For more than one hundred years biologists have taught that spontaneous generation of life from non-living matter (believed in by the ancient Romans) was disproved by the work of Redi, Spallanzani, and ultimately Pasteur in 1859. This work was so conclusive, that biology codified the "Law of Biogenesis," which states that life only comes from previously existing life.

However, in recent decades, it is amazing to consider that "modern" abiogenesis protagonists have actually revived spontaneous generation (in a biochemical form) in the minds of many biologists! This revived "creation myth" is tenaciously (even irrationally) adhered to, despite the lack of a convincing body of evidence to show that abiogenesis did happen --and not even with a coherent schema of biochemical mechanisms and pathways to theorize and demonstrate how such spontaneous generation could have a reasonable probability of occurring.

In contrast, however, scientists who are Intelligent Design (ID) theorists think the probabilities and facts of nature come down in favor of ID, and against abiogenesis. --ID upholds the Law of Biogenesis, since the original source of biological life would be a living, thinking designer ...a Chemist!

A good number of the major darwinist web sites address this issue, and my darwinist friends have brought pro-abiogenesis articles to my attention ---including, for example, one by Ian F. Musgrave, which can be found at the following web address:

and also the article, "From Primordial Soup to the Prebiotic Beach," with an interview of evolutionist biologist Dr. Stanley L. Miller (who did the electric-discharge experiment discussed below). The URL is :

All The Answers

To hear some scientists (such as Carl Sagan) tell it, one would think that evolutionists have virtually all the answers, with the loose ends tied up concerning the origin of life from chemicals (abiogenesis). They speak in glowing terms of how abiogenesis obviously happened here on earth, and how it therefore must be happening in many places out in space.

And what is this "easy" recipe for abiogenesis? ---It's so simple, really.
Basically: "Take one warm "habitable" planet with organic chemicals on it, and just add water!" --and then-- wave the magic-wand of "time" over it. - - Presto! You get life!
...And remember: New life begins even more easily on a TV science program, if the narrator speaks with a British accent!

A NOTE on "TIME": Correspondence has come to this website advocating the notion that abiogenesis has had "many Trillions of years" (no, seriously) during which the first living things could assemble through random processes --but people with such popular mis-conceptions need to face up to scientific reality. -- Actually, the age of the universe is estimated to be from 12 to 14 billion years, ...and the earth is estimated to be about 3.5 to 4 billion years. --And life is estimated to have been present on earth when it was only about 1.5 or 2 billion years old. Please see more on how this factors into the situation, by reading an article on this "WorldView Site" entitled: "A Mathematical Proof of Intelligent Design in Nature."

Many of these people think abiogenesis "obviously" occurred on earth, and therefore must be happening repeatedly throughout the universe. Some of the media buzz about the results of abiogenesis research creates the almost deceptive impression and hope that science has virtually proven it to have happened.

--But if this is true, then I urge abiogenesis advocates to write up a schema of how it could happen (not necessarily how it did happen), and turn it in to the "Origin of Life Prize" committee and collect the $1 million for doing so?
---(Not only that, but there will surely be a Nobel Prize waiting for them.)

Again: Why doesn't somebody do this? ---Because abiogenesis in the real world would present huge biochemical problems and probability problems to which no one seems to have reasonable answers.

NOTE: October, 2005: Harvard University now plans to spend $1 million each year toward research on the origin of life (abiogenesis). Harvard chemistry professor David Liu said, "My expectation is that we will be able to reduce this to a very simple series of logical events that could have taken place with no divine intervention." ...A message to Professor Liu: Perhaps you may be able to apply for the "Origin of Life Prize" to try to collect the $1 million for spelling out this "very simple series of logical events" resulting in the origin of life apart from Intelligent Design. --This WorldView Test Site eagerly looks forward to the origin-of-life findings by the Harvard team, in order to further clarify the issues in this fascinating area of life's origins. -- Good luck Professor Liu!! -- (You'll need it.)

The remainder of this present article will give evidence to point out that: Abiogenesis (or chemical spontaneous generation) seems to be very far outside the realm of reasonably reachable probability, by means of random undirected natural processes alone.

In a nutshell, abiogenesis research kicked into high gear in the 1950s, when Stanley Miller (in H. Urey's laboratory) thought to simulate the hypothetical prebiotic conditions in which life supposedly originated.

To do this, Miller combined five essential components:

• a container of boiling water, from which water vapor rose, to enter
• a compartment filled with a mixture of methane gas, along with
• ammonia gas, and
• hydrogen gas, ----and this entire gas-mixture was then
• zapped with electrical spark discharges between two electrodes (simulating lightning).

These spark-discharge experiments (and various "fine-tunings" since then) have produced various organic substances ...namely:

1. 85% of the product was a brown, insoluble tar or "polymer" made of hydrocarbons and other atoms interconnected in a disorganized mass, with no known biological relevance to the origin of life.

