Creation: The Modern View Stepping Backward III
A Sunday guest post by my brilliant husband, Gregg.
Every Sunday, my clever husband offers me a “day of rest” by taking over the homemaker duties here. His primary topic, the Biblical Truth of Creation vs. Darwinism, is a subject that has broad reaching scientific, social, and metaphysical implications and is gaining more and more attention in our modern culture. For believers and non-believers alike, the primary purpose is to present scientific, historical, logical, and/or sociological data in an empirical and defensible fashion, as much as possible written in layman’s terms, and in a format suitable for supplementing any homeschool curriculum whether you choose to believe the Biblical account — or secular guesses — about the origins of human life on earth.
Two Approaches to Darwinism
This post will finish the first approach of this unintented series. I say “unintended” because I discovered that a number of the Darwinist who bless me with their presence on a weekly basis have no real concept or understanding of what Darwinism is. It made no sense to continue until they were better educated about their beliefs.
I determined that the easiest way to explain modern Darwinists beliefs for the spiritually immature Darwinist opponents who frequent this site was via a two-pronged approach. In Part One, I examined the modern Darwinist philosophy, then explained what Darwinist see as “micro-evolution” and what normal people who are not afflicted with Darwinism understand is “parents having children.” In Part Two, I stepped all the way back to the first assumption of “macro-evolution” and put forth information on the two current predominant schools of thought as well as sharing the only view that makes sense, that of the Biblical Account of Creation.
In today’s post, I will examine the first mythical ORIGINAL ancestor in a discussion of “Prebiotic Molecular Evolution” then move on to “Chemical Evolution” and “Stellar Evolution” and finally step all the way back to the first nanosecond in the life of the entire universe and describe “Cosmic Evolution” in some detail.
Next week, I will begin to examine the birth of Darwinism, which preceded Charles Darwin by a number of years, what Darwin himself actually believed, and how the religion of Darwinism “evolved” into its present state of crisis. Hopefully, once I have finished outlining the Darwinian bible in this unintended series, I can get back into the Information related material which I find simply fascinating.
Prebiotic Molecular Evolution, aka “Abiogenesis,” aka Spontaneous Generation: One of the finest scientific sounding guesses of the 19th century!
Now, a Darwinist believes that the original, original, ORIGINAL single celled life form sprung into existence complete with a means of eating, mating, eliminating waste, and preserving his own life, and that it magically appeared from little more than rocks, dirt, and some as yet unknown or unidentified “evolutionary force” as a result of some as yet unknown or unidentified “evolutionary event” that sparked something called “Prebiotic Molecular Evolution” which term lends a great deal of Scientific Authority and weight to Darwinism as a whole, you see, because — and please try to remember — in strict accordance with the Darwinian philosophical bias, absolutely everything is dependent upon some kind of “evolution” or another.
Notice I do not add water to the above mixture. After all, water contains oxygen, and oxygen would not allow amino acids to form. Oxygen would oxidize any attempt to do so. But oxygen is also required for the ozone layer to exist, or else the sun’s radiation would make even forming amino acids impossible. Therefore, oxygen had to be present — but must not have been present. Oh, the dilemmas Darwinists face!
This “Prebiotic Molecular Evolution” is also commonly referred to as “Abiogenesis” even though there was an abortive attempt by Darwinists to re-brand it “Biopoeisis” a few years ago because, I suppose, Darwinists got tired of being made fun of by people with common sense for their never-ending habit of appending the word “Genesis” to absolutely any part of their half-baked hypotheses that doesn’t bear up under even cursory investigation. Kind of like how they slap the word “evolution” on everything, as if the magic wand of “evolution” is in some way explanatory or definitive.
Regardless, the Darwinist believes that life spontaneously generated all by itself from non-living things by some unspecified magical but entirely natural and material random act in the presence of oxygen where no oxygen was present. (You read that right) Proof that this spontaneous generation of life from non-life occurred, even though it has never been observed, is that we are here — so it must have occurred — because evolution is true. Or is that too circular of an argument even for the most ardent Darwinist? Apparently not. And it must have occurred because there is no better explanation for how life got started. Or is that too obvious of an argument from ignorance?
