The View From 1776

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Before leaving the subject of “Jesus vs. Darwin”, it would benefit readers to review an actual example of the debate partly reported by “1776” last summer.  Our efforts will be to expand and comment upon this report.

In an AP release Sunday, August 14, Harvard fired another round in the evolution/intelligent design/creation wars. 

Harvard is funding Chemistry professor David Liu, to the tune of one million dollars annually to search for answers regarding the mystery of life’s origins, which noDNC.com charges is more about advocacy than science.   In fact, millions and likely hundreds of millions have poured into research troughs over a period of some 50 years producing little if any revelatory insights supporting chemical evolutionist claims.

As David Liu launches on this new journey armed with microscope and test tube (and 1 million bucks annually) to “reduce (life’s origins) to a very simple series of logical events that could have taken place with no divine intervention,” observers should note that this “new” journey has well worn paths.  Many other scientists have traveled the same roads, bumped into the same difficulties and used the same basic materialistic road map to discover that “life’s origins” cannot be “reduced to a very simple series of logical events.”  This particular part of Liu’s claim requires some explanation. 

Firstly, it is widely held that life emerged from non-life or the material world, through a series of hypothesized natural steps or phases or more properly chemical events.  Some believe that the road to life involved five major phases, which may or may not have overlapped.  The steps themselves occurred over millions of years or possibly tens of millions of years each-debate and uncertainty abound. 

The first step, it is believed, involved the reaction of compounds such as water, hydrogen, methane, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, ammonia nitrogen-some or all or combinations-the matter is disputed in the literature.  These compounds brewing and stewing in the ancient terrestrial atmosphere reacted over a length of time to produce secondary though more complex substances that fell into the ancient oceans where they accumulated.  Compounds such as fatty acids, amino acids, sugars, purines and pyrimidines make up this stage 2 broth. 

It is believed in step three that these compounds in turn converted over some period of time into still more complex substances such as lipids, peptides, carbohydrates and polynucleotides.   Scientists speculate that clay, or some other mineral surface may have helped to direct the formation of some substances in a catalytic fashion.  Primordial beaches and lagoons have been proposed as settings for chemical concentration and reaction. In stage 4 still more time goes by and these compounds assemble to form, what we might call the first non-living cell, called protocells. 

The last stage (5) consists of protocell transformation into living cells.  Exactly how these events happened, how the stages over lap if they did at all, when they happened and where they happened are all hotly debated in the professional literature but that they happened in some way is largely uncontested-especially in academic and government funded labs-and public school classrooms. It is claimed that this model alone can be tested in the laboratory while intelligent design or intelligent intervention cannot be tested.  Assuming this claim is correct, let’s examine - briefly - what the tests have shown.

Lastly, recognize that investigators typically study parts of the model above, not the whole model per se.  For example, some study the question of how certain biochemicals came into existence, others look at the stability of those substances, still others look for geological evidence to understand primordial conditions and others believing that chemicals were imported from outer space study comets and meteorites.

This account though admittedly technically sketchy is the hypothesis of chemical evolution or abiogensis - life from non-life.  Through the process we see simple chemical materials transformed into life itself, and its advocates insist without divine assistance or involvement.  Now it is vital to understand that the only forces shaping these non-living materials are the laws of chemistry and physics alone acting in an undirected fashion.  Despite the insistence of some that God directed natural law to produce life over a vast period of time - theistic evolution (or theistic chemical evolution) - be assured that is certainly not part of the conventional hypothesis of chemical evolution.  Material or natural processes and origins are rigidly affirmed while divine intervention or intelligent agency is rigidly deemphasized or denied. 

Now back to Liu’s work.  The “very simple series of logical events” that Liu references are among those hypothesized in this multi-step chemical model.  Liu’s own version may differ slightly but his basic materialistic orientation is beyond question as he states that these events could have taken place “without divine intervention.” 

Armed with a typical materialistic sketch of life’s origins we have a context to view some of Liu’s work to date.  The interested reader is directed to Liu’s website for a primer on his work which generally concerns synthesis of compounds using DNA or RNA (http://evolve.harvard.edu/). 