   (A chemist in a laboratory might be able to set up the right conditions to convert the "tarry sludge" into biogenic compounds such as amino acids, nucleotides and lipids, --but such work by a chemist is Intelligent Design in action, and there is as yet no indication that any such "converting-conditions" may have existed anywhere in nature.)

2. 4% of the product was formic acid, the simplest of the carboxylic acids (made of five atoms) --which gives ants their characteristic pungent odor, but has no known role in the origin of life.

3. 2.7% was equal parts (0.9% each) of three more caboxylic acids (not amino acids), which are different arrangements of 13 atoms (3 carbons, 7 hydrogens, 1 nitrogen, and 2 oxygens), and have no known or conjectured relevance to the origin of life.

4. 2.1% was glycine, which is possibly significant, because it is one of the 20 amino acids which are used in biology to construct the proteins of living organisms. ---Glycine is the simplest amino acid.

5. 0.85% was the Left-handed "L-form" of the amino acid alanine.

   Alanine is also one of biology's 20 amino acids (the second simplest), which is produced in both of it's mirror-image forms (of stereochemistry) ---but only the L-form is used in the proteins of living things;

6. and 0.85% of the product was the Right-handed "R-form" of alanine, ---however, the R-form of any amino acid is basically destructive to the proper construction and function of life as we know it.

   . . . Any abiogenesis schema must include an equal amount of Right-handed and Left-handed alanine in the mix --or else give a reasonable rationale for the absence of the destructive (Right-handed) form.

7. 0.5% was acetic acid, another carboxylic acid, which gives vinegar its pungency, but which is (so far as anyone knows) irrelevant to any origin-of-life processes,

8. 0.026% (which is 260 parts per million) was another of the simplest amino acids used biologically to build protein, but occurring in both the L-form and the destructive R-form.

9. Several more of life's 20 amino acids were produced in ever smaller trace amounts ---and, each time, only half of each of those trace amounts was the useful L-form, while the other half was the destructive R-form.

10. Recently, trace amounts of the five bases of DNA and RNA have been detected ...but only about 2 parts per million. --However, even though the bases were present for the production of a "nucleoside" (which is the combination of a DNA base plus a sugar), no nucleosides have ever formed in any amount, (...because almost no sugars have formed).

    --Furthermore, not one nucleotide has ever formed, because this would involve the addition of a phosphate onto a nucleoside (which has never formed) --and the nucleotide is actually the basic building block of DNA and RNA.

    --Therefore, with never producing a nucleotide, of course, no amount of DNA or RNA has ever formed in such experiments.

    (Ref. ORIGINS: A Skeptic's Guide to the Creation of Life, by Robert Shapiro,
    N.Y., Summit, '86, p.104,108)

So (regarding the above results with the RNA bases), if some scientists want their theories about the abiogenesis of life in an "RNA world" (which posits a primordial soup populated with self-replicating RNA-molecules) to be taken seriously, they must start at this point and set up experiments (with real-world conditions) to demonstrate where significant sources of RNA could come from. --In addition, a rationale must be given for how long the RNA (and the component parts to make that RNA) would remain functional in real-world conditions before it degrades (from light, etc) into a non-available state of chemical equilibrium. --And finally, it must be realized that self-replicating RNA does not constitute actual life, which is described below. --(Please read about the "RNA-world").

Other notable molecules --the real working "building blocks" of life-- which have never formed in Miller-Urey type experiments, are:

• none of a dozen sugars used by life (in any significant amount)
  . . . (and what little does form, degrades in a very short amount of time)
• none of the usual building blocks of lipids (in any significant amount)
• no proteins in any amount at all
• no polysaccharides in any amount
• no nucleic acids in any amount
• no lipids in any amount

In Outer Space: "Building Blocks" ? Over the past decade or so, astronomers have found that star-dust in the winds of dying stars in space have produced some of the basic chemical compounds which contain the elements needed to build organic molecules of life. These chemical compounds from space are made of: carbon, hydrogen and nitrogen, which are important members of the "CHNOPS" chemicals of bio-chemistry. The compounds detected in space include hydrogen cyanide, acetylene, methane and carbon dioxide. Astronomers have also detected fair amounts of nitrogen-containing polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PANHs), which are similar to portions of DNA, RNA, hemoglobin and chlorophyll. However, it must be remembered that the actual "building blocks" of life are compounds such as DNA, RNA, the amino acids, proteins, polysaccharides, sugars and lipids have not been found in space. Methane, acetylene and carbon dioxide are not such building blocks. --The actual building blocks have not been shown to form under natural conditions from the "CHNOPS" precursers (in Miller-Urey-type experiments) nor the compounds detected in space. Thus, someone must demonstrate how those more fundamental chemicals could have a reasonable probability in real natural conditions of following demonstrable chemical pathways to combine to produce the actual necessary "building blocks." ---Again, ...If such a demonstration can be shown to result in the most basic life, the "Origin of Life Prize" in the amount of $1 million is available for so doing. ---And most importantly, of course, the "building blocks" (which have never been shown to form under natural conditions) are only the beginning of actually becoming part of molecular systems which are required to function in living things.