It is important to note that Darwinists adamantly deny that “Prebiotic Molecular Evolution” has anything in common with “Spontaneous Generation” and, even I must concede, that there is a very clear difference.
A good basic definition of modern “Prebiotic Molecular Evolution” is: the chance origination of life from lifeless matter, completely and exclusively by means of natural, material, random, unguided processes.
A good basic definition of 19th century “Spontaneous Generation” is: the chance origination of life from lifeless matter, completely and exclusively by means of natural, material, random, unguided processes.
See the difference?
Yeah. Me either.
Spontaneous generation was documented as something in which the ancient Romans and various other ignorant peoples believed right up until the 19th century. People commonly believed that life could just spontaneously generate all by itself from non-living raw materials.
This basic idea of spontaneous generation has been improved upon over the centuries — refined — very Authoritative and very Scientific sounding words and phrases thrown in here and there — but it still never happens. Because it is impossible.
Francesco Redi first refuted the idea in 1668, then it was refuted again by Lazzaro Spallanzani in 1768, and ultimately Louis Pasteur disproved spontaneous generation empirically and oh-so scientifically in 1862. He showed that life only ever arises from … life. This universally recognized fact is called the Law of Biogenesis (Omne vivum ex ovo). Darwinists never recognize this universally true law as applying to their hypothesis, either.
There are pure logical problems with the notion of “Abiogenesis.” For example, I have never seen anything make itself. In fact, no one in all of recorded history has ever seen anything make itself. Even simple structures like boxes with nails in them, or paper airplanes, or hair combs, or thumb tacks — none of them make themselves. Yet a single celled living organism with specific orders of biological and molecular complexity more vast than a galaxy of stars supposedly just created itself out of rocks and dirt? Really?
Throw out that logic and assume that a cell created itself merely for the sake of argument. Darwinists assert that this original life form was an incredibly “simple” form of living organism. Presumably, it created itself with an ability to reproduce. Asexual reproduction only ever makes copies of existing genetic code and sexual reproduction only ever hybridizes existing genetic code. There is absolutely no explanatory mechanism in all of biology, either real or imagined, current or historical, that can answer how the required highly specific almost infinitely complex information was added to this hypothetical simple life form’s genetic code such that it began to “climb” the so called evolutionary ladder.
Darwinists think Life Came from…
There have been a host of hypotheses offered in the last half century, some rather entertaining and some just plain dumb. The one that gained an astonishing amount of acceptance among Neo-Darwinists, including Richard Dawkins apparently, is Panspermia, which says that the first life on earth came from outer space. This hypothesis, while very X-Files stylish for sure, begs the question, relocates the problem thus removing any reasonable hope of addressing the proper variables and parameters, does not account for the finite amount of time allowed since the beginning of the universe, and ultimately does not answer how the first life arose wherever it arose.
The proteinoid microspheres hypothesis gives a plausible account of how some replicating structures could have arisen like foam forms on ocean water. It cannot, however, explain how complex cells formed from the foam bubbles. Now, it may be worth noting that bubbles do not have a metabolism, nor do they independently respond to environmental stimuli, and the information in the proteins is mere endless repetition. The fact is that there is no known mechanism for moving from soap bubbles to DNA.
The clay crystals hypothesis asserts that the first replicators were crystals in beds of clay. Anyone who has seen Ben Stein’s film Expelled probably remembers Michael Ruse shouting, “On the backs of Crystals!” Anyone who has ever studied crystals for more than a few moments recognizes some immediate problems with this notion. For example, like foam, crystals do not have a metabolism, nor do they independently respond to environmental stimuli. Just like bubbles of foam, they can form under natural conditions and they contain endlessly repeating patterns. This hypothesis still cannot explain how complex living cells formed from crystals. There is no known mechanism for moving from clay to DNA.