The reader will quickly discover a blizzard of chemical terms not easily decipherable, but for those familiar with origin of life studies one also quickly sees the usual assumptions underlying, and guiding such work.

Firstly, we see that much if not all of Liu’s work involves complex manipulations and reactions of DNA or RNA under highly tailored reaction conditions ("Recent Advances in the In Vitro Evolution of Nucleic Acids” Bittker, J. A.; Phillips, K. J.; Liu, D. R. Curr. Opin. Chem. Biol., 6, 367-374 (2002). PDF (176 KB)).  Liu, as the experimenter, has arranged conditions to study the basic behavior of DNA or RNA strands (or derivatives) in highly favorable, accommodating and stress free chemical environments.  This approach is not without merit and necessity to study fundamental physiochemical properties, but in the context of the primordial environment, where these reactions (or similar reactions) presumably occurred or even where these derivative species may have existed, the situation was most unaccommodating.  The five step model presented above would not be considered a highly accommodating and stress free chemical environment…no, quite the opposite. 

Some scientists have speculated that the ancient environment, presumably harboring these delicate pre-life substances, was chemically aggressive and environmentally hostile-most unlike present conditions.  The environment would consist of ionizing radiation, thermal gradients (high and low temperatures), acidic water, chemical contamination, mineral and heavy metal contamination, various oxidizers, and as if these road blocks are not enough, scientists teach every few million years impact events from asteroids producing lethal heat pulses sent 6/10ths of a mile into the earth coupled with temperatures high enough to vaporize rock, etc.  (Paul Davies, British physicist and cosmologist (Science Progress (2001), 84 (1), 1-16.).      

To sum this particular point, Liu’s work, whatever fruit it might yield, is unrealistic - at least in the context of the hypothesized five step materialistic model set in the ancient terrestrial landscape.  One needs to speculate that a favorable nursery of life somehow avoided radiation, high or low temperatures, chemical contaminants, and meteorite impacts, yet received the correct proportions of raw materials and energy over a very long period of time to produce the complex molecules of life.  Suggesting that complex molecules could form under such conditions is story telling. 

Secondly, Liu recognizes that whatever system (DNA or RNA or equivalent replicator) might be proposed or imagined or shown to work does not necessarily bear any resemblance with those thought to have existed long ago. He comments:
 
“Although these studies demonstrate that nucleic acids are capable of catalyzing some of the reactions thought to be essential for primitive life, it is not known whether sequences evolved in vitro (outside of the cell) resemble those that may have existed billions of years ago, or even how closely the structure of the first oligomeric catalysts resembled the structures of modern nucleic acids.” 
 
Liu on the one hand states, that he wishes to “reduce (life’s origins) to a very simple series of logical events that could have taken place with no divine intervention,” yet admits, “it is not known whether (experimental) sequences evolved in vitro resemble those that may have existed billions of years ago.”  

Liu’s uncertainty with this admission should not be missed.  He is stating that even if something is found, he does not know for certain that these pre-biotic systems actually existed.  That is to say if a favorable replicating molecular system is identified, it means this-that a favorable replicating system was found, nothing more or less as it relates to natural history. 

It does not mean that this system represents actual events or demonstrates participants in the origin of life.  In the community of origin of life investigators, no one knows nor will anyone ever know how life came about-it is a game of guessing based upon a guess that all life is the product of the laws of chemistry and physics.

We might ask the question, in light of this, if one cannot know that these intelligently contrived experiments model presumed pre-biotic events leading to life, than how could one dismiss the possibility that life itself was intelligently contrived? 
 
Since the point is before us, a couple of additional observations should be made.  Think about this for a moment.  The deliverable to the Harvard financers is this; a paper that begins with “It appears that...,"  or “We believe that...,” or “A possible molecular system that...,” or “Perhaps the system that follows..."  The deliverable is total uncertainty piling speculation upon speculation-all for 1 million dollars per year.  The best case is stacked with perhaps, could, might, maybe, assuming, if, likely, or not likely...etc. 

A second observation can be made. Wouldn’t it be proper to expose the dilemma (lab/natural history chasm) to students in the public school class room? Shouldn’t teachers clearly define the gulf between discoveries in the laboratory and actual historical natural events? 

