Dr. Fazale R. Rana’s Presentation: "Why I Believe God Exists: A Biochemist Makes a Case for the Creator"

I am truly honored to be here today. It really is a privilege to be part of this conference. We live in a world today where there is so much conflict. It is refreshing to be part of a project where the goal is to show the world that Christians and Muslims can work together towards a common goal. Showing that there is scientific evidence for God’s existence and also showing that there are genuine scientific challenges to the evolutionary paradigm. Both are objectives that Muslims and Christians can agree upon.

In the second point that there are scientific challenges to the theory of evolution is very important. Because if evolutionary mechanisms can explain the origin, history and the design of life, then both believers and nonbelievers, alike, can rightly ask: ‘What role is a Creator to play?” In fact, evolutionary biologist and atheist Richard Dawkins says in his book The Blind Watchmaker:

“Although atheism might have been logically tenable before Darwin, Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.”

Statements like these cause many people to conclude around the world that conflict exists between science and religion with science eventually winning the war. In August 2015, The Pew Research Foundation in United States published data showing that 75% of people who never attend church or seldom attend church think that there is conflict between science and religion. And you have to wonder that perception of conflict is the reason why they refuse to entertain the possibility of God’s existence. Tragically, 50% of people who attend church on a regular basis in the United States think there is conflict. This is a very sad state of affairs.

And yet, it was science that brought me to the conviction that a Creator must exist. When I entered college, I was an agnostic. I didn’t know if God existed or not, and I honestly didn’t care. I simply wasn’t interested in religion as a young man. The focus of my attention was biochemistry. I wanted to do everything that I could to prepare myself to go to graduate school to earn a PhD in biochemistry. As an undergraduate student, I was convinced that evolutionary mechanisms could account for the origin, history, and design of biological systems. But my convictions were not based on a careful examination of the evidence. But instead, they were based on what my biology professors taught me. I admired my professors and because I respected them I accepted what they said about evolution uncritically. In many ways, my acceptance of the evolutionary paradigm fueled my agnosticism. When I speak on university campuses in the United States, I run into students who—like me— think that evolution is a fact but it is not because they’ve examined the evidence, it is because their professors had taught them that very truth. Or that claimed “truth”.

When I have graduated school my views changed. You might say that biochemistry convinced me that God must exist. One of the primary goals of graduate education is to teach the student to independently think through the scientific evidence and develop conclusions based on the evidence alone, regardless of what other scientists say. And because I was learning to think for myself, I was willing to ask questions that I did not ask as an undergraduate student. One of those questions was: How did life originate? The elegant design, the sophistication, and the ingenuity of biochemical systems prompted me to ask that question. I wanted to know: How does the scientific community account for the origin of such remarkable biochemical systems through strict mechanistic processes? After examining the various explanations available at that time– it was 30 years ago– I know I look mush younger than that but it was 30 years ago - I was shocked. The explanations presented by the scientific community seemed to me to be woefully inadequate. I was convinced that chemical and physical processes could not generate life. This realization coupled with the elegant design and biochemical systems forced me to the only conclusion possible– for intellectual reasons alone– that a Creator must indeed exist and must have been responsible for bringing life into being. I reached that conclusion over 30 years ago. In the prevailing decades, the scientific evidence has continued to affirm my conclusions about God’s existence. The case that can be made today for God’s existence from biochemistry and the problems associated with the origin of life has even become more compelling than 30 years ago.

The goal of my lecture is to present to you the reasons why I think— that God exists as a biochemist. To summarize my argument you just need to remember 3 words: Fingerprints; Failure; and Fashion.

FINGERPRINTS: A Creator’s Fingerprints are Evident in Biochemical Systems

As a biochemist, one of the things I find absolutely remarkable is that the whole mark features of the cell’s chemical systems are identical to those features that we would recognize as evidence for the work of a human designer. In other words, when human beings design, create, and invent systems, objects, and devices, those things that we make, have certain properties that reflect the work of a mind. And it is provocative to think that those same features are defining biochemistry in its very essence. So if certain features reflect the work of a human mind, and we see them in biochemical systems is this not evidence that they too must be the work of “A Mind”?

Because of time constraints, I’m only going to focus on one of these features today, namely the fact that there are information systems found inside the cell. At their essence, biochemical systems are information systems. Two major classes of biomolecules that harbor information:

1) The nucleic acids, such as DNA and RNA; the DNA is depicted on the left and
2) Proteins.

