Molecular Biology
From Harun Yahya's works
Evolutionary theory claims that life started with a cell that formed by chance. According to this scenario, four billion years ago various chemical compounds underwent a reaction in the primordial atmosphere on the earth in which the effects of thunderbolts and atmospheric pressure led to the formation of the first living cell.
The first thing that must be said is that the claim that nonliving materials can come together to form life is an unscientific one that has not been verified by any experiment or observation. Life is only generated from life. Each living cell is formed by the replication of another cell. No one in the world has ever succeeded in forming a living cell by bringing inanimate materials together, not even in the most advanced laboratories.
The theory of evolution claims that a living cell-which cannot be produced even when all the power of the human intellect, knowledge and technology are brought to bear-nevertheless managed to form by chance under primordial conditions on the earth. In the following pages, we will examine why this claim is contrary to the most basic principles of science and reason.
An Example of the Logic of "Chance"
If one believes that a living cell can come into existence by chance, then there is nothing to prevent one from believing a similar story that we will relate below. It is the story of a town.
One day, a lump of clay, pressed between the rocks in a barren land, becomes wet after it rains. The wet clay dries and hardens when the sun rises, and takes on a stiff, resistant form. Afterwards, these rocks, which also served as a mould, are somehow smashed into pieces, and then a neat, well shaped, and strong brick appears. This brick waits under the same natural conditions for years for a similar brick to be formed. This goes on until hundreds and thousands of the same bricks have been formed in the same place. However, by chance, none of the bricks that were previously formed are damaged. Although exposed to storms, rain, wind, scorching sun, and freezing cold for thousands of years, the bricks do not crack, break up, or get dragged away, but wait there in the same place with the same determination for other bricks to form.
When the number of bricks is adequate, they erect a building by being arranged sideways and on top of each other, having been randomly dragged along by the effects of natural conditions such as winds, storms, or tornadoes. Meanwhile, materials such as cement or soil mixtures form under "natural conditions," with perfect timing, and creep between the bricks to clamp them to each other. While all this is happening, iron ore under the ground is shaped under "natural conditions" and lays the foundations of a building that is to be formed with these bricks. At the end of this process, a complete building rises with all its materials, carpentry, and installations intact.
Of course, a building does not only consist of foundations, bricks, and cement. How, then, are the other missing materials to be obtained? The answer is simple: all kinds of materials that are needed for the construction of the building exist in the earth on which it is erected. Silicon for the glass, copper for the electric cables, iron for the columns, beams, water pipes, etc. all exist under the ground in abundant quantities. It takes only the skill of "natural conditions" to shape and place these materials inside the building. All the installations, carpentry, and accessories are placed among the bricks with the help of the blowing wind, rain, and earthquakes. Everything has gone so well that the bricks are arranged so as to leave the necessary window spaces as if they knew that something called glass would be formed later on by natural conditions. Moreover, they have not forgotten to leave some space to allow the installation of water, electricity and heating systems, which are also later to be formed by chance. Everything has gone so well that "coincidences" and "natural conditions" produce a perfect design.
If you have managed to sustain your belief in this story so far, then you should have no trouble surmising how the town's other buildings, plants, highways, sidewalks, substructures, communications, and transportation systems came about. If you possess technical knowledge and are fairly conversant with the subject, you can even write an extremely "scientific" book of a few volumes stating your theories about "the evolutionary process of a sewage system and its uniformity with the present structures." You may well be honored with academic awards for your clever studies, and may consider yourself a genius, shedding light on the nature of humanity.
The theory of evolution, which claims that life came into existence by chance, is no less absurd than our story, for, with all its operational systems, and systems of communication, transportation and management, a cell is no less complex than a city. In his book Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, the molecular biologist Michael Denton discusses the complex structure of the cell:
To grasp the reality of life as it has been revealed by molecular biology, we must magnify a cell a thousand million times until it is twenty kilometers in diameter and resembles a giant airship large enough to cover a great city like London or New York. What we would then see would be an object of unparalleled complexity and adaptive design. On the surface of the cell we would see millions of openings, like the port holes of a vast space ship, opening and closing to allow a continual stream of materials to flow in and out. If we were to enter one of these openings we would find ourselves in a world of supreme technology and bewildering complexity... Is it really credible that random processes could have constructed a reality, the smallest element of which-a functional protein or gene-is complex beyond our own creative capacities, a reality which is the very antithesis of chance, which excels in every sense anything produced by the intelligence of man?
The Complex Structure and Systems in the Cell
The complex structure of the living cell was unknown in Darwin's day and at the time, ascribing life to "coincidences and natural conditions" was thought by evolutionists to be convincing enough. Darwin had proposed that the first cell could easily have formed "in some warm little pond."238 One of Darwin's supporters, the German biologist Ernst Haeckel, examined under the microscope a mixture of mud removed from the sea bed by a research ship and claimed that this was a nonliving substance that turned into a living one. This so-called "mud that comes to life," known as Bathybius haeckelii ("Haeckel's mud from the depths"), is an indication of just how simple a thing life was thought to be by the founders of the theory of evolution.
The technology of the twentieth century has delved into the tiniest particles of life, and has revealed that the cell is the most complex system mankind has ever confronted. Today we know that the cell contains power stations producing the energy to be used by the cell, factories manufacturing the enzymes and hormones essential for life, a databank where all the necessary information about all products to be produced is recorded, complex transportation systems and pipelines for carrying raw materials and products from one place to another, advanced laboratories and refineries for breaking down external raw materials into their useable parts, and specialized cell membrane proteins to control the incoming and outgoing materials. And these constitute only a small part of this incredibly complex system.
W. H. Thorpe, an evolutionist scientist, acknowledges that "The most elementary type of cell constitutes a 'mechanism' unimaginably more complex than any machine yet thought up, let alone constructed, by man."
A cell is so complex that even the high level of technology attained today cannot produce one. No effort to create an artificial cell has ever met with success. Indeed, all attempts to do so have been abandoned.
The theory of evolution claims that this system-which mankind, with all the intelligence, knowledge and technology at its disposal, cannot succeed in reproducing-came into existence "by chance" under the conditions of the primordial earth. Actually, the probability of forming a cell by chance is about the same as that of producing a perfect copy of a book following an explosion in a printing house.
The English mathematician and astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle made a similar comparison in an interview published in Nature magazine on November 12, 1981. Although an evolutionist himself, Hoyle stated that the chance that higher life forms might have emerged in this way is comparable to the chance that a tornado sweeping through a junk-yard might assemble a Boeing 747 from the materials therein.240 This means that it is not possible for the cell to have come into being by chance, and therefore it must definitely have been "created."
One of the basic reasons why the theory of evolution cannot explain how the cell came into existence is the "irreducible complexity" in it. A living cell maintains itself with the harmonious co-operation of many organelles. If only one of these organelles fails to function, the cell cannot remain alive. The cell does not have the chance to wait for unconscious mechanisms like natural selection or mutation to permit it to develop. Thus, the first cell on earth was necessarily a complete cell possessing all the required organelles and functions, and this definitely means that this cell had to have been created.
The Problem of the Origin of Proteins
So much for the cell, but evolution fails even to account for the building-blocks of a cell. The formation, under natural conditions, of just one single protein out of the thousands of complex protein molecules making up the cell is impossible.
Proteins are giant molecules consisting of smaller units called amino acids that are arranged in a particular sequence in certain quantities and structures. These units constitute the building blocks of a living protein. The simplest protein is composed of 50 amino acids, but there are some that contain thousands.
