The theory of evolution faces a major impasse at the molecular level. With evidence from such fields as paleontology, geology and anthropology, the origin of life is a major problem for the theory of evolution. The insuperable problem facing its adherents is not limited to the building blocks of life, such as protein. There is also the extraordinary complexity of the living cell-which is not a mass of amino acid-based proteins, but one of the most complex systems that science has yet encountered.
Darwinists' predicament stems from the assumptions they rely on. According to their theory of evolution, life must have appeared spontaneously, when the right chemicals combined together. Thus the first living cell must have been exceedingly primitive. These erroneous beliefs have forced Darwinists to believe that volcanic gasses and lightning gave rise to DNA, and afterwards to life! According to Darwinists, millions of living cells-the like of which cannot be produced through even the most sophisticated laboratory technology, after centuries of accumulated knowledge-came together by chance to form organs with vitally important responsibilities. Moreover, by working together in flawless co-ordination, these organs came from the human body and acquire the responsibility of keeping it alive. Not only does this Darwinist myth lack any scientific backing, it also violates logic and reason. The French scientist Pierre Paul Grasse, himself an evolutionist, notes the predicament in which they find themselves:
... some people, owing to their sectarianism, purposely overlook reality and refuse to acknowledge the inadequacies and falsity of their beliefs.174
In his book How Life Began, L. R. Croft of England's Salford University refers to the way in which evolutionists underestimate their dilemma:
The fundamental problem-the origin of life-is the cornerstone of all evolutionary enquiry. Yet surprisingly, it is rarely given the attention it merits. . . the nature of the origin of life remained neglected. . . Darwin himself was dismissive on the issue.175
Darwinists have been unable to prove any of the so-called evolutionary developments that they claim, took place at the molecular level. Rather than helping evolutionists answer such questions, scientific progress has made them even more complex and insoluble.. The following pages will show statements by scientists and even admissions from evolutionists themselves of how illogical it is to maintain that any DNA molecule, with its unique structure and properties, came into being by chance, as evolutionists would have you believe.
Despite all the information that has been obtained about DNA, scientists still say that their knowledge is inadequate. The hidden genome miracle, in a space too small to be seen with the naked eye, is just one example of Allah's creative artistry. |
The most comprehensive part of the cell's complex structure is DNA, which determines genetic structure. Despite many years of research and great sums of money expended, scientists are only now obtaining any valuable information concerning the structure and coding of DNA. However, the perfection of the cell's genetic structure still remains a mystery. DNA's complex structure and the essential data stored in it inflict complete despair on those who wish to ascribe the origin of life to chance. One eminent evolutionist, the biochemist Leslie Orgel, expresses his thoughts on the subject:
We do not yet understand even the general features of the origin of genetic code. The origin of the genetic code is the most baffling aspect of the problem of the origins of life. . . .176
The nuclear physicist Prof. Gerald Schroeder refers to ignorance of how the coding in DNA takes place:
And yet if the fossil record is correct, the endowed wisdom of DNA seems to have been present from the very earliest stages of life on earth. How the coding that drives all life sprang into existence remains mystery. The scale of the mystery is best realized by the complexity of its product.177
Jon Cohen, a writer for the well-known journal Science, refers to the perfection of the cell's organized structure:
Why do the sugar molecules in DNA and RNA twist to the right in all known organisms? Similarly, all of the amino acids from which proteins are formed twist to the left. The reason these molecules have such uniform handedness, or 'chirality,' is not known, but there is no shortage of theories on the subject. And, as was clear at a recent meeting on the topic in Los Angeles, there is also no shortage of passion, which is understandable, because the question of homochirality speaks to the mother of all scientific mysteries: the origin of life.178
In an article titled "The Origin of Life: More Questions Than Answers," Prof. Klaus Dose, head of the Gutenberg University Biochemistry Institute, is just one of those evolutionists who confesses despair:
Moreover, we do not actually know where the genetic information of all living cells originates, how the first replicable polynucleotides [nucleic acids] evolved, or how the extremely complex structure-function relationships in modern cells came into existence.179
John Maddox, a former editor of the evolutionist publication Nature, says, "So it is disappointing that the origin of the genetic code is still as obscure as the origin of life itself."180 But actually, far from being uncertain, the origin of the genetic code is perfectly obvious. It is just one of the examples that exhibit the perfection in Allah's creation, as revealed in the Qur'an:
He Who created the seven heavens in layers. You will not find any flaw in the creation of the All-Merciful. Look again-do you see any gaps? Then look again and again. Your sight will return to you dazzled and exhausted! (Surat al-Mulk, 3-4)
Evolutionist accounts try to explain every perfection as the work of chance. The cell's magnificently complex structure is the result of a successfully accurate selection. Darwinists regard chance as the creator of all things, without thinking about what chance really is. Thus they assume that disorder gave rise to the first cell, upon which they base all their theories. However, not even the cell itself, let alone the simplest organism, can assemble itself by chance, in the manner assumed by evolutionists. The University of London cell biologist Dr. Ambrose expresses the impossibility of this:
When we come to examine the simplest known organism capable of independent existence, the situation becomes even more fantastic. In the DNA chain of the chromosome of the bacterium E. coli, a favourite organism used by molecular biologists, the [DNA] helix consists of 3-4 million base pairs. These are all arranged in a sequence that is 'meaningful' in the sense that it gives rise to enzyme molecules which fit the various metabolites and products used by the cell. This unique sequence represents a choice of one out of 102,000,000 alternative ways of arranging the bases! We are compelled to conclude that the origin of the first life was a unique event, which cannot be discussed in terms of probability.181
Mathematics proves that in the writing of the information in DNA. The chances of a single one of the 30,000 genes that make up DNA-let alone of the DNA molecule itself with its millions of rungs-forming by chance are less than impossible. Frank B. Salisbury, an evolutionist biologist, has this to say:
A medium protein might include about 300 amino acids. The DNA gene controlling this would have about 1,000 nucleotides in its chain. Since there are four kinds of nucleotides in a DNA chain, one consisting of 1,000 links could exist in 41,000 forms. Using a little algebra we can see that 41,000=10600. Ten multiplied by itself 600 times gives the figure 1 followed by 600 zeros! This number is completely beyond our comprehension.182
Therefore, even assuming that all the requisite nucleotides were present in the environment and that all the complex molecules and binding enzymes were ready for them to attach themselves to one another, the likelihood of these nucleotides assuming the desired sequence is just 1 in 10600. In short, the odds of the DNA code of an average protein in the human body emerging spontaneously is 1 in 10 followed by 600 zeros. This number goes far beyond astronomical. I. L. Cohen, author of the book Darwin Was Wrong: A Study in Probabilities, (Darwin Hatalıydı: Olasılıklar İçinde Bir İnceleme) adlı kitabın yazarı I. L. Cohen de, genetik bilginin tesadüf eseri ortaya çıkmış olamayacağını şöyle açıklamaktadır:
Mathematicians agree that any requisite number beyond 1050 has, statistically, a zero probability of occurrence. Any species known to us, including the smallest single-cell bacteria, have enormously larger number of nucleotides than 100 or 1,000. In fact, single cell bacteria display about 3,000,000 nucleotides, aligned in a very specific sequence. This means that there is no mathematical probability whatever for any known species to have been the product of a random occurrence-random mutations (to use the evolutionist's favorite expression).183
The impossibility of nucleotides combining in a chance manner to give rise to RNA and DNA is set out by the evolutionist French scientist Paul Auger:
We have to sharply distinguish the two stages in the chance formation of complex molecules such as nucleotides by chemical events. The production of nucleotides one by one-which is possible-and the combination of these within very special sequences. The second is absolutely impossible.184
Think of this impossibility in terms of a very simplified analogy. Obviously that a work of literature, with all its pages properly bound, cannot emerge as the result of an explosion in a library. If anyone claims that it came into existence spontaneously, you will harbor doubts about his sanity. What evolutionists maintain was achieved by chance goes far beyond this analogy, yet despite all the illogic and impossibility of claims of chance, those who remain blindly loyal to Darwin's legacy still say, "But chance accomplished it." The well-known molecular biologist Michael Denton wrote the book Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, which describes the invalidity of the theory. He expresses his amazement at those who ascribe this matchless perfection to chance:
It is an understatement to say that the probability of generating by chance even one grammatical text of just a few hundred words is vanishingly small. Any such string implies intelligence . . . 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 . . . anything produced by the intelligence of man?185
Elsewhere, Prof. Denton describes this irrational belief held by Darwinists:
To the skeptic, the proposition that the genetic programmes of higher organisms, consisting of something close to a thousand million bits of information, equivalent to the sequence of letters in a small library of 1,000 volumes, containing in encoded form countless thousands of intricate algorithms controlling, specifying, and ordering the growth and development of billions and billions of cells into the form of a complex organism, were composed by a purely random process is simply an affront to reason. But to the Darwinist, the idea is accepted without a ripple of doubt-the paradigm takes precedence.186
Dr. Stephen C. Meyer the philosopher of University of Cambridge says that no credence can be attached to statements ascribing the origin of life to chance:
While many outside origin-of-life biology may still invoke "chance" as a casual explanation for the origin of biological information, few serious researchers still do. Since molecular biologists began to appreciate the sequence specificity of proteins and nucleic acids in the 1950s and 1960s, many calculations have been made to determine the probability of formulating functional proteins and nucleic acids. Even assuming extremely favorable prebiotic conditions (whether realistic or not) and theoretically maximal reaction rates, such calculations have invariably shown that the probability of obtaining functionally sequenced biomacromolecules at random is, in Ilya Prigogine's words, "vanishingly small . . . even on the scale of billions of years. . . "187
Despite being well aware of these impossibilities, evolutionists still hold out in the face of the facts. The truth is that the complexity and perfection in DNA's structure can be explained only by the existence of a Creator possessed of sublime knowledge and intellect-our Almighty Lord. One verse of the Qur'an states:
Do not mix up truth with falsehood and knowingly hide the truth. (Surat al-Baqara, 42)
The genetic system does not consist of DNA alone. The enzymes to read the DNA code, the messenger RNA to be produced by this reading, the ribosome to which the messenger RNA travels and bonds with, the transporter RNA that carries the amino acids to be used in that production to the ribosome, and the highly complex enzymes that permit countless other secondary functions-all must be present in the same environment. Moreover, such an environment can only be a cell, where all the requisite raw materials and energy are isolated, available, and completely controlled in all respects.
The Complex Structure of a Cell | |||
A. The Complex Structure of a Cell | |||
1. Chromosomes | 11. Nucleus | 21. Intervening mRNA | |
The genetic system does not consist of DNA alone. in order for life to exist, there must also be enzymes to read the DNA chain, copy it and produce proteins in accord with these copies. This very important characteristic is referred to as the cell's "irreducible complexity." |
An organic substance can reproduce itself only in a fully formed cell together with all its various organelles. This means that the first cell with its all extraordinarily complex structures must have come into being in a single moment. In his book Chance and Necessity, the Nobel Prize-winning French biologist Jacques Monod elaborates:
The code is meaningless unless translated. The modern cell's translating machinery consists of at least 50 macromolecular components, which are themselves coded in DNA: the code cannot be translated otherwise than by products of translation themselves. It is the modern expression of omne vivum ex ovo [All life comes from an egg]. When and how did this circle become closed? It is exceedingly difficult to imagine.188
Another Nobel Prize winner, the French scientist Andre Lwoff, states that every molecule inside the cell is a component of an interconnected whole:
An organism is a system of interdependent structures and functions. It consists of cells, and the cells are made of molecules which have to cooperate smoothly. Every molecule must know what the others are doing. It must be able to receive messages and act on them.189
1. Ribosome |
The claim of a transition from a primitive cell to a complex one is a fantasy. All the complex molecules necessary for life must co-exist at exactly the same time. If the cell is to survive, it is essential that the system exist as a complete and flawless whole, with all its components intact, right from the very start. |
Probability calculations show that complex molecules such as proteins and nucleic acids (RNA and DNA) cannot form one by one as the result of chance. For evolutionists, however, an even greater problem is that these molecules need to be present all together, and at one and the same time, for a cell to function and life to exist. This places the theory of evolution in a completely hopeless position, as is admitted from time to time by evolutionists. One of these is Douglas R. Hofstadter from Indiana University, a professor in a number of fields:
"How did the Genetic Code, along with the mechanisms for its translation (ribosomes and RNA molecules), originate?" For the moment, we will have to content ourselves with a sense of wonder and awe, rather than with an answer. 190
The same truth is also admitted by Prof. Karl Raimund Popper, a 20th century philosopher of science with evolutionist views, who describes this dilemma:
What makes the origin of life and of the genetic code a disturbing riddle is this: the genetic code is without any biological function unless it is translated; that is, unless it leads to the synthesis of the proteins whose structure is laid down by the code. But… the machinery by which the cell translates the code consists of at least fifty macromolecular components which are themselves coded in the DNA. Thus the code cannot be translated except by using certain products of its translation. This constitutes a baffling circle; a really vicious circle, it seems, for any attempt to form a model or theory of the genesis of the genetic code. 191
As Prof. Popper stresses, all the building blocks of the cell and the information belonging to its organelles are recorded in DNA. However, in order for the information in DNA to be used, those building blocks and organelles must already be in existence. This clearly refutes the theory of evolution's claims of gradual development: Organelles cannot exist without the coded information in DNA, just as the coded information in DNA cannot be used without those organelles. Both need to be present at the same time. Therefore, the claim of a transition from simple cells to complex ones is a myth. Despite holding evolutionist views, the zoologist David E. Green and the biochemist Prof. Robert F. Goldberger have this to say in a paper in a scientific journal:
The popular conception of primitive cells as the starting point for the origin of the species is really erroneous. There was nothing functionally primitive about such cells. They contained basically the same biochemical equipment as do their modern counterparts. How, then, did the precursor cell arise? The only unequivocal rejoinder to this question is that we do not know. 192
The theory of evolution seeks to account for all of life in terms of chance, but can never explain the origin of the extraordinary information carefully and flawlessly encoded in DNA. The question, therefore, is not how the DNA chain emerged, because as you have seen, the DNA chain and its extraordinary data capacity would serve no purpose on its own. There must be enzymes to read and replicate the DNA chain, and produce proteins in the light of these copies. In order for life to exist, the data bank of DNA and the systems to reading that data must both exist together. This most important property of the cell is referred to as irreducible complexity. As Prof. Frank B Salisbury says,
Now we know that the cell itself is far more complex than we had imagined. It includes thousands of functioning enzymes, each one of them a complex machine itself. Furthermore, each enzyme comes into being in response to a gene, a strand of DNA. The information content of the gene-its complexity-must be as great as that of the enzyme it controls.193
The absence of even one organelle from a cell, every part of which consists of interconnected systems, will mean that cell fails to function. The cell cannot wait for such a vital deficiency to be rectified gradually, through any supposed process of evolution. It is therefore impossible for a living cell to emerge by random coincidences assembling tiny components over a span of millions of years. The cell's complete unity is too complex for its components to have emerged in stages. In order to survive, the cell must exist as a complete with all its components, right from the very outset. This is another dilemma that the theory of evolution cannot explain away.
The diagram shows the protein known as the leucine zipper. These structures, also known as main zipper proteins, are extremely important for normal development and play a regulatory role in DNA copying. Cancer may arise in the event they are subjected to mutation. |
The enzymes that read DNA and engage in production accordingly are also produced according to the codes inside that same DNA. Inside each cell exists a factory that produces a wide range of products and also the structures to produce them. How could this system-a deficiency at any single point of which would render it non-functioning-have emerged on its own? That question is sufficient to demolish the theory of evolution.