The iron-sulfur world hypothesis presupposes that the entire earth was nothing but iron and sulfur. A peptide cycle, from peptides to amino acids and back again, is a prerequisite to a microscopic metabolism, and such a cycle requires the iron-sulfur world. All the steps for the conversion of carbon monoxide into peptides can occur at high temperature and pressure, catalyzed by iron and nickel sulfides. The idea is that iron sulfide precipitates could have served as precursors for cell walls AND as catalysts. The question is if iron sulfide served as cell walls and catalysts, then why don’t we see organisms like this today, or remnants of this kind of life form anywhere in the fossil record? Also, any such organism properly conceived would suffer an extinction level event if there was the slightest environmental change.
Similarly, the polymerization on sheltered organophilic surfaces hypothesis (and doesn’t THAT sound sufficiently Authoritative and Scientific!) proposes that the first self-replicating molecules may have formed within tiny indentations of silica-rich surfaces so that the surrounding rock acted as cell wall precursors. Again, the question is why don’t we see organisms like this today or anywhere in the fossil record? And likewise, any such organism would go extinct at the slightest environmental change.
The current favorite, probably because it is the most unlikely and the most scientific and authoritative sounding, is called the emerging hypercycles hypothesis which proposes a slow, gradual origin of the first life. The hypothetical stages are: (1) an utterly fictional yet perfectly conceived primordial soup of simple organic compounds (2) nucleoproteins, somewhat like modern tRNA or peptide nucleic acid, and semicatalytic, presumably to eliminate the natural tendency of amino acids to create racemic mixtures so this phase is largely a rescue device; (3) hypercycles, or pockets of primitive biochemical pathways that include some approximate self-replication, so this is yet another rescue device; (4) cellular hypercycles, in which more complex hypercycles are enclosed in yet another utterly fictional yet perfectly conceived primitive membrane; (5) finally, the emergence of the first “simple” cell. Throw in a little atheistic hope and prayer, some randomness and chance, tack on the words Genesis or Evolution to some Latin or Greek, and self-organization takes place and specific, vast complexity is added.
The very BEST hypotheses of how “Prebiotic Molecular Evolution” could even be possible, even given every possible concession, are obviously nowhere close. And, there are even bigger problems for the “Abiogenesis” assumption. At the time of the following writing, Dr. Gail Vines was the Biology Editor of New Scientist and describes a chicken and egg problem that every hypothesis cannot overcome:
“There is a further problem (although this affects all the theories, not just the ‘genes-first’ hypothesis) in explaining how the relationship between RNA and proteins originated. In the process of translation whereby proteins are produced … it is the order of bases on the messenger RNA that determines the order of amino acids in the protein. But there is no inherent attraction between the codons on the mRNA and the amino acids– translation occurs via a [highly complex and very specific] code, and in order to interpret that code, both a transfer molecule and a synthetase enzyme (a protein) are needed. Since the synthetase enzyme itself is a product of translation, it is very difficult to imagine how the system could have originated. … How did the relationship between DNA (or RNA) and proteins begin? The basis of all life today is the ability of DNA and RNA to produce specific proteins. But they do this via a code, and the translation of that code requires two principal factors, a synthetase enzyme and a transfer RNA, as well as the help of the ribosomes. It is very difficult to imagine a simple version of the system from which the translation mechanism seen today could have evolved.” (Gamlin L. & Vines G., eds, “The Structure of Living Organisms,” Guild Publishing: London, 1989, p.23. emphasis added)”
Scientific fact time: Molecules will only bond with other very specific molecules in the formation of amino acids, and potentially hundreds of amino acid types are possible. However, oxygen would prevent or destroy those molecular bonds preventing amino acids from ever forming in the first place. Therefore, oxygen could not be present which is why Urey and Miller had to exclude it from their alleged “primordial environment” and added a trap to their circuit to bleed off other chemicals that would inhibit the process.