The crucial point is this. The absence, addition, or replacement of a single amino acid in the structure of a protein causes the protein to become a useless molecular heap. Every amino acid has to be in the right place and in the right order. The theory of evolution, which claims that life emerged as a result of chance, is quite helpless in the face of this order, since it is too wondrous to be explained by coincidence. (Furthermore, the theory cannot even substantiate the claim of the accidental formation of amino acids, as will be discussed later.)
The fact that it is quite impossible for the functional structure of proteins to come about by chance can easily be observed even by simple probability calculations that anybody can understand.
For instance, an average-sized protein molecule composed of 288 amino acids, and contains twelve different types of amino acids can be arranged in 10300 different ways. (This is an astronomically huge number, consisting of 1 followed by 300 zeros.) Of all of these possible sequences, only one forms the desired protein molecule. The rest of them are amino-acid chains that are either totally useless, or else potentially harmful to living things.
In other words, the probability of the formation of only one protein molecule is "1 in 10300. "The probability of this "1" actually occurring is practically nil. (In practice, probabilities smaller than 1 over 1050 are thought of as "zero probability").
Furthermore, a protein molecule of 288 amino acids is a rather modest one compared with some giant protein molecules consisting of thousands of amino acids. When we apply similar probability calculations to these giant protein molecules, we see that even the word "impossible" is insufficient to describe the true situation.
When we proceed one step further in the evolutionary scheme of life, we observe that one single protein means nothing by itself. One of the smallest bacteria ever discovered, Mycoplasma hominis H39, contains 600 types of proteins. In this case, we would have to repeat the probability calculations we have made above for one protein for each of these 600 different types of proteins. The result beggars even the concept of impossibility.
Some people reading these lines who have so far accepted the theory of evolution as a scientific explanation may suspect that these numbers are exaggerated and do not reflect the true facts. That is not the case: these are definite and concrete facts. No evolutionist can object to these numbers.
This situation is in fact acknowledged by many evolutionists. For example, Harold F. Blum, a prominent evolutionist scientist, states that "The spontaneous formation of a polypeptide of the size of the smallest known proteins seems beyond all probability."
Evolutionists claim that molecular evolution took place over a very long period of time and that this made the impossible possible. Nevertheless, no matter how long the given period may be, it is not possible for amino acids to form proteins by chance. William Stokes, an American geologist, admits this fact in his book Essentials of Earth History, writing that the probability is so small "that it would not occur during billions of years on billions of planets, each covered by a blanket of concentrated watery solution of the necessary amino acids."
So what does all this mean? Perry Reeves, a professor of chemistry, answers the question:
When one examines the vast number of possible structures that could result from a simple random combination of amino acids in an evaporating primordial pond, it is mind-boggling to believe that life could have originated in this way. It is more plausible that a Great Builder with a master plan would be required for such a task.
If the coincidental formation of even one of these proteins is impossible, it is billions of times "more impossible" for some one million of those proteins to come together by chance and make up a complete human cell. What is more, by no means does a cell consist of a mere heap of proteins. In addition to the proteins, a cell also includes nucleic acids, carbohydrates, lipids, vitamins, and many other chemicals such as electrolytes arranged in a specific proportion, equilibrium, and design in terms of both structure and function. Each of these elements functions as a building block or co-molecule in various organelles.
Robert Shapiro, a professor of chemistry at New York University and a DNA expert, calculated the probability of the coincidental formation of the 2000 types of proteins found in a single bacterium (There are 200,000 different types of proteins in a human cell.) The number that was found was 1 over 1040000.244 (This is an incredible number obtained by putting 40,000 zeros after the 1)
A professor of applied mathematics and astronomy from University College Cardiff, Wales, Chandra Wickramasinghe, comments:
The likelihood of the spontaneous formation of life from inanimate matter is one to a number with 40,000 noughts after it... It is big enough to bury Darwin and the whole theory of evolution. There was no primeval soup, neither on this planet nor on any other, and if the beginnings of life were not random, they must therefore have been the product of purposeful intelligence.
Sir Fred Hoyle comments on these implausible numbers:
Indeed, such a theory (that life was assembled by an intelligence) is so obvious that one wonders why it is not widely accepted as being self-evident. The reasons are psychological rather than scientific.
An article published in the January 1999 issue of Science News revealed that no explanation had yet been found for how amino acids could turn into proteins:
….no one has ever satisfactorily explained how the widely distributed ingredients linked up into proteins. Presumed conditions of primordial Earth would have driven the amino acids toward lonely isolation.
Left-handed Proteins
Let us now examine in detail why the evolutionist scenario regarding the formation of proteins is impossible.
Even the correct sequence of the right amino acids is still not enough for the formation of a functional protein molecule. In addition to these requirements, each of the 20 different types of amino acids present in the composition of proteins must be left-handed. There are two different types of amino acids-as of all organic molecules-called "left-handed" and "right-handed." The difference between them is the mirror-symmetry between their three dimensional structures, which is similar to that of a person's right and left hands.
Amino acids of either of these two types can easily bond with one another. But one astonishing fact that has been revealed by research is that all the proteins in plants and animals on this planet, from the simplest organism to the most complex, are made up of left-handed amino acids. If even a single right-handed amino acid gets attached to the structure of a protein, the protein is rendered useless. In a series of experiments, surprisingly, bacteria that were exposed to right-handed amino acids immediately destroyed them. In some cases, they produced usable left-handed amino acids from the fractured components.
Let us for an instant suppose that life came about by chance as evolutionists claim it did. In this case, the right- and left-handed amino acids that were generated by chance should be present in roughly equal proportions in nature. Therefore, all living things should have both right- and left-handed amino acids in their constitution, because chemically it is possible for amino acids of both types to combine with each other. However, as we know, in the real world the proteins existing in all living organisms are made up only of left-handed amino acids.
The question of how proteins can pick out only the left-handed ones from among all amino acids, and how not even a single right-handed amino acid gets involved in the life process, is a problem that still baffles evolutionists. Such a specific and conscious selection constitutes one of the greatest impasses facing the theory of evolution.
Moreover, this characteristic of proteins makes the problem facing evolutionists with respect to "chance" even worse. In order for a "meaningful" protein to be generated, it is not enough for the amino acids to be present in a particular number and sequence, and to be combined together in the right three-dimensional design. Additionally, all these amino acids have to be left-handed: not even one of them can be right-handed. Yet there is no natural selection mechanism which can identify that a right-handed amino acid has been added to the sequence and recognize that it must therefore be removed from the chain. This situation once more eliminates for good the possibility of coincidence and chance.
The Britannica Science Encyclopaedia, which is an outspoken defender of evolution, states that the amino acids of all living organisms on earth, and the building blocks of complex polymers such as proteins, have the same left-handed asymmetry. It adds that this is tantamount to tossing a coin a million times and always getting heads. The same encyclopaedia states that it is impossible to understand why molecules become left-handed or right-handed, and that this choice is fascinatingly related to the origin of life on earth.
If a coin always turns up heads when tossed a million times, is it more logical to attribute that to chance, or else to accept that there is conscious intervention going on? The answer should be obvious. However, obvious though it may be, evolutionists still take refuge in coincidence, simply because they do not want to accept the existence of conscious intervention.
A situation similar to the left-handedness of amino acids also exists with respect to nucleotides, the smallest units of the nucleic acids, DNA and RNA. In contrast to proteins, in which only left-handed amino acids are chosen, in the case of the nucleic acids, the preferred forms of their nucleotide components are always right-handed. This is another fact that can never be explained by chance.