Both types of molecules are chain-liked nature. These molecules are formed when the cell’s machinery links together smaller, subunit molecules in a head-to-tail fashion to form molecular chains. In the case of DNA and RNA, the subunits are nucleotides or sometimes called the genetic letters abbreviated: A, G, C, and T. In the case of proteins, the subunit molecules are amino acids. Twenty different amino acids are encoded by the genetic code. The cell’s machinery uses these 20 amino acids to construct proteins.

Biochemists often think of the nucleotides used to build RNA and DNA and the amino acids used to build proteins, as molecular alphabets. Just as alphabet letters are used to build words in English or in the Turkish language, amino acid sequences are used to construct biochemical words—proteins—that carry out specific functions inside the cell. Nucleotide sequences are used to store information in DNA. In fact, the function of DNA is to store information that the cells machinery uses to build proteins. The regions of the DNA molecule that contain the information needed to build a single protein is called a gene.

The recognition that biochemical systems are information systems indicates that life must come from a Mind. Why? Because whenever we encounter information we recognize that there is a mind behind that information. When you receive a text message; when you receive an email; if you receive a letter in the mail or you see a sign on the side of the road, you invariably conclude that there is a mind that undergirds that information. So in like manner, when we see that biochemical systems harbor information that is the first indication that these come from a mind.

But the case for a Creator doesn’t rest solely on the existence of information in the cell. The argument is much more sophisticated. As it turns out, information theorists who study problems in molecular biology have come to the conclusion that the structure of the cell’s information is identical to the structure of human language and its organization. It is not merely the presence of information, but the fact that the information is organized in the same way that we organize information. There is a language inside the cell. One of the most provocative insights I have ever learned relates to the structure and function of biochemical information. In fact, this insight keeps me awake at night as I think through the implications. It turns out that biochemical machinery that manipulates DNA is literally functioning like a computer system at its basic essence. Because this insight is so critical I think to the case for a Creator, I would like to spend a little bit of time elaborating on this point.

To understand that we need to think through theoretical construct of a computer system. The theoretical basis for computer systems are abstract machines called Turing machines. These are not actual machines but rather abstract entities that exist in a mind of a computer scientist. Turing machines are simple. They consist of 3 parts:

1) The input; which is a string of data that goes into something called a finite control.

2) And that finite control; alters that string of data in a limited but prescribed manner producing an output string of data and this is a cartoon showing a hypothetical

3) Turing machine; it turns out that you can link the output of one Turing machine to the input to another Turing machine. And in doing so, you can take rather simple machines and combine them to perform complex operations.

As it turns out, this is precisely what happens when the cells machinery manipulates DNA. For example during the process of DNA replication where the DNA which harbors digital information can be thought as being the input and the proteins and the enzymes that manipulate DNA during the replication can be thought as the finite controls. Here is a cartoon showing DNA replication where again the DNA represents the input and the output and the enzymes that manipulate the DNA are the finite controls. In other words when the cells machinery replicates the DNA it says if a computer system is operating in the very interior of the cell. Because of the similarity between how computer systems function and processes like DNA replication computer scientists have been inspired to develop a new technology called DNA computing. The DNA computing essentially is based on the DNA and the proteins found inside the cell that manipulate DNA.

A. DNA: The molecule of life 1. Chromosomes	2. Cell 3. Gene	4. DNA 5. Protein

These DNA computers are found inside little tiny test tubes, that are this size. And these computers are more powerful than the most powerful silicone based computer system that we have. They are more powerful than super computer systems. And the reason is because you can perform massive parallel operations simultaneously. DNA computing is the brainchild of a computer scientist by the name of Leonard Adleman who is at the University of Southern California. And this is what Leonard Adleman says about the DNA computing:

Again, DNA computing highlights the remarkable similarities between human designs and the designs that we see inside the cell. We can make advantage of these astounding similarities to construct a formal argument for God’s existence by following in the footsteps of the British Natural Theologian William Paley. In the late 1700s, Paley wrote a book called Natural Theology. In this work, Paley advanced one of the best known arguments in the west for God’s existence: the Watchmaker Argument.