Even assuming amino acids could form, one would need a very amino acid rich environment to create protein chains and then only very specific amino acids are used in the construction of proteins in living things on this planet. Racemic mixtures of amino acids (both D- and L- variety) cannot produce useful proteins. Therefore, the amino rich environment would have to contain no oxygen and only L-amino acids.
Thousands of proteins are possible. Amino acids in known proteins can –and practically do– occur in ANY conceivable sequential order, and the chemicals themselves do not prevent these sequences from happening. The amino acids also do not dictate the sequential order in which they join. This is exactly why amino acids demonstrate such utility for making a huge variety of different proteins.
The order of the sequence in which the amino acids occur in a functional protein has never been shown to be directed or determined by the forces and laws of chemistry or physics. There are no known laws of physics or chemistry which could originally dictate the proper highly specific “sequential order” of the amino acids in the first living cell, so that they assemble into functionally “folding” three dimensional proteins observed in living things on earth. In addition, the sequential order is essentially aperiodic, falling into no predictable patterns whatsoever. Therefore, assuming a world view consistent with Methodological Naturalism and excluding a Designer, in considering “Abiogenesis,” there is no way to avoid the probabilities of randomness and chance in determining the sequential order of the amino acids joined in any specific protein.
And what are the odds based on these parameters?
Many made up numbers have circulated in the past from Fred Hoyle (who believed in Panspermia) who estimated 1 chance in 10-40,000 to an estimated 1 chance in 10-113 back in the 1980s by the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society.
More recently — and more realistically in my opinion — Murray Eden of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) calculated a probability of 1 chance in 10-313 to spontaneously bring polypeptide sequences together into functional proteins. That is his calculation for the proteins, not the living cell.
Physicist Harold Morowitz — also not a believer in the Biblical account of Creation by any means — has calculated that if a batch of bacteria in a sealed container the volume of the planet earth was somehow heated so that every chemical bond was broken, then slowly cooled so as to allow the atoms to form new polypeptide bonds and come to equilibrium, there is a probability of 1 chance in 10-100,000,000,000 that a living bacterium will be present at the end. That is 1 chance in ten followed by one hundred billion zeros.
“[The] probability of life having arisen by chance is as vanishingly small as the likelihood of a Jumbo Jet having being constructed by a hurricane sweeping through a scrap yard.” Richard Dawkins
So, it may not surprise anyone reading this to learn that I do not believe in “Abiogenesis,” nor — hearkening back to last week’s post — do I believe in “Anagenesis,” nor even “Cladogenesis,” but rather I choose to believe in something traditionally called “Genesis!”
If you happen to have a Bible nearby, you can turn to, I’m pretty sure it’s page 1, and start to read Genesis for yourself.
It basically comes to this. I believe, “In the beginning GOD,” and Darwinists believe “In the beginning dirt with a dash of oxygen paradox and materialistic magic thrown in.” Both are beliefs in supernatural events. The former belief has a valid and documented explanation and the latter is pure wishful thinking.
Chemical Evolution: Let’s Blow the Same Material Up Several Times!
Going back a bit further, Darwinists believe that stars exploded over and over and over and over again and then inexplicably stopped exploding about 5 billion years ago, all of them and all at once. The result of the multiple star explosions was heavier chemicals and this is called “Chemical Evolution” which term lends a great deal of Scientific Authority and weight to Darwinism as a whole, you see. Because absolutely EVERYTHING is somehow related to “evolution,” remember?
And Darwinists are certain that “Chemical Evolution” occurred even though it has never been observed because, after all, elements heavier than hydrogen and helium and lithium exist in the universe, so it must have occurred because “Chemical Evolution” is true. Or is THAT too circular of an argument even for the most ardent Darwinist? And there really isn’t a more plausible explanation for how elements heavier than hydrogen and helium exist in the universe. Or is that too big of an argument from ignorance for your taste?