In conclusion, it is proven beyond a shadow of a doubt by the probabilities we have examined that the origin of life cannot be explained by chance. If we attempt to calculate the probability of an average-sized protein consisting of 400 amino acids being selected only from left-handed amino acids, we come up with a probability of 1 in 2400, or 10120. Just for a comparison, let us remember that the number of electrons in the universe is estimated at 1079, which although vast, is a much smaller number. The probability of these amino acids forming the required sequence and functional form would generate much larger numbers. If we add these probabilities to each other, and if we go on to work out the probabilities of even higher numbers and types of proteins, the calculations become inconceivable.
The Indispensability of the Peptide Link
The difficulties the theory of evolution is unable to overcome with regard to the development of a single protein are not limited to those we have recounted so far. It is not enough for amino acids to be arranged in the correct numbers, sequences, and required three-dimensional structures. The formation of a protein also requires that amino acid molecules with more than one arm be linked to each other only in certain ways. Such a bond is called a "peptide bond." Amino acids can make different bonds with each other; but proteins are made up of those-and only those-amino acids which are joined by peptide bonds.
A comparison will clarify this point. Suppose that all the parts of a car were complete and correctly assembled, with the sole exception that one of the wheels was fastened in place not with the usual nuts and bolts, but with a piece of wire, in such a way that its hub faced the ground. It would be impossible for such a car to move even the shortest distance, no matter how complex its technology or how powerful its engine. At first glance, everything would seem to be in the right place, but the faulty attachment of even one wheel would make the entire car useless. In the same way, in a protein molecule the joining of even one amino acid to another with a bond other than a peptide bond would make the entire molecule useless.
Research has shown that amino acids combining at random combine with a peptide bond only 50 percent of the time, and that the rest of the time different bonds that are not present in proteins emerge. To function properly, each amino acid making up a protein must be joined to others only with a peptide bond, in the same way that it likewise must be chosen only from among left-handed forms.
The probability of this happening is the same as the probability of each protein's being left-handed. That is, when we consider a protein made up of 400 amino acids, the probability of all amino acids combining among themselves with only peptide bonds is 1 in 2399.
Zero Probability
If we add together the three probabilities (that of amino acids being laid out correctly, that of their all being left-handed, and that of their all being joined by peptide links), then we come face to face with the astronomical figure of 1 in 10950. This is a probability only on paper. Practically speaking, there is zero chance of its actually happening. As we saw earlier, in mathematics, a probability smaller than 1 in 1050 is statistically considered to have a "zero" probability of occurring.
Even if we suppose that amino acids have combined and decomposed by a "trial and error" method, without losing any time since the formation of the earth, in order to form a single protein molecule, the time that would be required for something with a probability of 10950 to happen would still hugely exceed the estimated age of the earth.
The conclusion to be drawn from all this is that evolution falls into a terrible abyss of improbability even when it comes to the formation of a single protein.
One of the foremost proponents of the theory of evolution, Professor Richard Dawkins, states the impossibility the theory has fallen into in these terms:
So the sort of lucky event we are looking at could be so wildly improbable that the chances of its happening, somewhere in the universe, could be as low as one in a billion billion billion in any one year. If it did happen on only one planet, anywhere in the universe, that planet has to be our planet-because here we are talking about it.
This admission by one of evolution's foremost authorities clearly reflects the logical muddle the theory of evolution is built on. The above statements in Dawkins's book Climbing Mount Improbable are a striking example of circular reasoning which actually explains nothing: "If we are here, then that means that evolution happened."
As we have seen, even the most prominent of the proponents of evolution confess that the theory is buried in impossibility when it comes to accounting for the first stage of life. But how interesting it is that, rather than accept the complete unreality of the theory they maintain, they prefer to cling to evolution in a dogmatic manner! This is a completely ideological fixation.
Is There a Trial-and-Error Mechanism in Nature?
Finally, we may conclude with a very important point in relation to the basic logic of probability calculations, of which we have already seen some examples. We indicated that the probability calculations made above reach astronomical levels, and that these astronomical odds have no chance of actually happening. However, there is a much more important and damaging fact facing evolutionists here. This is that under natural conditions, no period of trial and error can even start, despite the astronomical odds, because there is no trial-and-error mechanism in nature from which proteins could emerge.
The calculations we gave above to demonstrate the probability of the formation of a protein molecule with 500 amino acids are valid only for an ideal trial-and-error environment, which does not actually exist in real life. That is, the probability of obtaining a useful protein is "1" in 10950 only if we suppose that there exists an imaginary mechanism in which an invisible hand joins 500 amino acids at random and then, seeing that this is not the right combination, disentangles them one by one, and arranges them again in a different order, and so on. In each trial, the amino acids would have to be separated one by one, and arranged in a new order. The synthesis should be stopped after the 500th amino acid has been added, and it must be ensured that not even one extra amino acid is involved. The trial should then be stopped to see whether or not a functional protein has yet been formed, and, in the event of failure, everything should be split up again and then tested for another sequence. Additionally, in each trial, not even one extraneous substance should be allowed to become involved. It is also imperative that the chain formed during the trial should not be separated and destroyed before reaching the 499th link. These conditions mean that the probabilities we have mentioned above can only operate in a controlled environment where there is a conscious mechanism directing the beginning, the end, and each intermediate stage of the process, and where only "the selection of the amino acids" is left to chance. It is clearly impossible for such an environment to exist under natural conditions. Therefore the formation of a protein in the natural environment is logically and technically impossible.
Since some people are unable to take a broad view of these matters, but approach them from a superficial viewpoint and assume protein formation to be a simple chemical reaction, they may make unrealistic deductions such as "amino acids combine by way of reaction and then form proteins." However, accidental chemical reactions taking place in a nonliving structure can only lead to simple and primitive changes. The number of these is predetermined and limited. For a somewhat more complex chemical material, huge factories, chemical plants, and laboratories have to be involved. Medicines and many other chemical materials that we use in our daily life are made in just this way. Proteins have much more complex structures than these chemicals produced by industry. Therefore, it is impossible for proteins, each of which is a wonder of design and engineering, in which every part takes its place in a fixed order, to originate as a result of haphazard chemical reactions.
Let us for a minute put aside all the impossibilities we have described so far, and suppose that a useful protein molecule still evolved spontaneously "by accident." Even so, evolution again has no answers, because in order for this protein to survive, it would need to be isolated from its natural habitat and be protected under very special conditions. Otherwise, it would either disintegrate from exposure to natural conditions on earth, or else join with other acids, amino acids, or chemical compounds, thereby losing its particular properties and turning into a totally different and useless substance.
What we have been discussing so far is the impossibility of just one protein's coming about by chance. However, in the human body alone there are some 100,000 proteins functioning. Furthermore, there are about 1.5 million species named, and another 10 million are believed to exist. Although many similar proteins are used in many life forms, it is estimated that there must be 100 million or more types of protein in the plant and animal worlds. And the millions of species which have already become extinct are not included in this calculation. In other words, hundreds of millions of protein codes have existed in the world. If one considers that not even one protein can be explained by chance, it is clear what the existence of hundreds of millions of different proteins must mean.
Bearing this truth in mind, it can clearly be understood that such concepts as "coincidence" and "chance" have nothing to do with the existence of living things.
Miller's Experiment
The most generally respected study on the origin of life is the Miller experiment conducted by the American researcher Stanley Miller in 1953. (The experiment is also known as the "Urey-Miller experiment" because of the contribution of Miller's instructor at the University of Chicago, Harold Urey.) This experiment is the only "evidence" evolutionists have with which to allegedly prove the "chemical evolution thesis"; they advance it as the first stage of the supposed evolutionary process leading to life. Although nearly half a century has passed, and great technological advances have been made, nobody has made any further progress. In spite of this, Miller's experiment is still taught in textbooks as the evolutionary explanation of the earliest generation of living things. That is because, aware of the fact that such studies do not support, but rather actually refute, their thesis, evolutionist researchers deliberately avoid embarking on such experiments.