The fact that DNA can be copied only with the assistance of a number of enzymes in the protein structure, and that the synthesis of these same enzymes takes place only in line with the information encoded inside the DNA, shows that the protein and DNA are mutually dependent. For that reason, they both must be present right from the outset if the DNA is to be copied itself. The science writer John Horgan clarifies this equation:
DNA cannot do its work, including forming more DNA without the help of catalytic proteins, or enzymes. In short, proteins cannot form without DNA, but neither can DNA form without proteins.194
According to the molecular biologist Michael Denton: "At the heart of the problem lay a seeming paradox-proteins can do many things, but they cannot perform the function of storing and transmitting information for their own construction. On the other hand, DNA can store information, but cannot manufacture anything nor duplicate itself. So DNA needs proteins and proteins need DNA. A seemingly unbreakable cycle-the ultimate chicken-and-egg problem."195 Andrew Scott describes the way that proteins and the genetic code cannot be considered separately in an article in New Scientist magazine:
We are grappling here with a classic "chicken and egg" dilemma. Nucleic acids are required to make proteins, whereas proteins are needed to make nucleic acids and also to allow them to direct the process of protein manufacture itself . . . The emergence of the gene-protein link, an absolutely vital stage on the way up from lifeless atoms to ourselves, is still shrouded in almost complete mystery.196
This situation once again refutes the scenario of life emerging by chance. The American chemist Prof. Homer Jacobson has this to say:
Directions for the reproduction of plans, for energy and the extraction of parts from the current environment, for the growth sequence, and for the effector mechanism translating instructions into growth-all had to be simultaneously present at that moment [when life began]. This combination of events has seemed an incredibly unlikely happenstance. . . .197
Prof. Jacobson wrote these statements two years after James Watson and Francis Crick discovered the structure of DNA. However, despite all the scientific advances that have been made, this problem still remains insoluble for evolutionists. The Turkish evolutionist biologist Prof. Ali Demirsoy was forced to make this admission regarding the probability of protein and DNA coming into being together:
The probability of a protein and nucleic acid (DNA-RNA) is one far exceeding probability estimates. The chances of a specific protein chain emerging are so small as to be astronomical.198
The probability Demirsoy referred is in practice zero. In a 1994 article, the evolutionist Dr. Leslie Orgel said this in the face of that:
It is extremely improbable that proteins and nucleic acids, both of which are structurally complex, arose spontaneously in the same place at the same time. Yet it also seems impossible to have one without the other. And so, at first glance, one might have to conclude that life could never, in fact, have originated by chemical means.199
To say that "it is extremely improbable for life to originate by chemical means" means that it is impossible for life to emerge spontaneously. This is proof that life was created in a single moment. However, evolutionists are reluctant to accept this fact, whose proof they can clearly see, for ideological reasons. They advocate nonsensical scenarios, which they themselves know to be impossible, in order not to have to admit the existence of Allah. Another evolutionist, Caryl P. Haskins, expresses the impossibility of the DNA code forming by chance and sees this as a powerful evidence for creation:
But the most sweeping evolutionary questions at the level of biochemical genetics are still unanswered. How the genetic code first appeared and then evolved and, earlier even than that, how life itself originated on earth remain for the future to resolve. . . . Did the code and the means of translating it appear simultaneously in evolution? It seems almost incredible that any such coincidence could have occurred, given the extraordinary complexities of both sides and the requirement that they be coordinated accurately for survival. By a pre-Darwinian (or a skeptic of evolution after Darwin), this puzzle would surely have been interpreted as the most powerful sort of evidence for special creation.200
Even a single-celled organism has a complexity far exceeding scientists' comprehension. This minute entity contains a genetic code with the stunning capacity capable of forming a copy of the organism all by itself. This code has a structure requiring not just organization, but also written information. Furthermore, it is not enough for this DNA code merely to be written correctly. The rest of the cell must also be able to read the code and follow its instructions. In fact, all living things possess flawless structures that carry out highly organized activities in the light of the directives they receive.
It is certainly impossible for unconscious cell organelles to learn the language of these codes by themselves, or to unravel them as the result of chance. The existence of the code, its decipherment, the transmission of the information it contains, the accurate use made of it-every stage requires consciousness and intelligence. But how can enzymes and ribosomes in the cell know how to perform these activities? Even if we assume that they do know, how can they decipher the codes in a structure of which they are ignorant, without making any mistakes? Such questions not only emphasize the insoluble dilemma facing evolutionists, but also display the infinite intellect and knowledge in creation. In the Qur'an it is stated that:
Your Lord creates and chooses whatever He wills. The choice is not theirs. Glory be to Allah! He is exalted above anything they associate with Him! Your Lord knows what their hearts conceal and what they divulge. He is Allah. There is no deity but Him. Praise be to Him in this world and the Hereafter. Judgment belongs to Him. You will be returned to Him. (Surat al-Qasas, 68-70)
Darwin maintained that if certain chemicals representing the raw material of life were present in a warm lake, proteins could form, and would multiply and combine to give rise to a cell.201 Thousands of scientists attempting to make Darwin's hypothesis a reality and to provide an evolutionary explanation for the origin of life have ventured down that same dead-end road.
In the 1920s, the Russian biochemist Alexander Oparin and the British geneticist J. B. S. Haldane put forward their theory known as "chemical evolution." They maintained what Darwin had imagined-that with the addition of energy, the molecules comprising the raw material, life could develop spontaneously and form a living cell. However, no evolutionist, Oparin included, was able to come up with any evidence to back up the claims of chemical evolution. On the contrary, every new discovery made in the 20th century showed that life was far too complex to have come about by chance. The well-known evolutionist Leslie Orgel makes this confession: " . . . at first glance, one might have to conclude that life could never, in fact, have originated by chemical means."202
Leaving aside the cell for a moment, it is impossible for the nucleotides in DNA's basic structure to have emerged by chance and maintained their chemical properties under the conditions of the primeval Earth. The magazine Scientific American, which follows a pro-evolution line, expresses evolutionist admissions on the subject:
Even the simpler molecules are produced only in small amounts in realistic experiments simulating possible primitive earth conditions. What is worse, these molecules are generally minor constituents of tars: It remains problematical how they could have been separated and purified through geochemical processes whose normal effects are to make organic mixtures more and more of a jumble. With somewhat more complex molecules, these difficulties rapidly increase.203
The German scientists Reinhard Junker and Siegfried Scherer note that the synthesis of the molecules essential for life require very different conditions. This, according to them, shows that there is no possibility of the many different substances necessary for life combining together:
Until now, no experiment is known in which we can obtain all the molecules necessary for chemical evolution. Therefore, it is essential to produce various molecules in different places under very suitable conditions and then to carry them to another place for reaction by protecting them from harmful elements like hydrolysis and photolysis. This combination of events has seemed an incredibly unlikely happenstance, and has often been ascribed to divine intervention.204
In his book The Origin of Life, Dr. John Keosian admits the despairing position in which evolutionists find themselves:
Claims of chemical evolution are unreal. We are asked to believe that biochemical compounds, biochemical reactions and mechanisms, energy metabolism, and storage, specific polymerizations, codes, transcription and translation apparatus, and more, appeared in probiotic [inaudible word], with a function they would have, in a living thing, before there were living things. Chemical evolution has become an end in itself. In many cases it represents contrived or ingenious laboratory syntheses which have no counterpart in abiotic organic chemical synthesis in an acceptable range of probiotic conditions . . . there has been an good deal of uncritical acceptance of experiments, results and conclusions which we are all too ready to acknowledge because they support preconceived convictions. . . All present approaches to a solution of the problem of the origin of life are either irrelevant or lead into a blind alley. Therein lies the crisis.205
