The severe blows and rapid loss of support suffered by the theory of evolution in recent years has led some evolutionists to act out of panic. One of evolutionists’ most recent contortions appeared in the September 2009 issue of Scientific American. The magazine devoted that particular issue to “origins,” and offered up evolutionists claims that have already been refuted with scientific evidence and descriptions as if they had been newly discovered for the very first time.
The severe blows and rapid loss of support suffered by the theory of evolution in recent years has led some evolutionists to act out of panic. One of evolutionists’ most recent contortions appeared in the September 2009 issue of Scientific American. The magazine devoted that particular issue to “origins,” and offered up evolutionists claims that have already been refuted with scientific evidence and descriptions as if they had been newly discovered for the very first time.
The following article contains the responses forthcoming from science and logic to the piece in question, titled “Life on Earth,” by Alonso Ricardo and Jack W. Szostak.
Scientific American’s Admissions and “It Must Have Happened” Approach
The subject matter of “Life on Earth” consisted of demagogic evolutionist accounts regarding the question of how the first building blocks of life appeared. However, since the theory of evolution has no scientific explanations or evidence on the subject, the Darwinist authors here adopt a fantasy approach throughout the article, as in all other Darwinist publications.
In addition to its fantastical language, and again like other Darwinists, these authors also assume from the very outset that the claim that life emerged spontaneously and by chance is an absolute fact, after which they produce theses and possibilities, or rather fairy tales, as to how this might have happened. In other words, instead of arriving at a conclusion from the evidence, they first set down the evolutionist and materialist conclusion they desired, after which they invent fantasies they imagined might lead them to that conclusion. The style they adopt in the article is one of “since it must have happened like that, that is how it might have happened.”
In addition, the article describes experiments performed by other scientists regarding how life on earth might have emerged, though it admits that the results obtained at the end of every experiment were unable to account for the formation of proteins, the building blocks of life. Let us now consider some examples of these admissions and “it must have happened” approach.
One Single Protein Demolished Darwinism
The Darwinist authors open their article with the words:
“Every living cell, even the simplest bacterium, teems with molecular contraptions that would be the envy of any nanotechnologist. As they incessantly shake or spin or crawl around the cell, these machines cut, paste and copy genetic molecules, shuttle nutrients around or turn them into energy, build and repair cellular membranes, relay mechanical, chemical or electrical messages—the list goes on and on, and new discoveries add to it all the time. It is virtually impossible to imagine how a cell’s machines, which are mostly protein-based catalysts called enzymes, could have formed spontaneously as life first arose from nonliving matter around 3.7 billion years ago.”
As we can see, the Darwinist authors in question first make a significant admission AND SAY THAT IT IS IMPOSSIBLE for such a gloriously complex structure as the cell to emerge spontaneously, as the result of chance.
Yet on the heels of that admission they then claim that amino acids, the building blocks of protein, form very easily out of chemical substances, and cite the Urey-Miller experiment as supposed evidence of this. But it is a known fact that the Urey-Miller experiment actually demolished the theory of evolution, that the experiment did not reflect the reality of the primordial atmosphere on earth 3.7 billion years ago, and that technical interventions not possible in nature, such as the cold trap device, were employed in the experiment. Miller himself, the author of the experiment admitted as such. At the same time, the amino acids obtained were right-handed amino acids. The fact is that living organisms contain only left-handed amino acids. Darwinist scientists are perfectly well aware of all these factors. The Miller experiment was a failure, that merely confirmed that Darwinists cannot account for the origin of life, that in other words documents that the theory of evolution is fundamentally incorrect. (For detailed information about the Urey-Miller experiment, see “A Failed Initiative: The Urey-Miller Experiment” http://www.harunyahya.com/evolutiondeceit10.php ) Even more importantly, even if the experiment had been conducted in line with primordial atmospheric conditions and the correct amino acids obtained, this would still be no evidence for the theory of evolution’s claim that life emerged spontaneously, because the existence of amino acids would not be sufficient for such an extraordinarily complex structure as protein to appear spontaneously and by chance. (One important point must be remembered here: Even if amino acids had formed as a result of the experiment, they would have immediately been destroyed by the oxygen in the atmosphere. Even if we were to assume, in the face of all the geological evidence, that there was no oxygen, as Darwinists claim, then in that case there would be no ozone layer, either, and this time the amino acids would be broken down by the ultraviolet rays emanating from the Sun.)
That fact is indeed confessed in Scientific American, and after a discussion of the Urey-Miller experiment the following comment appears:
“But going from there to proteins and enzymes is a different matter. A cell’s protein-making process involves complex enzymes pulling apart the strands of DNA’s double helix to extract the information contained in genes (the blueprints for the proteins) and translate it into the finished product. Thus, explaining how life began entails a serious paradox: it seems that it takes proteins—as well as the information now stored in DNA—to make proteins.”
As we can see, even if amino acids were released into nature in a ready-made form, it would still be impossible for them to produce proteins spontaneously. Scientists have been unable to do this even in today’s laboratories using the most advanced technology and science. Probability calculations show that the probability of an average size protein molecule forming by chance is 1 in 10950. Mathematically, probabilities less than 1 in 1050 are regarded as “zero probability.”