Stanley Miller's aim was to demonstrate by means of an experiment that amino acids, the building blocks of proteins, could have come into existence "by chance" on the lifeless earth billions of years ago. In his experiment, Miller used a gas mixture that he assumed to have existed on the primordial earth (but which later proved unrealistic), composed of ammonia, methane, hydrogen, and water vapor. Since these gases would not react with each other under natural conditions, he added energy to the mixture to start a reaction among them. Supposing that this energy could have come from lightning in the primordial atmosphere, he used an electric current for this purpose.
Miller heated this gas mixture at 100°C for a week and added the electrical current. At the end of the week, Miller analyzed the chemicals which had formed at the bottom of the jar, and observed that three out of the 20 amino acids which constitute the basic elements of proteins had been synthesized.
This experiment aroused great excitement among evolutionists, and was promoted as an outstanding success. Moreover, in a state of intoxicated euphoria, various publications carried headlines such as "Miller creates life." However, what Miller had managed to synthesize was only a few inanimate molecules.
Encouraged by this experiment, evolutionists immediately produced new scenarios. Stages following the development of amino acids were hurriedly hypothesized. Supposedly, amino acids had later united in the correct sequences by accident to form proteins. Some of these proteins which emerged by chance formed themselves into cell membrane-like structures which "somehow" came into existence and formed a primitive cell. These cells then supposedly came together over time to form multicellular living organisms.
However, Miller's experiment has since proven to be false in many respects.
Four Facts That Invalidate Miller's Experiment
Miller's experiment sought to prove that amino acids could form on their own in primordial earth-like conditions, but it contains inconsistencies in a number of areas:
1- By using a mechanism called a "cold trap," Miller isolated the amino acids from the environment as soon as they were formed. Had he not done so, the conditions in the environment in which the amino acids were formed would immediately have destroyed these molecules.
Doubtless, this kind of conscious isolation mechanism did not exist on the primordial earth. Without such a mechanism, even if one amino acid were obtained, it would immediately have been destroyed. The chemist Richard Bliss expresses this contradiction by observing that "Actually, without this trap, the chemical products, would have been destroyed by the energy source."254 And, sure enough, in his previous experiments, Miller had been unable to make even one single amino acid using the same materials without the cold trap mechanism.
2- The primordial atmosphere that Miller attempted to simulate in his experiment was not realistic. In the 1980s, scientists agreed that nitrogen and carbon dioxide should have been used in this artificial environment instead of methane and ammonia.So why did Miller insist on these gases? The answer is simple: without ammonia, it was impossible to synthesize any amino acid.
The American scientists J. P. Ferris and C. T. Chen repeated Miller's experiment with an atmospheric environment that contained carbon dioxide, hydrogen, nitrogen, and water vapor, and were unable to obtain even a single amino acid molecule.
3- Another important point that invalidates Miller's experiment is that there was enough oxygen to destroy all the amino acids in the atmosphere at the time when they were thought to have been formed. This fact, overlooked by Miller, is revealed by the traces of oxidized iron found in rocks that are estimated to be 3.5 billion years old.
There are other findings showing that the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere at that time was much higher than originally claimed by evolutionists. Studies also show that the amount of ultraviolet radiation to which the earth was then exposed was 10,000 times more than evolutionists' estimates. This intense radiation would unavoidably have freed oxygen by decomposing the water vapor and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
This situation completely negates Miller's experiment, in which oxygen was completely neglected. If oxygen had been used in the experiment, methane would have decomposed into carbon dioxide and water, and ammonia into nitrogen and water. On the other hand, in an environment where there was no oxygen, there would be no ozone layer either; therefore, the amino acids would have immediately been destroyed, since they would have been exposed to the most intense ultraviolet rays without the protection of the ozone layer. In other words, with or without oxygen in the primordial world, the result would have been a deadly environment for the amino acids.
4- At the end of Miller's experiment, many organic acids had also been formed with characteristics detrimental to the structure and function of living things. If the amino acids had not been isolated, and had been left in the same environment with these chemicals, their destruction or transformation into different compounds through chemical reactions would have been unavoidable.
Moreover, Miller's experiment also produced right-handed amino acids.258 The existence of these amino acids refuted the theory even within its own terms, because right-handed amino acids cannot function in the composition of living organisms. To conclude, the circumstances in which amino acids were formed in Miller's experiment were not suitable for life. In truth, this medium took the form of an acidic mixture destroying and oxidizing the useful molecules obtained.
All these facts point to one firm truth: Miller's experiment cannot claim to have proved that living things formed by chance under primordial earth-like conditions. The whole experiment is nothing more than a deliberate and controlled laboratory experiment to synthesize amino acids. The amount and types of the gases used in the experiment were ideally determined to allow amino acids to originate. The amount of energy supplied to the system was neither too much nor too little, but arranged precisely to enable the necessary reactions to occur. The experimental apparatus was isolated, so that it would not allow the leaking of any harmful, destructive, or any other kind of elements to hinder the formation of amino acids. No elements, minerals or compounds that were likely to have been present on the primordial earth, but which would have changed the course of the reactions, were included in the experiment. Oxygen, which would have prevented the formation of amino acids because of oxidation, is only one of these destructive elements. Even under such ideal laboratory conditions, it was impossible for the amino acids produced to survive and avoid destruction without the "cold trap" mechanism.
n fact, by his experiment, Miller destroyed evolution's claim that "life emerged as the result of unconscious coincidences." That is because, if the experiment proves anything, it is that amino acids can only be produced in a controlled laboratory environment where all the conditions are specifically designed by conscious intervention.
Today, Miller's experiment is totally disregarded even by evolutionist scientists. In the February 1998 issue of the famous evolutionist science journal Earth, the following statements appear in an article titled "Life's Crucible":
Geologist now think that the primordial atmosphere consisted mainly of carbon dioxide and nitrogen, gases that are less reactive than those used in the 1953 experiment. And even if Miller's atmosphere could have existed, how do you get simple molecules such as amino acids to go through the necessary chemical changes that will convert them into more complicated compounds, or polymers, such as proteins? Miller himself throws up his hands at that part of the puzzle. "It's a problem," he sighs with exasperation. "How do you make polymers? That's not so easy."
As seen, today even Miller himself has accepted that his experiment does not lead to an explanation of the origin of life. In the March 1998 issue of National Geographic, in an article titled "The Emergence of Life on Earth," the following comments appear:
Many scientists now suspect that the early atmosphere was different to what Miller first supposed. They think it consisted of carbon dioxide and nitrogen rather than hydrogen, methane, and ammonia.
That's bad news for chemists. When they try sparking carbon dioxide and nitrogen, they get a paltry amount of organic molecules - the equivalent of dissolving a drop of food colouring in a swimming pool of water. Scientists find it hard to imagine life emerging from such a diluted soup.
In brief, neither Miller's experiment, nor any other similar one that has been attempted, can answer the question of how life emerged on earth. All of the research that has been done shows that it is impossible for life to emerge by chance, and thus confirms that life is created. The reason evolutionists do not accept this obvious reality is their blind adherence to prejudices that are totally unscientific. Interestingly enough, Harold Urey, who organized the Miller experiment with his student Stanley Miller, made the following confession on this subject:
All of us who study the origin of life find that the more we look into it, the more we feel it is too complex to have evolved anywhere. We all believe as an article of faith that life evolved from dead matter on this planet. It is just that its complexity is so great, it is hard for us to imagine that it did.