It is possible to speak of DNA's existence only when the cell is present in fully complete form, with all its organelles. |
The structure of the DNA molecule also confirms the impossibility of the chemical evolution scenario because when left to itself, the DNA molecule loses its stability. External factors can easily impair the molecule's structure. To a large extent, DNA is stable inside the cell because that it is monitored and repaired by specialized enzymes. It is impossible for the DNA molecule to remain stable and preserve its structure outside the cell, while swimming in the primeval oceans, as evolutionists claim. On the contrary, in the supposed primeval ocean, the molecule would be impaired far more quickly than the rate at which it was synthesized.206 Thaxton, Dr. Roger L. Olsen and Prof. Walter L. Bradley mention how the substances essential for life could not preserve their stability: "It seems probable that in an oceanic chemical soup, the synthesis of RNA and other essential biomolecules would have been short-circuited at nearly every turn by many cross-reactions."207
In fact, when biochemists separate DNA from the cell or synthesizes it in the laboratory, they do not leave it in water-which would cause it to dissolve-or in a jar on the bench at room temperature. In all probability, they store it in a tube with a tightly closed stopper, and in liquid nitrogen in a deep freeze. Yet even under these conditions, the chemical bonds inside the molecule gradually fall apart, and biological effectiveness is gradually lost.208
Evolutionists totally ignore the fact that DNA, RNA and protein molecules would soon be eliminated under natural conditions in the supposed primeval ocean. In his book The Origins of Prebiological Systems, Dr. Carl Sagan admits that the existing scenarios regarding the origin of life are unsatisfactory:
The problem we're discussing is a very general one. We use energy sources to make organic molecules. It is found that the same energy sources can destroy these organic molecules. The organic chemist has an understandable preference for removing the reaction products from the energy source before they are destroyed. But when we talk of the origin of life, I think we should not neglect the fact that degradation occurs as well as synthesis, and that the course of reaction may be different if the products are not preferentially removed. In reconstructing the origin of life, we have to imagine reasonable scenarios which somehow avoid this difficulty.209
In the absence of a cell with the mechanism to read the information in DNA-and to act on those instructions and manufacture protein-the information in DNA will be meaningless. Even if we assume the completely impossible, that the DNA molecule did form spontaneously under the primitive world conditions suggested by evolutionists, the existence of DNA by itself would be meaningless. Despite being evolutionists, Prof. David E. Green and Prof. Robert F. Goldberger express the invalidity of the idea that the cell emerged gradually and spontaneously:
… the macromolecule-to-cell transition is a jump of fantastic dimensions, which lies beyond the range of testable hypothesis. In this area, all is conjecture. The available facts do not provide a basis for postulating that cells arose on this planet.210
In an article titled "Life's Origins Get Murkier and Messier," published in The New York Times in June 2000, the science writer Nicholas Wade wrote, "Everything about the origin of life on earth is a mystery, and it seems the more that is known, the more acute the puzzles get."211 The biochemist Prof. Michael J. Behe summarizes the position of science in terms of the evolutionary scenario:
In private, many scientists admit that science has no explanation for the beginning of life. On the other hand, many scientists think that given the origin of life, its subsequent evolution is easy to envision, despite the major difficulties outlined in this book. The reason for this peculiar circumstance is that while chemists try to test origin-of-life scenarios by experiment or calculation, evolutionary biologists make no attempt to test evolutionary scenarios at the molecular level by experiment or calculation. As a result, evolutionary biology is stuck in the same frame of mind that dominated origin-of-life studies in the early fifties before most experiments had been done: imagination running wild. Biochemistry has, in fact, revealed a molecular world that stoutly resists explanation by the same theory so long applied at the level of the whole organism. Neither of Darwin's black boxes-the origin of life or the origin of vision or other complex biochemical systems-has been accounted for by his theory. Darwin never imagined the exquisitely profound complexity that exists even at the most basic levels of life.212
The point that evolutionists seem determined not to acknowledge is that Darwin was an amateur scientist whose knowledge was too superficial to foresee the molecular complexity of life, and whose analyses were based solely upon observation. Many scientists blindly attached to the theory of evolution are in the same state of ignorance today. Since they lack the courage to tell the truth, out of a fear of losing their prestige, and since they are also unwilling to admit the existence of Allah, they have become part of a mass deception. However, the facts are so evident that apart from a few admissions, evolutionists are left quite speechless. Despite being an evolutionist, the contemporary biochemist Klaus Dose admits the impossibility of life forming spontaneously in the so-called primeval environment:
A further puzzle remains, namely the question of the origin of biological information, i.e., the information residing in our genes today. . . not even the physical building blocks required for the storage of the information can construct themselves: The spontaneous formation of simple nucleotides or even pf polynucleotides which were able to be replicated on the pre-biotic earth should now be regarded as improbable in the light of the very many unsuccessful experiments in this regard.213
Saying that it is "improbable" for life to have emerged by chemical means is tantamount to saying that it is impossible for life to have emerged by chance. Therefore, the theory of evolution, which seeks to account for the origin of life in terms of chance, collapses right at the outset. Since chance cannot represent the origin of life, science clearly demonstrates that life has been created in a flawless manner. Not only the earliest organisms, but all the different living classes on Earth were created individually. Indeed, the fossil record confirms that all species on Earth emerged in a single moment and with all their own particular structures, and without undergoing any previous process of evolution.
Whenever experiments regarding the origin of life are mentioned, the first one to come to mind is the Miller Experiment. In evolutionist sources, this is portrayed as supposed evidence that allegedly sheds light on the origin of life. Yet the details of the experiment-conditions that do not reflect the true facts-are generally neglected. The American chemist Stanley Miller carried out the experiment under artificial conditions he established himself, and which bore no relation to the primeval Earth's atmosphere. Since his synthesis of amino acid was carried out on the basis of a contrived environment, it cannot provide any scientific findings.
Moreover, Miller was able to synthesize amino acid in this experiment only. Yet the emergence of amino acids under any condition whatsoever does not argue for the formation of life. Amino acids are building blocks of proteins, the body's basic building materials. Hundreds of amino acids are combined in a specific sequence inside the cell, and thus a given protein results. Cells consist of an average of several thousand different types of protein. In contrast, amino acids are the simplest and smallest components of living things. The invalidity of Miller's experiment was the subject of a great many scientific papers in later years.214 (For more details, see The Evolution Deceit , Ta-Ha Publishers, United Kingdom, 1999.)
1. Electrical energy | 4. Cooled water outside |
After the Stanley Miller experiment, evolutionists claimed that amino acids, the building blocks of life, could have formed by chance under the supposed conditions of the primeval Earth. However, the experiment was proved to be invalid in a great many respects, and now even evolutionists have abandoned it. |
With the Miller Experiment, evolutionists unwittingly demolished evolution, because the experiment proved that amino acids can only be obtained by means of conscious intervention under laboratory environment in which all the conditions are strictly controlled. In other words, what produces life is creation, not unconscious coincidences.
Evolutionists are reluctant to accept this evident truth since they cling to a number of prejudices that fly in the face of science. Indeed, Harold Urey and his student Stanley Miller, who organized the experiment together with him, made the following admission:
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.215
None of the other experiments which evolutionists claim to duplicate the origin of life bears any relation to the facts. While seeking to account for the origin of life in terms of random, unplanned events, evolutionists perform their experiments under highly planned controls. Nothing in the laboratory environments they create is left to chance.
