The Origin of Life and The Suppression of Truth

Kulapavana · June 14, 2006

<TABLE><TBODY><TR><TD> </TD><TD vAlign=top>Source: http://www.direct.ca/trinity/origin.html</TD></TR><TR><TD> </TD><TD vAlign=top> </TD></TR><TR><TD> </TD><TD vAlign=top></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>

<CENTER>The Origin of Life

and The Suppression of Truth </CENTER>

By Mark Eastman, M.D. and Chuck Missler

Despite incredible odds, and seemingly insurmountable problems, spontaneous generation is taught as a fact from grammar school to university.

<CENTER>Stanley Miller's Bombshell </CENTER>

In 1953 a graduate student named Stanley Miller set out to verify the Oparin-Haldane-Urey hypothesis with a simple but elegant experiment.1 The results of this experiment have been taught to every high school and college biology student for nearly four decades.

Using a system of glass flasks, Miller attempted to simulate the early atmospheric conditions. He passed a mixture of boiling water, ammonia, methane and hydrogen through an electrical spark discharge. At the bottom of the apparatus was a trap to capture any molecules made by the reaction. This trap prevented the newly-formed chemicals from being destroyed by the next spark. Eventually, Miller was able to produce a mixture containing very simple amino acids, the building blocks of proteins.

Miller drew on decades of knowledge of organic chemistry in setting up his experiment. The proportions of the various gases used, the actual apparatus, the intensity of the spark and the chemical trap, were all carefully adjusted to create maximum yield from the experiment.

On the first attempt, after a week of electrical discharges in the reaction chamber, the sides of the chamber turned black and the liquid mixture turned a cloudy red. The predominant product was a gummy black substance made up of billions of carbon atoms strung together in what was essentially tar, a common nuisance in organic reactions.2 However, no amino acids used by living systems, or other building blocks of life, were produced on the first attempt.

After rearranging the apparatus, the experiment produced two amino acids, glycine and alanine, the simplest amino acids found in living systems. If we search the remaining products, we find a number of simple amino acids, but in yields so low that their concentrations would be insignificant in a body of water.

<CENTER>The Products of the Miller Experiment

Tar......................................................85%

Carboxlic acids not important to life.........13.0%

Glycine...............................................1.05%

Alanine...............................................0.85%

Glutamic acid........................................trace

Aspartic acid........................................trace

Valine..................................................trace

Leucine...............................................trace

Serine.................................................trace

Proline................................................trace

Treonine..............................................trace </CENTER>

Regarding the products of the Miller-Urey experiment, evolutionist Robert Shapiro stated:

"Let us sum up. The experiment performed by Miller yielded tar as its most abundant product....There are about fifty small organic compounds that are called 'building blocks'.....Only two of these fifty occurred among the preferential Miller-Urey products."3

In the past forty years, many scientists have repeated the work of Miller and Urey. Electrical sparks, heat, ultraviolet radiation, light, shock waves, and high energy chemical catalysts have been used in an attempt to create the building blocks of life.4 In general, when amino acids have been made, they occur in approximately the same proportion, with glucine and alanine predominating, as in the Miller's experiment.

The Case of the Missing Letters

In the English language convention there are twenty-six letters that are used to write sentences, paragraphs, chapters, and books. These letters are strung together according to hundreds of predetermined rules. Anyone with a knowledge of those rules can understand the information conveyed by the sequence of letters.

In all living systems there are a special set of four chemical "letters," called nucleotides, which are used to "write" the information stored by the code of life, the Genetic Code. Millions of these nucleotides are strung together, end to end, in long chains, thus forming the DNA molecule (Figure 1. Link. The instructions necessary to produce all the living structures on earth are "written" by the rules of the genetic code and carried by these chains of chemical letters. These chemical letters represent only a tiny part of the "hardware" that must arise by chance in order for spontaneous generation to occur. However, nucleotides are much more complex then the simple amino acids made by Miller and Urey, and would require much more chemical expertise to produce.

Many claims have been made that nucleotides of DNA have been produced in such "spark and soup" experiments. However, after a careful review of the scientific literature, evolutionist Robert Shapiro stated that the nucleotides of DNA and RNA,

"....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 his belief...Such thoughts may be comforting, but they run far ahead of any experimental validation."5 (Emphasis added).

The DNA molecule is formed by two chains of nucleotides which are bonded together to form the structure of a spiral double helix. Somewhat like a ladder which is twisted from the top down.

After nearly four decades of trying, with the best equipment and the best minds in chemistry, not even the "letters" of the genetic code have been produced by random chemical processes. If the letters cannot be produced by doctorate-level chemists, how can we logically assume that they arose by chance in a chemical quagmire?

A Troubled Paradigm

Stanley Miller's experiment was seen by believers as virtual proof that organic chemicals, and ultimately life, could be produced by chance chemistry. It brought a greater measure of scientific respectability to the theory of spontaneous generation and evolutionary thought. Evolution, according to the purists, could now be taught as a virtual certainty. The impact of this experiment on the scientific community is expressed by evolutionist and astronomer Carl Sagan:

"The Miller-Urey experiment is now recognized as the single most significant step in convincing any scientists that life is likely to be abundant in the cosmos."6

This opinion, however, is not universally held by evolutionists. With the advantage of three decades of hindsight, and extensive discoveries in molecular biology, evolutionist Robert Shapiro comments on the significance of the Miller-Urey experiments:

"The very best Miller-Urey chemistry, as we have seen, does not take us very along the path to a living organism. A mixture of simple chemicals, even one enriched in a few amino acids, no more resembles a bacterium than a small pile of real and nonsense words, each written on an individual scrap of paper, resembles the complete works of Shakespeare."7

After a careful examination of the Miller experiment, Shapiro recognized that the simple chemicals he produced are a far cry from the incredible complexity of a living cell.

In the last 20 years a number of scientists have spoken out regarding the problems with the Haldane-Oparin paradigm. Most of the assumptions of the primordial atmosphere, even the existence of the "primordial soup," have been seriously questioned by origins researchers. Carl Woese, of the University of Illinois expressed the inadequacy of the Oparin thesis:

"The Oparin thesis has long ceased to be a productive paradigm: it no longer generates novel approaches to the problem...These symptoms suggest a paradigm whose course is run, one that is no longer a valid model of the true state of affairs."8

Let's look at some of the evidence that has threatened the Oparin-Haldane-Miller thesis.

THE MYTH OF THE PRE-BIOTIC ATMOSPHERE

The Oxygen Problem

The atmospheric conditions proposed by Oparin, Haldane and Urey were radically different from what presently exists. Because oxygen destroys the chemical building blocks of life, they speculated that the early earth had an oxygen-free atmosphere. However, in the last twenty years, evidence has surfaced that has convinced most atmospheric scientists that the early atmosphere contained abundant oxygen.

