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Why Different Conclusions?
If you
were to ask me the question as to who has the most evidence for the origin
of life - creationists or evolutionists, I would say that neither - since
we all live in the same universe and look at the same evidence.
Creationists look at the same things evolutionists look at and yet they
both come up with different sets of conclusions about what they observe.
Evolutionists look at the world and assume it came to be through unguided chance
random processes without a designer. Creationists look at the same world
and conclude that it represents the handiwork of an intelligent designer -
God.
Why are the conclusions so different? It is not because one group are
better scientists nor are they more intelligent than the other, but
because the starting beliefs of those interpreting the evidence are
different.
It is believed that facts by themselves determine or shape a belief system
but that is not entirely the case. Facts alone are meaningless and are not
really the basis for any belief, it is rather the belief system that
determines how the evidence is understood.
Are evidences important? Perhaps, but we need to keep in mind that we must
have the correct system of beliefs in place that will allow correct
interpretation of the evidence. But if you want evidence for creation then
be careful what you ask for, for if you are an evolutionist you may not
like what you hear.
Intellectual
Dishonesty?
Often creationists have been called intellectually dishonest when they
talk about science – the study of God’s creation (creationist’s meaning of
science) and God’s Truth at the same time. Simply by the fact that they
believe in God. One of the reasons being that if God does exist then why
does evil exist. If evil exists then He cannot be an all powerful God,
because He is all good. And yet evil exists? If He created evil then He is
a devil. Or maybe He doesn’t exist and the idea of good and evil are only
man’s conventions? I will touch upon this subject at a later date.
However, lets get down to the topic at hand.
If God created the universe shouldn’t there be evidence of this all around
us. Yes there is. If you were to stretch out the electro magnetic spectrum
a thousand miles linearly you would only see about an inch of it.
Similarly when we see all life we only see the macroscopic or what is
observable by the human eye and conclude that it shows no Evidence of God
as its designer.
“Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath
shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of
the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made,
even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse.”
Romans 1:19-20 KJV
What God said about the evidence of Him in his creation resides not only
at the macroscopic level of His creation , but also at the microscopic
level. To illustrate my point I will take you now to the
microscopic world of amino acids and enzymes. Amino acids and enzymes are
the building blocks of life and yet we fail to realize that they are more
than just that – for they show the handiwork of a great intelligent
designer.
To begin let us look at the evolutionary and creationist model for life.
Matter + energy + time = life (Neo Darwinian formula for life)
Matter + energy + concept = life (Creation Formula for life)
As a competent scientist there is no reasonable way for you to say that the
Neo Darwinian formula for life works – because it doesn’t. This has been
proven numerous times over. The neo Darwinian formula for life simply does
not work. Of course it is argued that it does work because they are able
to synthesize in a closed system using methane, ammonia and water heated
by constant flow of electricity and get a few amino acids –
but that is far from the many enzymes that constitute even the simplest
living organism.
Abiogenesis
Dr. Sidney Fox and Dr. Stanley Miller (evolutionists of course) were among
the first scientists who attempted to prove abiogenesis. They designed a
Pyrex apparatus containing methane, ammonia, and water vapor, but no
oxygen and passed through the mixture electricity to simulate lightning
strikes. What did they managed to create? No life, but the process did
combine the mixture to form amino acids which are the building blocks of
life. Does this prove that life could eventually have arisen in some soup
struck by lightning? No! The results actually weakened the case for life
emerging by this method. The mixture of amino acids and other simple
chemicals produced was not sufficient for producing life. Why? Because all
life that we know today consists of amino acids that are exclusively of
the "left-handed" form.
There is no known life that can use a combination of both "right-handed"
and "left-handed" amino acids. Adding even one "right-handed" amino acid
to a chain of "left-handed" amino acids can and will destroy the entire
chain. When amino acids are synthesized in the laboratory, there is always
a 50% mixture of the two forms. Only through highly advanced,
intelligently controlled processes can these two forms be separated.
Even if this overwhelming obstacle did not exist or can be overcome, far
greater problems remain for the chance synthesis of life. There are many
reasons why the amino acids would disintegrate or never form in the first
place, but life requires much more than just simple amino acids, it also
requires proteins and DNA coding or instruction to assemble all the amino
acids that reside within a living organism.