Paley reasoned in this way: Just as a watch requires a watchmaker, life requires a Divine Watchmaker. In Paley’s day, the watch was the pinnacle of engineering achievement. Paley pointed out that a watch is a contrivance — a machine composed of a number of parts that interact precisely to accomplish the purpose. Paley contrasted the operation of a watch with a rock. Paley argued that a rock finds explanation through the outworking of natural processes. But a watch requires a MIND to explain its existence. Based on a survey of biological systems, Paley concluded that living systems have more in common with the watch than a rock. And if a watch requires a watchmaker to explain its existence, then by analogy, living systems require a mind to explain their existence.

Advances in biochemistry allow us to bring the Watchmaker Argument up-to-date. We know from common experience that computer systems—the pinnacle of engineering achievement in our day—require a mind (in fact, many minds) to explain their existence. And because we find computer systems operating within the cell, we can reasonably conclude that life requires a Divine Mind to account for its existence. I find the Watchmaker Argument to be compelling. Yet, in my experience when I present this argument to skeptics, they will argue that evolutionary processes can serve as the watchmaker. In fact, they regard these processes as the Blind Watchmaker. This idea is articulated by Richard Dawkins in his book The Blind Watchmaker. Dawkins says this:

“[Paley] had a proper reverence for the complexity of the living world, and he saw that it demands a very special kind of explanation. The only thing he got wrong was the explanation itself… The true explanation…had to wait for…Charles Darwin.”

Dawkins goes on to add:

“Natural selection, the blind, unconscious, automatic process which we now know is the explanation for the existence and apparently purposeful form of all life, has no purpose in mind. It has no mind and no mind's eye. It does not plan for the future. It has no vision, no foresight, no sight at all. If it can be said to play the role of a watchmaker in nature, it is the blind watchmaker.”

This brings me to the second point of my argument.

DNA Challenges Coincidence

Today mathematics has proved that coincidence does not play a role in the formation of the coded information within DNA, let alone the DNA molecule made up of millions of base pairs. The probability of the coincidental formation of even a single gene out of the 30,000 genes making up DNA is so low that even the notion of impossible remains weak. Frank Salisbury, an evolutionist biologist, makes the following statement about this 'impossibility': 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 41000 forms. Using a little algebra (logarithms) we can see that 41000=10600. Ten multiplied by itself 600 times gives the figure 1 followed by 600 zeros! This number is completely beyond our comprehension.1 That is to say that even if we assume that all the necessary nucleotides are present in a medium, and that all the complex molecules and enzymes to combine them were available, the possibility of the these nucleotides being arranged in the desired sequence is 1 in 41000, in other words, 1 in 10600. Briefly, the probability of the coincidental formation of the code of an average protein in the human body in DNA by itself is 1 in 1 followed by 600 zeros. This number, which is beyond even being astronomical, means in practice 'zero' probability. This means that such a sequence has to be effected under the control and knowledge of a wise and conscious power. There is zero probability of it happening by 'accident', 'chance', or 'coincidence'. Think of the book you are reading right now. How would you regard someone who claimed that letters (by using a different printing stamp for every letter) have come together by chance on their own to form this writing? It is evident that it was written by an intelligent and conscious person. This is no different from the status of DNA. Francis Crick, the biochemist who discovered the structure of DNA, won a Nobel prize with respect to the research he had made on the subject. Crick, who was an ardent evolutionist, stated the following scientific opinion in a book he has written after testifying the miraculous structure of DNA: "An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that, in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle."2

Francis Crick and James Watson won the Nobel Prize with their discovery of the astonishing structure of the DNA.

There are 46 chromosomes in human cells in 23 pairs and they are responsible for the operation of various activities in the body. Any deficiency in these chromosomes would lead to irreparable damages.