In the 1970's Apollo 16 astronauts discovered that water is broken down into oxygen and hydrogen gas in the upper atmosphere when it is bombarded by ultraviolet radiation. This process, called photo dissociation, is an efficient process which would have resulted in the production of large quantities of oxygen in a relatively short time. Studies by the astronauts revealed that this process is probably a major source of oxygen in our current atmosphere. 2 H2O + uv Radiation -- H2 (hydrogen gas) + O2 (oxygen gas)

The assumption of an oxygen-free atmosphere has also been rejected on theoretical grounds. The ozone layer around planet earth consists of a thin but critical blanket of oxygen gas in the upper atmosphere. This layer of oxygen gas blocks deadly levels of ultraviolet radiation from the sun.9 Without oxygen in the early atmosphere, there could have been no ozone layer over that early earth. Without an ozone layer, all life on the surface of planet earth would face certain death from exposure to intense ultraviolet radiation. Furthermore, the chemical building blocks of proteins, RNA and DNA, would be quickly annihilated because ultraviolet radiation destroys their chemical bonds.10 It doesn't matter if these newly formed building blocks are in the atmosphere, on dry ground, or under water.11,12,13

So we have a major dilemma. The products of the Miller-Urey experiments would be destroyed if oxygen was present, and they would be destroyed if it wasn't! This "catch 22" has been noted by evolutionist and molecular biologist Michael Denton:

"What we have then is a sort of 'Catch 22' situation. If we have oxygen we have no organic compounds, but if we don't we have none either."14

Even if the building blocks of life could survive the effects of intense ultraviolet radiation and form life spontaneously, the survival of any subsequent life forms would be very doubtful in the presence of such heavy ultraviolet light. Ozone must be present to protect any surface life from the deadly effects of ultraviolet radiation from the sun.

Finally, the assumption that there was no oxygen in the early atmosphere is not borne out by the geologic evidence. Geologists have discovered evidence of abundant oxygen content in the oldest known rocks on earth. Again, Michael Denton:

"Ominously, for believers in the traditional organic soup scenario, there is no clear geochemical evidence to exclude the possibility that oxygen was present in the Earth's atmosphere soon after the formation of its crust."15

All of this evidence supports the fact that there was abundant oxygen on the early earth.

Ammonia and Methane Short Lived

The assumption of an atmosphere consisting mainly of ammonia, methane, and hydrogen, has also been seriously questioned. In the 1970's scientists concluded that ultraviolet radiation from the sun, as well as simple "rainout," would eliminate ammonia and methane from the upper atmosphere in a very short time.16 In 1981, Atmospheric scientists from NASA concluded that:

"the methane and ammonia-dominated atmosphere would have been very short lived, if it ever existed at all."17

The Myth of the Pre-biotic Soup

During the last two decades, the notion of a primordial soup has not fared too well either. Studies of the atmosphere, ultraviolet radiation, and the dilutional effect of a large body of water, have convinced many scientists that the ocean could not have developed into the "hot dilute soup" that was envisioned by Darwin, Oparin, and Haldane.

Oparin envisioned the production of cellular building blocks in the atmosphere as a result of lightning or ultraviolet radiation. Stanley Miller's experiment attempted to validate this concept. Once produced, these chemicals would theoretically build up in the primordial oceans and combine to form the first living systems. However, since Miller's experiments in 1953, it has been estimated that it would take up to two years for amino acids to fall from the atmosphere into the ocean.18 This is a problem because even small amounts of ultraviolet radiation would destroy the building blocks before they reached the oceans. Furthermore, as we saw earlier, lack of ozone would further expedite this destruction.19

Saved By The Trap!

A problem seldom noted by textbooks is that the chemical reactions that produced the amino acids in Miller's experiments are reversible. That is, the same energy sources that cause the formation of the building blocks of life will also destroy those same building blocks unless they are removed from the environment where they were created. In fact, the building blocks of life are destroyed even more efficiently than they are created. This was foreseen by Miller and Urey, so they included a chemical trap to remove the newly formed chemicals before the next spark. Of course, this luxury would not be available on the early earth.

These problems have convinced many origins researchers that the idea of a primordial soup is quite unlikely. Michael Denton comments on the lack of evidence for the primordial soup:

"Rocks of great antiquity have been examined over the past two decades and in none of them has any trace of abiotically produced organic compounds been found...Considering the way the pre- biotic 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 its existence."20 (Emphasis added).

The Origin of DNA and Proteins

Up to this point we've discussed the origin of just the building blocks of living cells. The destructive effect of oxygen, ultraviolet radiation from the sun and the short duration of an optimal atmosphere for their production, makes it unlikely that significant quantities of viable nucleotides and amino acids could ever accumulate in the primitive ocean. However, even if they did accumulate in sufficient quantities, the next step is to explain how they combined to form the self-duplicating DNA molecule and the thousands of proteins found in the simplest living cells. For the materialistic scenario to be taken seriously, it must provide a plausible explanation for the origin of these enormous molecules without the introduction of biochemical know-how.

The Problem of Chirality

One of the most difficult problems for the materialistic scenario on the origin of life is something called molecular chirality. The building blocks of DNA and proteins are molecules which can exist in both right and left-handed mirror-image forms (Figure 2). This "handedness" is called "chirality."21,22 These mirror-image chemicals are referred to as dextrorotary (dextro-form) and levorotary (levo-form).23

In all living systems the building blocks of the DNA and RNA exist exclusively in the right-handed form, while the amino acids in virtually all proteins in living systems, with very rare exception, occur only in the left-handed form.24

The dilemma for materialists is that all "spark and soup-like" experiments produce a mixture of 50% left (levo) and 50% right-handed (dextro) products.25,26 Such a mixture of dextro and levo amino acids is called a "racemic mixture." Unfortunately, such mixtures are completely useless for the spontaneous generation of life.27

Complex molecules such as DNA 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-handed building blocks, there is an equal probability at each step of adding either a right or left-handed building block.28,29 Consequently, it is a mathematical absurdity to propose that only right-handed nucleotides would be added time after time without a single left-handed one being added to a growing DNA molecule. Sooner or later an incorrect, left-handed nucleotide will be added. The same goes for proteins. Every time another amino acid is added to the growing chain of amino acids the chances are virtually certain that both right and left-handed amino acids will be added.

With unguided or undirected chemistry, a primordial ooze consisting of right and left-handed building blocks can only result in the production of DNA and proteins composed of a mixture of right and left-handed building blocks.

This dilemma has enormous implications for the materialistic scenario.30 For a living cell to function properly, it is absolutely necessary for it to contain the correct three-dimensional structure in its DNA and proteins.

This correct three-dimensional structure is in turn dependent upon proteins built from a pure mixture of left-handed amino acids and DNA built from right-handed nucleotides. Consequently, if even one nucleotide or amino acid with the incorrect "handedness" is inserted into a DNA or protein molecule, the three-dimensional structure will be annihilated and it will cease to function normally.

Enzymes: The Cell's Miniature Factories

The importance of the three-dimensional structure of proteins can best be illustrated by the function of enzymes. Virtually all of the complex chemical reactions in living cells involve special proteins called enzymes. Enzymes act to speed up (catalyze) chemical reactions in biological systems. Enzymes are employed in the production of DNA, RNA, proteins, and nearly every chemical reaction in the cell. Digestion, thought, sight, and the function of nerve and muscles all require the use of enzymes. In fact, these activities would be impossible without them.

Enzymatic reactions occur like "lock and key" mechanisms. An enzyme (the lock) has a highly specific three-dimensional shape which will only allow chemicals with the correct three-dimensional fit (the key) to bind and result in a chemical reaction. (Figure 3).

In this illustration the enzyme breaks the bond that holds two sugar molecules together releasing two unbonded sugars.

