I was sharing the Gospel with a college student, an atheist and a science major (I forget which discipline), but he was committed to his evolutionary worldview.\u00a0 I raised some specific issues about the impossibility of biology arising from chemistry, namely that even one cell was too complex and sophisticated to arise from some primordial goo.<\/p>\n
He countered that, sure, the first cell would have been \u2018improbable,\u2019 but if, somehow, it had popped into existence, then the rest of the ecosystem would certainly arise via Darwinian processes, that mutations and natural selection would take over to generate every other form of life under the sun.<\/p>\n
So I explained to him that those impossibilities would be even more incredible than first life, because of the generation times and the overwhelming complexity of multi-celled creatures compared to bacteria.\u00a0 Generation times \u2013 even under the fantasy of Darwinism, you must wait many generations to see if a \u2018favorable mutation\u2019 takes hold in the population.\u00a0 There aren\u2019t enough billions of years (or trillions or quadrillions) in any Big Bang fantasy to allow for such luck.<\/p>\n
(I discuss many of these issues in my free ebook on this site, Creation vs. Evolution:\u00a0 No Contest!<\/em>, which you can download from the free ebookstore.\u00a0 This book is supplemented by the essays in the Creation\/Evolution short course section.)<\/p>\n And yet you can\u2019t get from chemistry to biology for even a first lucky cell in trillions of years.\u00a0 One way to characterize the hurdles is summarized in The Stairway to Life<\/em>, the 2020 book by Change Laura Tan and Rob Stadler.\u00a0 Tan is a PhD biochemist, while Stadler is a PhD medical engineer with an MS in electrical engineering.<\/p>\n They conclude their book with this admonition:\u00a0 \u201cAll observable evidence states that only a preexisting living cell can make another living cell.\u00a0 It appears that the more we know about life at the molecular level, the more we lose hope for finding a natural materialistic explanation for the origin of life.\u00a0 Indeed, it is fundamentally important for us to know where we came from.\u00a0 However, it is even more important for us to know where we are going.\u00a0 If we don\u2019t know that either, we will certainly make a mess of what lies in between.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n The book\u2019s argument is based on a schematic, a 12-step staircase that rises from random chemistry all the way up to biology, the first living cell.\u00a0 Each step entails real impossibilities such that even if \u2018a miracle occurred\u2019 at any given step, the next step higher would pose an insuperable barrier to materialistic processes.\u00a0 So let\u2019s take a quick look at the steps, mentioning just a few examples . . .<\/p>\n Step 1:\u00a0 Formation and concentration of building blocks<\/strong><\/p>\n The basic building blocks of life include amino acids, sugars, nitrogenous bases, and phospholipids.\u00a0 Experiments that began with Stanley Miller and Harold Urey\u2019s famous 1953 paper, \u201cA Production of Amino Acids Under Possible Primitive Earth Conditions,\u201d gave evolutionists some hope that \u2018natural\u2019 conditions might generate the amino acids suitable for life.\u00a0 But these experiments are conducted under conditions carefully constrained by professional chemists and there is no evidence that such conditions correlate with any environment on an alleged \u2018ancient\u2019 Earth.\u00a0 Also, the experiments generate a wide variety of unwanted reaction products that would interfere destructively with any progress toward life.<\/p>\n One issue with nucleotides, which would necessarily be formed under entirely different conditions than amino acids, is the multiplicity of forms they can take.\u00a0 \u201cRibose exists in five different forms in water solution.\u00a0 Adenine could bond to any one of the four hydroxyl (OH) groups of ribose, and phosphate could bond with any of the three remaining hydroxyl groups.\u00a0 Adenine has a choice of three NH locations for bonding to ribose.\u00a0 Thus we have 5 X 4 X 3 X 3 = 180 possible arrangements of an adenine nucleotide, but only one (ie., the canonical form) is observed in all of life.\u201d\u00a0 Similar issues exist for the other three DNA \/ RNA nucleotides.\u00a0 So the odds of stringing together a long chain of just the right forms randomly selected out of a magical soup that generates nucleotides . . . it\u2019s astronomical.