One chemist has calculated the immense odds against amino acids ever
combining to form the necessary proteins by undirected means. He estimated
the probability to be more than 1 in 10^67 against even a small protein
forming – by time and chance, in an ideal mixture of chemicals, in an
ideal atmosphere, and given up to 100 billion years (many times longer
than the assumed age of the earth). What do mathematicians generally agree
about such odds? That, statistically speaking, any odds beyond 1 in 10^50
have a zero probability of ever happening. Imagine that!
And even if you do manage to replicate all the necessary enzymes by
chance, you still have the enormous hurdle of combining the amino acids to
create even the simplest of life form. How can this hurdle be explained in
layman's term?
Puzzle Pieces
Let me give you an illustration. Let us compare the amino acids to pieces
of a puzzle. Now the puzzle is a picture of Leonardo’s “The Mona Lisa.” It
contains 1000 pieces - which is about half of the total number of enzymes
that constitute the human body. You can put the pieces together to form
the picture where each piece must snap tightly together exactly in the
right order at the right place or you will not get the complete picture.
You break the puzzle up and put the pieces in a box big enough to fit the
whole puzzle if it were assembled. Now, with the broken pieces in the box
you place the box on a shaking machine (representing energy).
Now here is a question. How long do you think it will be before the puzzle
will form itself into the complete picture of the Mona Lisa? never. Why
you may ask? If the box is shaken long enough you might get an equilibrium
where two or three pieces fall into place slightly but without them
snapping together tightly the constant shaking will cause it to break
apart again and thus so on.
What if however you can make the pieces snap together and not fall apart?
How would you do this? Simple, let us introduce a spring and a ball
bearing into the box so that whenever the ball bearing is bounced off the
spring when it is in the precise position and bounces to snap the pieces
together. If you were to do this you might get the puzzle of the Mona Lisa
assembled (although the chances are almost next to nil). Lets say though
for the sake of argument that it is possible if given enough time. And so
after a very, very, very long time you get the Mona Lisa out. There you say, it
is possible.
There is a major problem with that though because life depends on Enzymes
functioning on the basis of reversible reactions. In fact enzymes
establish an equilibrium much faster than our puzzle shaking process. As
such through laboratory processes you will only get amino acids that are
simply that and nothing more. Any competent scientist knows that the
reactions of life are very much like the puzzle pieces that cannot be
snapped together. The fact that enzymes function on the basis of snapping
together and snapping apart proves a very important point.
To continue on, if you were to place a piece of sodium cyanide on the tip
of your tongue you would instantly die. Why? Because cyanide is toxic to
humans and animal species because it binds to key iron containing enzymes
needed for cells to use oxygen. Because living organisms depend on the
interactions of enzymes and when this interaction is stopped, living
organisms cease to live. The only way to prevent death is by reversing the
enzyme binding or introduce an antagonist to prevent the binding from
occurring.
Do we see amino acids synthesized in laboratory experiments as being able
to interact in such a way as to form itself into a living organism? No
never have. Because we know that the matter in which we are made from need
to be reversible. Life as we now know are more than basic chemicals mixed
together, it requires highly organized processes in order to sustain and
reproduce itself. This shows every sign of design and not from natural
unguided processes or through a series of accidents.
DNA
Another overwhelming odd against the spontaneous rise of life through
unguided processes is the existence of DNA coding. The DNA molecule stores coded hereditary information consisting of two long "chains" of
chemical "building blocks" paired together. In humans, the strands of DNA
are almost 2 yards long yet less than a trillionth of an inch thick. The
genetic code is the instruction by which DNA molecules carry the instructions for
arranging the amino acids in the proper order along the protein chain
molecules. Four different link molecules called nucleotides make up the
DNA chain and are referred to by their abbreviations, A, C, G, and T. A
group of any three of these "letter molecules" in a DNA chain forms a code
word for one of the twenty kinds of amino acids which make up the protein
chains in living organisms where for example, in the DNA chain - CTA is the code
word for the amino acid leucine.
The purpose of DNA is like a computer program stored on a storage medium
where the encoded information and instructions are able to be read from
and used as a blue print in the construction of life. It is estimated that
the DNA coding that resides in a human cell stores enough information code
to fill 1,000 books – each with 500 pages of very small, closely-printed
type and would require a good typist over 2.5 years to type it out if she
typed 24 hours a day and 7 days a week for the entire time - if the
mistakes are kept. And yet cells are able to do this within minutes with
little or no mistakes! The DNA coding is so compactly stored that the
amount of DNA necessary to code all the people living on our planet might
fit into a space no larger than an aspirin tablet!
