Evolution Impossible (5 page)

Time periods reaching that far back are calculated on the basis of radiometric dating theory. This theory uses the rate at which radioactive elements in certain rocks change from one element into another element (or isotope) to calculate the age of the rock. The age calculation is based on doing a chemical analysis of the rock at the present time and comparing it with the rock’s assumed theoretical composition in the past. Notice the use of the word “assumed.” This is because we have no way of “knowing” for sure what the composition of the rock was in the past. As a result, radiometric dating methods can have serious problems and give really “wild” results. In fact, these methods have not been validated (i.e., proven) for pre-historical dates. This uncertainty of radiometric dating is discussed in more detail in a later chapter.

The important issue to note here is that the billions of years’ time period is based on calculations, which in turn are based on unproven assumptions. However, let us dig a little deeper. The radiometric methods referred to above date volcanic rocks, not long-dead cells. So how can scientists put a time on the origin of life? They do so on the basis of more assumptions about fossils.

Fossils are the preserved remains or molds of the remains of previously living organisms. They are almost always found in what are known as sedimentary rocks, that is, rocks that have been formed or deposited under conditions most often involving water. Usually, rapid burial is required so as to preserve the organism from decomposition. All over the world geologists find layer upon layer of sedimentary rocks. Examples of many of these sedimentary layers are exposed, such as the rock layers in the walls of the famous Grand Canyon of the Colorado River in Arizona. Geologists assume (unless there is evidence of overthrusting) that the bottom rocks or the deepest rocks are the oldest. The layers of sedimentary rocks can contain the fossil remains of organisms, with certain fossils often being more abundant in particular layers. These layers and their characteristic fossils are called the
geologic column
. The rocks at the bottom of the column are called the Precambrian and are claimed by evolutionists to range from 600 million years old to around 4,500 million years old.

However, as will be discussed later, sedimentary rocks usually cannot be dated by radiometric methods, so their ages have to be assumed on the basis of the calculated ages of nearby volcanic rocks. More commonly, the age of sedimentary rocks is assumed on the basis of their fossil content.

The search by evolutionists for the earliest evolving forms of life has concentrated in the lowest layers of the Precambrian rocks called the Archean. In the mid-1980s, scientists discovered what were believed to be fossils of the earliest known forms of life in chert and other sedimentary rocks considered to be around 3,500 million years old. Their findings were published in the leading journals
Science
and
Nature
.
⁵
However, these small filamentous types of fossils are not considered the first living organisms; therefore, evolutionists guess that the first life forms arose even earlier. Thus the long ages, such as 3,850 million years ago, asserted by evolutionists as to when life began are simply guesses arising from ages calculated on the basis of a series of unproven assumptions. Evolutionists must have the first life starting a very long time ago, otherwise there would not be enough time for the claimed evolutionary processes to work.

But dating the origin of life to a time of billions of years ago still doesn’t help explain how life could start from nonliving matter. So how can scientists assert that life started by a random chance formation of a living organism from nonliving chemicals? The truth of the matter is that despite more than 50 years of research and experimentation, scientists still do not have a workable experimentally viable explanation of how life could start. In fact, some leading scientists have suggested that life must have somehow come here from outer space. This theory is called
panspermia
, and some years ago the famous Cambridge University astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle, who recognized the impossibility of life arising spontaneously by chance, published his alterative ideas in his book
Evolution from Space
.
⁶
In more recent times the very vocal advocate of evolution, Oxford University professor Richard Dawkins, when pushed by interviewer Ben Stein to explain how life could have started, could offer no mechanistic explanation and conceded that a possible explanation was that the first life came here from somewhere else in outer space.
⁷

So how can we know that it is impossible for a living cell to arise by chance? The answer lies in understanding that a single cell is vastly more complicated than anything human minds have ever engineered.

Let us consider the components of a simple cell using the well-studied organism
Escherichia coli,
which is a single-celled organism found in the human gastrointestinal tract. In 1996 a two-volume, 2,800-page set of articles that summarized some of our knowledge of the biochemistry and biology of this organism was published. Using this data, George Javor, professor of biochemistry at Loma Linda University, calculated the following statistics: A single living
E. coli
contains around 2.4 million protein molecules made up of approximately 4,000 different types of proteins. Along with these proteins the cell contains around 255,000 nucleic acid molecules made up of 660 different types of nucleic acids. Included with these nucleic acids are around 1.4 million polysaccharide (long chains of sugar type molecules) molecules made up of three different types of polysaccharides. Associated with these polysaccharides are around 22 million lipid molecules made up of 50 to 100 different types of lipids. These lipids also cooperate with many millions of metabolic intermediate molecules made up of about 800 different types of compounds that have to be at just the right concentration, otherwise the cell will die. Along with the metabolic intermediates there are many millions of mineral molecules made up of 10 to 30 different types of minerals.
⁸
The above components make up about 30 percent of the cell with the balance being water amounting to approximately 24.3 billion water molecules. These provide the environment for the life-sustaining chemical reactions to take place within the cell structures.

