Did God Create Life? Ask a Protein!
In 1953 Stanley Miller performed an experiment which rocked the world! He showed that passing a spark through a chosen mixture of gasses will form amino acids, the building blocks of proteins which are the main ingredients of living cells. Given an inch, a mile was taken. We were taught that lightning strikes provided the sparks that formed the amino acids which concentrated in an "organic soup," and linked together to form proteins. These were claimed to have gotten together with DNA to form the first living cell.
But amino acids will not link together to form proteins! It was a bit like claiming that if bricks formed in nature they would get together to build houses. Proteins are so hard to make that in all of nature, they never form except in already living cells. Never! This scientific fact stands in stark contrast to what was taught.
Which viewpoint is best supported by the evidence? Did life begin without a Creator or did God create it? Evidence that life never comes from non-living materials is so abundant that it is a basic principle of science called the Principle of Biogenesis (living things come only from living things). Atheists and many agnostics have faith that contrary to this basic principle of science, life did evolve spontaneously from chemicals at least once. They now call their theory "abiogenesis" which comes from roots that mean "not Biogenesis." They no longer use the term "spontaneous generation."
Is abiogenesis possible? Not only are proteins never formed in nature outside of living cells, the amino acids from which they are built are of two kinds: Half are called left-handed and half right-handed. Only proteins containing all left handed amino acids will work in living things because proteins which contain any right-handed amino acids have the wrong shape and will not connect properly to the proteins around them. It is a bit like when you take a piece out of a puzzle, turn it upside down and try to put it back in where you took it out. It is the same size and shape, but it won't fit. In nature, all left handed amino acids are only formed by living cells. Amino acids formed in experiments like Miller's, are half left, and half right-handed so they will not work in the proteins of living things. This is more scientific evidence that life could not form without a Creator. Add it to the fact that in nature, no proteins at all will form outside of cells.
Cells can make proteins because:
.Think of DNA as the cell's library, and RNA as a book that can be checked out of the library. A kind of RNA checks out information from the DNA to line up left handed amino acids in the exact order required for each individual protein.
.Next the correctly ordered left-handed amino acids are linked together by a "molecular machine." This machine is made up of another kind of RNA working together with several specialized proteins. The machine links the properly ordered left-handed amino acids one to another to make proteins.
The molecular machines that make proteins are a good example of the cell's many complex machines. Because no machine exists that did not have an intelligent inventor, each of the cell's machines is another evidence for an intelligent Creator.
After having taught for 40 or 50 years that amino acids first concentrated, then linked together to form proteins, atheists are abandoning this claim. Why?
.Amino acids do not concentrate in the ocean; they disperse and break down.
.Amino acids will not link together in nature to form proteins; not even when scientists help them by buying all left-handed amino acids from a chemical supply house to make the perfect "organic soup."
.If proteins could form, they could not get together with DNA because DNA does not form outside of living cells either. Scientists can't even make DNA in the laboratory.
The argument that was used to convince two generations that life had come about without a Creator was false in each of these steps. The overwhelming evidence, however, is only one of the reasons that this argument is being abandoned. It is also because atheists now favor another theory: that RNA rather than proteins formed life. Notice the reasons this more recent schoolbook offers:
"Scientists have not been able to cause amino acids dissolved in water to join together to form proteins. The energy-requiring chemical reactions that join amino acids are reversible and do not occur spontaneously in water. However, most scientists no longer argue that the first proteins assembled spontaneously. Instead, they now propose that the initial macromolecules were composed of RNA, and that RNA later catalyzed the formation of proteins."{George B. Johnson, Peter H. Raven, Biology, Principles & Explorations, Holt, Rinhehart and Winston, 1996 p. 235}.
I rejoice that this schoolbook tells the truth about proteins. Amino acids do not link together in "organic soup" to form proteins. Theteaching which convinced so many people that God did not create life was false. The quote implies, however, that RNA might form that way. It does not. RNA and DNA, are made of nucleotides, a bit like proteins are made of amino acids. Fry states:
". water greatly interferes with the linking of amino acids and nucleotides into chains, a crucial step in the origin of life."{Iris Fry, The Emergence of Life on Earth, 2000, p.245}.
In fact, even when the nucleotides are dry RNA never forms except in already living cells:
". no one has yet succeeded in creating RNA."{Peter D. Ward, Donald Brownlee, Rare Earth, Why complex Life is Uncommon in the Universe, 2000, p. 65, see also 62-6}. Many atheists today are leaving a false argument about proteins to accept an even more false argument about RNA. The fact that RNA is vital to the life of every cell, and cannot be made except by already living cells is powerful evidence against life forming without a Creator.