Even in Crick's view, who was one of the biggest experts on DNA, life could never originate on earth spontaneously. The data in DNA, which is made up of 5 billion letters, is composed of a special and meaningful sequence of letters A-T-G-C. However, not even a single letter error should be made in this sequence. A misspelled word or a letter error in an encyclopedia may be overlooked and ignored. It would not even be noticed. However, even a single mistake in any base pair of DNA, such as a miscoded letter in the 1 billion 719 million 348 thousand 632nd base pair, would cause terrible results for the cell, and therefore for the person himself. For instance, hemophilia (child leukemia) is the outcome of such an erroneous coding. For instance, haemophilia (leukaemia) is the outcome of such an erroneous coding. There are several hereditary diseases that are caused by various disorders in genetic make-up. The only reason for these potentially very threatening diseases is that one or a few of the millions of letters in the genetic code are in the wrong place. Mongolism, or Down's Syndrome, is quite widespread. It is caused by the presence of an extra chromosome in the 21st chromosome pair in every cell. Another example is Huntington's Disease. The sufferer is quite healthy up to 35, but then uncontrollable muscular spasms appear in the arms, legs and face. Since this fatal and incurable disease also affects the brain, the sufferer's memory and powers of thought grow progressively weaker. All these genetic diseases reveal one important fact: the genetic code is so sensitive and balanced, and so minutely calculated, that the smallest change can lead to very serious consequences. One letter too many or too few can lead to fatal sicknesses, or lifelong crippling effects. For this reason, it is definitely impossible to think that such a sensitive equilibrium came about by chance and developed by means of mutations, as the theory of evolution would have us believe. That being the case, how did the enormous information within DNA come about and how was it encoded? Evolutionists, who base the roots of life on coincidences, have actually no comment to make on the subject of the roots of life. When you ask them about the roots of DNA, in other words the genetic code, you get the same reply from all of them. Leslie E. Orgel for instance, one of the foremost evolutionist biochemists of our time, offers the following reply: We do not understand even the general features of the origin of the genetic code . . . [It] is the most baffling aspect of the problem of the origins of life and a major conceptual or experimental breakthrough may be needed before we can make any substantial progress.3 Those who claim that millions of pages, billions of pieces of information were written by chance are of course left quite speechless in this way. In the same way that every book or piece of information has a writer or owner, so does the information in DNA: and that Creator is our Lord God, the possessor of superior and infinite knowledge and reason.

FAILURE: All Attempts Taken to Explain the Origin of Life Hence the Origin of Biochemical Systems Through Chemical Evolution or a Blind Watchmaker have Resulted in Failure.

In order to appreciate this point we must first have a very quick review of the way and which biochemist categorizes biomolecules. We’ve talked about information harboring molecules like DNA and proteins. But there is another class of molecules in the cell. These are small molecules that react with each other to form linear pathways, branched pathways and circular pathways. These are all interconnected with each other to form a vast network of chemical reactions in the cell. And these reactions harvest energy for the cell to use to produce the cell’s building blocks. These are referred to as intermediary metabolic pathways. And finally the third category is cell membranes. These are boundaries that separate the interior of the cell from the exterior environment. Or they separate compartments inside the cell. And each category of biomolecules has spurred different scenarios for the origin of life. They are called replicator-first scenarios, metabolism-first scenarios and membrane-first scenarios. According to replicator-first scenarios it was information-rich molecules like DNA and RNA and proteins that emerged first and metabolism and membranes are secondary features. Metabolism-first scenarios argue that metabolism emerged first. And then information-rich molecules and membranes as secondary feature and finally membrane-first scenarios argue it was a cell membrane that appeared first. It is important to realize that each approach proposed by the origin of life researchers suffer from intractable problems. And I’m not going to discuss these problems this morning because of time constraints. My colleague Dr. Anjeanette Roberts will talk a little bit about some of these problems in replicator-first scenarios. But I want to tell you a story that illustrates how significant the problem is.

A number of years ago I attended an origin-of-life conference in Oaxaca Mexico. This conference was called ISSOL 2002. This meeting attracted some of the best origin-of-life researchers around the world. The opening lecture of that conference was delivered by a scientist by the name of Leslie Orgel. When he was alive, Orgel was considered the preeminent origin of life researcher in the world. And he was given the honor at this conference of presenting the opening lecture to the conference. And he was asked to summarize the status of the RNA World Hypothesis, an idea that he was one of the originators of. Throughout his lecture, Orgel detailed problem after problem with the RNA World scenario. Towards the end of his talk, he paused, and he said, “I hope that there are no creationists in the audience, but it would be a miracle if a strand of RNA ever appeared on the primitive Earth.” It is remarkable. Orgel was known as an outspoken atheist. Yet, in an honest moment, he had to acknowledge that the origin of life at least from a replicator first stand point appeared to be basically a miracle.

Metabolism-first scenarios fare no better. Again there are problem after problem after problem we can identify with these scenarios because of time I’m not going into them, but I’m just going to simply say this that when Orgel was alive one of the last scientific journal articles he wrote was a critical review a metabolism-first scenario where he said that these scenarios require: “an appeal to magic”, “a series of remarkable coincidences”, “a near miracle”.

