Natural selection cannot explain the origin of life
by David Catchpoole,
Jonathan Sarfati and Don Batten
Photo Wikipedia
Published: 12 November 2009(GMT+10)
While Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species has been described
as “a grand narrative—a story of origins that would change the world”,1 ironically his book very pointedly
avoided the question of the origin of life itself.
This ought not be surprising. Darwin’s theory of the origin of species “by
means of natural selection”2
presupposes self-reproduction, so can’t explain the origin of self-reproduction.
Unfortunately, many proponents of evolution seem unaware of that. They don’t
acknowledge that natural selection requires pre-existing life. As leading 20th
century evolutionist
Theodosius Dobzhansky lamented:
‘In reading some other literature on the origin of life, I am afraid that
not all authors have used the term [natural selection] carefully. Natural selection
is differential reproduction, organism perpetuation. In order to have natural selection,
you have to have self-reproduction or self-replication and at least two distinct
self-replicating units or entities. … I would like to plead with
you, simply, please realize you cannot use the words “natural selection”
loosely. Prebiological natural selection is a contradiction of terms.’3
By its very definition, natural selection could not work on non-living chemicals
So, natural selection could only work on a living organism that could produce offspring.
By its very definition natural selection could not work on non-living chemicals.
Emphasizing the same point that Dobzhansky makes above, the famous philosopher Antony
Flew (long known as a leading proponent of atheism until abandoning that belief
in the light of increasing knowledge about the cell’s amazing complexity—see
“Atheism in decline”)
explained:
‘It seems to me that
Richard Dawkins [a fanatical advocate for all things Darwinian] constantly
overlooks the fact that Darwin himself, in the fourteenth chapter of The Origin
of Species, pointed out that his whole argument began with a being which
already possessed reproductive powers. This is the creature the evolution of which
a truly comprehensive theory of evolution must give some account.
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Charles Darwin
‘Darwin himself was well aware that he had not produced such an account. It
now seems to me that the findings of more than fifty years of DNA research have
provided materials for a new and enormously powerful argument to design.’4
Some people might be surprised at Flew’s comment that Darwin himself was aware
he had not produced a “comprehensive theory of evolution” that
could account for the supposed primordial first life. But Flew is correct—in
his Origin of Species, Darwin concentrated on the origin of the diversity
of life.5 In the final chapter,
Darwin wrote: “I should infer from analogy that probably all the organic beings
which have ever lived on this earth have descended from some one primordial form
… .”6 In a
letter to botanist Joseph Hooker in 1863, Darwin lamented having pandered to public
opinion in writing in Origin, of the first life form, “into which
life was first breathed”6 (as if he believed in divine creation):
“It will be some time before we see ‘slime, protoplasm, &c.’
generating a new animal. But I have long regretted that I truckled to public opinion,
and used the Pentateuchal term of creation, by which I really meant ‘appeared’
by some wholly unknown process.”7
Yet he then conceded:
“It is mere rubbish thinking at present of the origin of life; one might as
well think of the origin of matter.”7,8
However, in 1871, just eight years later, consistent with his drive to explain origins
entirely materialistically, he speculated:
“ … if (and Oh! what a big if!) we could conceive in some warm little
pond, with all sorts of ammonia and phosphoric salts, light, heat, electricity,
etc., present, that a proteine [sic] compound was chemically formed ready to undergo
still more complex changes … ”7
‘I think it is disingenuous to argue that the origin of life is irrelevant
to evolution’—evolutionist Gordy Slack, The Scientist, June 2008.
However, how do you get a living cell capable of self-reproduction from a “protein
compound … ready to undergo still more complex changes”? Today’s
knowledge of the staggering complexity of the cell and more than 50 years of DNA
research has convinced the likes of Antony Flew to acknowledge design (and therefore
a Designer).
A key problem for the “warm pond” idea is that it equates life to a
mere assemblage of chemicals.9
But as renowned physicist Paul Davies, certainly no friend to creationists or Christians
in general, has pointed out, the living cell would be more meaningfully equated
to an incredibly powerful supercomputer. That’s because the secret of life
lies not with the chemical ingredients, but with the organizational arrangement
of the molecules. In Davies’ words, the living cell is “an information
processing and replicating system of astonishing complexity.”10 Davies continued:
“DNA is not a special life-giving molecule, but a genetic databank that transmits
its information using a mathematical code. Most of the workings of the cell are
best described, not in terms of material stuff — hardware — but as information,
or software. Trying to make life by mixing chemicals in a test tube is like soldering
switches and wires in an attempt to produce Windows 98. It won’t work because
it addresses the problem at the wrong conceptual level.”9
The theory we seek, of the origin of life on this planet, should therefore positively
not be a plausible theory!—Richard Dawkins, The Greatest Show on Earth
So, in today’s terminology, Darwin seems to have been thinking of life only
as hardware, not software. But as Davies recognized, life’s information content
from a naturalistic origin-of-life perspective …
“ … leaves us with a curious conundrum. How did nature fabricate the
world’s first digital information processor—the original living cell—from
the blind chaos of blundering molecules? How did molecular hardware get to write
its own software?”9
Thus the origin of life by chemical evolution (sometimes called “abiogenesis”)
remains intractable. No wonder many modern evolutionists have been eager to try
to divorce the origin-of-life problem from their defence of evolutionary theory.