On the contrary, all experiments conducted to bring an evolutionary explanation are carried out by intelligent, knowledgeable scientists with the use of advanced laboratory technology. In such a controlled environment, it is obvious that chance effects bear no relation at all to such stages as the splitting of genes from DNA using various special enzymes, the subsequent replacement of these inside the cell and then the selection of the most advantageous ones. For that reason, evolutionists once again demonstrate that there must have been intelligence, consciousness and information behind the origin of life. In his book Darwin's Black Box, the molecular biologist Michael Behe has this to say:
The big problem is that each nucleotide "building block" is itself built up from several components and the processes that form the components are chemically incompatible. Although a chemist can make nucleotides with ease in a laboratory by synthesizing the components separately, purifying them, and then recombining the components to react with each other, undirected chemical reactions overwhelmingly produce undesired products and shapeless goop on the bottom of the test tube.216
All the experiment carried out prove that during every stage involved in the formation of life, conscious control is needed. Prof. Werner Gitt says this about the Miller experiments, portrayed as evidence of evolution:
No protein has ever been synthesized in such an experiment; they refer to proteinoids and not proteins as such. Even if they succeed in obtaining a true protein with a long amino acid chain and the correct optical rotation, it would still not be the start of evolution. There must be a coding system to store information about this protein so that it can be replicated at a later stage. A coding system can never originate in matter. The Miller experiments thus do not contribute to an explanation of the origin of life.217
The well-known physicist Prof. Paul Davies refers to the approach adopted in the experiments performed being flawed right from the very beginning:
The living cell is best thought of as a supercomputer-an information processing and replicating system of astonishing complexity. DNA is not a special life-giving molecule, but a genetic databank that transmits its information using a mathematical code. Most of the workings of the cell are best described, not in terms of material stuff-hardware-but as information, or software. Trying to make life by mixing chemicals in a test tube is like soldering switches and wires in an attempt to produce Windows 98. It won't work because it addresses the problem at the wrong conceptual level.218
This all goes to show that everything in the cell must be present in complete and perfect form, and in just the right place, from the very first moment. The slightest deficiency or change will spell the death of the entire cell. It is impossible for the kind of trial-and-error process posited by the theory of evolution to give rise to a living cell, even if the process lasted not for just billions of years, but for trillions upon trillions. There is absolutely no possibility that unconscious natural phenomena gave rise to the irreducibly complex structures and systems inside the cell, in one single event. The way that some still ascribe divine status to chance, despite seeing these clear scientific facts, is an empty deception. Allah reveals the superstitious beliefs of such people in the Qur'an:
He to Whom the kingdom of the heavens and the Earth belongs. He does not have a son and He has no partner in the Kingdom. He created everything and determined it most exactly. But they have adopted deities apart from Him which do not create anything but are themselves created. They have no power to harm or help themselves. They have no power over death or life or resurrection. (Surat al-Furqan, 2-3)
The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that left to themselves and under normal conditions, all systems in the universe will tend towards disorder, confusion and impairment in direct relation to the passage of time. Everything, living or not, is gradually eroded, impaired, decayed, broken down and fragmented. Sooner or later, this is the inevitable process awaiting all things and, according to the Second Law, there is no return from that inevitable end. The Sydney University biologist Prof. Michael G. Pittman says this:
Time is no help. Bio-molecules outside a living system tend to degrade with time, not build up. In most cases, a few days is all they would last. Time decomposes complex systems. If a large 'word' (a protein) or even a paragraph is generated by chance, time will operate to degrade it. The more time you allow, the less chance there is that fragmentary 'sense' will survive the chemical maelstrom of matter.219
In order to be able to reconcile the Second Law of Thermodynamics with evolution, Darwinists try to show that a particular order can emerge in so-called open systems, in which there is a constant flow of matter and energy. But evolutionists employ deceptive methods by deliberately confusing two different key concepts: ordered and organized.
For example, when a breeze enters a courtyard, it may gather up all the dry leaves that had previously been spread out at random and deposit them into one corner. This, in thermodynamic terms, is a more ordered environment than its predecessor, but the leaves can never organize themselves with the energy from the wind in such a way as to form a perfect outline of a human being on the floor. In short, complex organized systems can never come into being through natural processes. Although, simple arrangements like that cited above may occur from time to time, they can never progress beyond specific bounds.
Evolutionists, however, depict these spontaneous self-ordering phenomena by means of natural events as important evidence for evolution. They seek to portray them as supposed examples of self-organization. As a result of this conceptual confusion, they suggest that living beings can arise spontaneously as a result of natural events and chemical reactions.
All the details pictured have been placed where they are for a specific purpose. Each has been installed bearing in mind such features as ease of use, aesthetics, symmetry and compatibility. No logical person can possibly maintain that all of these assumed their places by chance over the course of time, like objects arranged by the wind blowing through a window. |
Yet as you saw earlier, organized systems and ordered systems display completely different structures. Ordered systems contain simple sequences and repetitions, while organized systems contain highly complex, interconnected structures and processes. The difference between the two is best described by the evolutionist scientist Jeffrey Wicken:
'Organized' systems are to be carefully distinguished from 'ordered' systems. Neither kind of system is 'random,' but whereas ordered systems are generated according to simple algorithms and therefore lack complexity, organized systems must be assembled element by element according to an external 'wiring diagram' with a high information content. . . . Organization, then, is functional complexity and carries information.220
The dilemmas facing any self-ordering scenario can easily be seen when the structure of the DNA molecule is examined. Studies in biochemistry and molecular biology cannot explain the special arrangement of the DNA and RNA macro-molecules that contain such broad information. Robert Shapiro-a professor of chemistry of University of New York and an expert on DNA-sets out the evolutionist belief in the self-organization of matter and the materialist dogma underlying it:
Another evolutionary principle is therefore needed to take us across the gap from mixtures of simple natural chemicals to the first effective replicator. This principle has not yet been described in detail or demonstrated, but it is anticipated, and given names such as chemical evolution and self-organization of matter. The existence of the principle is taken for granted in the philosophy of dialectical materialism, as applied to the origin of life by Alexander Oparin.221
With the concept of self-organization, evolutionists claim that inanimate matter can organize itself in such a way as to give rise to a complex living entity. This belief flies in the face of science, because all experiments and observations show that matter has no such ability. So why do evolutionists still believe in such unscientific scenarios? Why are they so determined to deny the proofs of creation that are so evident in living things?
The answer lies in the basic foundation of the theory of evolution: materialist philosophy. By accepting only the existence of matter, it must provide some explanation for living things that is also based on matter alone. The theory of evolution was born from that requirement and, no matter how grossly it may violate science, that's why it is still being propagated today.
The only explanation for life is creation. Evolutionists admit the possibility of all kinds of impossibilities and resort to all kinds of stratagems to deny the existence of Allah. Yet no matter how much they avoid facing facts, they still find themselves confronted by the proofs of our Lord's existence and the sublimity in His creation. The situation of the deniers is described in the Qur'an:
But the actions of those who do not believe are like a mirage in the desert. A thirsty man thinks it is water, but when he reaches it, he finds it to be nothing at all, but he finds Allah there. He will pay him his account in full. Allah is swift at reckoning. (Surat an-Nur, 39)
Neo-Darwinism attempts to prop up Darwin's theory by adapting it to scientific advances, and combining it with the genetic inheritance laws of the Austrian biologist Gregor Mendel. Also known as "the modern synthesis," neo-Darwinism actually makes Darwin's ignorance clear for all to see. Darwin sought to account for the variety in species through natural selection, but he was not aware that living things pass on their characteristics to subsequent generations by way of genetic inheritance. This new version of the theory of evolution results from an attempt to cover up that ignorance. But no matter how much neo-Darwinists may attempt to modernize their theory, they have never been able to succeed, since the theory is built on unsound foundations from the outset.
Since the errors emerging during the DNA copying process are the smallest possible mutations, neo-Darwinists thought that they could base their theories on them. Today it is understood that such claims are invalid. |
Like Darwin himself, neo-Darwinists maintain that the variety in life came into being spontaneously, by chance.222 In addition to this flawed logic, they depicted mutations –random genetic changes– as the origin of life. Since the errors arising during the replication of DNA were the smallest mutations possible, neo-Darwinists imagined that they could base their theories on that.223 But even the smallest replicaton error-a change in a single nucleotide-gives rise to extremely serious consequences.