<\/p>\n Step 2:\u00a0 Homochirality of Building Blocks<\/strong><\/p>\n In 1957 a German pharma company marketed the drug thalidomide, initially as a sedative, but then successfully as a treatment for morning sickness during pregnancy.\u00a0 The thalidomide molecule comes in two chiral forms \u2013 the molecules are not identical, but rather mirror images of each other.\u00a0 The production process produced both forms, a \u2018racemic mixture.\u2019\u00a0 It turned out that one of the forms produced the sedative effect, but the other caused severe birth defects.\u00a0 The drug was banned after harming thousands of children.<\/p>\n Amino acids come in two chiral forms, left-handed and right-handed.\u00a0 Only the left-handed work in life\u2019s proteins.\u00a0 Just one right-handed amino acid in a protein can interfere with function.\u00a0 The nucleotides in DNA and RNA can exhibit a wide variety of chiral forms, but only one, \u2018right-handed,\u2019 works in life.\u00a0 The phospholipids of cell membranes are also homochiral.<\/p>\n Despite considerable research efforts, no natural way has been found to produce the molecules of life in pure homochiral forms.\u00a0 Imagine a protein molecule formed from a chain of 400 amino acids.\u00a0 The odds of selecting 400 consecutive left-handed aminos from a racemic mixture are 1 in 2400<\/sup>, equivalent to flipping a coin heads-up 400 times in a row.\u00a0 In powers of 10, that\u2019s about 1 in 10120<\/sup>.\u00a0 You have a far better chance of picking just the right atom out of the entire universe \u2013 with 1080<\/sup> atoms.<\/p>\n Step 3:\u00a0 A solution for the water paradox<\/strong><\/p>\n A quote from chemist James Tour:\u00a0 \u201cOrganic synthesis is very hard to do in water.\u00a0 Highly oxygenated organic compounds are needed.\u00a0 The synthetic chemist must project the oxygenated groups out toward the water domain, and project the non-oxygenated groups in toward each other, thus generating a hydrophobic domain.\u00a0 It is very hard to do.\u201d<\/p>\n In short, you can\u2019t have life without water.\u00a0 But water will prevent life\u2019s molecules from forming without an already existing cell.\u00a0 Water discourages the polymerization of both nucleotides and amino acids, and water degrades DNA, RNA, and proteins if they already exist.\u00a0 This is the \u201cparadox of water.\u201d<\/p>\n In polymerization reactions, every time you add another molecule to the chain, you generate a water molecule.\u00a0 But these reactions \u201crun backwards\u201d even more easily.\u00a0 Water depolymerizes the chains.\u00a0 Nick Lane describes this as \u201ca bit like trying to wring out a wet cloth under water.\u201d\u00a0 For polymerization to work in life you need a cell\u2019s machinery and control volumes, and a careful source of applied energy, \u201cjust as your car needs a source of energy to move uphill.\u201d<\/p>\n Step 4:\u00a0 Consistent linkage of building blocks<\/strong><\/p>\n In addition to the rarity of the proper forms of amino acids and nucleotides, when they chain together, they must hook up at just the right positions on the molecules.\u00a0 This does not happen without a cell\u2019s machinery.\u00a0 If amino A hooks onto the wrong point of amino B, the protein doesn\u2019t fold correctly and it doesn\u2019t work, \u201cjust as a train with one derailed boxcar can destroy the entire train.\u201d\u00a0 Only an existing cell\u2019s machinery can do this job.<\/p>\n Many experiments have been done that demonstrate . . . \u201cAll empirical evidence tells us that homolinkage of DNA, RNA, and proteins can only be achieved via the highly specific and catalytic activity of enzymes and ribozymes or via the careful planning of intelligent agents [chemists].\u00a0 In short, without the intervention of intelligent agents, existing biopolymers are required for the production of biopolymers.\u201d<\/p>\n Step 5:\u00a0 Biopolymer reproduction<\/strong><\/p>\n Since all cells come from other cells, reproduction must have started well before the first cell, at the molecular level.\u00a0 Reproduction of DNA, though, is a very complex process.\u00a0 Even the simplest of prokaryotes (cells without a nucleus) require careful coordination of fourteen enzymes.\u00a0 RNA is somewhat simpler than DNA and so some subscribe to an \u201cRNA world\u201d where that molecule is at the genesis of life.<\/p>\n Replicating RNA unfortunately requires a supply of pure homochiral molecules plus plenty of a protein enzyme that enables nucleotides to join a growing RNA molecule.\u00a0 This replicase enzyme consists of 1200 amino acids hooked in a specific sequence.