Of the nonwater components of a cell, more than 90 percent are made up of biopolymers, that is proteins — which are long chains of amino acids, nucleic acids that are made up of long chains of nucleotides, polysaccharides that are long chains of sugar molecules, and lipids that are the molecules that make up fats. (Lipids are not true biopolymers from a biochemistry definition perspective, but they can aggregate to form large structures such as membranes.)

A common feature of these biopolymers is that they are made up of many repeats of smaller building block compounds. However, the linkages that join these building blocks together are created by dehydration, that is, by removing a molecule of water. One of the challenges faced by chemical evolution theory is explaining how these biopolymers, which require the removal of water to form, could arise in the assumed primordial watery environment. It is extremely difficult to form new chemical bonds by eliminating water in an aqueous environment.
⁹

However, the problem of forming a cell is not just to get these biopolymers to form but assembling them with just the right sequence of building blocks. This process is important because the sequence (that is, the particular order) of these building blocks actually encodes the information that directs the chemical reactions responsible for the cell’s existence.

For example, the sequences of amino acids in the protein chains constitute information as a code that determines its type of chemical activity. These types of protein chains are referred to as enzymes and guide smaller molecules through precise paths of chemical changes required by the cell, while at the same time preventing numerous unwanted chemical side reactions.

The sequence of nucleotides in a nucleic acid such as deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) constitutes genetic information as a code. This code contains the templates for the proteins that constitute the cell and its enzymes responsible for directing the chemical reactions that result in the cell’s form, function, and reproduction. The DNA itself consists of hundreds to thousands of genes, each made up of chains of thousands to millions of nucleotides that encode the information responsible for particular traits of the organism.

Each nucleotide is made from a sugar type molecule, a phosphate group, and a nucleobase. In a DNA nucleotide, the nucleobase is one of only four particular amino acid molecules: adenine, guanine, cystosine, or thymine. These “bases” are assigned the letters A, G, C, and T, respectively. (In ribonucleic acid [RNA], the base thymine is replaced with the molecule uracil, which is assigned the letter U.)

Genes can be thought of as the cell libraries that inform the cell’s protein building apparatus of the correct amino-acid sequence for each of the thousands of different proteins and enzymes.

For example, the DNA of
E. coli
contains 4,288 genes.
¹⁰
The functions of some of these genes have been identified as follows.

Only the functions of 1,551 genes out of the total 4,288 genes are accounted for here. This is because at the time of publication of the genome sequence, the function of the remaining 2,737 genes had not been identified. Chemical evolution requires this complex information system to arise by chance!

The simple single living
E. coli
cell requires around 4,750 different types of amazingly complex biopolymer type molecules, constructed to undertake approximately 800 different simultaneous chemical reactions. Indirectly, through the action of proteins, every aspect of this metabolism and the infrastructure of the organism is coded into its genome. This genetic material or DNA of
E. coli
consists of 4.6 million pairs of nucleotides. Imagine that occurring by chance and it actually working! Of course,
E. coli
is not the simplest cell known. The bacterium
Mycoplasma genitalium,
which lives in humans, has only 471 genes.
¹¹
Nonetheless, it is still impossible for its genetic code to occur by chance, and even if it “miraculously” did form it does not mean it would be alive. Let me explain.

For the first life to start from nonliving matter, thousands of specialized large complex molecules must somehow be synthesized in very large numbers from simple small inorganic molecules. These molecules then have to come together randomly over and over again until somehow the structure of the cell is formed. This remarkable and complex structure would still, however, not be alive. To become alive, hundreds of metabolic reactions would have to be initiated, with the metabolic intermediates already in place at just the right concentrations so that the reactions went the right way.

Common sense tells us that these sorts of reactions just don’t happen by chance — in fact, we cannot even make them happen. This latter situation would be the equivalent of the example of an
E.coli
cell that has been freshly killed with a drop of toluene. All the 4,750 different types of biopolymers are already in place and all the metabolic pathways are set up. However, the cell is now dead as a result of the solvent chemical toluene breaching the cell’s cytoplasmic membrane, resulting in a loss of the function known as adenosine triphosphate (ATP) synthesis, which is responsible for generating energy in the cell. This loss of energy to drive the cell’s biochemistry would result in all the chemical reactions returning to equilibrium (i.e., returning to balance). That is, the cell is now dead.

To make the complex cell machine start up again, we simply have to change the concentration of hundreds of the metabolic intermediates back to just the right concentrations simultaneously. That is, we have to reinstate steady state nonequilibrium where the rate at which metabolites are formed is balanced perfectly with the rate they are required to be used by the next process. We know what to do, but even with our best technology we cannot achieve this — it is impossible. Once even a simple organism is dead it cannot be made alive again. This is a straightforward scientific observation.