But, back to Miller-Urey-type experiments:

The appearance of some of the component parts of the "building blocks" of life in Miller-Urey experiments generated great optimism among abiogenesis hopefuls. In addition, abiogenesis researchers have detected several very short peptide-chains (a peptide is made of several amino acids joined in a chain which could conceivably become a portion of a protein) --however, it must be remembered that it is only the two simplest amino acids (glycine and alanine) of the 20 used by life, which appeared in any significant amounts. The short peptide chains would basically contain only these two amino acids. All the other 18 amino acids have occurred in very small trace amounts only ---and in equal amounts of the "good" (Left-handed) and "destructive" (Right-handed) forms together, which is called a "racemic mixture," which would be destructive to the formation of life. So, the variety and functionality of proteins that could assemble from amino acids in these proportions (including the R-forms) is a huge problem for abiogenesis researchers. --If theorists wish to only use the "good" (L-form) amino acids in their models and experiments for abiogenesis, then they must come up with a reasonable explanation for the favoring of the L-forms, and the elimination of the "destructive" R-forms from the environment.

Complicating things further (in contradiction to the rationale for the chemicals used in Miller-Urey experiments), there is now a fairly general consensus among geochemists which indicates that the early Earth atmosphere consisted of gases released by volcanoes, and there was almost no methane or ammonia present. It should be understood that "most geologists believe that the earliest form of our present atmosphere contained nitrogen, carbon dioxide, and water, with small amounts of other substances. Hydrogen was present in amounts less than 1 percent," leaving the atmosphere practically neutral, with almost no reducing character (Shapiro, p.96,97) ...where hydrogen for reducing is an essential part of Miller-Urey experiments.

- -In fact, many geochemists think the early earth's atmosphere had an oxygenating character to it quite early on.

As a result, with a smaller proportion of hydrogen (H2) than carbon dioxide (CO2) in Miller-Urey experiments, then only glycine is produced (in very small amounts), but no other amino acids at all ...not even alanine (Shapiro, p.112).

- - Because of what we now know, it is difficult to justify proposing the existence of enough hydrogen in earth's early atmosphere to create the required high-reducing conditions of a Miller-Urey-type experiment to end up with the products needed for any hypothetical abiogenesis.

Still, to get past the lack of ammonia and methane in the early atmosphere, it is conjectured by some that perhaps hot geothermal vents at the sea-bottom might provide the right conditions and chemicals to develop into prebiotic "soup", since the vents emit hot water along with ammonia, methane and hydrogen sulfide. (Some bacteria today live on the hydrogen sulfide.)
- - However, it must be remembered that even the best idealized Miller-Urey conditions in the laboratory (let alone out in nature) do not produce a significant amount of the right products for the building of life.
- - Not only that, but even Stanley Miller says, "Submarine vents don't make organic compounds, they decompose them" (ref. accessexcellence.org article above, by Miller, emph.added) ...the submarine vents are actually destructive to organic compounds in general.
- - And there's a bigger problem concerning the sea-vent idea: protein synthesis cannot occur in water because that process is a dehydration process, and so, sea vents are not feasible places for the building of amino acids into proteins en route toward the development of the first life.

In discussions with pro-abiogenesis folks, it can take a long time to get down to "the bottom line" concerning this issue, and so, it seems expeditious to temporarily grant a few assumptions in their favor, in order to advance the discussion about the order in which amino acids could randomly assemble; ---those assumptions being:

1. - Let us grant and assume that, circulating over the earth, there was an adequately "reducing" atmosphere (as in the Oparin-Haldane abiogenesis model) containing adequate amounts of methane and ammonia (which are the chemicals used in Miller-Urey-type abiogenesis experiments)

   ---when, in reality, geochemists now say that the atmosphere of the early earth may have been neutral, and in fact "It is suggested that from the time of the earliest dated rocks... Earth had an oxygenic atmosphere" (Ref: "Oxygen in the Precambrian Atmosphere: An Evaluation of the Geological Evidence" by H.Clemmey & N.Badham, in Geology, Vol. 10, March 1982 p:141). ---In this "oxidizing" atmosphere, the chemicals to form amino acids (notably nitrogen) were probably not present in appreciable concentrations, nor in the oceans.

2. - Let us grant and assume that "primordial soup" actually existed (whether it supposedly came from deep-sea vents, or from asteroid impacts, or whatever)

   ---when in reality, evidence from the oldest sedimentary rocks on earth gives no indication of any abiotically produced organic compounds from pre-biotic times, even though this hypothetical "soup" must have existed (if it did) in many locations around the earth for hundreds of millions of years.