To greatly multiply the impossibility that RNA formed by itself, the sugars in RNA must all be right-handed instead of the normal half and half. Hiding these facts, some schoolbooks now make the formation of RNA sound as easy as they made protein formation sound to previous generations of students. Here is an example:
"First, RNA nucleotides formed from simple gas molecules in much the same way as in experiments similar to those done by Miller and Urey. Nucleotides then assembled spontaneously into small chains.. These small chains were able to make copies of themselves. Once replicating molecules like these appear, natural selection and evolution are possible."{Holt, Annotated Teacher's Edition, Biology, Visualizing Life, 1994, p. 201}.
This quote and others like it are science fiction. Scientists have of course repeated the experiment of Stanley Miller and his teacher Urey many times in many variations. Neither RNA nor nucleotides, their building blocks, will form, nor could nucleotides have sorted for all right-handed sugars. This is real evidence that has been put to the test.
Another schoolbook which leads students to believe thatRNA was the source of life is less dogmatic: "Perhaps RNA was the first self-replicating information-storage molecule. After it had formed, it could also have catalyzed the assembly of the first proteins.."{George B. Johnson, Peter H. Raven, Biology, Principles & Explorations, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1996 p. 230}. Before you get too enthused over the marvelous powers of "perhaps RNA," remember that years of research have not been able to get RNA to form, nor does RNA self-replicate, or catalyze the assembly of proteins.
I have not yet found a science textbook for school kids which admits that RNA is never generated spontaneously, but here is a quote from a philosopher of science which states that not even thenucleotides from which RNA is made will form that way:
"Though a few organic substances-for instance, certain simple amino acids-can form relatively easily under prebiotic conditions, other biochemical building blocks, such as nucleotides and lipids, require for their synthesis a 'real factory.' . The synthesis of these substances involves a series of reactions, each reaction following the previous one in utmost accuracy." {Iris Fry, The Emergence of Life on Earth, 2000, p. 126, 176-177}. "Prebiotic" means before there were living cells, and the "real factory" needed to make nucleotides is any living cell.
Other atheistic scientists also tell it like it is: "Some of the steps leading to the synthesis of DNA and RNA can be duplicated in the laboratory, others cannot."{Peter D. Ward, Donald Brownlee, Rare Earth, Why complex Life is Uncommon in the Universe, 2000, p. 63}. The fact that RNA does not form in nature and scientists cannot even make it from scratch in the laboratory is scientific evidence.
I hope textbook writers who withhold this evidence and imply that RNA forms spontaneously are not doing it to turn students to atheism. Whatever their motivation, teaching kids that life started without a Creator does produce atheists. Doubts grow and faith in God diminishes. Many adopt moral standards based on atheism. If you personally turned to atheism because of statements about proteins forming spontaneously, what are you going to do now that even the atheists admit these statements were not true? Will you be faithful to the religion of atheism that deceived you about proteins, and blindly switch your faith to the false argument that RNA formed spontaneously? Want more evidence? I adapted this booklet from my book How Life Began (Chick Publications, 2002, 160 pages) which backs up everything here with much more evidence, in greater depth, and with more references to atheistic sources.
Whatever you believe about where proteins came from, they are the principle ingredients of living cells and deserve your serious consideration. But I warn you, they provide powerful scientific evidence that living things had an intelligent Creator! Read on if you dare:
Proteins must fold perfectly
When a cell has made a new protein, while it is still moving into place, it folds into the exact shape which will allow it to connect with the proteins next to it. Some scientists use the illustration of a hand in a glove to describe how a protein must fit. Others liken it to the way a key fits in a lock. IBM is building the world's most powerful super computer named Blue Gene, hoping to figure out how proteins fold correctly. The Oregonian describes the new super computer: "The machine, dubbed Blue Gene, will be turned loose on a single problem. The computer will try to model the way a human protein folds into a particular shape that gives it its unique biological properties." {Justin Gillis, The Sunday Oregonian, June 4, 2000, A5}
IBM writes:
"To make proteins, agents known as ribosomes connect amino acids into long strings. These strings loop and fold around each other in a variety of ways. However, only one of these many ways will allow the protein to function properly." {November 2001, IBM Research News October 1, 2001}
". proteins fold into a highly complex, three-dimensional shape that determines their function. Any change in shape dramatically alters the function of a protein, and even the slightest change in the folding process can turn a desirable protein into a disease." {http://www.research.ibm.com/bluegene/press_release.html}
Because of the tremendous amount of computing power the new computer will unleash, running day and night it will only take: "about one year to simulate the complete folding of a typical protein." {Robert F. Service, Science, 12/17/99, p. 2250}. Living cells, however, fold such proteins in less than a second. This evidence shows that the One who invented the way proteins fold in cells is much more intelligent than the new super computer.