Interestingly enough, when “Chemical Evolution” was first hypothesized, our most powerful telescopes at the time could only see light from stars that were estimated to be, you guessed it, 5 billion light years away and thus allegedly (I do not agree with this timeline) about 5 billion years old. Those stars that we could observe were not exploding. So, went the hypothesis of “Chemical Evolution,” they must have stopped exploding, right? What a coincidence.
The fact is that the repeated exploding “proto-stars” have never been observed to explode even once. So, the entire hypothesis built on circular reasoning was originally based on a complete lack of evidence as proof that it must be true. Sound familiar?
It must be documented that today, as I write this blog post, we have much more powerful telescopes that can capture starlight estimated to be much further than 5 billion light years distant, and thus allegedly much older than 5 billion years old, yet we have never observed any proto-stars exploding over and over. In fact, we have never observed any so-called proto-stars at all! If we can see 12 or 13 billion year old starlight, why is it that those very old stars look just like nearby stars in our very own galaxy? Why don’t they look like proto-stars? Why don’t we see them explode over and over and over like “Chemical Evolution” dictates that they must have done?
Yet the “Chemical Evolution” hypothesis has never been revised despite these facts. Isn’t that interesting? I wonder what THAT means. In my experience, willfully communicating information that is known to be false implies kind of an agenda that lacks a certain intellectual honesty and integrity, doesn’t it? Well, doesn’t it?
As for me, I don’t believe anything that explodes can explode more than once. But I am also pretty well versed in the Laws of Thermodynamics from the zeroth to the third. See, you run into a fuel problem, or an oxygen problem, or a source problem, or all three. It’s a pretty simple experiment to conduct and conclusion to reach in empirical science. Try it. Set off the exact same firecracker more than once. Or anything that explodes. Just make the exact same exploding material explode multiple times. Go ahead.
Also, explosions aren’t well known for their organizational skills, even if something could possibly explode multiple times. See, randomness and explosions produce exponential amounts of waste and exponential amounts of disorder and destruction and they produce very, very little specific organization and create very little useful non-destructive matter or energy.
I believe it is much more plausible that the universe was created, and that a Creator accounts for the order, the specificity, the anthropomorphism of every Scientific Law and/or principle, and the near complete absence of waste and high degree of complex organization that we can easily observe in galaxies, stars, and planets. So I think creation and design, and thus a Creator or Designer, is much more plausible. So instead of “Chemical Evolution” I think what we are looking at is “Chemical Creation” and I think that happened in the beginning and all at once.
Stellar Evolution: A lot of hot gas!
Darwinists believe that before the stars exploded over and over, the stars condensed from shrapnel of an original massive explosion. This is called “Stellar Evolution” which term lends a great deal of Scientific Authority and weight to Darwinism as a whole, you see. Because absolutely EVERYTHING is somehow related to “evolution” or had you not yet got the word?
See, there was apparently a “Cosmic Evolution” event (I’m getting there) that shot gas in the form of hydrogen and helium out in every direction and those lightest of elements decided to condense into stars and galaxies and such. Darwinists aren’t sure what influenced their decision. After all, explosions don’t organize anything and gas only ever rarefies in a vacuum.
Nevertheless, Darwinists believe these elements made up their mind to condense into stars and then stubbornly followed through with their decision. Want proof that “Stellar Evolution” took place? Well, how else do you explain the subsequent “Chemical Evolution” that took place if “Stellar Evolution” didn’t happen first? Since you don’t have a better explanation, we must rely upon this impossible explanation. Or is THAT too circular and too enormous of an argument from ignorance for even THE MOST ardent Darwinist?
Right. Nevermind.
I don’t believe in the impossible. I could not care very much less about the fact that there is no more plausible explanation that fits into the tiny little close-minded box called Methodological Naturalism in the secular humanist world view. I know that gas cannot decide to condense in defiance of Scientific Laws, and I believe it is the height of foolishness to declare that absolutely everything can be explained by slapping the word “evolution” on it. But, you know, I am not a Darwinist. I am capable of independent logical and critical thought. Sue me.
Cosmic Evolution: The Big … Nothing!