The three-dimensional structure of these protein enzymes (which is determined by the sequence of pure l-amino acids) must be preserved within a narrow range or these "lock and key" chemical reactions cannot occur. Consequently, a primordial soup consisting of equal portions of left and right-handed amino acids, which will only result in proteins containing equal portions of left and right-handed amino acids, is incapable of forming enzymes with the correct three-dimensional shapes and precise "lock and key" mechanisms. Therefore, a primordial soup of left and right-handed building blocks is completely incapable of forming life.

Since all spark and soup experiments produce a 50/50 mix of right and left-handed amino acids, chemists have tried to decipher how only left-handed amino acids became integrated into the proteins of living systems. For decades chemists have attempted to separate out a pure mixture of left-handed amino acids from a racemic mix by chance chemistry alone. Chance, or un-directed chemistry has, however, consistently proven to be an inadequate mechanism for the separation of the right and left-handed amino acid forms.31 So, how did it happen? Mathematically, random-chance would never select such an unlikely pure molecule out of a racemic primordial soup.

The solution is simple, yet it has profound implications. To separate the two amino acid forms requires the introduction of biochemical expertise or know-how, which is the very antithesis of chance! However, biochemical expertise or know-how comes only from a mind. Without such know-how or intelligent guidance, the right and left-handed building blocks of life will never separate. Consequently, enzymes, with their lock and key mechanisms, and ultimately, life, are impossible!32

However, the existence of a mind or a Creator involved in the creation of life is anathema to the atheist's scenario. But the volume of biochemical knowledge supports this fact: To produce pure mixtures of left-handed amino acids and right-handed nucleotides, requires intelligent guidance. And since no human chemists were around before the origin of life on earth, the source of this intelligent guidance must have been extraterrestrial!

Toxic Waste Wipes Out Spontaneous Generation

The major products made in Miller's experiment were a mixture of tar and thousands of organic acids. This "chemical junk," which comprised 98% of the material produced by Miller, is very similar to the chemical waste that the U.S. government is spending billions of dollars to remove from neighborhoods all around the country. Why are they removing these chemicals? Because they are toxic to humans.

Organic acids, such as those produced by Miller, can damage DNA, causing cancer and other diseases. They also poison our enzymes by irreversibly binding to them.33 Any primordial soup would be filled with these toxic products and would quickly and efficiently prevent the functioning of DNA, RNA, and proteins. The result: death! In fact, it is unlikely that any currently living cell on earth could survive in the chemical environment produced by Miller's experiment.34 Considering the toxicity of the primordial soup, it is perhaps the last place on earth that life might arise.35

H2O "Washes Up" Spontaneous Generation

We noted previously that DNA and proteins are built by adding one building block at a time onto an ever-lengthening chain. With the addition of each amino acid or nucleotide, a molecule of water is released. This is called a condensation reaction and is fully reversible, i.e., it can proceed in either direction as indicated by the arrows in figure 4.

In previous sections we have seen that neither air nor land are safe havens for the newly formed building blocks of life because of their certain destruction by oxygen or intense UV radiation. So believers in spontaneous generation have concluded that the first life forms may have arisen near a deep sea volcanic vent, safe from oxygen and UV radiation. Although a water environment may seem like safe place for the formation of life, it is the release of a water molecule in the above reaction that creates one of the most difficult problems for the theory of spontaneous generation.

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.36 The production of DNA and proteins from their building blocks results in the production of a large number of water molecules. A problem for the oceanic vent theory (or any water based primordial soup theory) is that there is already an abundance of water. Consequently, the reaction above will never proceed in a direction which produces more water. In fact, the laws of chemistry and thermodynamics demand that the reaction go in the opposite direction! Therefore, in a watery solution containing the building blocks of life, the overwhelming majority of these building blocks would be unbonded. As a result, a watery environment is perhaps the last place that long chains of amino acids or nucleotides would form.37

Equilibrium - The Villain of the Plot

There is one final hurdle that must be successfully cleared if the materialist's scenario on the origin of life is to have credibility. This is the problem of chemical equilibrium. The notion of equilibrium is one with which you are all familiar, 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. This tendency is called the development of equilibrium.38

A simple example will help us to understand. If a drop of red dye is put into a container of water the dye particles gradually disperse throughout the solution until the entire solution turns a dilute red color. The larger the volume of the solvent (i.e., the water in our dye experiment), the more dilute will be the solution once the dye particles have become evenly distributed. This dilutional effect is irreversibly tied to the arrow of time. As time advances, as predicted by the Second Law, the dye particles become evenly distributed until the solution reaches a state of chemical equilibrium.39

As we saw previously, the chemical reactions leading to the formation of DNA and proteins are reversible. This means that the building blocks of DNA and proteins are broken off of the chain just as easily as they are added. Consequently, the building blocks of life, if they survived the effects of oxygen and UV radiation, would constantly be combining and coming apart in the primordial soup. This combining and coming apart of chemical building blocks proceeds until a state of equilibrium is reached. In the case of amino acids and nucleotides, the building blocks of DNA and proteins will be predominantly unbonded when the solution is at equilibrium.40,41

Since the natural tendency for the building blocks of life is to disperse and remain un-bonded, the question materialists must answer is how did the building blocks of life become bonded and stay bonded in a primordial soup which is steadily progressing towards equilibrium?

In living systems enzymes are "programmed" to accomplish this feat by extracting and utilizing energy from the environment to synthesize and preserve DNA and proteins.42 Consequently, in this capacity enzymes fulfill the definition of a machine or an engine, as defined by Nobel Laureate Jaques Monod - a purposeful (teleonomic) aggregate of matter that uses energy to perform work.

In the absence of such molecular machinery (i.e., enzymes), the reversibility of these chemical reactions ensures that any building blocks which may have become bonded will rapidly become unbonded in a watery environment unless they are removed from the solution in equilibrium.43,44 However, removing the building blocks from equilibrium requires a mechanism or a metabolic machine (which do not arise by chance).

Harold Blum dealt with this very dilemma. He recognized that the production of proteins or DNA from a solution of unbonded building blocks required a "mechanism" or metabolic "motor" that can capture free energy from the environment, then use it to remove the building blocks from equilibrium, i.e. keep them bonded:

"...If proteins were reproduced as they must have been, if living systems were to evolve - free energy has to be supplied. The source of this free energy is a fundamental problem we must eventually face...the fact remains that no appreciable amounts of polypeptides [proteins] would form unless there were some factor which altered the equilibrium greatly in their favor."45

By altering "the equilibrium greatly in their favor," Blum means allowing them to stay bonded. However, inanimate matter contains no "mechanism,machines," or "biochemical knowhow" that can extract free energy from the environment and store or preserve the bonded building blocks before they break down again.

Therefore, the dilemma for the materialist is explaining the origin of the first such metabolic "machine" by chance. In practice and in theory, machines are never the result of chance. They are the result of design.46,47 This fact is not only intuitive, but it has been verified by the overwhelming body of experimental science.