In short, I wonder how many students hear a professor say, “students one caveat with our laboratory findings as they relate to natural history…is that we don’t know if any of these origins studies in any way relate to actual historical events.  In fact, although possibly thousands of experiments have been done, all of which have failed to produce actual self replicating molecules-let alone life, scientists are uncertain if they have any meaning at all. What I am trying to say students is that life itself has never been produced in the lab, under various presumed conditions nor have the finished component molecular parts. Even if they were produced I can’t say with any certainty what it might mean as we study possible natural historical events.  Now that we have that established let’s look at some guesses, speculations, actual negative results, and truthful probabilities as they relate to the 19th -early 20th  century model of chemical evolution-financed by tax dollars and conducted in the finest labs.” 

Through out college and graduate school and after reading many text books, watching “science” programs, reading news papers and questioning students and peers,  I have never heard someone admit that there is a vast chasm between lab results and presumed natural origins events.  Certainly, I have not heard or read everything available but the public discourse seems to any lack attention to this point.
Investigators are faced with another growing problem…their own findings!  Liu’s statement that he intends to, “reduce (life’s origins) to a very simple series of logical events that could have taken place with no divine intervention,” terribly minimizes a mountain of data that has largely discredited many of the assumptions upon which origins investigators base their work.
 
Miller and Levy, (PNAS, Vol. 95, Issue 14, 7933-7938, July 7, 1998) have examined the stability of components known as nucleobases, found in RNA and DNA, which naturalists hold could be found in and were produced through the five step model.
“We show here that the rapid rates of hydrolysis of the nucleobases A, U, G, C, and T at temperatures much above 0°C would present a major problem in the accumulation of these presumed essential compounds on the early Earth. A high-temperature origin of life involving these compounds therefore is unlikely. These results are applicable to any origin-of-life theory in which life begins with the evolution of a self-replicating genetic system capable of undergoing Darwinian evolution. A high-temperature origin of life involving compounds other than those discussed here or involving the evolution of metabolic cycles before the evolution of the first genetic material may be possible, but also would be subject to stability criteria.”
 
The DNA (or RNA) studies, which Liu conducts, assumes that DNA can form from various compounds such as nucleobases.  Miller and Levy show that these fragile compounds easily degrade.  Returning to our five phase model, a broth of nucleobases, assuming they could form, in the primordial soup would rapidly decompose, thus starving a chemical nursery of these most vital and necessary components.  In short, these compounds would not survive in such an environment so even if Liu could show that a quasi-DNA or RNA replicating system works, his efforts are undercut by the chemical instability of component parts.  At the very least another pre-biotic environment needs to be dreamed up to once again accommodate chemical sensitivities-as has been done many times before.

Not only do the stability data cast doubt on the availability of the needed ingredients for DNA (or RNA), but Shapiro has shown that one of the nucleic acids found in DNA could not form under prebiotic conditions (PNAS, Vol. 96, Issue 8, 4396-4401, April 13, 1999).
 
“The reported prebiotic syntheses of cytosine involve the reaction of cyanoacetylene (or its hydrolysis product, cyanoacetaldehyde), with cyanate, cyanogen, or urea. These substances undergo side reactions with common nucleophiles that appear to proceed more rapidly than cytosine formation. To favor cytosine formation, reactant concentrations are required that are implausible in a natural setting. Furthermore, cytosine is consumed by deamination (the half-life for deamination at 25°C is  340 yr) and other reactions. No reactions have been described thus far that would produce cytosine, even in a specialized local setting, at a rate sufficient to compensate for its decomposition. On the basis of this evidence, it appears quite unlikely that cytosine played a role in the origin of life. Theories that involve replicators that function without the Watson-Crick pairs, or no replicator at all, remain as viable alternatives.”
 
Cytosine, a nitrogenous pyrimidine base, is one of four chemical units making up the very code found in DNA.  In short, removing cytosine from the primordial broth, makes DNA or RNA formation even more unlikely.  The solution, according to Shapiro is to consider other alternatives.  Shapiro’s findings force the advocates of the model presented to AGAIN look at competing models or alternative explanations.
 
