4. Simple Life Forms: an Oxymoron (4)

Some More Complications

In Origins of Life (2004) [12] the authors identify a significant number of additional challenges for the evolutionary “origins of life” model that cannot be explained by modern science. Some of these problems are:

·         Finding enough time

Based on studies of the fossil records, paleontologists claim that first life in its most primitive form was present on earth about 3.8 billion years ago. Geologists have concluded that earth was heavily bombarded by comets and asteroids until about 3.9-3.85 billion years ago. During these bombardments it would not have been possible for life to have developed or existed. Therefore the window for the first life to develop was less than 100 million years, probably closer to only 50 million years. In evolutionary thinking, that is an impossibly small time to produce life by chance.

·         Chirality and evolution

Chirality and evolution are at odds. Amino acids are the building blocks of proteins. As mentioned earlier, amino acids exist in both so called left-handed and right-handed orientations (this property is called chirality).  These orientations are determined by how the different chemical groups are attached to the central carbon atom. For not yet understood scientific reasons, only chains of left-handed amino acids are able to produce a working protein molecule. Therefore right-handed amino acids in any “soup” are a serious challenge for life developing by evolution (a combination of chance and time). However all known amino acids producing reactions furnish chiral molecules in equal proportion – 50% left-handed and 50% right-handed. Scientists agree the odds of finding any “soup” that consists of only left-handed amino acids is implausible. As such a “soup” is a prerequisite to even consider evolutionary assembly of protein molecules, the chirality problem has presented itself as an impenetrable roadblock.

·         The search for chemical pathways

Evolutionary models require the existence of so called chemical pathways (chains of subsequent chemical reactions). These chemical pathways should explain how basic elements available on early earth are able to form and assemble proteins and DNA/RNA. Over the past 50 years, researchers have achieved little to no progress with respect to identifying any of these pathways. Pre-life pathways to crucially important biochemical compounds have yet to be discovered and the real possibility remains that these undiscovered pathways just do not exist. More problematic, however, is the total failure of the naturalistic models to identify any pathways that would operate efficiently under the conditions of primordial earth. The conditions of early earth are incompatible with many key prebiotic routes advocated by the origin-of-life community. Given these chemical problems several origin-of-life researchers have concluded that for fundamental chemical reasons, undirected chemical processes cannot lead to life.

How Does Evolution Explain this?

Ever since Darwin published his book, scientists have struggled with how to explain the beginning of life. And as time has progressed and we have acquired more knowledge, it has become a more and more complex problem.

There are at least a dozen explanations proposed by evolutionist to explain first life. The following are the most widely accepted and well known theories:

1.     Life just formed by chance

This is the traditional explanation by evolutionists. It claims that simple living organisms on early earth came into existence by natural processes, random chance, and lots of time. But as we have seen, modern science teaches us that this is inconceivable. As discussed, to form one single protein molecule of about 100 amino acids has a probability of 1 in 10^220..  The prospects for a complete cell to assemble by chance are even much and much smaller. In other words, the odds are effectively zero. That’s why only people who are not educated about this subject still believe life emerged by chance. Objective scientists simply don’t believe this anymore, even if they don’t believe in a Creator. In the words of late mathematician, physicist and professor of astronomy, Fred Hoyle:

"At all events, anyone with even a nodding acquaintance with the Rubik cube will concede the near-impossibility of a solution being obtained by a blind person moving the cube faces at random. Now imagine 10⁵⁰ blind persons each with a scrambled Rubik cube, and try to conceive of the chance of them all simultaneously arriving at the solved form. You then have the chance of arriving by random shuffling of just one of the many biopolymers [= a protein] on which life depends. The notion that not only the biopolymers but the operating programme of a living cell could be arrived at by chance in a primordial organic soup here on the earth is evidently nonsense of a high order.”[13]

2.     Chemical affinity

One of the first theories – still taught in many textbooks – argues that the emergence of life actually might have been biochemically predestined because of chemical bonding preferences. According to this theory, some kind of inherent attraction would cause amino acids to spontaneously link up in the right sequence, creating the protein molecules.