A.E. Wilder-Smith addresses this problem of the origin of the first metabolic motor:

"What Dr. Blum is saying is: how was the motor to extract the energy from the environment built before life processes had arisen to build it? Once a motor (enzyme metabolic system) is present, it can easily supply the free energy necessary to build more and more motors, that is, to reproduce. But the basic problem is: How do we account for the building of the first complex enzymatic protein metabolic motor to supply energy for reproduction and other cell needs....The Creationist believes that God synthesized non-living matter into living organisms and thus provided the motors which were then capable of immediately extracting energy from their environment to build more motors for reproduction. This view is thus perfectly sound scientifically and avoids the hopeless impasse of the materialistic. Darwinists in trying to account for the design and building of the first necessarily highly complex metabolic motors by random processes. Once the motor has been designed, fabricated, and is running, the life processes work perfectly well on the principles of the known laws of thermodynamics...."48

So the net of this dilemma is that intelligent guidance is required to create a metabolic motor which will synthesize and preserve the chains of DNA and proteins. Such guidance comes only from a mind, and not from inanimate inorganic matter!

Time: The Unlikely Villain

When confronted with the problem of equilibrium, most scientific materialists will appeal to the magic ingredient of time. In chapter one we saw this appeal by Nobel Laureate, George Wald:

"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."49

However, Dr. Blum, who is a materialist, points out that Wald's faith in the miraculous ingredient of time is mere wishful thinking. Prolonged time periods, he asserts, actually worsen the dilemma:

"I think if I were rewriting this chapter [on the origin of life] completely, I should want to change the emphasis somewhat. I should want to play down still more the importance of the 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."50 (Emphasis added)

According to Dr. Blum, the magic bullet of time does not increase the likelihood that chains of DNA or proteins will form by chance chemistry. In fact, according to Dr. Blum, increasing the time factor actually ensures that any primordial soup would consist of predominantly unbonded amino acids and nucleotides!

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?

Since the structure of DNA was deciphered in 1953, biologists have discovered that the process of duplicating DNA requires as many as twenty specific protein enzymes. These enzymes function to unwind, un-zip, copy, and rewind the DNA molecule. There are even enzymes that screen and correct for copying errors!

The instructions for the production of all proteins, including these enzymes, are in turn stored on the DNA molecule. So which came first: The DNA molecule or the proteins necessary to make DNA? You can't make DNA without highly specific proteins. But you can't make proteins unless you have a system in place to code for and build those proteins in the first place. And that means DNA.

Harold Blum recognized this catch 22 when he stated:

"...The riddle seems to be: How, when no life existed, did substances come into being which, today, are absolutely essential to living systems, yet which can only be formed by those systems?...A number of major properties are essential to living systems as we see them today, the origin of any of which from a 'random' system is difficult enough to conceive, let alone the simultaneous origin of all."51

Robert Shapiro also commented on this dilemma:

"Genes and enzymes are linked together in a living cell - two interlocked systems, each supporting the other. It is difficult to see how either could manage alone. Yet if we are to avoid invoking either a Creator or a very large improbability, we must accept that one occurred before the other in the origin of life. But which one was it? We are left with the ancient riddle: Which one came first, the chicken or the egg?"52

The simultaneous origin of DNA, RNA, and the proteins necessary to produce them is, according to Blum and Shapiro, very difficult to conceive. In fact, as we will see next, it is a mathematical impossibility.

The Odds

During the last several decades a number of prestigious scientists have attempted to calculate the mathematical probability of the random-chance origin of life. The results of their calculations reveal the enormity of the dilemma faced by materialists.

In the 1950's Harold Blum estimated the probability of just a single protein arising spontaneously from a primordial soup. Equilibrium and the reversibility of biochemical reactions eventually led Blum to state:

"The spontaneous formation of a polypeptide of the size of the smallest known proteins seems beyond all probability. This calculation alone presents serious objection to the idea that all living matter and systems are descended from a single protein molecule which was formed as a 'chance' act."53

In the 1970's British astronomer Sir Frederick Hoyle set out to calculate the mathematical probability of the spontaneous origin of life from a primordial soup environment. Applying the laws of chemistry, mathematical probability and thermodynamics, he calculated the odds of the spontaneous generation of the simplest known free-living life form on earth - a bacterium.

Hoyle and his associates knew that the smallest conceivable free-living life form needed at least 2,000 independent functional proteins in order to accomplish cellular metabolism and reproduction. Starting with the hypothetical primordial soup he calculated the probability of the spontaneous generation of just the proteins of a single amoebae.54 He determined that the probability of such an event is one chance in ten to the 40 thousandth power, i.e., 1 in 1040,000. Prior to this project, Hoyle was a believer in the spontaneous generation of life. This project, however, apparently changed his opinion 180 degrees.

Mathematicians tell us that if an event has a probability which is less likely than one chance in 1050, then that event is mathematically impossible. Such an event, if it were to occur, would be considered a miracle.

Consider this. To win a state lottery you have about 1 chance in ten million (10/7). The odds of winning the state lottery every single week of your life from age 18 to age 99 is 1 chance in 4.6 x 1029,120. Therefore, the odds of winning the state lottery every week consecutively for eighty years is more likely than the spontaneous generation of just the proteins of an amoebae!

In his calculations Hoyle assumed that the primordial soup consisted only of left-handed amino acids. As we noted before, spark and soup-type experiments always yield a 50/50 mix of left and right-handed building blocks. Hoyle knew that if the soup consisted of equal portions of right and left-handed amino acids then mathematical probability of the origin of pure left-handed proteins would be exactly zero!

After completing his research, 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.55

Hoyle also stated:

"The likelihood of the formation of life from inanimate matter is one to a number with 40 thousand naughts [zeros] 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."56 (Emphasis added)

Hoyle's calculations may seem impressive, but they don't even begin to approximate the difficulty of the task. 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, nor 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.57 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. After cooling the mixture, he concluded that the odds of a single bacterium re-assembling by chance is one in 10100,000,000,000. This number is so large that it would require several thousand blank books just to write it out. To put this number into perspective, it is more likely that you and your entire extended family would win the state lottery every week for a million years than for a bacterium to form by chance!

In his book, Origins-A Skeptics Guide to the Creation of Life on Earth, Robert Shapiro gives a very realistic illustration of how one might estimate the odds of the spontaneous generation of life. Shapiro begins by allowing one billion years (5 x 1014 minutes) for spontaneous biogenesis. Next he notes that a simple bacterium can make a copy of itself in twenty minutes, but he assumes that the first life was much simpler. So he allows each trial assembly to last one minute, thus providing 5 x 10/14 trial assemblies in 1 billion years to make a living bacterium. Next he allows the entire ocean to be used as the reaction chamber. If the entire ocean volume on planet earth were divided into reaction flasks the size of a bacterium we would have 10/36 separate reaction flasks. He allows each reaction flask to be filled with all the necessary building blocks of life. Finally, each reaction chamber is allowed to proceed through one-minute trial assemblies for one billion years. The result is that there would be 10/51 tries available in 1 billion years. According to Morowitz we need 10100,000,000,000 trial assemblies!