From Harun Yahya's works
Evolutionary theory claims that life started with a cell that formed by chance. According to this scenario, four billion years ago various chemical compounds underwent a reaction in the primordial atmosphere on the earth in which the effects of thunderbolts and atmospheric pressure led to the formation of the first living cell.
The first thing that must be said is that the claim that nonliving materials can come together to form life is an unscientific one that has not been verified by any experiment or observation. Life is only generated from life. Each living cell is formed by the replication of another cell. No one in the world has ever succeeded in forming a living cell by bringing inanimate materials together, not even in the most advanced laboratories.
The theory of evolution claims that a living cell-which cannot be produced even when all the power of the human intellect, knowledge and technology are brought to bear-nevertheless managed to form by chance under primordial conditions on the earth. In the following pages, we will examine why this claim is contrary to the most basic principles of science and reason.
An Example of the Logic of "Chance"
If one believes that a living cell can come into existence by chance, then there is nothing to prevent one from believing a similar story that we will relate below. It is the story of a town.
One day, a lump of clay, pressed between the rocks in a barren land, becomes wet after it rains. The wet clay dries and hardens when the sun rises, and takes on a stiff, resistant form. Afterwards, these rocks, which also served as a mould, are somehow smashed into pieces, and then a neat, well shaped, and strong brick appears. This brick waits under the same natural conditions for years for a similar brick to be formed. This goes on until hundreds and thousands of the same bricks have been formed in the same place. However, by chance, none of the bricks that were previously formed are damaged. Although exposed to storms, rain, wind, scorching sun, and freezing cold for thousands of years, the bricks do not crack, break up, or get dragged away, but wait there in the same place with the same determination for other bricks to form.
When the number of bricks is adequate, they erect a building by being arranged sideways and on top of each other, having been randomly dragged along by the effects of natural conditions such as winds, storms, or tornadoes. Meanwhile, materials such as cement or soil mixtures form under "natural conditions," with perfect timing, and creep between the bricks to clamp them to each other. While all this is happening, iron ore under the ground is shaped under "natural conditions" and lays the foundations of a building that is to be formed with these bricks. At the end of this process, a complete building rises with all its materials, carpentry, and installations intact.
Of course, a building does not only consist of foundations, bricks, and cement. How, then, are the other missing materials to be obtained? The answer is simple: all kinds of materials that are needed for the construction of the building exist in the earth on which it is erected. Silicon for the glass, copper for the electric cables, iron for the columns, beams, water pipes, etc. all exist under the ground in abundant quantities. It takes only the skill of "natural conditions" to shape and place these materials inside the building. All the installations, carpentry, and accessories are placed among the bricks with the help of the blowing wind, rain, and earthquakes. Everything has gone so well that the bricks are arranged so as to leave the necessary window spaces as if they knew that something called glass would be formed later on by natural conditions. Moreover, they have not forgotten to leave some space to allow the installation of water, electricity and heating systems, which are also later to be formed by chance. Everything has gone so well that "coincidences" and "natural conditions" produce a perfect design.
If you have managed to sustain your belief in this story so far, then you should have no trouble surmising how the town's other buildings, plants, highways, sidewalks, substructures, communications, and transportation systems came about. If you possess technical knowledge and are fairly conversant with the subject, you can even write an extremely "scientific" book of a few volumes stating your theories about "the evolutionary process of a sewage system and its uniformity with the present structures." You may well be honored with academic awards for your clever studies, and may consider yourself a genius, shedding light on the nature of humanity.
The theory of evolution, which claims that life came into existence by chance, is no less absurd than our story, for, with all its operational systems, and systems of communication, transportation and management, a cell is no less complex than a city. In his book Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, the molecular biologist Michael Denton discusses the complex structure of the cell:
To grasp the reality of life as it has been revealed by molecular biology, we must magnify a cell a thousand million times until it is twenty kilometers in diameter and resembles a giant airship large enough to cover a great city like London or New York. What we would then see would be an object of unparalleled complexity and adaptive design. On the surface of the cell we would see millions of openings, like the port holes of a vast space ship, opening and closing to allow a continual stream of materials to flow in and out. If we were to enter one of these openings we would find ourselves in a world of supreme technology and bewildering complexity... Is it really credible that random processes could have constructed a reality, the smallest element of which-a functional protein or gene-is complex beyond our own creative capacities, a reality which is the very antithesis of chance, which excels in every sense anything produced by the intelligence of man?
The Complex Structure and Systems in the Cell
The complex structure of the living cell was unknown in Darwin's day and at the time, ascribing life to "coincidences and natural conditions" was thought by evolutionists to be convincing enough. Darwin had proposed that the first cell could easily have formed "in some warm little pond."238 One of Darwin's supporters, the German biologist Ernst Haeckel, examined under the microscope a mixture of mud removed from the sea bed by a research ship and claimed that this was a nonliving substance that turned into a living one. This so-called "mud that comes to life," known as Bathybius haeckelii ("Haeckel's mud from the depths"), is an indication of just how simple a thing life was thought to be by the founders of the theory of evolution.
The technology of the twentieth century has delved into the tiniest particles of life, and has revealed that the cell is the most complex system mankind has ever confronted. Today we know that the cell contains power stations producing the energy to be used by the cell, factories manufacturing the enzymes and hormones essential for life, a databank where all the necessary information about all products to be produced is recorded, complex transportation systems and pipelines for carrying raw materials and products from one place to another, advanced laboratories and refineries for breaking down external raw materials into their useable parts, and specialized cell membrane proteins to control the incoming and outgoing materials. And these constitute only a small part of this incredibly complex system.
W. H. Thorpe, an evolutionist scientist, acknowledges that "The most elementary type of cell constitutes a 'mechanism' unimaginably more complex than any machine yet thought up, let alone constructed, by man."
A cell is so complex that even the high level of technology attained today cannot produce one. No effort to create an artificial cell has ever met with success. Indeed, all attempts to do so have been abandoned.
The theory of evolution claims that this system-which mankind, with all the intelligence, knowledge and technology at its disposal, cannot succeed in reproducing-came into existence "by chance" under the conditions of the primordial earth. Actually, the probability of forming a cell by chance is about the same as that of producing a perfect copy of a book following an explosion in a printing house.
The English mathematician and astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle made a similar comparison in an interview published in Nature magazine on November 12, 1981. Although an evolutionist himself, Hoyle stated that the chance that higher life forms might have emerged in this way is comparable to the chance that a tornado sweeping through a junk-yard might assemble a Boeing 747 from the materials therein.240 This means that it is not possible for the cell to have come into being by chance, and therefore it must definitely have been "created."
One of the basic reasons why the theory of evolution cannot explain how the cell came into existence is the "irreducible complexity" in it. A living cell maintains itself with the harmonious co-operation of many organelles. If only one of these organelles fails to function, the cell cannot remain alive. The cell does not have the chance to wait for unconscious mechanisms like natural selection or mutation to permit it to develop. Thus, the first cell on earth was necessarily a complete cell possessing all the required organelles and functions, and this definitely means that this cell had to have been created.
The Problem of the Origin of Proteins
So much for the cell, but evolution fails even to account for the building-blocks of a cell. The formation, under natural conditions, of just one single protein out of the thousands of complex protein molecules making up the cell is impossible.
Proteins are giant molecules consisting of smaller units called amino acids that are arranged in a particular sequence in certain quantities and structures. These units constitute the building blocks of a living protein. The simplest protein is composed of 50 amino acids, but there are some that contain thousands.