3. - Let us grant and assume that all 20 of the amino acids used by life to assemble proteins were present in this soup

   ---even though only the smallest 2 of the amino acids (glycine & alanine) have ever formed in significant amounts in Miller-Urey-type experiments. Although some debaters say that perhaps 17 of the 20 have formed, they would only be in very small trace amounts (such as 1 to 20 parts per million) after experiment conditions have been "tweaked" and "refined" a considerable amount by "intelligent designers" (lab techs) in order to produce more desired product; ...therefore, we will grant the next assumption:

4. - Let us grant and assume that all 20 of the amino acids were readily available in essentially equal proportions in the soup

   ---even though the most complicated amino acids have never formed in any Miller-Urey-type experiments;

5. - Let us grant and assume that all of the soup's 20 amino acids are of the "Left-handed" configuration (in stereochemistry), which is the only type that virtually all life-forms on earth use (except a strain of bacteria)

   ---when, in reality, Miller-Urey-type experiments produce a "racemic" mixture of about 50% left-handed and 50% right-handed amino acids --being aware that the inclusion of right-handed amino acids in the biochemistry is destructive for the proper functioning (folding) of proteins in almost all known life.

6. - Let us grant and assume that all 20 amino acids are free to move about and form bonds with each other, to produce chains and ultimately proteins

   ---even though protein cannot form in water, since the process involves dehydration.

7. - And finally, let us grant and assume that the amino acids can continue to add onto the end of the peptide chain until a completed protein results

   ---when, in reality, uncontrolled conditions would be just as likely to break an amino acid chain somewhere in the middle, as it would be to add another amino acid onto the end.

So, our hypothetical "idealized primordial soup" is ready. (Even though these granted assumptions are surely a huge distortion of what could probably happen in nature --and they could not be "granted" in a complete model of how abiogenesis could have occurred).
--So, what would probably result from such an amino acid soup?

With our idealized "primordial soup" assumptions in effect, any specific new type (or class) of protein must, in essence, develop in a sequentially linear way --one amino acid at a time.

This is true even if the new protein is the result of, say, twenty shorter sections joining together; each section still assembled one amino acid at a time. -- Thus, it is still correct to calculate the probability of each individual amino acid being part of that entire new protein ---and the probability calculation is exactly the same as if that new protein had randomly assembled one amino acid at a time, from start to finish.

Objection to "Randomness" Some darwinists object that "amino acids do not join to each other by random chance processes, but strictly according to the laws of chemistry and physics." - -Of course. I totally agree that the laws of chemistry and physics are strictly followed in the bonding forces which perform the joining of amino acids --after all, they are every-day chemicals; they follow every rule of chemistry and physics without fail. However, the fact that amino acids follow natural laws, does not mean it is wrong to use probability calculations to determine the chances that any specific sequence may occur in the random assembly of a protein. Why? Because amino acids in real proteins can --and practically do-- occur in ANY conceivable sequential order, and the chemicals themselves do not prevent these sequences from happening. The amino acids also do not dicate the sequential order in which they join. - - This is why the amino acids have such utility for making a huge variety of different proteins. The order of the sequence in which the amino acids occur in a functional protein has never been shown to be directed or determined by the forces and laws of chemistry or physics; --there are no known laws of physics or chemistry which could originally dictate the proper "sequential order" of the amino acids, so that they assemble into functionally "folding" proteins advantageous to life. The sequential order is essentially aperiodic, and does not fall into any predictable patterns. --Therefore, in considering abiogenetic origins, there is no way to avoid the probabilities of random chance processes in determining the sequential order of the amino acids joined in a specific protein (if one rejects Intelligent Design). It is possible, of course, that the chemical attractions or repulsions of amino acids (floating in a primordial soup) might have a general effect on what assembles in a localized region. For example, if large amounts of hydrophobic (water-repelling) amino acids are highly concentrated and clumped together in one region (because of their mutual attraction to each other), then the peptide chains formed in that region would have a high probability of being made almost totally of hydrophobic amino acids. In such a region, there might be a very low probability that a hydrophilic amino acid would be part of such chains. ---So, if there are any functional proteins (which are useful to life) which have an almost totally hydrophobic make-up, they would have a good chance of forming in such a region ---although, it is my understanding that there are no such functional proteins, but it would seem that totally hydrophobic chains would probably be like the brown, insoluble tar that turned up in the Miller-Urey experiments. It would seem that such "clumping" of similar amino acids would actually be a disaster for the assembly of life-functional proteins. Laboratory experiments could (and should) help determine how other natural, real-world conditions (such as PH) might skew other probabilities. ---But in the end, as stated above, there are no known laws of physics or chemistry which could originally dictate the proper "sequential order" of the amino acids, so that they assemble functionally "folding" proteins advantageous to life. Therefore (to avoid failures from clumping), let's continue with the assumption (for argument's sake) that the primordial soup contained a fairly even distribution of fairly equal amounts of all 20 amino acid molecules. In this way, the overall probability that one certain amino acid would be the next one to attach onto any specific chain, would be one chance out of 20. (And it does not matter whether there may be other amino acid chains forming at the same time --the odds must be calculated for each chain individually, according to the length of that specified chain). Therefore, it is actually an advantage to the hypothesis of "chemical evolution" that we are basically left with randomness, so let's continue.