Regarding the probabilities calculated by Morowitz, Robert Shapiro 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 truly be waiting for a miracle."58

Regarding the origin of life Francis Crick, winner of the Nobel Prize in biology, stated in 1982:

"An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some, 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."59

Regarding the probability of spontaneous generation, Harvard University biochemist and Nobel Laureate, George Wald stated in 1954:

"One has to only contemplate the magnitude of this task to concede that the spontaneous generation of a living organism is impossible. Yet we are here-as a result, I believe, of spontaneous generation."60

In this incredible statement by Wald we see that his adherence to the materialist's paradigm is independent of the evidence. Wald's belief in the "impossible" can only be explained by faith: "...the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."61

Despite these incredible odds, and the seemingly insurmountable problems we have discussed, spontaneous generation is taught as a fact from grammar school to university. In fact, NASA scientists reported to the press in 1991 their opinion that life arose spontaneously not once, but multiple times, because previous attempts were wiped out by cosmic catastrophes!

The reason for this fanatical adherence to spontaneous generation is eloquently pointed out by George Wald:

"When it comes to the origin of life there are only two possibilities:

Creation or spontaneous generation. There is not 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!"62 (Emphasis added)

According to Wald, it's not a matter of the evidence, it's a matter of philosophy! Like George Wald, many people do not like, and cannot accept the alternative: that all life on earth was created by a transcendent Creator. So, as Wald said, they are willing to "believe the impossible," in order to cling to their belief that the universe is a closed system. A system that has no room for such a Creator.

Man A Machine!! Paley Vindicated

When William Paley put forth his watchmaker argument in 1818, the force of his argument was weakened by David Hume's assertion that the "machine" analogy was only superficial. Hume argued that the analogy between machines and living systems could not be shown to extend to the "deepest" (molecular) level. Therefore, according to Hume, the analogy was invalid and there was no need for a designer for biological systems.

During the time of Darwin and Hume, the living cell was viewed as a mere blob of amorphous unorganized protoplasm. Consequently, Hume's assertion that the cell was not "machine-like" seemed reasonable. For nearly 150 years Paley's watchmaker argument was felt to be fatally weakened by the reasoning of Hume.

However, the astonishing discoveries in molecular biology during the last 40 years have finally and unequivocally demonstrated that living systems are, in fact, machines - even to the deepest, molecular level! From the tiniest enzyme to the most complex organ systems found in man, Paley's machine analogy is confirmed.

At the enzymatic level we see an eerie resemblance to the design and operation of chemical factories. At the organ level we find "hardware" of an unimaginable complexity and ingenuity. In our five senses we find sensory receivers made of multiple components, each machine-like, the operation of which is absolutely necessary for each sense (taste, sight, smell, hearing, touch) to function properly. In the function of the human heart we see an incredibly efficient and durable hydraulic pump, the likes of which no engineer has imagined. Finally, in the structure of the human brain we find a computer 1000 times faster than a Cray supercomputer with more connections than all the computers, phone systems and electronic appliances on planet earth!

In each of these systems, at every level, we find machine-like structures which are truly "teleonomic" (purposeful) aggregates of matter, each executing its role in a pre-programmed manner.

In 1985 evolutionist Michael Denton made this astonishing admission regarding Paley's machine analogy:

"It has only been over the past twenty years with the molecular biological revolution and with the advance in cybernetic and computer technology that Hume's criticism has been finally invalidated and the analogy between organisms and machines has at last become convincing...In every direction the biochemist gazes, as he journeys through this weird molecular labyrinth, he sees devices and appliances reminiscent of our own twentieth-century world of advanced technology. We have seen a world as artificial as our own and as familiar as if we had held up a mirror to own machines...Paley was not only right in asserting the existence of an analogy between life and machines, but was also remarkably prophetic in guessing that the technological ingenuity realized in living systems is vastly in excess of anything yet accomplished by man."63 (Emphasis added)

The implication of vindicating Paley's machine analogy were also noted by Denton:

"If we are to assume that living things are machines for the purpose of description, research and analysis, and for the purposes of rational and objective debate, as argued by Michael Polyani and Monod among many others, there can be nothing logically inconsistent, as Paley would have argued, in extending the usefulness of the analogy to include an explanation for their origin."64

Since machines need a designer and since living systems possess "appliances reminiscent of our own twentieth-century world of advanced technology" it is "logically" consistent to assert that such appliances (the mechanisms in living systems) must, according to Denton, require a designer as well!

Consequently, according to Denton:

"The conclusion may have religious implication."65

Finally, consider this provocative statement by Hoyle and Wickramasinghe:

"The speculations of The Origin of Species turned out to be wrong...It is ironic that the scientific facts throw Darwin out, but leave William Paley, a figure of fun to the scientific world for more than a century, still in the tournament with a chance of being the ultimate winner."66

If the most knowledgeable chemists using the most up to date equipment cannot create machines as complex as a single amoebae, is it credible to assert that chance, which is the antithesis of intelligence or know-how could do so? I think not.

The Emperor is naked-and many in the scientific establishment are beginning to suspect!

Continued...

Kulapavana · June 14, 2006

<CENTER>The Origin of Information

By Mark Eastman, M.D. and Chuck Missler

</CENTER>

Would a DNA molecule that arose by chance possess any information, codes, programs, or instructions?

THE ORIGIN OF LIFE - The Software

"And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so"

Genesis 1:11 (KJV)

When George Wald and Francis Crick stated that the spontaneous origin of life was "impossible," they were speaking primarily about the origin of the cellular "hardware." Indeed, when we consider the effect of equilibrium, the reversibility of biochemical reactions in water and the fact that the building blocks of life are not safe in the air or on the land,1 spontaneous biogenesis stands shoulder to shoulder with raising the dead and walking on water - events which also defy the Second Law of Thermodynamics and the Law of Chemical Equilibrium - something which cannot be explained by natural law. However, for the purpose of this chapter we will allow that sometime on the earth the oceans became filled with spontaneously derived DNA.

The question we must now answer is this: Would a DNA molecule that arose by chance possess any information, codes, programs, or instructions? To put it another way - can information, codes, or programs arise by chance? In the last half of the twentieth century, evidence has accumulated which has decisively answered this question. The answer profoundly impacts the debate on the existence of God.

Encyclopedia on a Pinhead: Chance or Design

At the moment of conception, a fertilized human egg is about the size of a pin head. Yet, it contains information equivalent to about six billion "chemical letters." This is enough information to fill 1000 books, 500 pages thick with print so small you would need a microscope to read it! If all the DNA chemical "letters" in the human body were printed in books, it is estimated they would fill the Grand Canyon fifty times! The source of this information (the "software") is at the very core of the debate on the origin of life.

When Carl Sagan said, "The cosmos is all that is, or ever was, or ever will be," he was expressing the materialists' position that the universe is a closed system.2 That is, they believe that no information or matter can be inserted into our universe from outside our space-time domain. Consequently, with no intelligent source, materialists are forced to conclude that the sum total of the information on the DNA molecule arose by chance.

On the other hand, creationists believe that a transcendent Creator pierced the veil of our universe and infused information and order onto the chains of the DNA molecule. Again we see that the debate boils down to chance or design. To settle this debate we must look at the nature of information as defined in the field of information science.

The Nature of Information Systems

The modern field of information science has revolutionized our daily lives in the last four decades. Computers, fax machines, cellular phones and many other daily conveniences would not have been possible without the rapid advances in the field of information theory.