And finally, when it comes to membrane-first scenarios they too are riddled with problems. Some of these problems are listed on the slide:

◉ Environmental conditions
◉ Amphiphile composition
◉ Amphiphile concentration
◉ Phase behavior

Again I’m not going into details because of time constraint. But a few years ago, a chemist by the name of Jackie Thomas and I published a paper in a journal called Origins of Life and Evolution of Biospheres. This is one of the World’s leading origin of life research journals. We detailed the problems associated with membrane-first scenarios. This was a remarkable achievement because both Jackie Thomas and I are creationists. And yet the problems we identified with membrane-first scenarios are so significant, even evolutionary biologists had to acknowledge that our critique was legitimate. The Editor-in-Chief of the journal consented to publish our critical assessment of membrane-first scenarios in this premier origin-of-life research journal. In other words, every attempt to explain the origin of life has resulted in failure from an evolutionary standpoint. When it comes to the origin of life, you cannot say there is a blind watchmaker.

When I present this evidence to origin of life researchers they are very quick to agree that at this point in time, we have no explanation for the origin of life. But they argue that we still think that we might be able to explain chemical evolution someday. Because of successes that they claim to have in the laboratory or they’ve been able to make for example building block materials through what are called prebiotic chemical experiments. Or they can make biopolymers or evolve RNA molecules in the lab or make self-replicating systems and manufacture protocells. And they point to this and say this demonstrates that chemical evolution could be conceivable and this brings me to the third point of my argument.

FASHION: Attempts to Create or Fashion Life in the Lab make a very Powerful Case for a Creator.

When chemists go into lab to perform prebiotic chemistry studies, they are working under highly controlled conditions. They carefully assemble the glassware. They fill the glassware with the appropriate solvents. They add the just-right chemicals at the just-right time at the just-right concentrations. They control the temperature of the reaction. They control the pH of the reaction. They stop the reaction at that just-right time. In other words, the chemists are contributing to the success of the prebiotic chemistry studies. It is highly questionable if these highly-controlled conditions would have ever existed on the early Earth. While chemists may be present in the laboratory today, they were not present on the early Earth to oversee prebiotic chemistry. To put it another way, intelligent agency insures the success of these prebiotic reactions in the lab.

Let me illustrate this point by discussing the RNA World Hypothesis. This centerpiece of this idea is the notion that the very first biochemistry was based on RNA. Later the RNA World evolved to give rise to the DNA-Protein World that characterizes contemporary biochemistry. There are a number of lines of evidence that origin-of-life researchers like to point to in favor of the RNA World Hypothesis. I’m only going to tell you one of those lines of evidence and this has to do with the ability to make RNA on clay surfaces in the laboratory. In the mid-1990s, when this was accomplished this was heralded as a huge breakthrough in favor of the RNA World Hypothesis. But, when you examine the details of the experiments it very quickly becomes evident that Intelligent agency was critical for this process to take place.

The researchers for example have to operate under highly chemically pristine conditions. They have to exclude materials that would interfere with the production of the RNA chains. They have to exclude materials that would cause the RNA molecules to break down once they form. These materials would have been present in abundance on the early Earth. But again they are excluded from their experiments. They have to stop the reaction before the RNA chain gets too long. Because if it gets too long it becomes irreversibly attached to the clay surface. They also have to use what are called chemically-activated nucleotides. These materials would never have existed on the early Earth if they did somehow they would be so chemically reactive they would react with everything in sight and would not be available to make RNA molecules. In addition the clay they use has to come from a specific supplier in the United States. That clay has to be treated in the just right way in the laboratory if not it could not be used as a catalyst for this reaction.

This is what Paul Davies an astrobiologist has said about the RNA World Hypothesis: “As far as biochemists can see, it is a long and difficult road to produce efficient RNA replicators from scratch. This conclusion has to be that without a trained organic chemist on hand to supervise, nature would be struggling to make RNA from a dilute soup under any plausible prebiotic conditions.” (P. Davies, The Fifth Miracle: The Search for the Origin and Meaning of Life, New York, Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 1999, p. 131) Evolutionary biologist Simon Conway Morris goes one step further: “Many of the experiments designed to explain one or other step in the origin of life are either of tenuous relevance to any believable prebiotic setting or involve an experimental rig in which the hand of the researcher becomes for all intents and purposes the hand of God.” (Simon Conway Morris, Life's Solution: Inevitable Humans in a Lonely Universe, Cambridge University Press, 2003, p. 41)

This is ironic, the very experiments that the scientists perform to try to demonstrate that validity of chemical evolution and a blind watchmaker approach to the origin of life have unwittingly demonstrated that intelligent agency is the key ingredient in the transformation of non-living molecules to life. This conclusion, and I’m going to close in just a minute, this conclusion is further illustrated by work in synthetic biology. Synthetic biology is relatively new area in biology where the goal is to create artificial life in the lab. And one of the goals is to make protocells. Starting with simple chemicals and try to make cellular entities. And it becomes readily apparent when you examine this work how important intelligent agency is.