\u00a0 Saying that RNA can self-replicate is akin to claiming that computer viruses replicate themselves . . . without any computer hardware involved.<\/p>\n There are other difficulties.\u00a0 Shorter RNA molecules replicate faster than long ones, so it\u2019s clear that in any competition, short RNA wins.\u00a0 But you need very long RNA to have a shot at complexity.\u00a0 And then there must be a magical transition at some point to the much different DNA system that life employs.<\/p>\n Step 6:\u00a0 Nucleotide sequences forming useful code<\/strong><\/p>\n I\u2019ve discussed this issue in other parts of this site, including my ebook on creation \/ evolution. \u00a0Briefly, the odds against getting a sequence of amino acids right, in order to make a functional protein or, equivalently, getting the nucleic acid sequence in DNA right to code for that protein are impossible \u2013 ridiculously impossible.\u00a0 Even if all the mass in the universe was transformed into a vat of amino acids and polymerization reactions were encouraged for trillions of years, you would not get one functional protein.<\/p>\n Step 7:\u00a0 Means of gene regulation<\/strong><\/p>\n Even if all previous steps have been achieved, somehow, and we have a collection of the right genes, they must be carefully regulated.\u00a0 \u201cLiving organisms require highly coordinated, selfless molecular activity \u2013 more like an orchestra and less like an oligarchy.\u201d\u00a0 Otherwise, some reactions run amok and others fail to produce just the right products at just the right place and at just the right time.\u00a0 A living cell is a complex, dynamic system with many feedback loops.\u00a0 Most of the DNA in a living cell seems to code for RNA and protein molecules that are key to regulating internal cellular processes.<\/p>\n Disruption of any of hundreds of regulatory processes likely results in cell death.\u00a0 So how do you randomly create the regulatory systems at the same time you randomly generate the genes and enzymes that code for the cell\u2019s structures?<\/p>\n Step 8:\u00a0 Means for repairing biopolymers<\/strong><\/p>\n The information stored in your body\u2019s DNA is continually under attack from radiation, oxidation, chemical mutagens, pathogens, and water.\u00a0 In each of your cells, every day, your DNA typically suffers 2,000 \u2013 10,000 depurinations, 600 depyrimidinations, 10,000 cases of oxidative damage, 55,000 single-strand breaks, and 10 double-strand breaks.<\/p>\n Fortunately, your cells have sophisticated repair mechanims!\u00a0 Dysfunctions in these repair mechanisms usually result in serious diseases and often, death.\u00a0 Even in reproduction, repair systems are required to get it right.\u00a0 In bacterial reproduction, a \u2018proofreading system\u2019 decreases the error rate from one in 100,000 base pairs to one in 10,000,000.<\/p>\n These error correcting systems are coded into the cell\u2019s DNA . . . so they are already there along with every other system.\u00a0 A Nobel Laureate, Manfred Eigen, discovered limits to the length of an alleged prebiotic molecule due to its reproductive error rate.\u00a0 Longer molecules generated more errors and that leads to dysfunctional catastrophe.\u00a0 Beyond a length of 100 nucleotides you need an error correcting system.\u00a0 But such systems must be coded onto a nucleotide chain that is much longer than the catastrophic limit.\u00a0 This has been called Eigen\u2019s paradox.<\/p>\n Step 9:\u00a0 Selectively permeable membranes <\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cA living cell requires a continuous supply of building materials and energy and requires the removal of waste.\u201d\u00a0 If the cell membrance fails to get either function precisely right, the cell dies.<\/p>\n One membrane requirement is to maintain a higher concentration of protons on one side relative to the other.\u00a0 Cyanide poisoning, for example, kills by disrupting this proton gradient.\u00a0 The membrane must be tight enough to block protons, but still allow much larger molecules to pass back and forth, all in a controlled manner.\u00a0 The membrane contains a multitude of specialized pores composed of proteins.\u00a0 About one-third of all known proteins produced by cells fulfill functions in membranes.\u00a0 Pores are triggered open and closed by chemical signals.<\/p>\n The system is complex and must be in place before a cell can possibly survive.\u00a0 And everything inside the cell must be in place and operating for the cell\u2019s membrane to function meaningfully.