However, more extensive experiments and computer models have demonstrated conclusively (1986) that the sequencing has nothing to do with chemical preferences. And now, even Dean Kenyon, one of its biggest early proponents, has repudiated the idea.[14]

3.     Panspermia – life from space

Desperate for a secular explanation for the origins of life on earth combined with the relative short amount of time available for life to develop (“only” about 50-100 million years) some scientists have turned to space. They seriously consider the possibility that life might have started somewhere else in the universe and was brought (“hitchhiked”) to earth on a rock or rocks that hit our planet. This idea is labeled Panspermia.

A related idea is that life formed first on early Mars. Some of these life forms were blasted off Mars by an asteroid or comet impact. Over time this material landed on earth and was the beginning of life. (Sounds like the basis for a script for the movie Mission to Mars (2000)).

Both of these theories are even more difficult to find evidence for, and may have to wait for samples to be taken from comets and Mars for further study. Noteworthy is that neither of them actually answers the question of how life first originated, but merely shifts it to another planet or a comet, still leaving the real question of origins of life unanswered.[15]

4.     RNA world

By far the most popular line of thinking in the scientific evolutionary world today is the concept that life must have originated in an RNA world. If you recall, RNA is a sub-string from the DNA containing a detailed set of instructions to build molecules, like proteins. The idea is, that if RNA would be present, part of the problem of building proteins would be solved (you would still need the molecular machines to read the RNA code and build the proteins). The theory claims that simple RNA was assembled by natural processes and chance/time from the early “soup” on earth. This simple RNA subsequently evolved by replicating itself into more and more advanced structures, able to produce proteins and ultimately evolve into DNA.

Today, research in the RNA world is a medium-sized industry. Scientists in this field can demonstrate that random sequences of RNA sometimes exhibit useful properties. However despite the vast amounts of money spent on experiments and research since the mid 1980s, no hard evidence has been produced about how any RNA could evolve into a complete simple living cell.

And obviously – nobody is able to explain how even the most simplest RNA strain could form by chance from the “soup”! A recent quote illustrates the lack of progress:

“Is this a fact or a hope? I would have thought it relevant to point out for ‘biologists in general’ that not one self-replicating RNA has emerged to date from quadrillions (10²⁴) of artificially synthesized, random RNA sequences."[16]

A short and honest summary of the above theories and explanations would be “they do not know.” The more we learn about how a living cell works, the less we can scientifically understand how this all could have come about. If one does not want to consider God as the Creator, evolutionists are at a dead end. Secular explanations are harder and harder to develop. It’s amazing to observe to what extent evolutionary scientists are willing to push their theories into the realm of ridiculous extremes in order to avoid a supernatural explanation. Anything goes, no matter how extravagant, as long as a Creator is not involved.

As an illustration of an honest confession of “we just do not know,” please read the following excerpt from an interview by (PBS) NOVA published on their website with Dr. Andrew Knoll (emphasis added):[17]

NOVA: In a nutshell, what is the process? How does life form?

Knoll: The short answer is we don't really know how life originated on this planet. There have been a variety of experiments that tell us some possible roads, but we remain in substantial ignorance. That said, I think what we're looking for is some kind of molecule that is simple enough that it can be made by physical processes on the young earth, yet complicated enough that it can take charge of making more of itself. That, I think, is the moment when we cross that great divide and start moving toward something that most people would recognize as living.

NOVA: Will we ever solve the problem?

Knoll: I don't know. I imagine my grandchildren will still be sitting around saying that it's a great mystery, but that they will understand that mystery at a level that would be incomprehensible to us today.

As Klaus Dose, a biochemist considered one of the foremost experts in this area, stated:

“More than thirty years of experimentation on the origin of life in the fields of chemical and molecular evolution have led to a better perception of the immensity of the problem of the origin of life on earth rather than to its solution. At present all discussions on principle theories and experiments in the field either end in stalemate or in a confession of ignorance.”[18]

And finally in the words of Harvard biologist Marc Kirschner and Berkeley biologist John Gerhard who wrote as recently as 2005:

“Everything about evolution before the bacteria-like life forms is sheer conjecture,” because “evidence is completely lacking about what preceded this early cellular ancestor.” [19]