In this "WorldView Site", I have an article entitled "A Mathematical Proof of Intelligent Design in Nature." It addresses the statistical odds of the random protein-building situation just spoken about. --Please read it, if you have not already.

Objections to Vanishingly Small Odds

When the odds get as slim as we have calculated in the article above, the number of concurrent trials does not make a difference, even if the amount of primordial soup were equal to all the matter in the universe and were engaged in trillions of concurrent "trials" for all the 12 billion years the universe has existed ...the odds are still statistically zero that even 5 or 6 functional proteins (actually usable by life) could have initially formed totally by random chance assembly --let alone the 90 to 100 proteins that must have been required by the first life.

Often, when a darwinist states the obvious, saying "environmental conditions affect which amino acid might join," or "there are a lot of trials happening at the same time," or "it takes a lot more time" --it is a smoke-screen to avoid these tough mathematical implications. The darwinist may cling to the hope that some unknown chemical attractions will "guide" the proper assembly of a functional protein, but there is no evidence that anything like this occurs.

Another important thing to consider, is that there may be a degree of flexibility in forming functional proteins which would serve the purposes of life. In other words, at any given position along a chain of amino acids, a few different amino acids might serve (to some degree) as substitutes for one another, and the protein might still function somewhat adequately. This situation is sometimes the case, as is explained in an article by M. Behe, at the following internet address (linked):

Although such interchangeability of amino acids is possible to some degree, in the above article Behe also gives evidence for the rarity of functional classes of proteins. He refers to both the work of H.P. Yockey and the laboratory experiments of R.T. Sauer, who extensively analyzed the make-up of proteins. Despite some amino acid flexibility, the result of these experiments is that the odds of assembling a new type (or class) of properly folding (functional) protein by random processes are about one chance in 10⁶⁵ (which is the number one, with 65 zeros behind it). --- 10⁶⁵ is about the number of atoms in all the matter in a galaxy such as the Milky Way. ---So, the odds of a new functional protein assembling by the random chance processes, would be like being blindfolded and randomly finding (on the first grab) one specific atom out of our galaxy. --And it doesn't matter how many other chains might be forming at the same time, this is the odds for the random formation of each and every specific new protein.

Another way to state the above experimental outcome is: Before the primordial soup would produce one functional protein through the random assembly of amino acids, there would first be (on average) 10⁶⁵ failed attempts. Those failed attempts would be non-functional for life (because they don't fold properly) and useless in the construction and function of living things. If the trash-proteins stay assembled for a certain length of time, they would (during that time) obstruct any functional proteins from getting together to form structures for life. ---Thus, every single functional protein would (on average) be lost in an immense ocean of 10⁶⁵ junk-proteins. For two functional proteins to get together, they would have to randomly come together out of two such galaxy-sized oceans of junk-proteins.

--If we posit that the junk-proteins break apart at a certain rate (in order to get them "out of the way," or to use their amino acids in new random attempts at making functional proteins), then the functional proteins must also be breaking up at the very same rate. --Any abiogenesis schema must factor in this break-up rate for both non-functional and functional proteins.

Although the random assembly of one protein is a tough abiogenesis problem, the minimum protein requirement for life is huge:

Opinions vary as to what the simplest possible "minimum life-form" must include: anywhere from 100 to 400 proteins of various types. However, to set the bar as low as possible (for the benefit of pro-abiogenesis experimenters), let's outline a model of the lower figure.

Harold Morowitz (an evolutionist biochemist) has speculated what the bare minimum self-replicating living cell would include:

• five proteins required for cell-membrane production;
• eight proteins required for a very simplified form of energy metabolism;
• ten proteins for the synthesis of the nucleotide bases, and for DNA synthesis.
• eighty (80) proteins in an apparatus for the making of all the cell's proteins.

So, in Morowitz's view, the simplest conceivable minimal cell would require 100 proteins. He says, "This is the smallest hypothetical cell that we can envisage within the context of current biochemical thinking. It is almost certainly a lower limit" (ref. Morowitz, in M. Denton's "Evolution: A Theory in Crisis" ('86), p.263). --Although some materialists wish to define the first "living things" at a much lower level (even at one molecule), many people would see through such "special pleading", and consider it a convenient weakening of definitions for the benefit of researchers with an axe to grind, and a tough goal to reach.

It is credible (coming from a biochemist of Morowitz's stature) that the minimum of 100 proteins required for life is close to correct. Therefore (by definition of a "minimum"), a grouping of 90 proteins could not carry on the functions of life, and could not actually be considered to be "alive." ...Even if Morowitz overestimated this figure, there must be an actual minimum, below which a living system cannot possibly function if you remove even one protein. Other scientists are working on what this minimum really is. This minimum protein situation is, effectively, an example of "irreducible complexity," such as is described by Dr. M.J. Behe, in his book, "Darwin's Black Box" ('96), where he states that "By irreducibly complex I mean a single system composed of several well-matched, interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, wherein the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning" (p.39). --In the case of life, this would mean that every single minimum protein would be required for the minimal metabolism, a minimal membrane barrier, and minimal genetic language of life to function, as well as a minimum for the replication of the whole system. Take even one protein away, and life ceases to function.