The crucial point is this. The absence, addition, or replacement of a single amino acid in the structure of a protein causes the protein to become a useless molecular heap. Every amino acid has to be in the right place and in the right order. The theory of evolution, which claims that life emerged as a result of chance, is quite helpless in the face of this order, since it is too wondrous to be explained by coincidence. (Furthermore, the theory cannot even substantiate the claim of the accidental formation of amino acids, as will be discussed later.)
The fact that it is quite impossible for the functional structure of proteins to come about by chance can easily be observed even by simple probability calculations that anybody can understand.
For instance, an average-sized protein molecule composed of 288 amino acids, and contains twelve different types of amino acids can be arranged in 10300 different ways. (This is an astronomically huge number, consisting of 1 followed by 300 zeros.) Of all of these possible sequences, only one forms the desired protein molecule. The rest of them are amino-acid chains that are either totally useless, or else potentially harmful to living things.
In other words, the probability of the formation of only one protein molecule is "1 in 10300. "The probability of this "1" actually occurring is practically nil. (In practice, probabilities smaller than 1 over 1050 are thought of as "zero probability").
Furthermore, a protein molecule of 288 amino acids is a rather modest one compared with some giant protein molecules consisting of thousands of amino acids. When we apply similar probability calculations to these giant protein molecules, we see that even the word "impossible" is insufficient to describe the true situation.
When we proceed one step further in the evolutionary scheme of life, we observe that one single protein means nothing by itself. One of the smallest bacteria ever discovered, Mycoplasma hominis H39, contains 600 types of proteins. In this case, we would have to repeat the probability calculations we have made above for one protein for each of these 600 different types of proteins. The result beggars even the concept of impossibility.
Some people reading these lines who have so far accepted the theory of evolution as a scientific explanation may suspect that these numbers are exaggerated and do not reflect the true facts. That is not the case: these are definite and concrete facts. No evolutionist can object to these numbers.
This situation is in fact acknowledged by many evolutionists. For example, Harold F. Blum, a prominent evolutionist scientist, states that "The spontaneous formation of a polypeptide of the size of the smallest known proteins seems beyond all probability."
Evolutionists claim that molecular evolution took place over a very long period of time and that this made the impossible possible. Nevertheless, no matter how long the given period may be, it is not possible for amino acids to form proteins by chance. William Stokes, an American geologist, admits this fact in his book Essentials of Earth History, writing that the probability is so small "that it would not occur during billions of years on billions of planets, each covered by a blanket of concentrated watery solution of the necessary amino acids."
So what does all this mean? Perry Reeves, a professor of chemistry, answers the question:
When one examines the vast number of possible structures that could result from a simple random combination of amino acids in an evaporating primordial pond, it is mind-boggling to believe that life could have originated in this way. It is more plausible that a Great Builder with a master plan would be required for such a task.
If the coincidental formation of even one of these proteins is impossible, it is billions of times "more impossible" for some one million of those proteins to come together by chance and make up a complete human cell. What is more, by no means does a cell consist of a mere heap of proteins. In addition to the proteins, a cell also includes nucleic acids, carbohydrates, lipids, vitamins, and many other chemicals such as electrolytes arranged in a specific proportion, equilibrium, and design in terms of both structure and function. Each of these elements functions as a building block or co-molecule in various organelles.
Robert Shapiro, a professor of chemistry at New York University and a DNA expert, calculated the probability of the coincidental formation of the 2000 types of proteins found in a single bacterium (There are 200,000 different types of proteins in a human cell.) The number that was found was 1 over 1040000.244 (This is an incredible number obtained by putting 40,000 zeros after the 1)
A professor of applied mathematics and astronomy from University College Cardiff, Wales, Chandra Wickramasinghe, comments:
The likelihood of the spontaneous formation of life from inanimate matter is one to a number with 40,000 noughts after it... It is big enough to bury Darwin and the whole theory of evolution. There was no primeval soup, neither on this planet nor on any other, and if the beginnings of life were not random, they must therefore have been the product of purposeful intelligence.
Sir Fred Hoyle comments on these implausible numbers:
Indeed, such a theory (that life was assembled by an intelligence) is so obvious that one wonders why it is not widely accepted as being self-evident. The reasons are psychological rather than scientific.
An article published in the January 1999 issue of Science News revealed that no explanation had yet been found for how amino acids could turn into proteins:
….no one has ever satisfactorily explained how the widely distributed ingredients linked up into proteins. Presumed conditions of primordial Earth would have driven the amino acids toward lonely isolation.
Left-handed Proteins
Let us now examine in detail why the evolutionist scenario regarding the formation of proteins is impossible.
Even the correct sequence of the right amino acids is still not enough for the formation of a functional protein molecule. In addition to these requirements, each of the 20 different types of amino acids present in the composition of proteins must be left-handed. There are two different types of amino acids-as of all organic molecules-called "left-handed" and "right-handed." The difference between them is the mirror-symmetry between their three dimensional structures, which is similar to that of a person's right and left hands.
Amino acids of either of these two types can easily bond with one another. But one astonishing fact that has been revealed by research is that all the proteins in plants and animals on this planet, from the simplest organism to the most complex, are made up of left-handed amino acids. If even a single right-handed amino acid gets attached to the structure of a protein, the protein is rendered useless. In a series of experiments, surprisingly, bacteria that were exposed to right-handed amino acids immediately destroyed them. In some cases, they produced usable left-handed amino acids from the fractured components.
Let us for an instant suppose that life came about by chance as evolutionists claim it did. In this case, the right- and left-handed amino acids that were generated by chance should be present in roughly equal proportions in nature. Therefore, all living things should have both right- and left-handed amino acids in their constitution, because chemically it is possible for amino acids of both types to combine with each other. However, as we know, in the real world the proteins existing in all living organisms are made up only of left-handed amino acids.
The question of how proteins can pick out only the left-handed ones from among all amino acids, and how not even a single right-handed amino acid gets involved in the life process, is a problem that still baffles evolutionists. Such a specific and conscious selection constitutes one of the greatest impasses facing the theory of evolution.
Moreover, this characteristic of proteins makes the problem facing evolutionists with respect to "chance" even worse. In order for a "meaningful" protein to be generated, it is not enough for the amino acids to be present in a particular number and sequence, and to be combined together in the right three-dimensional design. Additionally, all these amino acids have to be left-handed: not even one of them can be right-handed. Yet there is no natural selection mechanism which can identify that a right-handed amino acid has been added to the sequence and recognize that it must therefore be removed from the chain. This situation once more eliminates for good the possibility of coincidence and chance.
The Britannica Science Encyclopaedia, which is an outspoken defender of evolution, states that the amino acids of all living organisms on earth, and the building blocks of complex polymers such as proteins, have the same left-handed asymmetry. It adds that this is tantamount to tossing a coin a million times and always getting heads. The same encyclopaedia states that it is impossible to understand why molecules become left-handed or right-handed, and that this choice is fascinatingly related to the origin of life on earth.
If a coin always turns up heads when tossed a million times, is it more logical to attribute that to chance, or else to accept that there is conscious intervention going on? The answer should be obvious. However, obvious though it may be, evolutionists still take refuge in coincidence, simply because they do not want to accept the existence of conscious intervention.
A situation similar to the left-handedness of amino acids also exists with respect to nucleotides, the smallest units of the nucleic acids, DNA and RNA. In contrast to proteins, in which only left-handed amino acids are chosen, in the case of the nucleic acids, the preferred forms of their nucleotide components are always right-handed. This is another fact that can never be explained by chance.