In recent years information engineers have examined the nature of the genetic code and concluded that it is an error correcting digital coding system. While digital coding systems can be very complex, error correcting digital codes are much less common and much more complex. Furthermore, the DNA molecule has built-in redundancy. That is, the same packet of information (called a gene) is often located in more than one place in the organism's DNA. Consequently, if one gene becomes corrupted with informational errors, the backup gene will take over the function of that gene! This level of complexity is found in only the most sophisticated computer system.

The DNA coding system can be compared to that of a compact disc. The music on a compact disc is stored in a digital fashion and can only be appreciated if you have a knowledge of the language convention used to create the information on the disc. Appropriate machinery, which functions to translate that code into music, is also required for the music to be played. In a compact disc player this decoding process involved dozens of electronic and moving parts.

It isn't much different in the living cell. The information carried by the DNA molecule contains the instructions for all the structures and functions of the human body. Within each cell resides all the necessary hardware to decode and utilize that information.

When we look at a compact disc, we see no evidence of the musical information stored on the disc's surface. We see only the rainbow effect on the surface of the disc. Without the knowledge of the language convention used to create the disc and the machinery to translate it, we must simply be content with the colorful surface. This is exactly the same dilemma we face with spontaneously derived DNA or any information storage system.3

If we examine 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. It is only when one possesses a knowledge of the language convention (the genetic code) and the appropriate machinery to translate the coded information on the DNA molecule, that the nucleotide sequence becomes understandable. Without such knowledge and machinery, the sequences on a spontaneously derived DNA molecule are meaningless.

Consequently, the enormous challenge facing the scientific materialist is to explain how a language convention (the genetic code) and the necessary cellular machinery to translate the information stored on the DNA molecule arose independently without intelligent guidance.

The chicken-egg dilemma has confounded scientists for decades. Chemist John Walton noted the dilemma in 1977 when he stated:

"The origin of the genetic code presents formidable unsolved problems. The coded information in he nucleotide sequence is meaningless without the translation machinery, but the specification for his machinery is itself coded in the DNA. Thus without the machinery the information is meaningless, but without the coded information, the machinery cannot be produced. This presents a paradox of the 'chicken and egg' variety, and attempts to solve it have so far been sterile."4

By allowing the spontaneous generation of long chains of DNA, what would you have? Do those chains of nucleotides possess 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. However, there is no inherent information on such spontaneously generated DNA unless a system of interpreting those sequences exists first. A couple of simple examples will help us to understand the nature of this dilemma.

"Save Our Souls!"

If I were to show you a sign which had painted on it the sequence, dot, dot, dot, dash, dash, dash, dot, dot, dot, and if you were knowledgeable in Morse Code, you would know that this means S-O-S, and that I am in trouble. However, if I take that same sign to an isolated tribe of South American Indians, they will see the unlikely arrangement of dots and dashes, but there will be no information content transmitted to them without the knowledge of the language convention we call Morse Code.

The English Language

Similarly, if I take a book written in English and hand it to an Australian Bushman, it will make absolutely no sense without a prior knowledge of the English language convention. Just like the dots and dashes, the 26 letters of the English language have no inherent information in them. Their shapes have the appearance of order (reduced entropy) but by themselves they are meaningless. It is when you "sheperd" or gather the letters into specific sequences, as determined by the rules of the previously existent language convention, that their arrangement begins to have meaning. Unless the language convention and the hardware (the human brain) to interpret it exists first, the arrangement of the letters can transmit no meaning.

Primordial Disk Soup

The magnetic disks used to store and retrieve information in computers provides another fascinating analogy to the DNA molecule. When I purchase a blank computer disk, have I purchased a code or a program? No. I have only purchased a chemical medium which has the potential to carry a code or a program. However, to possess real information the blank disk must be formatted and programmed by a computer which was in turn built for this purpose.

While the disk is being formatted a "program" is placed on it from an intelligent source (the computer) that exists outside and separate from the disk. This is accomplished by arranging the iron atoms on the disk in a predetermined fashion according to the rules of the computer's language convention. Once the disk is formatted and imputed with information, it weighs no more than it did before this procedure was done. This is because information has no mass or weight.

As in the case of the 26 letters of the English alphabet, the structure or shape of the iron atoms on the disk does not convey or possess any information in and of itself. Rather, information ( a code or program) is conveyed by the orderly arrangement of the iron atoms. This arrangement of atoms is then interpreted by the computer's hardware according to the predetermined rules of the its language convention. Without the hardware and the pre-existent language convention, the arrangement of the iron atoms is meaningless.

Does the computer create its own language convention? Obviously not. Just as the hardware requires intelligent design, so does the computer's language convention require an intelligent source - a computer programmer.

By allowing an ocean of spontaneously derived DNA, I have given you the equivalent of an ocean full of blank floppy disks! In order for the DNA molecule to carry information, its molecules need to be arranged in a specific sequence as predetermined by the chemical code or language convention. But the language convention must exist first. According to the principles of modern information theory, language conventions come only from an intelligent source - a mind!

Miller and Urey were able to produce the unlikely, ordered building blocks of proteins. In the future someone may even produce nucleotides by chance chemical processes. However, without a pre-existent language convention, these chemical letters will be no more effective in transmitting information than a random sequence of beads on a string, iron atoms in a disc, or letters on a page.

Codes by Chance?

In the twentieth century, theories on the origin of the chemical hardware in living systems have come and gone with each generation.5 However, theories on the origin of codes and programs are few and far between. The claim by creationists that codes, programs and languages conventions, such as the genetic code, arise only from intelligent sources is often protested by scientific materialists (although most information engineers have no problem with this statement). Yet no one has come up with a rational theory on how true information, which is the antithesis of chance, can arise by random chance processes. As we will see, however, this problem has led to some irrational solutions.

One of the most celebrated theories on the origin of information by chance comes 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, the sentences, the paragraphs and entire book.

Eigen envisions a machine that possesses the remarkable ability to generate, by chance, the letters of the English language and then randomly shuffle and combine those letters for millions of years. 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 sheperd, I shall not want..." We stand back and see that indeed, this machine has generated meaningful sentences. Eigen argues that this is proof of the random chance production of information. Is this true?

In his book, The Natural Sciences Know Nothing of Evolution, A.E. Wilder-Smith demonstrated the fallacy of Eigen's argument. Wilder-Smith invites a non-English speaking friend from Switzerland to examine the output of the machine. Again the machine puts out the random sequences such "HAT,FISH,BOY," etc. His Swiss friend stares at the machine with a blank look, quite unlike the smile an Englishman might carry. While the Englishman stands amazed at the randomly generated information, our Swiss friend points out that the sequences have no meaning to him at all because he has no knowledge of the English language convention.

Eigen's argument that "true information" has been generated by chance, is erroneous because he interprets his sequences by the rules of a previously existing language convention we call the English language. But where did the rules of English come from?

Wilder-Smith points out that the sequence of letters has meaning only when we "hang" the rules and the conventions of the English 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, or magnetic medium meaningless without rules and conventions by which we interpret the sequences. But the rules of any language system are themselves arbitrary (i.e. man-made), abstract agreements between at least two intelligences which declare that a specific sequence of letters has a certain meaning.6 Put another way, the rules of any language system are neither a part of nor conveyed by any natural laws of nature. Therefore, a language convention, with its rules and regulations, must be devised first.

Information engineers know that language conventions will not, cannot, 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. In fact, chance is the very antithesis of information.