And let me illustrate this by talking about a study done a few years ago where researchers were trying to make an enzyme from scratch unlike anything that existed in nature.

An enzyme could be thought of just a small component in the overall machinery of the cell. It took a team of quantum chemists, computational chemists, protein engineers, biochemists and molecular biologists to pull this off and it required hundreds of hours of supercomputer time to model the chemistry. And they had to use structural motifs from biology to build the proteins. It required highly skilled scientists working in highly controlled conditions in the laboratory utilizing sophisticated chemical instrumentation. That itself was intelligently designed to pull this off.

And what they made was laughable compared to what you see in nature. ‘Although our results demonstrate that novel enzyme activities can be designed from scratch” they write “and indicate the catalytic strategies that are most accessible to nascent enzymes, there is still a significant gap between the activities of our designed catalysts and those of naturally occurring enzymes.’

There is no blind watchmaker. And so when you look at these three facts that when we examine biochemical systems we see evidence for the work of a Mind we see a Creator’s fingerprints. We can show that every attempt to explain the origin of life through chemical evolution has led to fail. And we can show that attempts to create life in the lab unequivocally demonstrate the necessary role of intelligent agency really left with one conclusion.

The life itself must come from the work of a Mind.

It is gratifying to me to think that 30 years later the conclusions I came to as a young graduate student are valid. If you are open-minded and if you really follow the evidence where it leads, in my view, there is only one conclusion and that is:

There has to be a Creator, there has to be a Creator that brought life into existence. The question then becomes for all of us who is that Creator how do we relate to that Creator which are far more important questions that whether not a Creator exist in my opinion.

Thank you so much.

Another Example of Evolutionists' Helplessness: The "RNA World" Scenario

Ever since the start of the 20th century, evolutionists have developed various theories to explain how the first living cell emerged. The Russian biologist Alexander Oparin, who proposed the first evolutionary thesis on the subject, suggested that in the primitive world of hundreds of millions of years ago, a series of coincidental chemical reactions led to first of all proteins, and that cells were then born when these came together. Discoveries made in the 1970s showed that even the most fundamental assumptions of this claim, which Oparin made in the 1930s, were mistaken. Oparin's "primitive world atmosphere" scenario contained the gases methane and ammonia to allow the formation of organic molecules. However, it was realized that the hypothesis of an early methane-ammonia atmosphere is without solid foundation and indeed is contradicted, and that the early atmosphere contained a large amount of oxygen which destroys organic molecules as they form. This was a big blow to the theory of molecular evolution. Evolutionists then had to face the fact that the "primitive atmosphere experiments" by Stanley Miller, Sidney Fox and Cyril Ponnamperuma and others were invalid. For this reason, in the 1980s evolutionists tried again. As a result, "RNA World" hypothesis was advanced. This scenario proposed that, not proteins, but rather the RNA molecules that contained the information for proteins were formed first. According to this scenario advanced by Harvard chemist Walter Gilbert in 1986, billions of years ago an RNA molecule capable of replicating itself, formed somehow by accident. Then this RNA molecule started to produce proteins, having been activated by external influences. Thereafter, it became necessary to store this information in a second molecule, and somehow the DNA molecule emerged to do that. Made up of a chain of impossibilities in each and every stage, this scarcely credible scenario, far from providing any explanation of the origin of life, only magnified the problem and raised many unanswerable questions: 1. Since it is impossible to explain the coincidental formation of even one of the nucleotides making up RNA, how can it be possible for these imaginary nucleotides to form RNA by coming together in a particular sequence? Evolutionist John Horgan admits the impossibility of the chance formation of RNA: As researchers continue to examine the RNA-world concept closely, more problems emerge. How did RNA initially arise? RNA and its components are difficult to synthesize in a laboratory under the best of conditions, much less under really plausible ones.8 2. Even if we suppose that it formed by chance, how could this RNA consisting of just a nucleotide chain have "decided" to self-replicate and with what kind of a mechanism could it have carried out this self-replicating process? Where did it find the nucleotides it used while self-replicating? Even evolutionist microbiologists Gerald Joyce and Leslie Orgel express the desperateness of the situation in their book titled In the RNA World: This discussion... has, in a sense, focused on a straw man: the myth of a self-replicating RNA molecule that arose de novo from a soup of random polynucleotides. Not only is such a notion unrealistic in light of our current understanding of prebiotic chemistry, but it would strain the credulity of even an optimist's view of RNA's catalytic potential.9

