The First Insurmountable
Step: The Origin of Life
The theory of evolution posits that
all living species evolved from a single living cell that emerged
on the primitive earth 3.8 billion years ago. How a single cell could
generate millions of complex living species and, if such an evolution
really occurred, why traces of it cannot be observed in the fossil
record are some of the questions the theory cannot answer. However,
first and foremost, of the first step of the alleged evolutionary
process it has to be inquired: How did this "first cell" originate?
Since the theory of evolution denies
creation and does not accept any kind of supernatural intervention,
it maintains that the "first cell" originated coincidentally within
the laws of nature, without any design, plan, or arrangement. According
to the theory, inanimate matter must have produced a living cell as
a result of coincidences. This, however, is a claim inconsistent with
even the most unassailable rules of biology.
"Life Comes
from Life"
In his book, Darwin never referred
to the origin of life. The primitive understanding of science in his
time rested on the assumption that living beings had a very simple
structure. Since medieval times, spontaneous generation, the theory
asserting that non-living materials came together to form living organisms,
had been widely accepted. It was commonly believed that insects came
into being from food leftovers, and mice from wheat. Interesting experiments
were conducted to prove this theory. Some wheat was placed on a dirty
piece of cloth, and it was believed that mice would originate from
it after a while.
Similarly, worms developing in meat
was assumed to be evidence of spontaneous generation. However, only
some time later was it understood that worms did not appear on meat
spontaneously, but were carried there by flies in the form of larvae,
invisible to the naked eye. Even in the period when Darwin wrote The
Origin of Species, the belief that bacteria could come into existence
from non-living matter was widely accepted in the world of science.
However, five years after the publication
of Darwin's book, Louis Pasteur announced his results after long studies
and experiments, which disproved spontaneous generation, a cornerstone
of Darwin's theory. In his triumphal lecture at the Sorbonne in 1864,
Pasteur said, "Never will the doctrine of spontaneous generation recover
from the mortal blow struck by this simple experiment."148
Advocates of the theory of evolution
resisted the findings of Pasteur for a long time. However, as the
development of science unraveled the complex structure of the cell
of a living being, the idea that life could come into being coincidentally
faced an even greater impasse.
Inconclusive
Efforts in the 20th Century
The first evolutionist who took up
the subject of the origin of life in the 20th century was the renowned
Russian biologist Alexander Oparin. With various theses he advanced
in the 1930's, he tried to prove that the cell of a living being could
originate by coincidence. These studies, however, were doomed to failure,
and Oparin had to make the following confession: "Unfortunately, however,
the problem of the origin of the cell is perhaps the most obscure
point in the whole study of the evolution of organisms.149
Evolutionist followers of Oparin tried
to carry out experiments to solve the problem of the origin of life.
The best known of these experiments was carried out by American chemist
Stanley Miller in 1953. Combining the gases he alleged to have existed
in the primordial earth's atmosphere in an experiment set-up, and
adding energy to the mixture, Miller synthesized several organic molecules
(amino acids) present in the structure of proteins.
Barely a few years had passed before
it was revealed that this experiment, which was then presented as
an important step in the name of evolution, was invalid, the atmosphere
used in the experiment having been very different from real earth
conditions.150
After a long silence, Miller confessed
that the atmosphere medium he used was unrealistic.151
All the evolutionist efforts put forth
throughout the 20th century to explain the origin of life ended with
failure. The geochemist Jeffrey Bada from San Diego Scripps Institute
accepts this fact in an article published in Earth Magazine in 1998:
Today as we leave the twentieth century, we still face the biggest
unsolved problem that we had when we entered the twentieth century:
How did life originate on Earth?152
The Complex
Structure of Life
The primary reason why the theory of
evolution ended up in such a big impasse about the origin of life
is that even the living organisms deemed the simplest have incredibly
complex structures. The cell of a living being is more complex than
all of the technological products produced by man. Today, even in
the most developed laboratories of the world, a living cell cannot
be produced by bringing inorganic materials together.
The conditions required for the formation
of a cell are too great in quantity to be explained away by coincidences.
The probability of proteins, the building blocks of cell, being synthesized
coincidentally, is 1 in 10950 for an average protein made up of 500
amino acids. In mathematics, a probability smaller than 1 over 1050
is practically considered to be impossible.
The DNA molecule, which is located
in the nucleus of the cell and which stores genetic information, is
an incredible databank. It is calculated that if the information coded
in DNA were written down, this would make a giant library consisting
of 900 volumes of encyclopedias of 500 pages each.
A very interesting dilemma emerges
at this point: the DNA can only replicate with the help of some specialized
proteins (enzymes). However, the synthesis of these enzymes can only
be realized by the information coded in DNA. As they both depend on
each other, they have to exist at the same time for replication. This
brings the scenario that life originated by itself to a deadlock.
Prof. Leslie Orgel, an evolutionist of repute from the University
of San Diego, California, confesses this fact in the September 1994
issue of the Scientific American magazine:
It is extremely improbable that proteins
and nucleic acids, both of which are structurally complex, arose spontaneously
in the same place at the same time. Yet it also seems impossible to
have one without the other. And so, at first glance, one might have
to conclude that life could never, in fact, have originated by chemical
means.153
No doubt, if it is impossible for life
to have originated from natural causes, then it has to be accepted
that life was "created" in a supernatural way. This fact explicitly
invalidates the theory of evolution, whose main purpose is to deny
creation.
Imaginary Mechanisms
of Evolution
The second important point that negates
Darwin's theory is that both concepts put forward by the theory as
"evolutionary mechanisms" were understood to have, in reality, no
evolutionary power.
Darwin based his evolution allegation
entirely on the mechanism of "natural selection". The importance he
placed on this mechanism was evident in the name of his book: The
Origin of Species, By Means Of Natural Selection…
Natural selection holds that those
living things that are stronger and more suited to the natural conditions
of their habitats will survive in the struggle for life. For example,
in a deer herd under the threat of attack by wild animals, those that
can run faster will survive. Therefore, the deer herd will be comprised
of faster and stronger individuals. However, unquestionably, this
mechanism will not cause deer to evolve and transform themselves into
another living species, for instance, horses.
Therefore, the mechanism of natural
selection has no evolutionary power. Darwin was also aware of this
fact and had to state this in his book The Origin of Species:
Natural selection can do nothing until favourable individual differences
or variations occur.154