And finally, at long last, let us all take off our shoes, my friends, because we are entering onto holy ground. Finally, Darwinists believe that before the stars condensed from gas shrapnel in a vacuum, before those stars exploded multiple times, before dirt and rocks magically formed a LIVING cell that somehow had enough genetic information that it grew up into every living thing on planet earth in a scant few billion years, before any of that happened there was … NOTHING.
And, apparently, nothing developed a lump of somewhat more dense nothing than all the surrounding nothingness. This mystical event is referred to with much Scientific Authority and aplomb as the “Big Squeeze” and lo, Darwinists refer to the lump of dense nothingness that resulted as “ylem.”
And the nothing called ylem became self-aware and decided to condense, and lo it did achieve density, which is really miraculous because, after all, nothing has no density. And behold, the superdense core of ylem was mathematically and with much Scientific sounding Authority estimated to have had a density of 1094gm/cm2.
Furthermore, it is said in the holy writings of Darwinists, as are even now recited in middle schools and high schools and other hallowed halls of Darwinian indoctrination, that the nothingness achieved density due to gravity, even though nothing is an absence of absolutely anything and everything — which would include gravity which is, at the end of the day, something — meaning there would be no gravity. There would only be … Nothing. This is but one of the holy mysteries of the mystical ylem.
But we must ignore such logic that might lead us to contradictions because, you see, the ylem nothing became so dense that it grew HOT. Which is really miraculous, my friends, especially once you realize that it is absolutely impossible for nothing to get hot.
Yet Darwinists believe the superdense ylem nothingness was mathematically and with much Scientific sounding Authority said to have achieved a temperature in excess of 1039 degrees absolute. Even I have to admit that this is an awful lot of density and heat for a lump of nothing that can’t get dense or hot in the first place.
This remarkable lack-of-absolutely-anything kind of nothing is said to have then achieved a density of 10145g/cc, or one hundred trillion times the density of water. I find this amazing, my friends, when I consider that water is made of matter, which is something — not nothing — and therefore water is always observed to be many times more dense than nothing, even a great big lump of nothing. But who am I to question the mathematical and very Scientific sounding Authoritative estimates of the Darwinists who have figured all this out?
Then, according to the most holy belief that Darwinists hold dear, the superdense, superheated lump of ylem nothing began to spin. It spun really fast, too. Like, REALLY fast. There are Scientific sounding Authoritative mathematical representations of the speed and it is just astonishing. The fact that it can spin should fill our hearts with religious fervor after we come to terms with the fact that nothing can’t move. It can’t move, it can’t get dense, and it can’t get hot. Imagine! This particular nothing, this ylem, did ALL of that. And then … and THEN … it did the most miraculous thing ever … it exploded!
It was a BIG BANG that created the entire universe from absolutely empty space to every star, photon, atom, and thought. This event, this explosion, is called “Cosmic Evolution” and I don’t think Darwnists should have to justify a hypothesis that is so obviously grounded in truth, observation, logic, and fact. Do you? Obviously, the cosmos exists, therefore it evolved! Because absolutely EVERYTHING somehow “evolved” so why should the entire universe be any exception?
“The Cosmos is all that there is or ever was or ever will be. Our feeblest contemplations of the Cosmos stir us—there is a tingling in the spine, a catch in the voice, a faint sensation, as if a distant memory, of falling from a height. We know we are approaching the greatest of mysteries.” Carl Sagan, his famous and often quoted Secular Humanist Confession entitled COSMOS INTRODUCTION, describing his initial religious experiences when contemplating the material universe—Cosmos, 1980
Now, speaking strictly for myself, I think “Cosmic Evolution” is beyond ridiculous and calling it evolution is simply preposterous. My take is that in the beginning there was an eternal Being — and this may surprise you — who was not holy. Nor, in my opinion, is this Being “holy, holy.”
In point of fact, He is Holy, Holy, Holy God. We cannot understand Him or explain Him beyond these words — He Is that He Is. He spoke and there was light. He IS GOD and we, simply put, are not.