After scientists had uncovered this layer of brilliant design and turned the spotlight on it, they found - another layer of brilliant design! Specialized proteins called chaperones or chaperonins, help newly made proteins fold correctly while they accompany them to the places in the cell where they must fit perfectly to work with the surrounding proteins. The chaperones then help fit them precisely with the proteins around them to which they must attach. Evelyn Strauss, Science News, 09/06/97, p. 155} How do the chaperones themselves fold correctly? They too have chaperones!
Intelligent scientists have learned how to link amino acids together in the laboratory to form some of the smaller proteins, but unless their amino acids are all left handed and they fold properly, as far as biological activity is concerned, they are no better than miniature spaghetti.
Addressing proteins
Even though there are huge numbers of wrong places for proteins to go, there is only one correct place in which each newly made protein will fit and function. Proteins are not made where they will be used, and are worthless except in the one spot they fold to fit. How do proteins find their way? ". newly minted proteins contain an amino acid string that determines their eventual home." Tom A. Rapoport of Harvard Medical School, Science News, 10/16/99, Vol. 156 Issue 16, p 246. See also Britannica Biography Collection, Guenter Blobel. The amino acid string which forms the address is usually added as a tail on the end of the longer string of amino acids which make up the protein. This tail has been compared to the address on an envelope.
Before you say this evidence is not important, put a bunch of your letters in the mail box without addressing them. If the right addresses were to form spontaneously, you would probably call it a miracle. Science News says, "Misplacing a protein is more serious than losing a letter, however. There are diseases where proteins are mistargeted in cells." Tom A. Rapoport of Harvard Medical School, Science News, 10/16/99, Vol. 156 Issue 16, p 246. See also Britannica Biography Collection, Guenter Blobel} In 1999, "The Nobel Prize for Medicine went to Dr. Guenter Blobel of The Rockefeller University in New York" {http://www4.cnn.com/HEALTH/9910/11/nobel.medicine.03/index.html} for discovering the amino acid address tags that direct each protein to its proper place in the cell. All available evidence indicates that creating and coding the correct information for each address requires intelligence.
Cells can't live unless each of their many proteins not only folds correctly, but receives the correct address tag. When several things must be in place at the same time for an object to function, it is called "irreducible complexity," and is evidence that it had a creator.
Turning proteins on and off
The cell also needs the right amount of each protein. If it kept making more and more copies of any given protein, it would completely use up some of its raw materials. Also, if there were even one protein that the cell did not stop making after it had made enough, the cell would soon be jammed so full of that protein that it would pop. The production of every individual protein is and must be turned on and off at just the right moments. {Susan Aldridge, The Thread of Life, The story of genes and genetic engineering, Cambridge University Press, 1996, p. 47-53}
If a first living cell had formed without a Creator, the cell would still have had to replace each of its proteins as soon as it wore out. If the cell did not contain the information to correctly turn on and off the production of the replacement proteins, the cell would have died as soon as the first essential protein wore out. This is evidence that there is a Creator who knows how to turn protein production on and off!
So what?
The proteins that make up cells will not form anywhere in nature except in already living cells. One reason cells can make them is because the directions for making them and for turning their production on and off are already present in the cell's library of information called DNA. Once made, proteins could not function unless they were properly folded and addressed. Neither making proteins, folding, addressing, nor regulating their production could invent itself, yet no cell could live unless all were in place working together. These brilliant solutions are scientific facts and constitute evidence for a very intelligent Creator who plans ahead.
Textbook authors who replace scientific evidence with atheistic theory contribute to "dumbing down" the students. Students are not taught some very important scientific facts because they contradict atheistic theory. Instead, time is taken up learning things that are contrary to real science. Christians pay for their own schools to teach that God created. Atheists have that same freedom, but textbooks paid for by our taxes should not hide evidence to promote the atheistic faith.