What are the chances of DNA molecules which are crucial to all life
evolving by natural processes and without any intelligent input from a
designer? Virtually impossible. Many scientists are convinced that cells
containing such a complex code and such intricate chemistry could never
have come into being by pure, undirected chemistry. No matter how
chemicals are mixed, it does not create DNA spirals or any intelligent
code whatsoever. Only DNA reproduces DNA.
According to most Evolutionists, the universe is less than 30 billion
years old, and there are fewer than 10^18 seconds in 30 billion years.
Even if nature could somehow have produced trillions of genetic code
combinations every second for 30 billion years, the probabilities against
producing the simplest one celled animal by trial and error would still be
rather quite improbable! What does this mean then? That the probabilities
favor the idea that an intelligent designer (God) was responsible for even the
simplest DNA molecules.
Conclusion
Based on evolutionary explanations the origin of life could not have
happened by chance. Science experiments over and over
again have proven that. In their endeavor to find an answer, evolutionists
have willingly overlooked the very laws of nature God has put in place.
Mainly the Law of Biogenesis - that only life begets life. And yet many
scientists continue to ignore this universal law. Of course they could in
time discover a way to create new life from basic substances or from
existing life, but that in itself would require the intellect of the
scientist to do so and not by unguided processes.
We now
know that science has produced stronger evidence against life having
arisen as a result of unguided random processes, but through careful thought
and design. Evolution is more than just a faulty theory it is a
belief system - origins without God, life without meaning and purpose,
pain and suffering without an answer and ultimately moral conduct without
retribution. It is simply another excuse to turn away
from God and His final judgment. For
if you believe in the survival of the fittest than you are apt to do what
seems to be the strongest impulse within yourself - and if you will not be
held accountable to anyone then that justifies your means. For if you believe that
there is no God to hold you accountable for everything that you do then
why not do exactly what your basic urges tell you?
Much like Jeffrey Dahmer, the notorious serial killer, in an interview with Stone Phillips said: "If a
person doesn’t think there is a God to be accountable to, then — then
what’s the point of trying to modify your behavior to keep it within
acceptable ranges? That’s how I thought anyway. I always believed the
theory of evolution as truth, that we all just came from the slime. When
we, when we died, you know, that was it, there is nothing…"
REFERENCES:
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Borel, Emil Elements of the Theory of
Probability (New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1965), p. 57.
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Cohen, I.L. Darwin Was Wrong – A Study in
Probabilities (P.O. Box 231, Greenvale, New York 11548: New Research
Publications, Inc., 1984), p. 205.
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Erbrich, Paul "On the Probability of the
Emergence of a Protein with a Particular Function," Acta Biotheoretica,
Vol. 34 (1985), pp. 53-80
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Fox, Sidney W. editor, The Origin of
Prebiological Systems and of Their Molecular Matrices (New York:
Academic Press, 1965).
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Howe, George "Addendum to As a Watch Needs
a Watchmaker," Creation Research Society Quarterly, Vol. 23, No. 2
(September 1986), p. 65.
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Miller, Stanley L. "A Production of Amino
Acids Under Possible Primitive Earth Conditions," Science, Vol. 117, No.
3046 (1953), pp. 528-529.
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Montagu, Ashley Human Heredity (NYC: The New
American Library, 1963), p. 25.
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Thaxton, Charles B. Bradley, Walter L. and
Roger L. Olsen, The Mystery Of Life's Origin: Reassessing Current
Theories (New York: Philosophical Library, 1984), 229 pp.
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Wagner, Robert and Radman, Miroslav "The
High Fidelity of DNA Duplication," Scientific American, Vol. 259, No. 2
(August 1988), pp. 40-46
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Weaver, Robert F. "ATGC: A Simple Code of
Four Parts Spells Out Life," National Geographic, Vol. 166, No. 6
(December 1984), p. 822.
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White, A.J. "Uniformitarianism, Probability
and Evolution," Creation Research Society Quarterly, Vol. 9, No. 1 (June
1972), pp. 32-37.
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Wilder-Smith, Arthur E. The Natural Sciences
Know Nothing of Evolution (Santee, California: Master Books, 1981).
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NBC Dateline interview with Jeffrey Dahmer
by Stone Phillips, Nov. 29, 1994.
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