Further, another one of the basic components of DNA, modified purines and pyrimidines, seems more than challenging to make under typically assumed prebiotic conditions…
 
“Numerous problems exist with the current thinking of RNA (my addition-or DNA) as the first genetic material. No plausible prebiotic processes have yet been demonstrated to produce the nucleosides or nucleotides or for efficient two-way nonenzymatic replication.” (PNAS | April 11, 2000 | vol. 97 | no. 8 | 3868-3871)
 
Another problem is the synthesis under prebiotic conditions of the very backbone of DNA or RNA-sugar.  A prebiotic soup seems unable to produce this substance (PNAS 1995; 92: 8158-8160). 
 
“…We have measured the rate of decomposition of ribose between pH 4 and pH 8 from 40 C to 120 C. The ribose half-lives are very short (73 min at pH 7.0 and 100 C and 44 years at pH 7.0 and 0 C). The other aldopentoses and aldohexoses have half-lives within an order of magnitude of these values, as do 2-deoxyribose, ribose 5-phosphate, and ribose 2,4-bisphosphate. These results suggest that the backbone of the first genetic material could not have contained ribose or other sugars because of their instability.”
 
Do not miss the points in these papers (and there are others).  DNA and RNA are composed of nucleic acids, nucleotides, sugars and phosphate groups.  The five step model of chemical evolution, the reigning origins paradigm in common literature, on television, and in public school science text books, proposes that DNA or RNA (or similar biomolecules) resulted from some stew of chemicals likely composed of nucleic acids, sugars, and phosphate compounds.  The story goes that these materials self assembled to form successful precursor substances not unlike DNA or RNA in its present form.  These papers demonstrate that nucleic acids and sugars would not survive typical conditions such as temperature or even be formed as with cytosine. 

To simply demand that DNA or RNA existed in a hypothetical primordial soup cocktail, which evolved or partnered up with other biomaterials to form a protocell, may be profound to some specialists but the data increasingly show that this model is a materialistic myth (or dream).

Thus, stability data and available chemical data suggest that it is improbable that DNA (or RNA) have formed through the generally accepted five-step scheme presented above. Pre-biotic conditions are typically punishing, requiring rather delicate small molecules and macromolecules to survive, high or low temperatures, radiation, asteroid bombardments, impurities, rearrangements, free radical degradation, oxidation and a host of other chemical insults and stresses. 

In the “View From 1776” discussion, as one commentator and evolution advocate continues to insist that probability played a role with respect to origin of life, he should recognize that the “probability” of DNA or RNA formation in a primordial soup is vanishingly small- not just in light of mathematical calculations and models, or the absents of geological remnants but more concretely in light of experimental findings.

Well the question still remains for advocates and critics alike, where did DNA come from, if not from a kind of primordial ooze long ago?  We might first ask what do we know about DNA or what do the test tubes teach? The short answer is that DNA is a carbon based, information packed macro molecule that has been called in simple terms a biological code or the blueprint of life. 

One source said “DNA can hold more information in a cubic centimeter than a trillion CDs.” It does not work alone but in concert with other substances, that read, transmit and translate or express this cellular encased information archive packed into about a 1.1 mm length (0.04 or 4/100ths of an inch).  It has no existence outside of cells except if scientists strip it away from its naturally occurring environment.  It works ceaselessly beyond our conscience or awareness reproducing, repairing, inspecting, and conveying information.  In its natural environment, DNA is positioned in the midst of chemical reactions occurring at billions of times per second.  Other intricate substances known as enzymes dance around DNA helping it to reproduce and express its chemical code.  They have been described as micro-machines. These machines based upon the blueprints available in DNA are strange machines for they fold and unfold, carry and drop off, assemble and disassemble, couple and uncouple other substances.  When these machines fail DNA supplies more.  DNA has been celebrated as the key discovery in biology of the 20th century and perhaps it can be argued in human history.  DNA has fueled scientific speculation, inspired science fiction novel writers and is positioned on the brink of a new technological revolution-it simply inspires in us a sense of awe. 