A Cell Must Have a Membrane
Each cell is contained inside a two layer membrane made of lipids [fats). Bruce Alberts, Essential Cell Biology, An Introduction to the Molecular Biology of the Cell, 1998, p. 348, 363} Lipids are only formed by living cells. Here is a quote that we read earlier when we were considering nucleotides, the building blocks of RNA and DNA. It is important here as well, because it explains why lipids don't form in nature outside of living cells: "Though a few organic substances-for instance, certain simple amino acids-can form relatively easily under prebiotic conditions, other biochemical building blocks, such as nucleotides and lipids, require for their synthesis a 'real factory.' . The synthesis of these substances involves a series of reactions, each reaction following the previous one in utmost accuracy." Iris Fry, The Emergence of Life on Earth, 2000, p. 126, 176-177} Contrary to the false claims of some textbooks that lipid coacervates evolved into cells, lipids are only produced by accurately controlled reactions in living cells. This is important evidence!
What does the cell's membrane do?
Alberts writes: "A living cell is a self-reproducing system of molecules held inside a container. The container is the plasma membrane - a fatty film so thin and transparent that it cannot be seen directly in the light microscope. It is simple in construction, being based on a sheet of lipid molecules.. Although it serves as a barrier to prevent the contents of the cell from escaping and mixing with the surrounding medium.the plasma membrane does much more than that. Nutrients have to pass inward across it if the cell is to survive and grow, and waste products have to pass outward. Thus the membrane is penetrated by highly selective channels and pumps, formed from protein molecules, that allow specific substances to be imported while others are exported. Still other protein molecules in the membrane act as sensors to enable the cell to respond to changes in its environment."{Bruce Alberts, Essential Cell Biology, 1998, p. 347}
A lipid membrane without its protein pumps and channels would let water enter the cell, but would keep nutrients out, starving the cell, Essential Cell Biology, p. 347, 356-357} so proteins had to work together with the lipids from the first, another important evidence, of carefully planned irreducible complexity.
If cells had really formed spontaneously, we would expect their important parts to be made of materials that form easily under natural conditions. However, not one of the four: lipids, proteins, RNA, or DNA, can be made that way at all! Amazing! Not one is formed in nature except by a living cell, yet for a cell to live, all must be there at the same time, each one doing its job. If God had wanted to shout to you that He is here, and show you proof that He created, could you find a more convincing proof for Him to use? Run, don't walk to the nearest Bible and get to know your awesome Creator personally - through His Son, Jesus Christ!
Where Did the Information in Cells Come from?
The DNA of a bacterium contains as much information as a 1000 page book! {Lee M. Spetner, Not by Chance, 1998, p. 30}. What is information? The principle definition in my dictionary is, "knowledge communicated or received.." {Random House Webster's College Dictionary, 2000, p. 678}
Philip Johnson illustrates his definition of information with an egg that becomes a baby something: "By information, I mean a message that conveys meaning, such as a book of instructions.. Information is not matter, though it is imprinted on matter.. Instructions in the fertilized egg control embryonic development from the beginning, and direct it to a specific outcome." Philip Johnson, The Wedge of Truth: Splitting the Foundations of Naturalism, 2000, p. 123, 134}
Information is not produced by the material that carries it
Information is not determined by the material it is written on, whether it be paper, a computer, or whatever. The same sheet of paper can be used to draw a comic strip or to write a chemical formula. The same stretch of DNA that carries the commands for brown hair can just as easily hold the commands that will make blond hair; or teeth for that matter! Information comes from minds. My old Encyclopedia Britannica was on a CD. Now I consult a copy on the Internet. The message is independent of the material it happens to be written on.
Neither does information depend on the particular set of letters or code it is written in. If this booklet is translated into Chinese, the information will be the same. The information in DNA has been copied onto computers in the Human Genome Project, and printed out on paper. It is the same information no matter what it is written on, in, or with.
Many atheists understand, but purposely side step the really difficult question which is, "Where does the information in cells come from?" They substitute made up stories about where one of the materials that caries information might have come from. But there is no way that chance, clay, "organic soup," or natural selection could invent the chemical code of a first cell, and use it to write information instructing the cell to make just the right proteins, fold them properly, and send each one to the only place in the cell where it will fit.
Professor Werner Gitt, who works in the field of information science writes: "There is no known natural law through which matter can give rise to information, neither is there any physical process or material phenomenon known that can do this." Werner Gitt, In the Beginning Was Information, 1997, p. 79} This statement, if true, destroys the whole basis of the idea that no intelligent mind was involved in the formation of the first life. Is his statement true? All languages, alphabets, and codes that we know of, as well as the information spoken or written in them, originated in minds. The blind faith of the atheist that the first life was an exception is contrary to all known evidence.