---If Morowitz is close to correct, that minimum number hovers somewhere around 100 proteins (regardless of whether RNA first existed to produce those proteins).

A Side-Note: Doctorates in the Natural Sciences Skeptical of Darwinian Evolution Many people wrongly suppose that there are no credible scientists, prominent in their fields, who have serious doubts as to the explanatory power and veracity of Neo-Darwinism. On the contrary, there are at present more than 700 scientists who either hold a Ph.D. in their discipline, or are an M.D. serving as a professor of medicine, who have been willing to sign a public statement declaring their scientific skepticism as to whether Neo-Darwinism seems adequate to explain the high amount of complexity found in natural life. To read their summary statement, as well as some of the justification for signing it, go to: http://www.dissentfromdarwin.org/

Today, much work is also being done with "self-replicators" (which, thus far, are only single molecules), that have not actually assembled in Miller-Urey experiments or in simulated "primordial soup" mockups in the lab, but are taken out of the proteins and DNA of living organisms! These "self-replicators" are dependent on "templates" (such as other peptides or nucleotide-chains) to successfully and more rapidly copy themselves. Sometimes certain ionized clay substrates at the bottom of the "soup" support and facilitate some of these chemical assemblies so that they grow longer and form faster. Sometimes changing the pH or salt concentration has a positive effect, as does rinsing with sodium hydroxide. Enzymes (a type of protein) may be very important in this research, since they "catalyze" reactions, or allow the formation of the self-replicating chains to happen more easily, quickly and at lower temperatures. One of the small chains of nucleotides --making RiboNucleic Acid (RNA)-- also displays the catalytic property of an enzyme, and so it has been dubbed a "ribozyme."

Among the current goals of pro-abiogenesis researchers, is to get these self-replicators to copy themselves faster, so that there is more product to work with --and then, of course, darwinist materialists hope to show that these replicators would undergo "chemical evolution" where they would increase in complexity and begin to perform the tasks that life performs. But, so far, this is just an unfulfilled hope, and the empirical results in the laboratory have been very disappointing.

Also importantly, if these self-replicators and ribozymes are to be taken seriously as part of an abiogenesis schema, there must be lab demonstrations of feasible chemical pathways for them to assemble in real-world conditions.

While considering the pro-abiogenesis articles cited at the beginning of this article, I was also in correspondence with Dr. Michael Behe (Prof of Biochemistry at Lehigh U), and I asked him if he had read the top two articles. ---Dr. Behe replied :

"I looked at the web articles you mention and it's just more wishful thinking on the part of the materialists. ...suffice it to say the scientific community is not abuzz."

So, why isn't the scientific community "abuzz" or impressed with the "self-replicators" and "ribozymes" alluded to in such abiogenesis articles? This is mainly because the abiogenesis experiments do not get very far down the road to actual "life."

Life does 5 things :

1. ...it actively metabolizes --by capturing, transducing, and storing energy in the form of high-energy bonds(in ATP, ADP and AMP in all known life), and by calling up that energy to do work and to use materials to build structures;
2. ...it constructs, and actively maintains, a barrier (ultimately a semi-permeable membrane) or membrane-equivalent between itself and the outside environment. --Some scientists have suggested different sorts of primordial quasimembrane models, which may resemble membrane-equivalents, but they should not be construed as being actual active transport membranes found in the simplest known free-living life-forms.
3. ...it "grows," developing from immaturity to a mature organism capable of reproduction.
4. ...it employs a biochemical genetic system using a functioning chemical "language" to store the information which specifies the building of all organism's structures, and to direct the other processes of that living entity, and it passes this bio-information along to progeny; --this genetic language is comprised of DNA in all known life;
5. ...it actively replicates a whole living system, passing along the chemical mechanics and bio-information of life --which is far more than mere polymerization, crystallization, or replication of one molecule;

The "self-replicators" utilized in abiogenesis research today are very far from even a rudimentary proto-life, ...so much so, that many in the scientific community are not yet impressed (or encouraged) with the current results of abiogenesis experiments. In fact, in all the abiogenesis lab experiments, not even a small protein --which demonstrably folds into a stable and discrete shape that would have a beneficial (& not deleterious) function in any actual living thing's structures or chemical reactions-- has ever formed from single amino acid units. What's more, all the "self-replicators" being referred to in today's experiments, are actually sections extracted out of DNA, RNA and proteins from living things! ...and E. Wilson remarks: "There's still the issue of whether it's possible to assemble peptides or nucleic acid from single units. So far, only chunks of peptides and nucleic acids, rather than their constituent amino acids and nucleobases, have served as starting materials for self-replicating systems".