If Bill Gates of Microsoft Corporation commissioned you to write a new software program and you simply began to type randomly on your computer with the hope that a new language or program might result, you would likely be assisted to a psychiatric facility for an extended medical leave of absence. We know intuitively that this method will never result in the generation of new information.

Yet, according to evolutionary dogma, the random shuffling of nucleotides for millions of years supposedly produced not only the DNA molecule but the code which governs the storage and retrieval of the information it carries as well. If we make such a claim, are we not, in effect, asserting that formatted computer floppy disks, which are filled with millions of bits of information, can arise by the random combining of iron oxide and plastic rather than being the product of an intelligent source which is outside and separate from the floppy disk?

The Monkey and the Typewriter

For centuries scientists have suspected that living systems contain a mechanism for the storage and retrieval of information used for cellular metabolism and reproduction. With the elucidation of the structure of DNA in 1953 and the subsequent deciphering of the genetic code in the 1960's this was finally confirmed. However, the debate on the origin of this cellular information predates the actual discovery of the DNA molecule by at least 100 years.

As in the case of the cellular "hardware," evolutionists have also appealed to the magic ingredient of time to explain the origin of the information, the "software," stored by living systems. Since the 1700's scientific materialists have argued that, given enough time, anything was possible, even the origin of the complex programs necessary for the production of life. Creationists, on the other hand, have argued that where there is design there must be a designer and where there are codes or language conventions there must be an architect for such information.

On June 30, 1860, at the Oxford Union in England, this was the very topic in the "Great Debate" between the Anglican Archbishop of Oxford University, Samuel Wilberforce and evolutionist and agnostic, Thomas Huxley.

Bishop Wilberforce, a Professor of Theology and Mathematics at Oxford University, applied the logic of the teleological argument for God. He argued, as did William Paley, that the design we see in nature required a Designer. Therefore, the information (an evidence for design) found in living systems could not arise by chance.

Huxley, on the other hand, declared that given enough time all the possible combinations of matter, including those necessary to produce a man, will eventually occur by chance molecular movement. To prove his point Huxley asked Wilberforce to allow him the service of six monkeys that would live forever, six typewriters that would never wear out and an unlimited supply of paper and ink. He then argued that given an infinite amount of these monkeys would eventually type all of the books in the British Library including the Bible and the works of Shakespeare!

Applying the mathematical law of probability, Huxley showed that if time (T) is infinite, then the probability (P) of an event happening is equal to one, i.e., one hundred percent.7 Consequently, he argued that with an infinite amount of time any and all combinations of letters, including the necessary chemical combinations to produce life, will eventually be typed out purely by chance, without the necessity of a Creator.

Bishop Wilberforce, a skilled mathematician, was forced to concede the truth of Huxley's point. To this very day the Monkey/Typewriter argument is frequently applied by evolutionists when confronted with the question of the origin of life.

Bishop Wilberforce lost the debate because he was unable to see the flaw in Huxley's argument. At the time of this debate the nature of biochemical reactions and the genetic code was not understood. Consequently, Huxley's argument seemed reasonable. When time is infinite the probability formula does indeed predict that all possible combinations of letters will occur. However, with the revolutionary discoveries in molecular biology and information science in the last four decades, Huxley's use of a typewriter to simulate the chemical reactions in living systems has, in fact, been shown to be erroneous.

In the last chapter we saw that the chemical reactions in living systems, such as the combining of amino acids and nucleotides, are reversible. The reversibility of these chemical reactions is quite unlike those simulated by Huxley's typewriter.

A century after the "Great Debate," Professor A.E. Wilder-Smith, who also studied at Oxford University, demonstrated the fallacy of Huxley's argument. Wilder-Smith points out that because the chemical reactions upon which our bodies run are reversible, for Huxley's argument to be valid, his monkeys would need to use typewriters which also type reversibly!8 With each key stroke such a typewriter places the ink on the paper, and when the key is released the inks jumps back onto the hammer of the typewriter leaving the paper reversibly without a trace!

This is, in fact, a more accurate demonstration of what happens in biological reactions. The building blocks of life continually combine ("type in") and come apart ("type out") as the solution approaches a state of equilibrium. With a typewriter that types reversibly-typing in (bonding) and typing out (uncombining)-we will have typed as much in one minute as we would have in 5 billion years!9

Huxley's argument is invalidated by the fact that the building blocks in biological reactions do not stay combined. The building blocks of DNA and proteins are driven (by the Second Law and chemical equilibrium) to break down (come apart) in the watery environment in which they supposedly arose.

On the other hand, the hypothetical books typed by Huxley's monkeys are stable end products. They do not decompose (come apart) into their individual letters as do the building blocks of life. Therefore, Huxley's illustrations is an erroneous and inaccurate representation of biological systems.

Finally, we saw that Stanley Miller's spark and soup experiment generated 50% right-handed and 50% left-handed amino acids. We saw that right-handed amino acids are, in many cases, poisonous to enzymes and living cells. Consequently, if the keys in Huxley's typewriter represent a true primordial soup, every other key stroke would be potentially lethal! How far do you think the monkeys would get toward typing the genetic code with such odds?

In his character style, Sir Fred Hoyle comments on the improbability that Huxley's monkeys might type the genetic code:

"No matter how large the environment one considers, life cannot have had a random beginning. Troops of monkeys thundering away at random on typewriters could not produce the works of Shakespeare, for the practical reason that the whole observable universe is not large enough to contain the necessary monkey hordes, the necessary typewriters, and certainly the waste paper baskets required for the deposition of wrong attempts. The same is true for living material."10

Time: Magic Bullet for Unlikely Villain

When confronted with the many evidences against the spontaneous origin of life, the scientific materialist will inevitably and repeatedly appeal to the magic ingredient of prolonged time periods to accomplish biochemical possibilities. However, as in the case of the chemical "hardware," the addition of prolonged time periods does not increase the likelihood of spontaneously derived information.

In the previous chapter on the origin of the cellular "hardware," we saw that the laws of thermodynamics and chemical equilibrium demand that all systems tend toward disorder with the advance of time. In the field of information science, these laws have enormous implications as well.

When applied to the field of information science, the Second Law demands that the total amount of information in a closed system decreases as time advances.11 Put another way, as time advances the sum total of the information stored on magnetic tape, the pages of a book, or the sequences of a DNA molecule always degrades. This is, in fact, exactly what we observe with these media. As time advances, DNA molecules collect informational errors (mutations) and the organism eventually dies. Ancient scrolls lose their ink. Old recordings become filled with informational noise. In each case the result is always the same-loss of information.

The Theory of Evolution demands that just the opposite occurs. To change an amoebae into a human being requires a million-fold increase in the information stored in the DNA of each cell. According to evolutionary theory, this increase in information must also occur without any intelligent guidance. Such an occurrence would not only breach a foundational truth of information theory-that true information comes only from a mind-it would also defy the Second Law of Thermodynamics which demands that the information stored on the DNA molecule must degrade and not increase.12

In their book Evolution from Space, materialists Sir Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe address the problem of the origin of the information carried on the DNA molecule:

"From the beginning of this book we have emphasized the enormous information content of even the simplest living systems. The information cannot in our view be generated by what are often called 'natural' processes, as for instance through meteorological and chemical processes occurring at the surface of a lifeless planet. As well as a suitable physical and chemical environment, a large initial store of information was also needed [for the origin of life]. We have argued that the requisite information came from an 'intelligence,' the beckoning spectre."13 (Emphasis added)

In this remarkable statement, Hoyle and Wickramasinghe admit that living systems require "enormous" amounts of information for their construction. This information, they conclude, cannot be generated by "natural" or random chemical processes. Consequently, they assert that the source of the information is from an "intelligence."