De Duve, a Nobel Prize winning scientist writes:
"{In all modern organisms, DNA contains in encrypted form the instructions for the manufacture of proteins. More specifically, encoded within DNA is the exact order in which amino acids, selected at each step from 20 distinct varieties should be strung together to form all of the organism's proteins." Christian de Duve, "The Beginning of Life on Earth," American Scientist, Vol. 83, Sept-Oct. 1995, p. 430} Information never happens apart from intelligence, yet cells contain huge amounts of information. I believe this is the most important single evidence that life came from the mind of an intelligent Creator rather than from dumb chemicals.
Can matter compose information?
Many evolutionists claim that life arose from an "organic soup," but how could the imagined "organic soup" know the precise order of each of the amino acids of even one protein, let alone that of the hundreds of proteins that a "primitive" cell would have needed to survive? Others claim that RNA came first, perhaps formed by contact with a clay template, and went on to produce the first cell. They imply that the clay passed on the basic information which natural selection later perfected. Neither soup nor clay has this or any other information, and if they did have information, what chance would there have been that it would have been just the information the first RNA would need? Why not something simpler, like the directions for repairing an airplane engine or for making more clay? Consider the odds against the right information popping up!
Some claim that after the first RNA was formed, the rest of the information came about gradually, one step at a time by mutations. Since each part in a cell depends on other parts, none would work unless others were present. One step at a time would not do. Information always comes from a mind. Therefore the presence of large quantities of organized information in cells is evidence of an intelligent Creator.
If clay had really produced a simple RNA, immediately capable of making copies of itself, and later of making proteins, that clay would have been more intelligent than all of today's origin of life scientists put together. They can't produce any RNA at all, {Peter D. Ward, Donald Brownlee, Rare Earth, Why complex Life is Uncommon in the Universe, 2000, p. 65, see also p. xix, 63-64, 60} let alone one with these special abilities. Out of millions of possible proteins, the "primitive" RNA would have to have made exactly the proteins a cell would need; properly folded, addressed, regulated, and enclosed in a membrane.
The codes which carry the information in DNA and RNA use four nucleotides which work like a four letter alphabet. If that doesn't sound like enough letters, remember that any message can be written with computers or in Morse Code. Both have alphabets of only two letters. The four nucleotide bases that form the "letters" of the DNA code, can be arranged to spell out the instructions for making all the different proteins. All available evidence indicates that it takes intelligence to devise letters or code, and arrange them into instructions.
Some argue that monkeys beating at random on a typewriter or computer keyboard might eventually produce a few recognizable words and that these words would be information. How many words would the monkeys type if no intelligence had invented any language, alphabet, keyboard or computer, and they had to beat on the dirt?
Others pretend their computers can make meaningful messages by random processes. Why theirs and not yours or mine? Their computers choose the right letters because they used their intelligence to write a program that chooses letters.
Others have claimed that the amount of information depends only on the number of letters; that if you add random letters, instead of creating typographical errors, you increase the information. But not in the book they wrote! Neither would sprinkling ink here and there in their book produce more information. The more ink is sprinkled, the more information is covered up. Those who claim chance occurrences add information confuse static with message in a desperate attempt to save their atheistic faith.
Scientists use information as a proof of intelligence
Speaking of static, scientists with the SETI institute are using huge radio telescopes to search for messages from "intelligent beings in space." (The letters "SETI" mean Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence.) The first step in their search is to separate between static and message. So far all they have found is static, but if they find a message from space, they say they will have shown that there are intelligent beings out there somewhere because intelligent messages are created only by intelligent beings. If exceptions existed, and intelligent messages could be sent out without any intelligence involved, their whole search would be useless.
Dr. Charles Thaxton hits the nail on the head:
"If the inference for an intelligent cause for DNA (and for life too, if DNA is truly necessary for life) is in error, then we would likewise be in error to infer the presence of extraterrestrial intelligence upon receipt of intelligible radio messages from deep space. More important, our knowledge of past civilizations provided by archaeologists would be in jeopardy. These supposed "Artifacts" might be, after all, the result of unknown natural causes. Cave paintings, for example.may not be the result of early humans..Indeed, excavated ancient libraries could not be trusted to contain the works of intelligent men and women." {24 Charles B. Thaxton, "In Pursuit of Intelligent Causes" Origins & Design, Summer 2001, p. 28-29}
Scientists use information as a proof of intelligence because the evidence overwhelmingly supports this position. The information in ancient libraries came from real minds of real people. The far more complex information in cells came from the far more intelligent mind of God.