We must not forget, that the result of abiogenesis (by definition) must finally be independent life, which must include the five characteristics of life outlined above. Falling short of that, we do not have abiogenesis. Darwinists would like to "set the bar" much lower, calling some single-molecule replicators "life", but this is just a hopeful distortion of the real issue and goal. To meet my challenge, I am not saying that abiogenesis must actually occur in the laboratory (that would require at least millions of years, by anyone's estimation), but that each step of a possible biochemical mechanism needs to be laid out, and demonstrated to biochemically follow the other ---and the results of each step must be shown to last long enough (without decomposing) for the next step to take place.

Of course, one of the most immense problems in all of this abiogenesis research is, that we don't actually know what makes a given group of chemicals "alive," --as Wilson quotes M.R. Ghadiri saying, "We just don't understand why the chemistry that is happening in a living system is alive." --If it just boiled down to mere chemicals, then the broken up chemicals in a bacteria which has been indisputably dead for an hour (and has begun disintegrating) should be able to be "jump-started" back to life --because all the "necessary chemicals" are there. --However, it's a coordinated and inter-dependent system of things that must all be started up at the same time without leaving any parts out (in minimal life).

The Failed Build-Up ...Leading to a Break-down

Now, in the case of abiogenesis, life must result after a completed build-up, starting from the bottom. Knowing what we know about what life is, this protein-building situation is deadly to materialist neo-Darwinism, --as Darwin said, "if it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down" ("Origin of the Species", 6th ed, '88, p.154).

It should be apparent here, that we do have at least one major "complex organ" which demonstrates what Darwin describes, and that is: The first minimal living thing. It goes far beyond all scientific evidence and credible probability to imagine that even the first 10 or 20 of the minimum 100 required proteins could have "formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications," since the origination of even three or four of the types of protein (all coming together in the same place at the same time) required for minimal life is beyond the reach of chance-assembly in our present universe, with its limited time and matter. --But then, even after the highly fortuitous random assembly of even 10 or 20 proteins, there would still be no functioning life for which natural selection would select --because all the 100 minimal protein-parts must first coexist in the same place, and also be properly assembled and operating together, in order for life to function ---even minimally. In the instance of the first minimal life, we see a clear instance of the break-down and failure of neo-darwinism, and the powerlessness of random assembly and changes to produce anything that's even mildly interesting in the way of the complex specified informational molecules of life.

If random "chance" assembly is ruled out as being virtually totally unlikely (which it statistically appears to be), then the only logical remaining option is : "NOT chance."

And what is "not chance"? --It is purposeful intentionality. It is the willfully designed action of a thinking being(s) which designs and assembles --something which chance and natural law alone cannot logically accomplish.

--In the case of basic life's existence, the probabilities leave us with Intelligent Design (ID) as the only reasonable explanation, if we consider the facts of nature with an open mind, and are willing to follow the evidence to its logical and rational conclusion.

It would appear that atheists cannot sleep so soundly after all --nor that Carl Sagan is in such a comfortable place either.

Developing Too Fast?

Some materialists make the following objection: "Creationists try to require that abiogenesis must jump from simple chemicals immediately up to a living cell (a proto-bacteria)."

This objection evidently applies to somebody (I don't know who), but not to the most prominent ID theorists (or creationists), and certainly not to me. This objection is a "straw man." --In fact, jumping immediately from chemicals to life (without step-by-step intermediates) would actually depict an act of creation or ID --not naturalistic abiogenesis-- and I would find it totally unacceptable in an evolutionary schema ...much like punctuated equilibrium on a molecular scale.

In reality, ID theorists would expect naturalistic abiogenesis (if it were even possible) to start off with a simple chemical "primordial soup", and require a sizeable number of gradual steps over many millions of years.

But lengthy gradualness is not necessarily an advantage, because the longer a chemical compound (like an almost-completed replicator or protein) sits around, the more chance there is that it will decompose and break up due to chemical, physical or photo forces. Time is actually an enemy in many cases.

Life on Mars?

...And oh yes, by the way: What if some "Mars Probe" discovers that there is some form of microbial life on Mars?

--Well, first of all, it does not go against the Bible for forms of life to exist in outer space --but if there is life out there, it's first ancestor was most probably constructed by intelligent design. And if carbon-based extra-terrestrial life is found in our solar-system --having almost the same DNA/RNA code-system as here on earth-- then perhaps its origin was from Earth! ...The first "Earthling" colonizers!

This could be a possibility, because, if meteors or asteroids can "splash" rocks from Mars over to Earth (as some say is possible), then the process could conceivably happen the other way around --so, there may be an Earth-rock on Mars, which was the original source of life. NASA's project chief engineer Gentry Lee says, "Maybe life evolved first on Mars and was knocked off the surface and carried to the Earth."

--So, maybe it happened the other way around: From Earth to elsewhere.

Also, it is known that microbes can survive the freezing, radiation and vacuum of space (especially if they're protected inside a rock), and that microbes are found blowing around in the highest outer-layers of earth's atmosphere --so, perhaps they could somehow be swept out into space, finally to land on Mars or other planets. The presence of earth-style microbes on a planet or moon (such as Jupiter's moon, Europa) somewhere out in space, does not necessarily demonstrate that abiogenesis has occurred there. --We could be proud of our cute little earth-microbes, which were possibly the first "alien settlers" and "space travelers."