So where did this awesome molecule come from?  Two choices are available to us.  The first we have discussed and it is based on natural origins.  The mounting data shows that DNA could not have been produced slowly (non-spontaneously) or quickly (spontaneously) though naturalistic means. 

Though we spent no time with it, studies equally discourage the notion of naturalistic production of other bio-molecules, such as proteins or enzymes, and their transformation into living cells-slowly or quickly.  The idea of materialistic origins is troubled, forcing us to evaluate other models or radically revise the existing model-a message rarely discussed in public.  What is left? 

Intelligent intervention or direct design is the only alternative.  Intelligent intervention or direct processing and manipulation of the material world to produce complex information packed objects such as DNA can be demonstrated.  Liu is in fact a master at manipulating DNA to produce or synthesize other materials.  He takes existing material and produces new materials.  He has in fact infused materials with new information to effect change or impart surprise or novel effects.  So from this example of an intelligent intervening agent, we can reasonably and directly show that DNA and like products require a designing influence.  To put it in very simple terms, we can demonstrate that designers alone produce complex information packed objects and from what we reviewed nature is impotent, either long term or immediately, toward the task.  A design inference offers a superior explanation for the origin of life.  Ironically enough for those who hold to the notion that intelligent design cannot be tested in the laboratory, intelligent design is tested every day when a scientists sets foot in the laboratory!  It is the hypothesized naturalistic scenario that fails to produce information bearing substances and systems-50 years of testing supports this assertion.

Whom do we choose in Jesus vs. Darwin, which in the present context might be restated the Creator vs. Naturalistic Origins?  For those open minded individuals read this:
 
“15 He (Jesus) is the image of the invisible God… 16 For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. 17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together (Colossians 1:15a-17, NIV).” 
 
I challenge naturalists to read these words carefully.  The author was Paul, a Jewish teacher and scholar of the Jewish law.  He was capable in multiple languages and by the end of his life known by thousands that he brought to faith. Before us is a short list of possibilities regarding the mind of Paul based on this statement.  He was insane, terribly misguided, a liar, a “snake oil salesman” or a witness to truth.  Few other possibilities exist though admittedly other ideas have been advanced-such as manufactured manuscripts etc. This final idea can be addressed in a later posting.  

Firstly, Paul does not appear to be a liar.  His emphasis on moral integrity throughout his writings, easily removes this possibility. In this connection Paul stood little to gain for these words.  He was not popular among the Pagans or Jews as any scholar can attest, and was in fact murdered for his teachings connected to Christ.  If he was attempting to fleece people, his business plan was terribly flawed. 

He does not appear to be insane, since insane people generally have trouble functioning much less maintaining a lively, kindly, thoughtful, loving, caring, sacrificial multi-year ministry throughout the Mediterranean.  Additionally, his writings have been embraced, quoted, depended upon and believed by multiple generations on all intellectual levels.  Arguably the freedoms we enjoy were penned by men who would have little trouble reciting the passage detailed above.  If Paul was insane he likely was the most accomplished madman who ever lived. Let’s at least posit that the probability of insanity appears low. 

That leaves one possibility.  Paul was a reporter telling us things he experienced. He was telling us the truth.  Passionate and driven to get out what must be described, as we view his writings, as the most important information known to Man.  Paul was driven in part and propelled by an incredible truth; he encountered the Creator of the Universe!  He reveals that life did not create itself, as some Greek myths held but the process was initiated by God who is invisible.  In fact, all things, even those invisible were created by God.  All things are even held together by God-thus apparently implicating God’s work in the very fabric of reality (my interpretation).  And who is this God?  We learn here of one Person in the Godhead; Jesus.  Thus, Jesus pre-existed the creation in addition to making and maintaining it. Jesus, is the Intelligent Agent. 
 
Paul didn’t have a Harvard grant, he had the truth.  Paul, wasn’t insane or evil, he encountered the Creator of the Universe-which explains his uncanny writings.  He lifts our hearts and powers and transforms our minds and gives us hope because he is inspired by none other than God Himself. 
  
Whom do you choose?

John DeMassa is a research chemist who holds a PhD in chemistry.

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