Modern people put symbols in their spacecraft to try to send a message into space that there are intelligent beings on earth. God built cells out of materials so hard to make that in all of nature these materials never form apart from living cells. Into these cells He put information which can only have come from a mind. In doing so, He sent a strong message to all who have minds; a message which helps pry open our stubborn hearts to know Him who said, "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" (John 8:32). For greater detail, see my book, How Life Began.
Miniaturization
The evidence that an intelligent Creator made the information in DNA is reinforced by the fact that this information takes up the least space possible.{Andrzej Stasiak and John H. Maddocks, "Best packing in proteins and DNA," Nature, Vol. 406, July 20, 2000, p. 251-252. See also Werner Gitt, In the Beginning Was Information, 1997, p. 195} This is true not only of human DNA, but also of that in "primitive" cells.
After a number of intelligent scientists had worked for many years developing ever better microfilm they fit the entire Bible on one 32 X 33 mm film. Amazing! However, that same space covered with DNA would hold information equivalent to 7.7 million Bibles! {Werner Gitt, In the Beginning Was Information, 1997, p. 192-194} If DNA was formed with no intelligent input as biology books often imply, why did it take generations of intelligent scientists thousands of man hours to develop the millions of times less efficient microfilm?
No matter how strong the atheist's faith may be, his belief that the information in cells formed with no mind involved is contrary to the evidence. The evidence indicates that the information in DNA was put there by a Creator who is so intelligent that we should listen to everything He has to say.
Redefining Science to Eliminate the Creator
You are walking down the road with a friend who knows cars and come to a wreck. You point to one of the fragments and ask, "Is that a piece of the car?
He explains: "It's one of the computer chips that control the motor. If it detects one thing or another in the exhaust, it uses that information to adjust the fuel mixture or the timing to make the motor run better."
What made the chip? You have two choices:
.It was put together by the blind forces of nature.
.It was developed by an intelligent designer.
If you see four bricks stacked one on top of another you know someone stacked them that way, how much more the complex design of a chip. However, in cases in which the designer of a complex object would have to have been God, we are told not to reason like we do for everything else, but to believe that cells had no designer at all even though they control far more complex operations than any chip.
Abiogenesis, the idea that the first life started with no intelligent designer, is contrary to real science. It contradicts:
.The Laws of Probability that calculate the chance of a thing happening,
.The Principle of Biogenesis (life only comes from life),
.The tendency of things to become disordered, described by the entropy of the Second Law of Thermodynamics,
.The observation of what happens in nature,
.The experimental evidence.
As new information about the complexity and information content of cells is discovered, the evidence against life having formed without a Creator mounts up and the case for an intelligent Creator becomes stronger. Something is being done about that! The very definition of science is being changed to get rid of the obvious conclusion that God created living things.
The term "science" once meant "knowledge discovered by experimentation, observation and objective investigation." To be scientific, a thing had to be observable, testable, and repeatable. When one scientist did an experiment, others could repeat his experiment, and obtain the same results. If no one who repeated the experiment came up with the same results, those results had been "falsified" (shown not to be true). Science thrives on this definition. It helps us understand how things work, but it is a big problem for those who don't believe in the Creator. They claim that a first cell came together spontaneously from mindless chemicals, but this is an opinion about ancient history. It is not observable, testable, or repeatable, so it is not science. Public schoolbooks should not teach it as science.
To make the elimination of the Creator appear scientific, science is being redefined. Many are now insisting that science must explain all that we observe by solely natural causes. In Kansas the state guidelines redefined science as, "The human activity of seeking natural explanations for what we observe in the world around us." Peter Keeting, "God and Man in OZ" George, Oct. 2000, p. 87}
The meaning of the term, "natural," in this context, is "naturalistic; without any input by an intelligent Creator." Redefining science like this is probably the only way to make the idea that living cells popped up without an intelligent Creator sound scientific. Some atheists must understand that their naturalistic ideas are contrary to scientific evidence. If not, why in the world would they try to change the definition of science? If science becomes the "activity of seeking natural explanations," then science will have a religious purpose. It is not to find the true explanations, fall where they may, but natural explanations, which means explanations which don't involve an intelligent designer. This is an atheistic religious goal, and it has determined the conclusion a scientist is to reach before he even starts his research!