The implications of this admission by Hoyle and Wickramasinghe are mind boggling. Since, in their opinion, chance "chemical processes occurring at the surface of a lifeless planet [earth]" cannot create new information, then the source of information found in living systems must have been of extraterrestial origin!

ET: The Sower of Life?

By the end of the 1960's the evidence from thermodynamics, mathematical probability and information theory were taking their toll on the Oparin-Haldane-Miller paradigm. With each new discovery in molecular biology the concept of spontaneous generation gradually took on the appearance of a miracle, rather than an unlikely accident of chemistry.

In the 1970's speculation on the origin of life took an unexpected and bizarre turn. Because the laws of chemistry, physics and mathematical probability so mitigate against the possibility of spontaneous generation, scientists began to look for an extraterrestrial source for the origin of life!

Francis Crick, co-discoverer of DNA, and one of the most respected molecular biologists in the world, has conceded that the spontaneous origin of life on earth is "almost a miracle." Consequently, since life could not have arisen by chance, he proposed that the first life forms on earth were single-celled "spores" delivered here from interstellar space!14,15 This theory, called "Directed Panspermia," then asserts that these "interstellar spores" subsequently evolved into all the life forms on earth. Similar conclusions were drawn by Hoyle in his book Evolution From Space.16

These men recognized that something beyond the bounds of planet earth was required to generate the information and complexity found within living systems.

Scientists recognize that there are only two options for the origin of life: intelligent design or spontaneous biogenesis. Faced with the apparent impossibility of spontaneous biogenesis on earth, one might have suspected that these men would invoke a supernatural, extra-dimensional, intelligent Creator for the origin of life. However, this was not the case. Crick, and others, have concluded that since life could not have arisen by chance on planet earth, the laws of chemistry and physics must, therefore, be more favorable elsewhere in the cosmos and that life arose there first and was later delivered to earth.

Michael Denton comments on this bizarre twist:

"Nothing illustrates more clearly just how intractable a problem the origin of life has become than the fact that world authorities can seriously toy with the idea of panspermia."17

The dramatic shift from a theistic, Judeo-Christian world view to a secularized, neo-Darwinian "age of reason" was accomplished, in part, by those who desired to explain away the biblical miracle of creation. It is ironic, therefore, that as we approach the end of the twentieth century some of the world's most prominent scientists are forced to conclude that life on earth had an extraterrestial origin. This is, in theory, exactly what the Bible has said all along. However, the "Extraterrestial" the Bible speaks of is not just from beyond earth, but from beyond time and space as well!

The assertion that elsewhere in the universe the laws of physics and chemistry are more favorable for the origin of life is not supported by even a shred of scientific evidence. To invoke such an explanation is, in effect, an appeal to something outside the bounds of natural laws, i.e., a metaphysical, supernatural cause.

In 1981 Sir Fred Hoyle commented on this appeal to metaphysics:

"I don't know how long it is going to be before astronomers generally recognize that the combinatorial arrangement of not even one among the many thousands of biopolymers [DNA, RNA, proteins] on which life depends could have been arrived at by natural processes here on the Earth. Astronomers will have a little difficulty at understanding this because they will be assured by biologists that this is not so, the biologists having been assured in their turn by others that it is not so. The 'others' are a group of persons who believe, quite openly, in mathematical miracles. They advocate the belief that tucked away in nature, outside of normal physics, there is a law which performs miracles (provided the miracles are in the aid of biology). This curious situation sits oddly on a profession that for long has been dedicated to coming up with logical explanations of biblical miracles."18 (Emphasis added)

If we are to assume that the laws of physics and chemistry are essentially uniform throughout the physical universe, then we must logically conclude that life could not have arisen by chance anywhere in the universe.

Even if the laws of physics were found to be more favorable in a distant corner of the universe, there would still be no explanation for the coded information (which does not arise by chance) that is carried by the DNA molecule.

Consequently, the source of the cellular "hardware" as well as the information carried by the DNA molecule must have been an intelligent, extra-dimensional one - beyond the bounds of space and time.

"Of the Dust of the Ground"

The evidence presented thus far has brought us to a remarkable conclusion. As we have seen, the order and complexity in the universe is well beyond the reach of chance. We have seen that to "wind up" and order the physical universe requires the introduction of energy and intelligent guidance from a source outside the bounds of the space-time domain. Furthermore, the enormous complexity of living systems and the nature of the information on the DNA molecule cannot be explained by natural laws within the dimension of our universe.

Surely, at the dawn of the twentieth century, few scientists would have anticipated that their quest to explain the existence of the universe on natural grounds would have brought us to the point where their own discoveries now demand the existence of the very Creator they were trying to explain away! Any yet, this is exactly what has occurred.

To create the universe and its life forms the Creator must, of necessity, be transcendent. To create the universe in the first place He must have preceded it. Secondly, to order and establish the matter within galaxies, solar systems and living beings, He would need to "enter," in effect, the arena of space-time that He created. This ability to simultaneously exist inside and outside the dimensions of the universe demands a transcendent, supernatural Creator.

To many, invoking a supernatural cause for the origin of the universe is abhorrent. However, to invoke the god called "chance" is, according to many, a belief in "mathematical miracles." So we must choose between mathematical miracles, without a supernatural agent to perform them, or a transcendent Creator-the "First Cause," who ordered and established the universe and its life forms. The god called "chance" or intelligent design? You must choose.

suchandra · October 24, 2006

New ideas on origin of man

Tuesday October 24 2006 00:00 IST

<SMALL>COIMBATORE: Author and scientist Dr Michael A Cremo would be in the Textile City between November 4 and 7, as part of his tour in India to promote his ‘ground breaking ideas’ on alternative world view of origin of man and Darwin’s theory of evolution.

During his sojourn here, Michael would be promoting his new book Human Devolution, besides making himself available for open discussions at the premises of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) and other different colleges and institutions in the city.

In Forbidden Archaeology(co-author Richard L Thompson), Michael had documented the evidence for extreme human antiquity. He claimed that in the past 150 years, archaeologists had found abundant evidence, showing that human beings did exist for hundreds of millions of years.

This evidence, radically contradicted the picture of human origins that was presented to us by Darwin’s modern followers, who maintained that human beings evolved recently within the past 100,000 years or so, from some ape-like ancestors. </SMALL>

<SMALL>

</SMALL>

<SMALL>Michael had also stated that the Vedas had lent a strong support to his case.

Interestingly, the ancient Sanskrit writings profounded that humans had been present on earth for two billion years.

In Human Devolution, he suggested that we had not evolved upward from the apes on this planet, as modern science made it, but devolved from an original spiritual position in higher levels of reality.

An ISKCON release stated that when Michael was 27, he became a disciple of ISKCON’s founder Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. He lives in Los Angeles and writes for Bhaktivedanta Book Trust (BBT), as part of the staff of ISKCON.</SMALL>