|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
What
the Theory of Evolution Says Scientists can calculate the probabilities of certain biological changes occurring over a given time. Evolutionists assume there was enough time (4.5 billion years) to originate pre-biological life and to evolve complex life from the first living cell. They think
lifeless chemicals were somehow changed into life according to chemical laws
that we can observe today. They
propose that small molecules combined to form larger molecules which
organized themselves into a one-celled living organism.
But, this simple self-replicating organism (requiring dozens of
molecules) would be extremely difficult to assemble by natural process. While evolutionary biology is not very quantitive, some laws
of chemistry and genetics can be expressed in the form of equations which
provide probability of change over time.
This means that scientists can estimate the amount of time it would
take to originate a single cell and the time needed to evolve complex life
forms from it. What Evolutionists Say We Ought
to See
If life
originated from chemicals by chance, then under laboratory conditions, we
should be able to see chemicals changing into living organisms today.
Mathematics should be able to show with reasonable probability that
there is adequate time for chemicals to combine to produce life and cause
complex life forms to arise from “primordial soup.”
If some event, such as a specific mutation in a DNA molecule has a
mathematical probability greater than zero, the chance that it will occur
increases by time. (Similarly,
your chances of having a bicycle accident increase with the amount of time
you spend on a bike.) Even if
the probability of occurrence is extremely small, it can happen, given
enough time. Scientists were elated in 1952 when Stanley Miller showed
that two organic molecules (such as amino acids, the building blocks of
proteins) form when a mixture of simple gasses is exposed to a spark source
of energy. The hope that these
molecules would accumulate into a rich organic “soup” that would produce
life was dashed by decades of subsequent research showing the strong
improbability of this soup-to-life theory. What We Actually Observe in Nature Scientist show that the probability of complex life (such as plants and animals on earth) evolving by Darwin’s evolutionary model is extremely small, zero statistically. According to most mathematical calculations, a universe 100 billion years old is still not old enough for a simple single cell to have developed on earth. Even attempts to synthesize RNA, an information carrying molecule, in the laboratory have also been unsuccessful. Life has not been explained through chemical origins. Harold Morowitz, a biophysicist, compared the number of interactions needed to randomly produce a living cell with the number of interactions available since the beginning of the universe. The mathematical probabilities are so small that we ought to see no life at all at this stage of the earth’s history. The probability of assembling amino acid building blocks into a functional protein is also too small to consider possible. Random assembly is therefore ruled out of the question. Hoyle comments, “The current scenario of the origins of life is about as likely as the assembly of a fully functional (Boeing) 747 by a tornado whirling about in a junkyard.” The Darwinian theory of evolution fails to predict what we actually currently observe. Schutzenberger, a mathematician writes, “There is a considerable gap in the neo-Darwinian theory of evolution, and we believe the gap to be of such a nature that it cannot be bridged by the current conception of biology. What Scientists Say
Hubert Yuckey, an information theorist, argues that the information needed to begin life could not have developed by chance; he suggests that life be considered a given “quantity,” like matter or energy. He and some other mathematicians have challenged evolutionary biologists with the extreme improbability of the origin of life by chance chemical reactions, and of the improbability of the origin of all known species by random mutations. If the real “units of life” are bits of information (that is, the messages coded on DNA rather than the DNA molecule itself), evolutionary biology may take quite a different turn in the future. A very
mathematical “information theory” has been developed to solve problems
in storing and transmitting information, as do computers and
telecommunication systems. Some
scientists are applying information theory to help unravel certain unsolved
problems in biology, such as prebiological selection, similar in concept to
the biological natural selection of Darwinism.
They are also studying the self-organized properties of complex
chemical systems, and searching for ways to reduce the minimum complexity
needed for life. The goal is to
find a sensible plausible theory to explain the origin of life.
Nobel Laureate Francis Crick writes, “An honest man, armed with all
the knowledge available to us now, could only state in some sense, the
origin of life appears at the moment to be a miracle, so many are the
conditions which would have been satisfied to get it going.” ON MATHEMATICAL PROBABILITY: "Life cannot have had a random beginning... The trouble is that there are about two thousand enzymes, and the chance of obtaining them all in a random trial is only one part in (10 to the 20th) to the 2,000th = 10 to the 40,000th, an outrageously small probability that could not be faced even if the whole universe consisted of organic soup" (Fred Hoyle and N. Chandra Wickramasinghe, Evolution from Space [Aldine House, 33 Welbeck Street, London W1M 8LX: J.M. Dent & Sons, 1981).
Explanation Offered by
Creationists
Creationists agree with scientists and mathematicians that the formation of life through evolution is extremely impossible, in fact, statistically impossible. Creationists believe that God is the author of the whole universe and also of the messages written on the DNA molecules of all living things. How did those
DNA messages get there in the first place?
Some scientists, mathematicians, and philosophers are working on a
theory of “intelligent design” (ID) claiming that the first life was
designed and could not have been produced by an unintelligent naturalistic
process. Most proponents of ID
think “God did it” but do not include this claim in their theories.
Scientific evidence for an intelligent designer is discussed by J. P.
Moreland and others. They are
trying to find new ways to explore the origin and transformation of
biological information, believing firmly that God is the ultimate source of
the information. The Bible
states, “Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the
word of God, so that things which were seen were not made of things that do
appear.” (Hebrews 11:3) and, “Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory
and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure
they are and were created.” (Revelation 4:11) It takes more faith to struggle with the forced supposition of evolution than it does to recognize the amazing intricacy of life joined with a fathomless balance of nature and admit that it could not have happened by chance. In what have you placed your faith and why? |