Neo-Darwinists said that small changes in genetic information take place first in one site, then in another.224However, the biophysicist Dr. Lee Spetner emphasizes that the theory is not true: "The NDT says that large changes will eventually result. It's like becoming a millionaire by saving enough pennies."225
Prof. Marcel-Paul Schützenberger-a member of the French Academy of Sciences and a mathematician, biologist and doctor of medicine from Paris University-has refuted neo-Darwinism with mathematical proofs. In his book Mathematical Challenges in the Neo-Darwinian Interpretation of Evolution, he reaches this conclusion:
We believe that there is a considerable gap in the neo-Darwinian theory of evolution, and we believe this gap to be of such a nature that it cannot be bridged within the current conception of biology.226
According to neo-Darwinism, random genetic mutations represent the raw material of evolution. But as many scientists today agree, the level of complexity in life cannot be acquired through the processes of trial and error hypothesized by neo-Darwinism. Dr. Lee Spetner sets out the impossibility of this: "But if their variations are random, they too cannot account for a build up of genetic information. The chances are almost nil . . . you cannot expect to get a large adaptive genetic rearrangement by chance."227
How Does the Cell Sound the Alarm | ||
1. RNA copies the entire genome. |
All the explanations that evolutionists put forward for the origin of life are irrational and unscientific. One of the outspoken eminent authorities who admit as much the French zoologist Pierre Grassé, former head of the French Academy of Sciences. Though an evolutionist, Grassé nevertheless maintains that Darwinian theory cannot account for life, and says this regarding the logic of chance that forms the basis of Darwinism:
The opportune appearance of mutations permitting animals and plants to meet their needs seems hard to believe. Yet the Darwinian theory is even more demanding: A single plant, a single animal would require thousands and thousands of lucky, appropriate events. Thus, miracles would become the rule: events with an infinitesimal probability could not fail to occur. . . There is no law against daydreaming, but science must not indulge in it.228
In addition, the mutations that they allege increased the information in DNA over the course of time, leading to variation, is no solution to the predicament in which Darwinists find themselves. Mutations are harmful breaks and changes of place of genes in the living DNA molecule, resulting from radiation or chemical effects. Since mutations damage the nucleotides or cause them to change places, they generally lead to damage too great for the cell to repair. For example, X-rays penetrate deeply in the body and cause major DNA damage. When DNA starts to be wrongly replicated, such faulty replication can manifest itself in the body as cancer. The mutagenic energy in sunlight can cause skin cancer, and various substances in cigarettes causes lung cancer. Incorrect replication in the 21st chromosome in the reproductive cell, for instance, leads to Down syndrome.
1. Healthy DNA helix |
When the DNA is imperfectly copied, this gives rise to various diseases. These errors can never, as evolutionists maintain, bestow greater ability and improvements. |
In order for the theory of evolution to account for the origin of life on Earth, it must point to some mechanism that adds new, useful characteristics, not damaging and destructive ones. How can a living thing acquire a new characteristic? The only answer evolutionists have is "By mutation." They maintain that all species emerged through random mutations acting on the DNA of a single germ cell-either egg or sperm. Yet mutations-the foundation of evolutionists' claims-do not cause living things to become more developed and perfect. Therefore, mutations are not the kind of mechanism as is needed by the theory of evolution, nor can they produce new characteristics. We shall consider only the broad outlines of how mutations do not, and cannot contribute to a species' evolution (For detailed information, see Harun Yahya's Darwinism Refuted , Goodword Books, 2002; and The Evolution Deceit, Ta-Ha Publishers, United Kingdom, 1999.)
Since they occur in a random manner, mutations almost always damage the organism concerned. Any random intervention in a complex structure will damage it rather than improve it. Indeed, there is not one single valid example of a beneficial random mutation of the kind proposed as an evolutionary mechanism.229 The changes brought about by mutations are only like those suffered by the residents of Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Chernobyl: death, genetic handicaps, and disease.
1. Mutation | 4. Anti-codon |
A. Mutation => DNA Impairment > Disease/Deformity/Damage | |
Since mutations occur at random, they almost always damage the organism. Any unconscious intervention in a complex structure will damage that structure rather than improving it. |
Prof. Walter L. Starkey from Ohio University makes clear the invalidity of claims regarding useful mutations:
Do you think it would be wise for you to spend hours near X-ray machine, or inside of a nuclear power plant? Would it be wise for you to go to Chernobyl, in Russia, where a nuclear power plant exploded? Should we actively try to destroy the ozone layer that shields us from radiation? If such radiations are likely to cause you to evolve, and develop new beneficial futures, then you should seek to be bombarded as much as possible by these sources of radiation. Maybe you could get a new eye in the back of your head. In reality, if you are smart, you will avoid such radiations, because they are much more likely to damage you than to improve you.230
All the mutations observed in human beings are harmful. All the mental and physical defects described in medical textbooks as examples of mutation such as Down syndrome, albinism or dwarfism, or diseases such as cancer, reveal mutations' destructive effects. Obviously, any process that handicaps people or causes them to become ill cannot be a mechanism that develops living things. DNA has a very complex order, and so any random effects in this molecule can only damage the organism. Prof. Starkey says this about these damaging effects of mutations:
Being bombarded by mutation-causing radiation, would be like shooting a new car with a 30-caliber rifle. Let's assume that it would be beneficial if the ballast resister in your ignition system were located inside the interior of your car, under the dashboard, rather than out near the hot engine . . .mutations caused by DNA copying errors would have a similar result. . . mutations are harmful by a ratio of at least 10,000 to one.231
As a result of mutation, the components that make up genetic information are detached from their locations, damaged, or else transported to different regions of the DNA. They can never endow an organism with a new organ or a new attribute by adding new genetic information to its DNA. All they cause are abnormalities of existing characteristics, such as an extra leg sticking out of the pelvis, or an ear out of the stomach. Prof. Werner Gitt answers the question "Can new information emerge as the result of mutations?"
This idea is central in representations of evolution, but mutations can only cause changes in existing information. There can be no increase in information, and in general the results are injurious. New blueprints for new functions or new organs cannot arise; mutations cannot be source of new (creative) information.232
On the same subject, Prof. Phillip Johnson has this to say:
Spetner told them that the adaptive mutations cited by Darwinists are not information-creating. When a mutation makes a bacterium resistant to antibiotics, for example, it does so by disabling its capacity to metabolize a certain chemical. There is a net loss of information and of fitness in a general sense… one can sometimes "fix" a sputtering radio by hitting its case if the rough motion happens to reseat a loose wire or open a short circuit. But no one would expect to build a better radio, much less a television set, by accumulating such changes.233
The well-known evolutionist Stephen Jay Gould admits the facts regarding mutations:
You don't make new species by mutating the species . . .A mutation is not the cause of evolutionary change.234
There is yet another proof that mutations do not add new characteristics of the kind required by the theory of evolution. To produce new characteristics or new species, several atoms must be added to the organism's DNA.235 In human DNA, there are up to 204 billion atoms-3,000 times more atoms than in the DNA of the bacterium E. coli.236 For that reason, in order for a single-celled organism to develop into a human being, more than 200 billion atoms of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen and phosphorus would have to be added to its DNA.237 As you know, carbon and nitrogen can be obtained from the air, hydrogen and oxygen from water, and phosphorus from soil. But the real problem is the extraction and relocation of these atoms in exactly the right place in the DNA molecule. Atoms would have to arrange themselves so as to contain sugar groups, phosphate groups and nitrogen bases with extraordinary complexity, and be located in just the right part of the double helix in order for a DNA molecule to function.238
Prof. Phillip Johnson explains how, just as in encyclopedias and computer programs, there is a very specific order in DNA, and that there must be a mechanism that produces genetic information. He also describes how random mutations have a negative impact on the information and regularity in DNA:
Random mutation is not such a mechanism, nor is natural selection, nor is any physical or chemical law. Laws produce simple repetitive order, and chance produces meaningless disorder. When combined, law and chance work against each other to prevent the emergence of a meaningful sequence. In all human experience, only intelligent agency can write an encyclopedia or computer program, or produce complex specified aperiodic information in any form. Therefore, the information necessarily present in organisms points to the conclusion that they are products of intelligent design.239
Mutations do alter already existing structures, but in a completely disordered manner. Mutations have no complementary properties and have no cumulative effects toward any particular objective. Pierre Paul Grassé, former president of the French Academy of Sciences, says this about mutations' effects:
As soon as some disorder, even slight, appears in an organized being, sickness, then death follow. There is no possible compromise between the phenomenon of life and anarchy.240
No change arising in any cell or organ of the body can be passed on to the next generation. For example, a person's arm may be exposed to radiation assume a form very different from its original appearance. But these changes cannot be passed on unless they take place in the DNA molecule in some reproductive cell. This precondition –that in order to affect future generations, the mutation must take place in only one reproductive cell, out of all the trillions of cells in the body– makes evolutionist expectations totally impossible.