In conclusion, it is proven beyond a shadow of a doubt by the probabilities we have examined that the origin of life cannot be explained by chance. If we attempt to calculate the probability of an average-sized protein consisting of 400 amino acids being selected only from left-handed amino acids, we come up with a probability of 1 in 2400, or 10120. Just for a comparison, let us remember that the number of electrons in the universe is estimated at 1079, which although vast, is a much smaller number. The probability of these amino acids forming the required sequence and functional form would generate much larger numbers. If we add these probabilities to each other, and if we go on to work out the probabilities of even higher numbers and types of proteins, the calculations become inconceivable.
The Indispensability of the Peptide Link
The difficulties the theory of evolution is unable to overcome with regard to the development of a single protein are not limited to those we have recounted so far. It is not enough for amino acids to be arranged in the correct numbers, sequences, and required three-dimensional structures. The formation of a protein also requires that amino acid molecules with more than one arm be linked to each other only in certain ways. Such a bond is called a "peptide bond." Amino acids can make different bonds with each other; but proteins are made up of those-and only those-amino acids which are joined by peptide bonds.
A comparison will clarify this point. Suppose that all the parts of a car were complete and correctly assembled, with the sole exception that one of the wheels was fastened in place not with the usual nuts and bolts, but with a piece of wire, in such a way that its hub faced the ground. It would be impossible for such a car to move even the shortest distance, no matter how complex its technology or how powerful its engine. At first glance, everything would seem to be in the right place, but the faulty attachment of even one wheel would make the entire car useless. In the same way, in a protein molecule the joining of even one amino acid to another with a bond other than a peptide bond would make the entire molecule useless.
Research has shown that amino acids combining at random combine with a peptide bond only 50 percent of the time, and that the rest of the time different bonds that are not present in proteins emerge. To function properly, each amino acid making up a protein must be joined to others only with a peptide bond, in the same way that it likewise must be chosen only from among left-handed forms.
The probability of this happening is the same as the probability of each protein's being left-handed. That is, when we consider a protein made up of 400 amino acids, the probability of all amino acids combining among themselves with only peptide bonds is 1 in 2399.
Zero Probability
If we add together the three probabilities (that of amino acids being laid out correctly, that of their all being left-handed, and that of their all being joined by peptide links), then we come face to face with the astronomical figure of 1 in 10950. This is a probability only on paper. Practically speaking, there is zero chance of its actually happening. As we saw earlier, in mathematics, a probability smaller than 1 in 1050 is statistically considered to have a "zero" probability of occurring.
Even if we suppose that amino acids have combined and decomposed by a "trial and error" method, without losing any time since the formation of the earth, in order to form a single protein molecule, the time that would be required for something with a probability of 10950 to happen would still hugely exceed the estimated age of the earth.
The conclusion to be drawn from all this is that evolution falls into a terrible abyss of improbability even when it comes to the formation of a single protein.
One of the foremost proponents of the theory of evolution, Professor Richard Dawkins, states the impossibility the theory has fallen into in these terms:
So the sort of lucky event we are looking at could be so wildly improbable that the chances of its happening, somewhere in the universe, could be as low as one in a billion billion billion in any one year. If it did happen on only one planet, anywhere in the universe, that planet has to be our planet-because here we are talking about it.
This admission by one of evolution's foremost authorities clearly reflects the logical muddle the theory of evolution is built on. The above statements in Dawkins's book Climbing Mount Improbable are a striking example of circular reasoning which actually explains nothing: "If we are here, then that means that evolution happened."
As we have seen, even the most prominent of the proponents of evolution confess that the theory is buried in impossibility when it comes to accounting for the first stage of life. But how interesting it is that, rather than accept the complete unreality of the theory they maintain, they prefer to cling to evolution in a dogmatic manner! This is a completely ideological fixation.
Is There a Trial-and-Error Mechanism in Nature?
Finally, we may conclude with a very important point in relation to the basic logic of probability calculations, of which we have already seen some examples. We indicated that the probability calculations made above reach astronomical levels, and that these astronomical odds have no chance of actually happening. However, there is a much more important and damaging fact facing evolutionists here. This is that under natural conditions, no period of trial and error can even start, despite the astronomical odds, because there is no trial-and-error mechanism in nature from which proteins could emerge.
The calculations we gave above to demonstrate the probability of the formation of a protein molecule with 500 amino acids are valid only for an ideal trial-and-error environment, which does not actually exist in real life. That is, the probability of obtaining a useful protein is "1" in 10950 only if we suppose that there exists an imaginary mechanism in which an invisible hand joins 500 amino acids at random and then, seeing that this is not the right combination, disentangles them one by one, and arranges them again in a different order, and so on. In each trial, the amino acids would have to be separated one by one, and arranged in a new order. The synthesis should be stopped after the 500th amino acid has been added, and it must be ensured that not even one extra amino acid is involved. The trial should then be stopped to see whether or not a functional protein has yet been formed, and, in the event of failure, everything should be split up again and then tested for another sequence. Additionally, in each trial, not even one extraneous substance should be allowed to become involved. It is also imperative that the chain formed during the trial should not be separated and destroyed before reaching the 499th link. These conditions mean that the probabilities we have mentioned above can only operate in a controlled environment where there is a conscious mechanism directing the beginning, the end, and each intermediate stage of the process, and where only "the selection of the amino acids" is left to chance. It is clearly impossible for such an environment to exist under natural conditions. Therefore the formation of a protein in the natural environment is logically and technically impossible.
Since some people are unable to take a broad view of these matters, but approach them from a superficial viewpoint and assume protein formation to be a simple chemical reaction, they may make unrealistic deductions such as "amino acids combine by way of reaction and then form proteins." However, accidental chemical reactions taking place in a nonliving structure can only lead to simple and primitive changes. The number of these is predetermined and limited. For a somewhat more complex chemical material, huge factories, chemical plants, and laboratories have to be involved. Medicines and many other chemical materials that we use in our daily life are made in just this way. Proteins have much more complex structures than these chemicals produced by industry. Therefore, it is impossible for proteins, each of which is a wonder of design and engineering, in which every part takes its place in a fixed order, to originate as a result of haphazard chemical reactions.
Let us for a minute put aside all the impossibilities we have described so far, and suppose that a useful protein molecule still evolved spontaneously "by accident." Even so, evolution again has no answers, because in order for this protein to survive, it would need to be isolated from its natural habitat and be protected under very special conditions. Otherwise, it would either disintegrate from exposure to natural conditions on earth, or else join with other acids, amino acids, or chemical compounds, thereby losing its particular properties and turning into a totally different and useless substance.
What we have been discussing so far is the impossibility of just one protein's coming about by chance. However, in the human body alone there are some 100,000 proteins functioning. Furthermore, there are about 1.5 million species named, and another 10 million are believed to exist. Although many similar proteins are used in many life forms, it is estimated that there must be 100 million or more types of protein in the plant and animal worlds. And the millions of species which have already become extinct are not included in this calculation. In other words, hundreds of millions of protein codes have existed in the world. If one considers that not even one protein can be explained by chance, it is clear what the existence of hundreds of millions of different proteins must mean.
Bearing this truth in mind, it can clearly be understood that such concepts as "coincidence" and "chance" have nothing to do with the existence of living things.
Miller's Experiment
The most generally respected study on the origin of life is the Miller experiment conducted by the American researcher Stanley Miller in 1953. (The experiment is also known as the "Urey-Miller experiment" because of the contribution of Miller's instructor at the University of Chicago, Harold Urey.) This experiment is the only "evidence" evolutionists have with which to allegedly prove the "chemical evolution thesis"; they advance it as the first stage of the supposed evolutionary process leading to life. Although nearly half a century has passed, and great technological advances have been made, nobody has made any further progress. In spite of this, Miller's experiment is still taught in textbooks as the evolutionary explanation of the earliest generation of living things. That is because, aware of the fact that such studies do not support, but rather actually refute, their thesis, evolutionist researchers deliberately avoid embarking on such experiments.