<\/p>\n Step 10:\u00a0 Means of harnessing energy<\/strong><\/p>\n The cell employs the proton gradient across its membrane to charge \u201cbatteries\u201d such as adenosine triphosphate (ATP), the \u201cuniversal battery of life.\u201d\u00a0 The energy stored in ATP is used to activate amino acids for protein synthesis, copying DNA, untangling DNA, breaking bonds, transporting molecules, and contracting muscles.<\/p>\n There are three complexes of molecules to transport electrons to specific locations to enable the proton gradient to form, pumping protons across the membrane.\u00a0 \u201cIt uses a careful and extraordinarily precise sequence of fifteen reactions.\u201d\u00a0 Electrons are very <\/em>difficult to control.\u00a0 If they get loose, they form free radicals which damage the cell.<\/p>\n ATP is produced by ATP synthase, a fantastically complex molecular machine common to all life. The simplest variety consists of at least twenty interconnected proteins.\u00a0 The authors recommend you view animated tutorials about ATP synthase on YouTube.<\/p>\n No one has even imagined a \u2018simple\u2019 form of energy generation that could work for a \u2018protocell.\u2019\u00a0 And it is impossibility cubed to suppose that the ATP energy generation system came to be from random chemistry.\u00a0 (It\u2019s impossible to form even one functional protein from random chemistry.)<\/p>\n Step 11:\u00a0 Interdependency of DNA, RNA, and proteins<\/strong><\/p>\n The authors, as they do at each step, ask you to imagine that all previous steps (ten in this case) have somehow been achieved by natural processes.\u00a0 This would include information-bearing RNA molecules with limited enzymatic function.\u00a0 But now the cell must transition to an entirely separate information storage and processing system based on DNA.<\/p>\n The limited enzymatic function that some RNA molecules occasionally perform \u201chas no correspondence to the sequence of amino acids that make a protein enzyme with similar function . . . There is no known means of translating an RNA function into a protein function.\u201d\u00a0 In effect our protocell must start over in inventing the DNA system.<\/p>\n Additionally, reproducing DNA requires a complex suite of proteins that are coded in the very DNA molecules they serve to reproduce!\u00a0 DNA cannot be replicated without these proteins \u201cand evolution cannot occur without replication.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe longer the DNA, the longer the DNA.\u201d\u00a0 Life requires a very long DNA molecule.\u00a0 An E. coli <\/em>contains a circular DNA molecule with 4.6 million base pairs.\u00a0 Your human DNA has over 3 billion base pairs.\u00a0 Maintaining a long DNA molecule requires much maintenance, with tools (proteins) encoded within the DNA.\u00a0 So \u201cthe more complex DNA becomes, the more complex it must become in order to remain functional.\u201d\u00a0 For a cell to be viable, all these systems must be in place from the beginning.<\/p>\n Step 12:\u00a0 Coordinated cellular purpose<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cLife has an inborn purpose that coordinates all activity.\u00a0 This inborn purpose simply cannot be obtained by random arrangement and natural selection; it must be inherited from the parent cell.\u201d\u00a0 Rudolf Virchow coined the Latin phrase, Omnis cellula e cellula <\/em>\u2013 \u201cevery cell comes from a previous cell.\u201d\u00a0 Much of what a cell inherits from its parent is information and structure exterior to the genome.\u00a0 This is the burgeoning research field of epigenetics<\/em>.\u00a0 Stephen Meyer has described some of the implications in his book Signature in the Cell<\/em>, which I have reviewed on this site. \u00a0All of the epigenetic information must be there to inherit for the daughter cell to function, to live.<\/p>\n All the biochemical processes inside the cell, and its interactions with the environment are aimed toward specific purposes, to find its way in the environment, to find food, to reproduce, to interact in specific ways with other cells.\u00a0 In human life, we have ultimate purposes \u2013 we don\u2019t think much about what\u2019s going on biochemically in our cells.\u00a0 Life is about these purposes.\u00a0 The biochemistry serves <\/em>these purposes.\u00a0 Life is top-down, starting with the Creator of all life, the Lord Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n Stephen Covey:\u00a0 \u201cAll things are created twice; first mentally; then physically.\u00a0 The key to creativity is to begin with the end in mind, with a vision and a blue print of the desired result.