Fry, a philosopher of science, in her book which explains the work of each of the leading origin of life researchers makes this clear:
". origin of life research consists in looking for a naturalistic alternative to the idea of the creation of life by a designer." Iris Fry, The Emergence of Life on Earth, 2000, p. 184}
Irreducible complexity
Fry also responds to the very influential book, Darwin's Black Box, written by Michael Behe, a professor of biochemistry who makes the point that even the most simple cell could not function without a certain number of essential parts. He illustrates with the common mouse trap, the kind with a base, a wire that snaps down, etc. If even one part of a mousetrap is taken away it will not catch mice. Behe calls this "irreducible complexity." Whether it is a mouse trap or a cell, things that are irreducibly complex will not work at all unless a number of essential parts are working together.
Fry calls the search for a naturalistic explanation of life an attempt to "reduce the irreducibly complex." She says first life researchers are attempting to find some way in which a cell could have functioned without the irreducible complexity that could only have been brought about by intelligent design. Each researcher has hoped that his idea would succeed, but none has. Why not?
In order to live, a cell must at least have parts that will let it:
.Separate itself from the water around it,
.Take in food, and expel wastes,
.Use food to make the energy and materials that the cell needs to do its work,
.Make the working parts that permit the cell to do these things,
.Contain the information that directs these activities,
.Reproduce.
A first cell could not have lived to produce a second cell if it lacked the parts necessary to make possible even one of these abilities! This is irreducible complexity, and it is evidence of design. Many dead cells, however, have the necessary parts. For a cell to live, life is also necessary.
My question to Fry and to the first life researchers, each with his doctor's degrees, standing as it were on the shoulders of the scientists who came before him is: "If after many more years of accumulating knowledge and ability, some brilliant scientist succeeds in creating life in a test tube, will he have shown that life just popped up without an intelligent creator?"
In the meantime, as more is known about cells, more evidence for the irreducible complexity of living things piles up. Is there a point at which we can say, "The idea that life began spontaneously without a Creator has been falsified?" If there is no way to test an idea to show if it is false, that idea lies outside the realm of science; at least as science has been defined in the past.
Put it to the test
The new definition of science: "The human activity of seeking natural explanations for what we observe in the world around us," leads to the conclusion that whatever it is applied to had no intelligent designer but had a natural explanation. A cell? Yes, but also an arrowhead or a computer. Why should a definition which obviously leads to a false conclusion about arrow heads be used on cells? Since it is so obviously false where it can be tested, why would anyone trust the new definition in an area in which it cannot be checked? It is an attempt to convince people to ignore the great mountain of evidence which points to God, and line up like sheep to accept the naturalistic alternative.
Where did presidents come from?
The heads of some of America's most famous presidents have been carved out of the solid rock of the side of Mount Rushmore. A visitor who knew nothing about them could seek a natural explanation: "Did the wind and the rain just happen to shape the rock so it resembles the heads of presidents?"
A visitor could ask that, but no one does because the likeness of the presidents is so perfect that it is obviously the work of a sculptor. Ask a thousand science teachers. All of them will give you that kind of an answer. However, many of these teachers will stand up in class the next day and teach their students that not only the single cell but the very presidents themselves were formed by the blind forces of nature. "There is none so blind as he who will not see!"
Did Time Perform the Miracle of Life?
The odds against life having sprung up from non living materials make it clear that life did not come about in this way. In the past, atheists used billions of years to somewhat reduce the odds against abiogenesis. Here is how one biology book put it in 1979:
"The other important requirement for the origin of life is plenty of time. The events necessary for the beginnings of life were extremely unlikely." {K. Arms and P. Camp, Biology, Holt Rinehart and Winston, 1979, p. 156.}
Even earlier, back in 1955, the Harvard biology professor George Wald had written a famous quote about the beginning of life which dramatized the same idea:
"The time with which we have to deal is of the order of two billion years.. Given so much time the 'impossible' becomes possible, the possible probable, and the probable virtually certain. One has only to wait: time itself performs miracles." {George Wald, "The origin of Life", in The Physics and Chemistry of Life, 1955, p. 12.}
He put life beginning by itself in the class of the impossible, but claimed that so much time had been available for life to begin that it performed miracles that made the "impossible become possible."
Walde's statement is not science! It is more like, "Once upon a time." He was grasping at straws! Time only increases the chance of things being produced without a Creator that can be produced that way.
.None of the major parts of cells (proteins, DNA, RNA, Lipids, information) can.
