At school, you have probably learned that life arose on its own at some point long ago. But that is wrong. The correct thing to say is that we do not know how life came into being. For about 65 years, intense research activity has been conducted in laboratories worldwide to create life—without success. The smartest researchers, the best laboratories, and the finest equipment! That’s what they’ve had. Nor has there been a lack of financial resources. But it has been in vain. Every conceivable possibility has been explored, and today there are no new approaches left. It has not been possible to create a cell. In a way, science has reached a dead end. All this research has aimed to show that life can arise from dead matter. That’s what Materialism and Naturalism proclaim—that everything in our reality stems from matter, which is essentially dead nature without life. Logically, it’s impossible to believe that dead physical matter can transform into life. Life is something far higher and greater than dead matter, and a result cannot be greater than its cause. Science claims that life originated in water. But that seems impossible since the biological substances that make up life are damaged and destroyed by water. The French chemist Louis Pasteur (1822–1895) is famous for saying, “Life can only come from existing life,” and his statement has never been disproven.
Abiogenesis is the name of this field of study about how life might have arisen from lifeless matter. When studying abiogenesis, one cannot use substances produced in chemical factories or apply one’s intelligence, since there were no intelligent beings on the primitive early Earth before life existed. You have to start with raw elements.
I would like to introduce James Tour, a professor at Rice University in the USA. He conducts his experiments on abiogenesis the right way. He creates all substances himself from scratch. Tour says that his livelihood is synthesizing new biochemical compounds. He is one of the world’s leading researchers in his field and has personal knowledge of all the difficulties encountered when creating entirely new chemical substances. Tour explains that life consists of four building blocks: proteins, sugars, lipids (fats), and nucleic acids. Tour is very clear: None of these building blocks could arise on their own on the primitive Earth before life existed.
This means, quite simply, that life cannot arise on its own as prevailing science claims. Not long ago, Tour challenged 10 of the world’s leading researchers on the origin of life by presenting them with five specific problems that, as of today, remain unsolved issues for abiogenesis. They were given 60 days to respond. No one came up with a solution. This means that naturalistic science cannot explain the origin of life.
In textbooks, we read that the first life on Earth was primitive. But there is no such thing as primitive life. All life, even the simplest, is unimaginably complex. The first life had to be highly complex.
The first cell had to have a cell membrane made of phospholipids with openings for the transport of materials both into and out of the cell. It had to contain both DNA and RNA, be capable of protein synthesis, and consist of at least 250 proteins. The nanomachinery of life also had to be present. It needed a supply of nutrients to generate energy for biochemical reactions, and it had to have the ability to divide and form daughter cells. It also required a cytoskeleton.
Those interested in abiogenesis may have read about the so-called RNA world as an explanation for the origin of life. But we can now dismiss that theory because the chemical compounds that make up RNA cannot form on their own. They can be made by clever scientists in modern laboratories, but they cannot arise spontaneously in nature. There’s reason to believe that the RNA world is still being taught by professors at Norwegian universities. A survey in the USA showed that up to 70% of respondents believed in chemical evolution as an explanation for the origin of life. But this possibility can also be dismissed for the same reasons.
Replicators are biochemical molecules capable of copying themselves. Thus, they could give rise to life. I know that Norwegian professors, both verbally and in writing, explain the origin of life with replicators. They seem convinced that replicators more or less automatically create new life. But Professor Tour asserts that replicator molecules could not have formed on the primitive Earth. They can be made by experts in modern laboratories, but they cannot arise on their own. Therefore, we can rule out this possibility as well.
You can puncture a living cell and pour its contents into a test tube with the right liquid. Even though all the components of life are present, you won’t be able to reassemble them into a living cell again. It doesn’t work.
We should mention the Miller-Urey experiment, published in 1952, since it is still referenced in textbooks—for secondary schools. Two scientists, the Russian Oparin and the British Haldane, believed that the atmosphere on the primitive Earth before life existed consisted mainly of methane, ammonia, hydrogen, and water vapor. They assumed that thunderstorms with lightning could provide energy so that the first building blocks of life could form from these gases. This hypothesis was tested by Miller and Urey. They constructed an apparatus where steam from heated water circulated in such an atmosphere where it was exposed to electric sparks from a spark plug. In the residue produced by the experiment, they found amino acids that are present in living cells.
Proteins consist of amino acids. It was concluded at the time that the building blocks of life could arise from natural causes. However, later on, geochemists argued that the primitive Earth’s atmosphere was unlikely to have consisted of these reducing gases. They believed the atmosphere was made up of neutral gases, such as nitrogen, carbon dioxide, and water vapor, which are released during volcanic eruptions. It’s possible that a certain amount of oxygen could also have been present in the atmosphere. In such an atmosphere, amino acids are not formed. In the tar-like residue, they also detected substances that are toxic, such as cyanide and formaldehyde, which are highly poisonous to living cells. Other tar-containing substances in the residue would also very easily bind to the amino acids, preventing them from forming a coherent chain.
Amino acids come in two variants. If we pass polarized light through an amino acid solution, the light can rotate either to the right or to the left. Left-rotating amino acids are designated as L-form, while right-rotating ones are called D-form. This is known as chirality.
In the Miller-Urey experiment, both L- and D-amino acids were formed. However, all biological amino acids are of the L-form. The D-form is incompatible with life, as is a mixture of L- and D-forms. There are therefore good reasons to dismiss the Miller-Urey experiment as an explanation for the origin of life. For many years, this experiment served as a primary argument that life could arise on its own, and it has likely caused many—perhaps several million—people to lose their faith in God.
Can the Impossible Become Possible?
Natural science claims that if you have enough time, the impossible will become possible. But a long time in nature is more likely to cause things to break down than to refine and evolve into something finer. This is what the second law of thermodynamics states. If we leave a piece of bread outside somewhere, it won’t gradually transform into a cream cake. A bicycle left in the forest won’t, over time, turn into a Harley Davidson. Instead, it will be destroyed by rust.
Nobel Prize winner George Wald stated:“When it comes to the origin of life, there are only two possibilities: creation or spontaneous origin. There is no third alternative. Spontaneous origin was disproven by Louis Pasteur a hundred years ago, and that leaves us with no other conclusion than a supernatural creation. However, we cannot accept this for philosophical reasons. Therefore, I choose to believe the impossible—that life arose spontaneously, by pure chance.”You’d have to search long and hard to find a more personal statement that highlights the dilemma in the naturalistic worldview. George Wald chose to believe in chance, even though it went against his reason.
Sir Fred Hoyle was a respected British mathematician and astronomer who conducted foundational studies on the origin of elements. He understood that physics and chemistry could not explain the origin of life on Earth. Hoyle calculated the probability of various biological substances forming naturally and found it to be highly unlikely. He is famous for saying that the likelihood of life arising on its own is as probable as a tornado blowing through a pile of airplane parts and leaving a fully assembled Boeing 747 ready when the storm subsides.
Hoyle’s calculations showed this probability to be one in 10^40,000. It can also be written as 10^-40,000. This is effectively a total impossibility. It is believed that the simplest life must consist of at least 250 proteins. The probability of a single protein with 150 amino acids forming on its own is calculated to be 10^-164. The probability of 250 proteins arising spontaneously then becomes 10^-41,000.
Please see as well article about probability
