's like
saying that the random changes caused by an earthquake will increase the
complexity of houses and bildings!
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- Natural selection is not an active force. It is a passive
process in Nature. Only those variations that have survival value will
be "selected" or be preserved. Once a variation has survival
value then, of course, it's not by chance that it is "selected".
But, natural selection, itself, does not produce or design those biological
variations. The term "natural selection" is simply a figure of
speech. Nature does not do any active or conscious selecting. It is an
entirely passive process. "Natural selection" is just another
way of saying "natural survival". If a biological change occurs
that helps a species to survive then that species, obviously, will survive
(i.e. be "selected"). Natural selection can only "select"
from biological variations that are possible in a species.
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- In the midst of arguments over evolution and intelligent
design, it is amazing how many in society, including the very educated,
believe that scientists had already created life in the laboratory. No
such thing has ever happened.
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- All that scientists have done is genetically engineer
already existing forms of life in the laboratory, and by doing this scientists
have been able to produce new forms of life, but they did not produce these
new life forms from non-living matter. Even if scientists ever do produce
life from non-living matter it will only be through intelligent design
or planning so it still wouldn't help support any theory of life originating
by chance or evolution.
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- Even artificial, or synthetic life, is a creation by
scientists, through intelligent design, of a DNA code built from "scratch"
which is then inserted into an already existing living cell.
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- There simply is no scientific basis for believing life
could have arisen by chance processes even if given the right environmental
conditions to sustain life. What if we should discover life on Mars?
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- Even if we should discover life on Mars it wouldn't prove
that such life originated by chance. Also, if we do find evidence of life
on Mars it would have most likely have come from our very own planet -
Earth! In the Earth's past there was powerful volcanic activity which could
have easily spewed rock and dirt containing microbes into outer space much
of which eventually could have reached Mars. A Newsweek article of September
21, 1998, p.12 mentions exactly this possibility.
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- "We think there's about 7 million tons of earth
soil sitting on Mars", says scientist Kenneth Nealson. "You
have to consider the possibility that if we find life on Mars, it could
have come from the Earth" [Weingarten, T., Newsweek, September 21,
1998, p.12].
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- This would also explain, as MIT scientist Dr. Walt Brown
has pointed out, why some meteorites contain organic compounds because
they are remnants of the original debris spewed from the Earth due to
very fierce ancient geological disturbances and activity.
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- Natural laws are adequate to explain how the order in
life, the universe, and even a microwave oven operates, but mere undirected
natural laws cannot fully explain the origin of such order.
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- The best little article ever written refuting the origin
of life by chance is "A Few Reasons an Evolutionary Origin of Life
Is Impossible" by scientist and biochemist Dr. Duane T. Gish. Dr.
Gish presents "simple" but profound scientific barriers to evolution
of life which aren't mentioned or covered in Johnny's high school biology
textbook or in college textbooks for that matter. This article is truly
great! Dr. Gish's aricle may be accessed at: http://icr.org/article/3140/.
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- All this simply means that real science supports faith
in an intelligent Designer behind the origin of life and the universe.
It is only fair that evidence supporting intelligent design be presented
to students alongside of evolutionary theory.
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- Science cannot prove that we're here by either chance
or design. Both require faith. Where will you place your faith?
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- *The writer, Babu G. Ranganathan, has his B.A. degree
with concentrations in theology and biology and has been recognized for
his writings on religion and science in the 24th edition of Marquis Who's
Who In The East. The author's website may be accessed at www.religionscience.com
.
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