Stanley Miller's aim was to demonstrate by means of an experiment that amino acids, the building blocks of proteins, could have come into existence "by chance" on the lifeless earth billions of years ago. In his experiment, Miller used a gas mixture that he assumed to have existed on the primordial earth (but which later proved unrealistic), composed of ammonia, methane, hydrogen, and water vapor. Since these gases would not react with each other under natural conditions, he added energy to the mixture to start a reaction among them. Supposing that this energy could have come from lightning in the primordial atmosphere, he used an electric current for this purpose.
Miller heated this gas mixture at 100°C for a week and added the electrical current. At the end of the week, Miller analyzed the chemicals which had formed at the bottom of the jar, and observed that three out of the 20 amino acids which constitute the basic elements of proteins had been synthesized.
This experiment aroused great excitement among evolutionists, and was promoted as an outstanding success. Moreover, in a state of intoxicated euphoria, various publications carried headlines such as "Miller creates life." However, what Miller had managed to synthesize was only a few inanimate molecules.
Encouraged by this experiment, evolutionists immediately produced new scenarios. Stages following the development of amino acids were hurriedly hypothesized. Supposedly, amino acids had later united in the correct sequences by accident to form proteins. Some of these proteins which emerged by chance formed themselves into cell membrane-like structures which "somehow" came into existence and formed a primitive cell. These cells then supposedly came together over time to form multicellular living organisms.
However, Miller's experiment has since proven to be false in many respects.
Four Facts That Invalidate Miller's Experiment
Miller's experiment sought to prove that amino acids could form on their own in primordial earth-like conditions, but it contains inconsistencies in a number of areas:
1- By using a mechanism called a "cold trap," Miller isolated the amino acids from the environment as soon as they were formed. Had he not done so, the conditions in the environment in which the amino acids were formed would immediately have destroyed these molecules.
Doubtless, this kind of conscious isolation mechanism did not exist on the primordial earth. Without such a mechanism, even if one amino acid were obtained, it would immediately have been destroyed. The chemist Richard Bliss expresses this contradiction by observing that "Actually, without this trap, the chemical products, would have been destroyed by the energy source."254 And, sure enough, in his previous experiments, Miller had been unable to make even one single amino acid using the same materials without the cold trap mechanism.
2- The primordial atmosphere that Miller attempted to simulate in his experiment was not realistic. In the 1980s, scientists agreed that nitrogen and carbon dioxide should have been used in this artificial environment instead of methane and ammonia.So why did Miller insist on these gases? The answer is simple: without ammonia, it was impossible to synthesize any amino acid.
The American scientists J. P. Ferris and C. T. Chen repeated Miller's experiment with an atmospheric environment that contained carbon dioxide, hydrogen, nitrogen, and water vapor, and were unable to obtain even a single amino acid molecule.
3- Another important point that invalidates Miller's experiment is that there was enough oxygen to destroy all the amino acids in the atmosphere at the time when they were thought to have been formed. This fact, overlooked by Miller, is revealed by the traces of oxidized iron found in rocks that are estimated to be 3.5 billion years old.
There are other findings showing that the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere at that time was much higher than originally claimed by evolutionists. Studies also show that the amount of ultraviolet radiation to which the earth was then exposed was 10,000 times more than evolutionists' estimates. This intense radiation would unavoidably have freed oxygen by decomposing the water vapor and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
This situation completely negates Miller's experiment, in which oxygen was completely neglected. If oxygen had been used in the experiment, methane would have decomposed into carbon dioxide and water, and ammonia into nitrogen and water. On the other hand, in an environment where there was no oxygen, there would be no ozone layer either; therefore, the amino acids would have immediately been destroyed, since they would have been exposed to the most intense ultraviolet rays without the protection of the ozone layer. In other words, with or without oxygen in the primordial world, the result would have been a deadly environment for the amino acids.
4- At the end of Miller's experiment, many organic acids had also been formed with characteristics detrimental to the structure and function of living things. If the amino acids had not been isolated, and had been left in the same environment with these chemicals, their destruction or transformation into different compounds through chemical reactions would have been unavoidable.
Moreover, Miller's experiment also produced right-handed amino acids.258 The existence of these amino acids refuted the theory even within its own terms, because right-handed amino acids cannot function in the composition of living organisms. To conclude, the circumstances in which amino acids were formed in Miller's experiment were not suitable for life. In truth, this medium took the form of an acidic mixture destroying and oxidizing the useful molecules obtained.
All these facts point to one firm truth: Miller's experiment cannot claim to have proved that living things formed by chance under primordial earth-like conditions. The whole experiment is nothing more than a deliberate and controlled laboratory experiment to synthesize amino acids. The amount and types of the gases used in the experiment were ideally determined to allow amino acids to originate. The amount of energy supplied to the system was neither too much nor too little, but arranged precisely to enable the necessary reactions to occur. The experimental apparatus was isolated, so that it would not allow the leaking of any harmful, destructive, or any other kind of elements to hinder the formation of amino acids. No elements, minerals or compounds that were likely to have been present on the primordial earth, but which would have changed the course of the reactions, were included in the experiment. Oxygen, which would have prevented the formation of amino acids because of oxidation, is only one of these destructive elements. Even under such ideal laboratory conditions, it was impossible for the amino acids produced to survive and avoid destruction without the "cold trap" mechanism.
n fact, by his experiment, Miller destroyed evolution's claim that "life emerged as the result of unconscious coincidences." That is because, if the experiment proves anything, it is that amino acids can only be produced in a controlled laboratory environment where all the conditions are specifically designed by conscious intervention.
Today, Miller's experiment is totally disregarded even by evolutionist scientists. In the February 1998 issue of the famous evolutionist science journal Earth, the following statements appear in an article titled "Life's Crucible":
Geologist now think that the primordial atmosphere consisted mainly of carbon dioxide and nitrogen, gases that are less reactive than those used in the 1953 experiment. And even if Miller's atmosphere could have existed, how do you get simple molecules such as amino acids to go through the necessary chemical changes that will convert them into more complicated compounds, or polymers, such as proteins? Miller himself throws up his hands at that part of the puzzle. "It's a problem," he sighs with exasperation. "How do you make polymers? That's not so easy."
As seen, today even Miller himself has accepted that his experiment does not lead to an explanation of the origin of life. In the March 1998 issue of National Geographic, in an article titled "The Emergence of Life on Earth," the following comments appear:
Many scientists now suspect that the early atmosphere was different to what Miller first supposed. They think it consisted of carbon dioxide and nitrogen rather than hydrogen, methane, and ammonia.
That's bad news for chemists. When they try sparking carbon dioxide and nitrogen, they get a paltry amount of organic molecules - the equivalent of dissolving a drop of food colouring in a swimming pool of water. Scientists find it hard to imagine life emerging from such a diluted soup.
In brief, neither Miller's experiment, nor any other similar one that has been attempted, can answer the question of how life emerged on earth. All of the research that has been done shows that it is impossible for life to emerge by chance, and thus confirms that life is created. The reason evolutionists do not accept this obvious reality is their blind adherence to prejudices that are totally unscientific. Interestingly enough, Harold Urey, who organized the Miller experiment with his student Stanley Miller, made the following confession on this subject:
All of us who study the origin of life find that the more we look into it, the more we feel it is too complex to have evolved anywhere. We all believe as an article of faith that life evolved from dead matter on this planet. It is just that its complexity is so great, it is hard for us to imagine that it did.