Mutations occur only very rarely. As a cell's DNA is being replicated, enzymes perform a regulatory function. Therefore, as you have seen in some detail, errors that survive the replication process are very rare. Calculations show that only one living thing in a million will be exposed to mutation.241 The molecular biologist Prof. Gerald L. Schroeder criticizes fictitious claims based on mutations:
The insights of molecular biology have revealed a complexity at every stage of life's processes such that, if we were forced to rely on random mutation to produce them step by step, in the words of Nobel laureate de Duve, "eternity would not suffice."242
Thus, in the words of Pierre Paul Grassé, "No matter how numerous they may be, mutations do not produce any kind of evolution."243
1- DNA helix, |
All the mutations observed in human beings are harmful. Because living DNA has a highly complex structure, any random effect arising in this molecule can only harm the organism. The only changes brought about by mutations are handicaps, disease, and death. |
Experiments on fruit flies have been going on for many years. Many fruit flies exposed to radiation have given rise to mutant forms, such as flies with very large wings, extra wings or no wings at all. Yet no matter how deformed, they have still remained fruit flies and have not developed into any new species.
The slightest change in location or absence in the sequences in the genes can easily give rise to fatal consequences. It is impossible for random mutations to occur in such a delicate sequence as to cause one organism to evolve into another by adding to its genetic information. Indeed, in the laboratory, all animal embryos subjected to mutation in order to prove evolutionists' theories are born either deformed or dead.
All this goes to show that contrary to what evolutionists maintain, random mutations cannot account for the origin of living things. Not even the most advanced technology and intense work by the most skilled scientists can produce a new species. As you have seen, mutations can in no way cause the diversity in living things. The flawless sequence in DNA is solely the result of a very special creation. That creation belongs to Almighty Allah, Whose impeccable creation is described in the Qur'an:
It is Allah Who made the Earth a stable home for you and the sky a dome, and formed you, giving you the best of forms, and provided you with good and wholesome things. That is Allah, your Lord. Blessed be Allah, the Lord of all the worlds. He is the Living-there is no deity but Him-so call on Him, making your religion sincerely His. Praise be to Allah, the Lord of all the worlds. (Surah Ghafir, 64-65)
The theory of evolution, which maintains that inanimate substances spontaneously came together to form living things with such glorious features as DNA, is a fantasy that violates both science and reason. Since life has a blueprint (DNA) and all living things are made in the light of that blueprint, the one manifest conclusion is that a sublime Creator has produced that blueprint. All living things come into being through the creation of Almighty and Omniscient Allah, Who reveals this in the Qur'an:
He is Allah-the Creator, the Maker, the Giver of Form. To Him belong the Most Beautiful Names. Everything in the heavens and Earth glorifies Him. He is the Almighty, the All-Wise. (Surat al-Hashr, 24)
In the Same Way that Spelling Mistakes cannot Improve a Book, Neither can Random Mutations Improve on Genetic in formation |
To show just how irrational evolutionist claims regarding mutation are, compare DNA to a book. DNA consists of letters arranged one after the other, just like on a page. Mutations resemble spelling mistakes occurring during the writing. To carry out an analogous experiment, ask a large history of the world to be written down on a computer. While this is being done, ask the person setting the text to press one key at random, with his eyes shut. Then ask someone else to do the same thing to the already corrupted text. Have the text copied over several thousand times from beginning to end in exactly this manner, adding a few random letters in each time. Is this going to improve our history of the world? Could you end up with a chapter about "The History of Ancient China" that had not been there before? These letters added on cannot, of course, improve the book in any way; on the contrary, they will impair its readability. The more often we perform the copying process, the more imperfect the book that results. The claim made by the theory of evolution, however, is to the effect that spelling mistakes improve a book. According to evolution, mutations arising in DNA (mistakes) combined, by chance, give rise to beneficial consequences, endow living things with organs such as eyes, ears, wings and feet, and bestow on them characteristics requiring consciousness such as thinking, learning and applying logic. No doubt this claim is even more irrational than the addition of a chapter on "The History of Ancient China" as a result of accumulated spelling mistakes. (In fact, no mechanism in nature can give rise to regular mutations, as in the example of the typesetter making the errors in our book. Mutations in nature occur far more rarely than typographical mistakes during typesetting.) |
For a moment, forget all the impossibilities described so far. Assume that a protein molecule did form under the primeval Earth's most unsuitable conditions.
The formation of a single protein will not be enough. It will have to wait for other proteins, just like itself, to emerge by chance in this uncontrolled environment, until millions of the appropriate proteins needed for producing the cell all form alongside one another, in the same place. Those that form first must wait patiently, suffering no damage from ultraviolet rays or mechanical abrasion, until the others appear, also by chance. Then these proteins, in the right quantities in the same place, must combine in meaningful forms to give rise to the cell's organelles. Meanwhile, no foreign substances, harmful molecules or functionless proteins must infiltrate themselves. And even if these organelles did manage to combine in an exceedingly ordered, harmonious and interconnected way, absorbing all the necessary enzymes and being enclosed in a membrane-and if that membrane's interior were filled with a special fluid that constitutes the ideal environment-could that collection of molecules then come to life?
No, because as research shows, in order for life to begin, it's not enough for all the needed substances to be present together. Even if you place all the proteins necessary for life in a test tube, still you cannot obtain a living cell. All the experiments in this area have failed; all experiments and observations show that life comes only from life. The claim that life emerged by chance from inanimate substances is a myth that conflicts with all observations and experiments, and which exists only in evolutionists' dreams.
Bacterial DNA Refutes The Myth of The Primitive Cell | ||
Much as the theory of evolution seeks to organize life according to a transition from the primitive to the more advanced, it assumes that bacteria are primitive cells and that multi-celled organisms evolved from them. However, single-celled organisms are not primitive at all, as evolutionists wish to believe. On the contrary, a bacterium has a structure so complex as to astonish anyone examining it. Professor of zoology James Grey states: A bacterium is far more complex than any inanimate system known to man. There is not a laboratory in the world which can compete with the biochemical activity of the smallest living organism.1 | ||
1. Chromosome | 4. Pilus | 7. Cell Membrane |
A bacterium has around 2,000 genes, each containing up to 100 letters, or codes. This means that the information in its DNA must be at least 2 million letters in length. This calculation shows that the information in a bacterium's DNA is equivalent to 20 novels, each containing 100,000 words.2 Dr. Lee Spetner says the following regarding bacteria's extraordinary data capacity despite their minute size: The bacterial cells are so small that a trillion of them could fit into a teaspoon. Yet it takes a lot of information to define a bacterium.3 Any change in a bacterium's DNA will be so significant as to impair the bacterium's entire system. A flaw in bacteria's genetic codes will mean the impairment of its operating systems, and therefore death. Even a single bacterium is one of the evident proofs of the existence of Allah, Who reveals in the Qur'an that: ... Whom not even the weight of the smallest particle eludes, either in the heavens or in the Earth; nor is there anything smaller or larger than that which is not in a Clear Book. (Surah Saba, 3) 1- Sir James Gray, Science Today, 1961, p. 21. |
Chandra Wickramasinghe, Professor of Applied Mathematics and Astronomy at Cardiff University, spent decades convinced that life was born by chance:
From my earliest training as a scientist, I was very strongly brainwashed to believe that science cannot be consistent with any kind of deliberate creation. That notion has had to be painfully shed. At the moment, I can't find any rational argument to knock down the view which argues for conversion to God. We used to have an open mind; now we realize that the only logical answer to life is creation-and not accidental random shuffling.244
In that case, the first life on Earth can only have come from the creation of Allah, the Lord of Life. Life begins, continues and comes to an end only through His willing it. Evolution, on the other hand, cannot explain how the materials necessary for life formed and combined with one another, let alone to explain how life itself began. In the Qur'an, our Lord asks:
Is He Who creates like him who does not create? So will you not pay heed? If you tried to number Allah's blessings, you could never count them. Allah is Ever-Forgiving, Most Merciful. Allah knows what you keep secret and what you make public. Those you call on besides Allah do not create anything. They are themselves created. (Surat an-Nahl, 17-20)