But their fellow evolutionist Gordy Slack rebukes them for that:
“I think it is disingenuous to argue that the origin of life is irrelevant
to evolution. It is no less relevant than the Big Bang is to physics or cosmology.
Evolution should be able to explain, in theory at least, all the way back to the
very first organism that could replicate itself through biological or chemical processes.
And to understand that organism fully, we would simply have to know what came before
it. And right now we are nowhere close.”11
Slack is right, and evolutionists should be reminded that the September 1978 issue
of Scientific American was specially devoted to evolution, and one major
article was ‘Chemical Evolution and the Origin of Life’.12 This stated:
“‘J.B.S. Haldane, the British biochemist, seems to have been the first
to appreciate that a reducing atmosphere, one with no free oxygen, was a requirement
for the evolution of life from non-living organic matter.” [Emphasis
added]
Research on the origin of life seems to be unique in that the conclusion has already
been authoritatively accepted … . What remains to be done is to find the
scenarios which describe the detailed mechanisms and processes by which this happened.—evolutionist
Hubert Yockey
It’s also notable that Dawkins, cited above by Flew, always included some
desperate theories about the origin of life in his evolutionary books. In his latest
book, The Greatest Show on Earth, he admits:
“The truth is that there is no overwhelming consensus. Several promising ideas
have been suggested, but there is no decisive evidence pointing unmistakeably to
any one.” (p. 419).
He further tacitly admits that chemical evolution is a problem, but tries to twist
this in his favour:
“The theory we seek, of the origin of life on this planet, should therefore
positively not be a plausible theory! If it were, then life should be common in
the galaxy. Maybe it is common, in which case a plausible theory is what we want.
But we have no evidence that life exists outside this planet, and at very least
we are entitled to be satisfied with an implausible theory.” (p. 422).
Dawkins’ atheistic faith must be strong indeed, to be satisfied with an implausible
theory. He proves the point made by non-creationist information theorist Hubert
Yockey 30 years ago:
“Research on the origin of life seems to be unique in that the conclusion
has already been authoritatively accepted … . What remains to be done is
to find the scenarios which describe the detailed mechanisms and processes by which
this happened.”13
Related articles
Further reading
Related resources
References
- Fathom media, The Voyage that Shook the World, 2009, now available
on DVD from creation.com. Return to text.
- The full title of Darwin’s 1859 book was: On the
Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured
Races in the Struggle for Life. Return to text.
- Dobzhansky, T.G., Discussion of Synthesis of Nucleosides and
Polynucleotides with Metaphoric Esters, by George Schramm, in Fox, S.W., ed., The
Origins of Prebiological Systems and of Their Molecular Matrices, Proceedings
of a Conference Conducted at Wakulla Springs, Florida, pp. 309–310, 27–30
October 1963, Academic Press, NY, 1965. Return to text.
- Flew went on to say that such DNA research “has shown,
by the almost unbelievable complexity of the arrangements which are needed to produce
(life), that intelligence must have been involved”. My Pilgrimage from Atheism
to Theism: an exclusive interview with former British atheist Professor Antony Flew
by Gary Habermas, Philosophia Christi, Winter 2005; <www.illustramedia.com/IDArticles/flew-interview.pdf>.
Return to text.
- Note, however, that even with the 20th century
addition of mutations to the “modern synthesis” of evolution (see Would Darwin be a Darwinist
today?), natural selection still cannot account for the diversity of life
on earth. And natural selection can only select what mutations throw up, so it is
not creative, but conservative, at best only able to weed out the organisms that
are less fit to survive because of the mutations they have suffered. So Darwin was
wrong about natural selection being able to explain the diversity of life.
Return to text.
- Darwin, C., On the Origin of Species, 1st ed., 1959;
page 484. Return to text.
- The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, edited by his
son Francis Darwin, London: John Murray, 1887, Vol. 3, p. 18, accessed via: The
Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online, <Darwin-online.org.uk>.
Return to text.
- Or as he expressed it elsewhere “our ignorance is as
profound on the origin of life as on the origin of force or matter.” Darwin,
C., The doctrine of heterogeny and modification of species, Athenaeum
1852:554–555, 1863. Return to text.
- There are numerous chemical problems quite aside from the
information problem stressed in this article, e.g.
not all the building blocks are formed, and they would react in many wrong
ways that would destroy life or decompose; they are formed as an equal mixture of
“left-” and “right-handed” molecules, whereas
life must be 100% one-handed, and
water would prevent small molecules combining into the big molecules required for
life, and would break down any big molecules formed over the alleged
evolutionary time. Return to text.
- Davies, P., How we could create life—The key to existence
will be found not in primordial sludge, but in the nanotechnology of the living
cell, The Guardian, 11 December 2002, <www.guardian.co.uk/education/2002/dec/11/highereducation.uk>.
Return to text.
- Slack, G., What neo-creationists get right—an evolutionist
shares lessons he’s learned from the Intelligent Design camp, The Scientist,
<http://www.the-scientist.com/templates/trackable/display/news.jsp?type=news&o_url=news/display/54759&id=54759>,
20 June 2008. Return to text.
- Dickerson, R.E., Chemical Evolution and the Origin of Life,
Scientific American 239(3):62–102, September 1978.
Return to text.
- Yockey, H.P., A calculation of the probability of spontaneous
biogenesis by information theory, Journal of Theoretical Biology 67:377–398,
1977. Return to text.
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