1) A mRNA copy is made of the information in the DNA. 2) A Ribosome gets prepared for protein synthesis. 3) mRNA goes to the cytoplasm, that is, to the ribosomes. 4) Transfer RNAs move freely in the cytoplasm. 5) mRNA settles in the protein synthesis site of ribosomes. 6) In the ribosomes, messenger RNA and transfer RNA interact with each other and bind. Amino acids that are properly positioned are joined by peptide bonds in the correct sequence to form proteins. 7) Transfer RNA collects the amino acids in the cytoplasm and transfers them to the ribosome.

When the need is felt for a protein in a cell, a signal is sent to the DNA molecule. The DNA molecule receiving the signal understands which protein is needed. Then the DNA makes an RNA copy carrying specific information for making a protein, which is called messenger RNA. After receiving the information, mRNA leaves the nucleus and heads straight for the ribosomes, the protein production factory. At the same time, another RNA copied from the DNA, called transfer RNA, carries the amino acids for the proteins to the ribosomes. Each tRNA is an "adapter" molecule that can link with a specific amino acid. The tRNA which carries the amino acid sequence information of the protein to be formed settles in the production site of the ribosome. The amino acids brought by the tRNA take their places according to the sequence notified by the messenger RNA. Then another RNA molecule copied from DNA, called ribosomal RNA, enables the messenger and transfer RNAs to join together. Amino acids brought in by the transfer RNAs develop peptide bonds to form protein chains. The messenger RNAs leave the ribosome having deposited their loads. The protein that is produced then proceeds to where it will be used.

3. Even if we suppose that there was self-replicating RNA in the primordial world, that numerous amino acids of every type ready to be used by RNA were available and that all of these impossibilities somehow took place, the situation still does not lead to the formation of even one single protein. For RNA only includes information concerning the structure of proteins. Amino acids, on the other hand, are raw materials. Nevertheless, there is no mechanism for the production of proteins. To consider the existence of RNA sufficient for protein production is as nonsensical as expecting a car to assemble itself by simply throwing the blueprint onto a heap of parts piled on top of each other. A blueprint cannot produce a car all by itself without a factory and workers to assemble the parts according to the instructions contained in the blueprint; in the same way, the blueprint contained in RNA cannot produce proteins by itself without the cooperation of other cellular components which follow the instructions in the RNA. Proteins are produced in the ribosome factory with the help of many enzymes, and as a result of extremely complex processes within the cell. The ribosome is a complex cell organelle made up of proteins. This leads, therefore, to another unreasonable supposition-that ribosomes, too, should have come into existence by chance at the same time. Even Nobel Prize winner Jacques Monod, who was one of the most fanatical defenders of evolution, explained that protein synthesis can by no means be considered to depend merely on the information in the nucleic acids: 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… When and how did this circle become closed? It is exceedingly difficult to imagine.10 How could an RNA chain in the primordial world have taken such a decision, and what methods could it have employed to make protein production happen by doing the work of 50 macromolecular components on its own? Evolutionists have no answer to these questions. Dr. Leslie Orgel, one of the associates of Stanley Miller and Francis Crick from the University of California at San Diego, uses the term "scenario" for the possibility of "the origination of life through the RNA world." Orgel described what kind of features this RNA would have had to have and how impossible these would have been in his article, "The Origin of Life," published in American Scientist in October 1994: This scenario could have occurred, we noted, if prebiotic RNA had two properties not evident today: A capacity to replicate without the help of proteins and an ability to catalyze every step of protein synthesis.11 As should by now be clear, to expect these two complex and extremely essential processes from a molecule such as RNA is only possible from the evolutionist's viewpoint and with the help of his power of imagination. Concrete scientific facts, on the other hand, make it explicit that the "RNA World" hypothesis, which is a new model proposed for the chance formation of life, is an equally implausible fable.