.As time passes, all the material parts decompose.
.No cell part will work unless others work with it.
This is evidence.
Later evolutionists decided that the huge amounts of time had never really existed. Why? Fossils of ancient bacteria were found and dated at 3.55 billion years ago. According to those who believe in an old earth, this is only a half billion years after the earth had cooled down enough to support life. These fossils, ". look identical to bacteria still on Earth today." {Peter D. Ward, Donald Brownlee, Rare Earth, Why complex Life is Uncommon in the Universe, 2000, p. 57.} The, evolutionists say that a great deal of time would have been required for the first primitive life to evolve enough to look like modern bacteria, so very few years could have been available for the first life to form.
De Duve, a Nobel scientist wrote of these fossils:
"Advanced forms of life existed on earth at least 3.55 billion years ago..It is now generally agreed that if life arose spontaneously by natural processes.it must have arisen fairly quickly, more in a matter of millennia or centuries, perhaps even less, than in millions of years." {Christian de Duve, "The Beginning of Life on Earth," American Scientist, Vol. 83, Sept-Oct. 1995, p. 428.}
De Duve was announcing the new time frame which leaves: No large amounts of time for chance to form proteins or RNA, nor for natural selection to perfect RNA. No time for RNA to make proteins. No time for information to accumulate gradually if information did not require a mind. No billions of years. No millions of years. No time!
The odds are so overwhelmingly against each step in the spontaneous generation of life that even the atheists freely admitted that life could not have formed without huge amounts of time. Today most of them admit that the time never existed either. Now they simply state, "Life must have formed rapidly." If it did, it should be easy to duplicate in the lab. The fact that no one can is evidence.
Did Life Come from Space?
If even one step in the evolution of chemicals to a first cell was scientifically impossible, life could not have formed that way. I have shown huge amounts of valid scientific evidence that not one of the main ingredients of cells: proteins, cell membranes, DNA, RNA, or information will form in nature except in already living cells. If one part could have formed, it would have broken down while it was waiting for the others. All would have to have come about at almost exactly the same time and location and immediately teamed up to form life. Figure the odds against that!
I have not found any valid evidence at all for abiogenesis. Do you know of any? The famous astronomer and mathematician Sir Fred Hoyle once did a mathematical analysis and concluded: "The likelihood of the spontaneous formation of life from inanimate matter is one to a number with 40,000 naughts after it.. It is big enough to bury Darwin and the whole theory of evolution." {Hoyle, Sir Fred, and Chandra Wickramasinghe, Evolution from Space, 1984, p. 148} To provide an alternative to the Creator, Hoyle suggested that life came from some place far off in space.
The evidence against abiogenesis is so overwhelming that even many atheists agree: chemicals could not have gotten together to form life on this earth! Their influence has been a major voice in guiding the governments of the world to spend billions of dollars in search of a far off planet from which life might have come. Those who are still convinced that life evolved here can hardly deny that many of their fellow atheists realize that the scientific evidence is strongly against it.
"Far far away," is similar to "long long ago." It puts life's start up problems out of sight and out of mind. The problems of life forming by itself from chemicals would have been about the same on another planet off in space as on earth. To these would have been added the difficulties of the trip:
.the long time required to travel through space to earth.
.the lack of anything to breathe on the way,
.the destructive effects of cosmic rays,
.the extreme cold of space,
.the heat of friction upon entering the atmosphere, and the shock of striking earth.
Putting the spontaneous beginning of life somewhere off in space only adds the difficulty of the trip to the already impossible.The evidence indicates an intelligent and powerful Creator.
If you would like to know Him personally, the last chapter of How Life Began will help you.

What kind of planet?
A funny thing happened while people who do not believe in the Creator were looking for a planet where chemicals could have formed life. They began to realize that the planet would have to have had a very rare set of features: the right temperature, atmosphere, gravity - the list goes on. They analyzed the data to determine what kind of planet they should look for.
What kind of a planet are they looking for?
A planet just like earth!

Back Cover:

Where did Life come from? The scientific evidence clearly and decisively supports creation by God, and condemns the idea that life was generated spontaneously. People love to debate this evidence, so give copies of Scientific Evidence that God Created Life to your friends. It's a door opener to serious discussions. When Atheists see that the evidence is against them, many will attack the Bible, thus bringing its message into the discussion.
How life Began (165 pages, Chick Publications) presents even more scientific evidence, in greater depth, plus a chapter on how to know the Creator personally.