Loopholes in the evolutionary theory of the origin of life: Summary
by Jonathan Sarfati
Dr Sarfati, a Ph.D. chemist, explores some of the most-cited ‘explanations’
of biochemical evolution, and shows how they point to a Creator, not ‘time
and chance’.
-
There is almost universal agreement among specialists that earth’s primordial
atmosphere contained no methane, ammonia or hydrogen — ‘reducing’
gases. Rather, most evolutionists now believe it contained carbon dioxide and nitrogen.
Miller-type sparking experiments will not work with those gases in the absence of
reducing gases. See The Primitive Atmosphere.
-
The atmosphere contained free oxygen, which would destroy organic compounds. Oxygen
would be produced by photodissociation of water vapour. Oxidized minerals such as
hematite are found as early as 3.8 billion years old, almost as old as the earliest
rocks, and 300 million older than the earliest life. There is also evidence for
organisms complex enough to photosynthesize at 3.7 billion of years ago (Rosing,
M.T. and Frei, R.,
U-rich Archaean sea-floor sediments from Greenland—indications of >3700 Ma oxygenic
photosynthesis, Earth and Planetary Science Letters 217:237–244,
2004). Also, red jasper or hematite-rich chert cored from layers allegedly 3.46 billion years old showed that ‘there had to be as much oxygen in the atmosphere 3.46 billion years ago as there is in today’s atmosphere. To have this amount of oxygen, the Earth must have had oxygen producing organisms like cyanobacteria actively producing it, placing these organisms much earlier in Earth’s history than previously thought.’ (Deep-sea rocks point to early oxygen on Earth, 24 March 2009) NB: these ‘dates’ are according to the evolutionary/uniformitarian
framework, which I strongly reject on both biblical and scientific grounds —
see How long were the days mentioned in the Biblical
creation account? and Evidence for a Young World).
-
Catch-22: if there was no oxygen there would be no ozone, so ultraviolet light would
destroy biochemicals. Also, the hydrogen cyanide polymerization that is alleged
to lead to adenine can occur only in the presence of oxygen (see Eastman
et al.,
Exploring the Structure of a Hydrogen Cyanide Polymer by Electron Spin Resonance
and Scanning Force Microscopy, Scanning 2:19–24,
p. 20).
-
All energy sources that produce the biochemicals destroy them even faster! The Miller–Urey experiments used strategically
designed traps to isolate the biochemicals as soon as they were formed so the sparks/UV
did not destroy them. Without the traps, even the tiny amounts obtained would not
have been formed.
-
Biochemicals would react with each other or with inorganic chemicals. Sugars (and
other carbonyl (>C=O) compounds) react destructively with amino acids (and other
amino (–NH2) compounds), but both must be present for a cell to
form.
Without enzymes from a living cell, formaldehyde (HCHO) reactions with hydrogen
cyanide (HCN) are necessary for the formation of DNA and RNA bases, condensing agents,
etc. But HCHO and especially HCN are deadly poisons — HCN
was used in the Nazi gas chambers! They destroy vital proteins.
Abundant Ca2+ ions would precipitate fatty acids (necessary for cell
membranes) and phosphate (necessary for such vital compounds as DNA, RNA, ATP, etc.).
Metal ions readily form complexes with amino acids, hindering them from more important
reactions.
-
No geological evidence has been found anywhere on earth for the alleged
primordial soup. See Primeval soup — failed paradigm
-
Depolymerisation is much faster than polymerisation. Water is a poor medium for
condensation polymerisation. Polymers will hydrolyse in water over geological time.
Condensing agents (water absorbing chemicals) require acid conditions and they could
not accumulate in water. Heating to evaporate water tends to destroy some vital
amino acids, racemise all the amino acids, and requires geologically unrealistic
conditions. Besides, heating amino acids with other gunk produced by Miller experiments
would destroy them. See Origin of Life: The Polymerization
Problem.
-
Polymerisation requires bifunctional molecules (can combine with two others),
and is stopped by a small fraction of unifunctional molecules (can combine
with only one other, thus blocking one end of the growing chain). Miller experiments
produce five times more unifunctional molecules than bifunctional
molecules. See Origin of Life: The Polymerization Problem.
-
Sugars are destroyed quickly after the reaction (‘formose’) which is
supposed to have formed them. Also, the alkaline conditions needed to form sugars
are incompatible with acid conditions required to form polypeptides with condensing
agents. See
The RNA World: A Critique.
-
Long time periods do not help the evolutionary theory if biochemicals are
destroyed faster than they are formed (cf. points 4, 7, & 9).
-
Not all of the necessary ‘building blocks’ are formed; e.g. ribose and
cytosine are hard to form and are very unstable. See Origin
of life: Instability of building blocks.
- Life requires homochiral polymers (all the same ‘handedness’) —
proteins have only ‘left-handed’ amino acids, while DNA and RNA have
only ‘right-handed’ sugars. Miller experiments produce racemates
— equal mixtures of left and right handed molecules. A small fraction of wrong
handed molecules terminates RNA replication, shortens polypeptides, and ruins enzymes.
See Origin of Life: The Chirality Problem.
-
Life requires catalysts which are specific for a single type of molecule. This requires
specific amino acid sequences, which have extremely low probabilities (~10–650
for all the enzymes required). Prebiotic polymerisation simulations yield random
sequences, not functional proteins or enzymes. See
Proteins and Casket Draws, Could monkeys type the 23rd
Psalm? and Cheating with Chance.
-
The origin of coding system of proteins on DNA is an enigma. So is the origin of
the message encoded, which is extraneous to the chemistry, as a printed
message is to ink molecules. Code translation apparatus and replicating machinery
are themselves encoded — a vicious circle. A code cannot
self-organize. See Self-Replicating Enzymes?
- The origin of machines requires design, not random energy. E.g: the Nobel prize-winner
Merrifield designed an automatic protein synthesiser. Each amino acid added to the
polymer requires 90 steps. The amino acid sequence is determined by a program. A
living cell is like a self-replicating Merrifield machine.
Related resources
|