174. Pierre-Paul de Grasse, Evolution of Living Organisms, 1977, p. 8.
175. L. R. Croft, How Life Began, p. 34.
176. Leslie E. Orgel, “Darwinism at the Very Beginning of Life”, New Scientist, Vol. 94, 15 April 1982, p. 151.
177. Gerald L. Schroeder, The Hidden Face of God., p. 191.
178. Jon Cohen, "Getting All turned Around Over the Origins of Life on Earth", Science, ol.t 267, 3 March 1995, p. 1265.
179. Klaus Dose, "The Origin of Life: More Questions Than Answers”, InterDisciplinary Science Reviews, Vol. 13, no. 4, 1988, p. 348.
180. John Maddox, "The Genesis Code by Numbers", Nature, Vol. 367, 13 January 1994, p. 111.
181. Wendell R. Bird, The Origin of Species Revisited, Nashville, Thomas Nelson Co., 1991, pp. 302, 303.
182. Frank B. Salisbury, "Doubts About The Modern Synthetic Theory of Evolution", American Biology Teacher, Vol. 33, September 1971, p. 336.
183. I. L. Cohen, Darwin was Wrong, 1984, p. 205.
184. Paul Auger, De La Physique Théorique à la Biologie, 1970, p. 118.
185. John W. Oller, “A Theory In Crisis”, Institute for Creation Research, Impact no: 180, July 1988.
186. Michael Denton, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, p. 351.
187. William A. Dembski, James M. Kushiner, Signs of Intelligence, Brazoss Press, ABD, 2001, p. 109.
188. Michael J. Denton, Nature's Destiny, p. 293.
189. Werner Gitt, In the Beginning was Information, p. 106.
190. Douglas R. Hofstadter, Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, Vintage Books, New York, 1980, p. 548.
191. K.R. Popper, 1974, "Scientific Reduction and the Essential Incompleteness of All Science," In F. Ayala and T. Dobzhansky, eds., Studies in the Philosophy of Biology, University of California Press, Berkeley, p. 270.
192. Green, David E., Robert F. Goldberger, Molecular Insights into the Living Process, Academic Press, New York, 1967, p. 403.
193. Frank B. Salisbury, "Doubts about the Modern Synthetic Theory of Evolution," American Biology Teacher, Vol. 73, September 1971, p. 336.
194. John Horgan, "In the Beginning", Scientific American, Vol. 264, February 1991, p. 119.
195. Michael J. Denton, Nature's Destiny, p. 293.
196. Andrew Scott, "Update on Genesis", New Scientist, Vol. 106, 2 May 1985, pp. 31, 32.
197. Homer Jacobson, "Information, Reproduction and the Origin of Life", American Scientist, January 1955, p. 125.
198. Ali Demirsoy, Kalıtım ve Evrim, p. 39.
199. Leslie E. Orgel, "The Origin of Life on Earth", Scientific American, Vol, October 1994, p. 78.
200. Caryl P. Haskins, "Advances and Challenges in Science in 1970", American Scientist, Vol 59, May-June 1971, p. 305.
201. http://ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext00/2llcd10.txt; [Charles Darwin to J.D. Hooker, Down, 29 March 1863]
202. Leslie E. Orgel, "The Origin of Life on Earth", Scientific American, p. 78.
203. Alexander G. Cairns-Smith, "The First Organisms", Scientific American, June 1985, Vol. 252, p. 90.
204. Reinhard Junker, Siegfried Scherer, Entstehung und Geschichte Der Lebewesen, Weyel Verlag, 1986, p. 89.
205. Duane T. Gish, Creation Scientists Answer Their Critics, Institute for Creation Research, ABD, 1993, p. 262.
206. Ibid., p. 270.
207. Charles B. Thaxton, Walter L. Bradley, Roger L. Olsen, The Mystery of Life's Origin, Reassessing Current Theories, Lewis and Stanley, Teksas, 2nd edition, 1992, p. 57.
208. Duane T. Gish, Creation Scientists Answer Their Critics, Institute for Creation Research, 1993, USA, p 270.
209. Charles B. Thaxton, Walter L. Bradley, Roger L. Olsen, The Mystery of Life's Origin, p. 103.
210. Duane T. Gish, Creation Scientists Answer Their Critics, p. 275.
211. Nicholas Wade, "Life's Origins Get Murkier and Messier; Genetic Analysis Yields Intimations of a Primordial Commune", New York Times, 13 June 2000.
212. Michael J. Behe, Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution, The Free Press, New York, 1996, pp. 172-173.
213. Werner Gitt, In the Beginning was Information.
214. Peter Radetsky, "The Crucible of Life", Earth, February 1998, pp. 34-41.
215. W. R. Bird, The Origin of Species Revisited, Thomas Nelson Co., Nashville, 1991, p. 325.
216. Michael J. Behe, Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution, p. 171.
217. Werner Gitt, In the Beginning was Information, pp. 126-127.
218. Paul Davies, "How We Could Create Life", Guardian, 11 December 2002; http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,857635,00.html
219. Michael Pitman, Adam and Evolution, 1984, p. 233.
220. Jeffrey S. Wicken, "The Generation of Complexity in Evolution: A Thermodynamic and Information-Theoretical Discussion", Journal of Theoretical Biology, April 1979, Vol. 77, p. 349.
221. Robert Shapiro, Origins: A Sceptics Guide to the Creation of Life on Earth, Summit Books, New York, 1986. p. 207.
222. Lee M. Spetner, Not By Chance, Shattering The Modern Theory of Evolution, p. 50.
223. Ibid., p. 60.
224. Ibid.
225. Ibid., p. 57.
226. M. P. Schutzenberger, Mathematical Challenges in the Neo-Darwinian Interpretation of Evolution, 1967, pp. 73-75.
227. Lee Spetner, Not By Chance, Shattering the Modern Theory of Evolution, p. 180.
228. Pierre-P Grassé, Evolution of Living Organisms, p. 103.
229. Walter L. Starkey, The Cambrian Explosion, p. 157.
230. Ibid., p.158.
231. Ibid.
232. Werner Gitt, In the Beginning was Information, p. 127.
233. Phillip E. Johnson, The Wedge of Truth, pp. 46-47.
234. Stephen Jay Gould, "Is a New and General Theory of Evolution Emerging?", Lecture at Hobart & William Smith Colleges, 4 February 1980.
235. Walter L. Starkey, The Cambrian Explosion, p. 159.
236. Ibid.
237. Ibid.
238. Ibid.
239. Phillip E. Johnson, The Wedge of Truth, p. 127.
240. Pierre-Paul Grassé, Evolution of Living Organisms, p. 97.
241. Walter L. Starkey, The Cambrian Explosion, p. 157.
242. Gerald L. Schroeder, The Hidden Face of God, p. 99.
243. Pierre-Paul Grassé, Evolution of Living Organisms, p. 88.
244. Chandra Wickramasinghe, Interview in London Daily Express, 14 August 1981.