Identity of the Designer

Though we have come up with very nearly an air-tight proof that intelligent design (ID) in nature is a factual reality, the specific identity of the designer(s) does not promise to ever be apparent from an investigation of only nature and biological things. ---Thus, it would not be appropriate in the science classroom to engage in "guessing" the personal identity of the designer(s), however, intelligent design itself is a fully appropriate area of scientific study.

Also, it does not appear that we can necessarily conclude that the designer is an omnipotent being, since all of the designed things we might consider are finite things (e.g. the universe), for which a finite designer could be adequate ---however, it would seem that an almost unfathomably powerful and intelligent designer would be necessary, due to the magnitude and forces of the universe, and the complexity of the bio-information of designed things.

--Still, if you will read further in this website, you may agree that there is an excellent body of evidence which indicates that the Bible is a supernaturally produced piece of literature, ...and the Bible claims to identify the living God (and Jesus Christ) as the one who did the intelligent designing of all things. You are warmly invited to investigate these claims.

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Prize Offers:

Even though it is well established that micro-evolution is partly true ---I am offering a $2,000 Reward "to the first person delineating experimentally confirmed biochemical mechanism(s) which demonstrate that it is within reasonable statistical probability for biological information and life to have originated from non-living chemicals (abiogenesis) by purely natural processes (...without the agency of any intelligent designer)." This is to stimulate discussion concerning the notion that there is a reasonable probability that abiogenesis could have happened. However, there appears to be no such scientifically reasonable probability. This reward is offered, along with two similar challenges for the origin of other complex specified bio-information, through a link in the directory below.

The winning of my reward is contingent upon, and will be awarded to, the person(s) who win the $1,000,000 "Origin-of-Life Prize". --The "Origin-of-Life Foundation," which offers this "Origin-of-Life Prize," seems to be trying to coordinate a major effort to substantiate that abiogenesis (a purely naturalistic materialist origin to life) is within reasonably reachable probabilities. --However, the overwhelming body of empirical evidence and statistical analysis would seem to indicate that any such attempt to provide a feasible mechanism for abiogenesis will fail.

Relevant Further Reading (links):

• DNA and Other Designs - by Stephen C. Meyer, Ph.D.
  
• The RNA World: A Critique - by Dean Kenyon, Ph.D. - biology
  
• LIFE: AN EVIDENCE FOR CREATION - by George T. Javor, Ph.D.
  
• DNA, Design, and the Origin of Life - by Charles B. Thaxton, Ph.D.
  
• The Origin of Life and the Death of Materialism - by Stephen C. Meyer, Ph.D.
  
• Why Evolutionary Algorithms Cannot Generate Specified Complexity - by William A. Dembski, Ph.D.
  
• What Do Ribozyme Engineering Experiments Tell Us About the Origin of Life? - by Dean Kenyon, Ph.D.
  
• DNA : The Message in the Message - by Nancy Pearcey
  
• Given Enought Time Anything is Possible - Even Evolution - by Dr. David N. Menton
  
• Access Research Network - A premier site on Intelligent Design (ID) science. Excellent current research and academic intelligent design articles --& analysis of evolution-- from Doctors: M. Behe, W. Dembski, P. Johnson, & M. Wells.
  
• Origin of Life: The Left-Handed Problem - by Dr. Jonathan Sarfati
  
• How Simple Can Life Be? - from answersingenesis.org
  
• Cheating with Chance - by Don Batten
  

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NOTE: You, my friend, are valuable and loved by God, and that's why Jesus Christ came : "For God so loved the world (including you), that he gave his one and only begotten Son, that whoever believes (trusts) in him, should not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16).

Some Answers : * WHO IS JESUS? *

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Old Earth (& Universe) Creationist Sites:

• The Testimony of a Formerly Young Earth Missionary - Dr. Joshua Zorn
  
• Old Earth Evidences - by Hill Roberts
  
• "The Creation Date Controversy" by Dr. Hugh Ross - Addressing the "fears" of biblicists.
  
• The Origins Solution - Some sound answers in the creation-evolution debate.
  
• Christianity and Science Resource Center - Christianity is to be based on reality, facts and reason.
  
• The "SCIENCE SPEAKS" newsletter - God speaks through His creation.
  

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Directory to WorldView Test Site Home Page $1,000,000 Prize for Abiogenesis, & $2K for Evolution Evolution is Just Partly True A Mathematical Proof of Intelligent Design in Nature Intelligent Design of the Cosmos: A Mathematical Proof Probability of Finding Extraterrestrial Life ...& SETI Success Definitions of "Life" and "Bio-Information" Creation vs Evolution: Articles and Discussion The Foundation of Science is The Biblical Worldview Science Facts Confirm the Bible The Worldview of Naturalism The Worldview of Eastern Pantheism The Worldview of Theism Fulfilled Prophecy Proves the Bible's Authority How You Can Be Saved What We Believe Links to Other Biblical Apologetics Sites

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