\u201d<\/p>\n The Synthia Experiment<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n In 2010 Craig Venter and his research team completed a 15-year effort to synthesize a living cell \u2013 they called it Synthia<\/em>.\u00a0 In their announcement they declared it was \u201cthe first self-replicating species that we\u2019ve had on the planet whose parent is a computer.\u201d\u00a0 The team employed more than 40 researchers and spent about 40 million dollars.\u00a0 A review of the work by neurosurgeons Georgios Zenonos and Jeong Eun Kim included the pronouncement, \u201cNot only did Venter\u2019s audacious statements and claims of \u2018synthetic\u2019 life mark a triumph of biotechnological ingenuity, but they also undermined the foundations of religions, cosmotheories, cultures, ethics, and law, questioning the essence of life itself.\u201d<\/p>\n Wow.\u00a0 Bold statement.\u00a0 Is it fair?<\/p>\n Tan and Stadler devote the first section of their book to analyzing the Synthia<\/em> experiment.\u00a0 They explain that Venter skipped the first two steps of the Stairway by purchasing purified homochiral nucleotides produced by living organisms and borrowing additional building blocks of life from an existing bacterium.\u00a0 They avoided the water paradox via carefully designed reactions that used pre-prepared reagents stored and used in a water-free environment and a sterile atmosphere.<\/p>\n They were constrained to build the DNA one short segment at a time because of errors that occurred often in bonding location.\u00a0 There was considerable trial and error in these processes.\u00a0 They borrowed the machinery of other cells whenever needed, including for the construction of DNA and for replication. \u201cThe genes, the regulatory mechanisms, and the biopolymer repair mechanisms of Synthia <\/em>were entirely borrowed from Myco <\/em>and Capri<\/em>.\u00a0 The membrane- and energy-harvesting machinery of Synthia <\/em>was inherited from Capri<\/em>, but over time it was replaced by Synthia <\/em>through the use of its own genome.\u201d<\/p>\n There is much more to say about how the team employed life to construct life.\u00a0 A complex and brilliant research effort?\u00a0 Undoubtedly.\u00a0 But life designed from scratch on a computer?\u00a0 No.\u00a0 Even if it were . . . well, it would be design<\/em>, wouldn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n In conclusion <\/em>. . . The only reason the evolutionary worldview, including abiogenesis, still exists is because of man\u2019s determination to deny and to defy God.\u00a0 The fantasy of evolution is truly ridiculous, but will always be the religion of the educational establishment.\u00a0 They dare not admit the possibility of the God of the Bible, who will be their Judge someday.<\/p>\n I heartily recommend the book.\u00a0 It\u2019s not a book to speedread because the details involve some complexity.\u00a0 But anyone can get the point of each chapter.\u00a0 And if you have a friend who is a scientist or a science student, this book can help to slam dunk his or her evolutionarily blind faith.<\/p>\n I was sharing the Gospel with a college student, an atheist and a science major (I forget which discipline), but he was committed to his evolutionary worldview.\u00a0 I raised some specific issues about the impossibility of biology arising from chemistry, namely that even one cell was too complex and sophisticated to arise from some primordial […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":147,"menu_order":350,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-4074","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/truthreallymatters.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4074","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/truthreallymatters.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/truthreallymatters.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/truthreallymatters.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/truthreallymatters.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4074"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/truthreallymatters.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4074\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4075,"href":"https:\/\/truthreallymatters.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4074\/revisions\/4075"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/truthreallymatters.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/truthreallymatters.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n