The Claim that “The Cell Formed out of Fatty Acids” Is a Humiliating One for Darwinists to Make
One example of the fantastical approach adopted throughout by Scientific American is the claim that life might first have appeared in fatty acids. This claim is devoid of any scientific basis and is a violation of reason and logic, and therefore a humiliating one for Darwinists to make:
“The earliest forms of life could have been simple membranes made of fatty acids....”
This sentence is pure conjecture and totally disregards science. Neither is it conjecture based on any scientific finding or calculation. It is totally the work of evolutionists’ powers of imagination. Unable to explain how life might have formed out of inanimate substances, evolutionists begin exercising their imaginations, as in the article in question in Scientific American. Although they are well aware of the comic nature of these claims, they still have no hesitation about belittling themselves for the sake of Darwinist ideology.
The Lie That “Science Cannot Know The Origin Of Life”
The Darwinists who first sign up to the claim that life appeared spontaneously but then are unable to produce any scientific backing for this irrational idea now try to depict science as powerless on the subject by saying that “perhaps we can never know” the origin of life. Scientific American contains the following claim:
The actual nature of the first organisms and the exact circumstances of the origin of life may be forever lost to science.
The fact is, however, that there is no question of the origin of life remaining unknown to science for ever. Scientists use the methods shown by science to examine, research and observe the evidence, and they draw conclusions on the basis of the findings they obtain. For example, a scientist who sees the complex structure of life and that there is only a 1 in 10950 probability of an average-size protein molecule forming spontaneously and by chance, in other words that it is utterly and totally impossible, will definitively and absolutely realize that LIFE DID NOT EMERGE SPONTANEOUSLY AND BY CHANCE. He will not therefore engage in speculation along the lines of “I wonder if it could still have formed by chance?” And he will not then invent any lies.
However, if the scientists in question insist on “science confirming their own materialist Darwinist views and arriving at the conclusions they desire,” then indeed, as they say, “the origin of life may forever be lost to science.” In the same way that they will never be able to find a transitional form fossil, so they will never be able to prove the lie that life emerged spontaneously and by chance.
The RNA World Lie
After describing the impossibility of the molecules that give rise to life, proteins, emerging spontaneously and by chance, Scientific American then went on to depict the idea of the RNA world as an alternative that might overcome all these difficulties. The fact is, however, that the RNA World thesis is a claim that even the majority of evolutionists regard as illogical and impossible, and that just a few of their colleagues shelter behind from a feeling of despair. (For the invalidity of the “RNA World” claim see, http://www.harunyahya.com/evolutiondeceit10.php)
They still could not create life even if all the molecules were put in their hands
The real aim of the article in Scientific American was to offer an explanation of how nucleotides and proteins, the building blocks of life might have formed spontaneously and by chance, a subject that Darwinists insist on espousing, albeit utterly hopelessly. Throughout the article the magazine revealed that NOT EVEN highly intelligent, educated, Nobel Prize-winning professors conducting experiments using the most advanced technology in their laboratories ARE ABLE TO PRODUCE THESE MOLECULES, which is one of the greatest dilemmas facing the theory of evolution. To expect molecules that cannot be manufactured under laboratory conditions using all kinds of advanced technology and knowledge and with the conscious intervention of intelligent human beings, to form under natural conditions under the effects of rain, lightning, ultraviolet rays and lava melting down from volcanoes is a terrible violation of reason and logic.
Moreover, even if Darwinists did manufacture these molecules, that still would not save the theory of evolution. They could have an ocean-full of already existing proteins, but they would still never be able to produce life. They could even take a living cell and extract all the organelles and components that make it up. They could have all the elements necessary for life ready to hand. They could even have the requisite left-handed amino acids and whatever else they needed in whatever amounts required. And Darwinist professors could use all these materials extracted from the cell in whatever way they wanted. They could expose them to whatsoever mutations they chose, heat them up, apply electric currents to them, subject them to ultraviolet rays, shake them up, freeze and thaw them out again and stand watch over the mixture for billions of years if they so wished, bequeathing it from one generation to the next. But they will never be able to manufacture life, or even a single cell, from these ready materials. They can never reconstruct the extraordinarily complex factory inside the cell. It is obvious that unconscious nature can never do what scientists with such technology and consciousness cannot achieve.
Intelligent, educated human beings capable of combining and processing wood, fiber board, construction equipment, cement, sand, water, bricks etc. are still needed to build a factory, even if these materials have all been deposited on site. All the materials required can be deposited together, more than 1 million separate components, but if they are left to their own devices, even for billions of years, they will still never produce a factory by themselves. Materials can never produce a complex and functional structure in the absence of intelligence and information. The intelligence and knowledge required for the task are the infinite intelligence and knowledge of Almighty Allah.
It is He Who created the heavens and the Earth with truth. The day He says “Be!” it is. His speech is Truth. The Kingdom will be His on the Day the Trumpet is blown, the Knower of the Unseen and the Visible. He is the All-Wise, the All-Aware. (Surat Al-An‘am, 73)
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