The Truth
Whether conscious or subconscious, every human being has some type of worldview. A worldview is the intellectual framework through which human beings view reality and make sense of life and our environment. A personal worldview is a combination of all that you believe to be true, and what you believe becomes the driving force behind every emotion, decision, and action. Therefore, your worldview affects your reaction to every area of life: from philosophy to science, theology and anthropology, to economics, law, politics, parenting, literature, art, music, and social order — everything.
For example, let’s suppose you accept the notion that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” (secular relative truth) as opposed to beauty is defined by God’s purity and creativity (absolute truth). In that case, anything that anyone happens to claim is “art,” no matter how obscene or abstract, must be accepted as “art” and a creation of beauty.
Someone with a biblical worldview believes his primary reason for existence is to love and serve God. A biblical worldview is based on the inerrant and infallible Word of God. When you believe the Bible is entirely true, then you allow it to be the foundation of everything you say and do.
George Barna of the Barna Research Group determined that only 4 percent of Americans had a completely uncompromised “biblical” worldview. Furthermore, Barna, who has researched cultural trends and the Christian Church since 1984, surveyed “born-again” believers in America, and the results were only 9 percent. The following questions, based on Biblical claims, were used in the Barna survey. Answer them for yourself:
- Is God the all-powerful and all-knowing Creator of the universe, and does He still rule it today?
- Do absolute moral truths exist?
- Is absolute truth defined by the Bible?
- Did Jesus Christ live a sinless life?
- Is salvation a gift from God that cannot be earned?
- Is Satan real?
- Does a Christian have a responsibility to share his or her faith in Christ with other people?
- Is the Bible accurate in all of its teachings?
Did you answer “yes” to all of these? If you answered yes to all of them, you are in a well defined minority. The truth is that the Biblical worldview is the only worldview that is fully consistent with reality, that completely accounts for the three most important questions that any worldview can ever ask.
- Where did we come from? (and why are we here?)
- What is wrong with the world?
- How can we fix it?
A prevalent worldview today is the naturalist worldview which embraces the Darwinist Philosophical Bias. That worldview answers those three questions like this:
- We are the product of purely random acts of nature with no real purpose.
- We do not respect nature as we should.
- We can save the world through ecology and conservation.
A naturalistic worldview generates many related philosophies such as Darwinism, moral relativism, existentialism, pragmatism, and utopianism. This worldview is intrinsically inconsistent. If we have no real purpose, and we are a product of random chance, what is the point of respecting nature? What is the point of respect at all? A Christian worldview answers the three questions biblically:
- We are God’s creation, designed by Him to govern the world and fellowship with Him (Genesis 1:27-28; 2:15).
- We sinned against God and subjected the whole world to a curse (Genesis 3).
- God Himself has redeemed the world through the sacrifice of His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ (Genesis 3:15; John 3:16; Luke 19:10), and will one day restore creation to its former perfect state (Isaiah 65:17-25).
A Christian worldview leads us to believe in moral absolutes, miracles, human dignity, and the possibility of redemption. Remember, our worldview is comprehensive, affecting every area of life from money to morality, from politics to art. Christianity is more than a set of ideas to use at church. Christianity as revealed by God’s Holy Word is itself a worldview. The Bible never distinguishes between a “religious” and a “secular” life; the Christian life is the only life. Jesus proclaimed Himself “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6) and, in doing so, became our worldview.
Most of us go through life from day to day never recognizing that our personal worldviews have been deeply affected by the world in which we live. Nonbiblical worldview ideas don’t just sit in a book somewhere waiting for people to examine them. They bombard us constantly from television, film, music, newspapers, magazines, books, the internet, and academia. Through the media and other influences, the secularized American view of history, law, politics, science, God and man affects our thinking more than we realize (Colossians 2:8).
If we capture and embrace God’s worldview and trust it with unwavering faith (Romans 12:2), then we begin to make the right decisions and form the appropriate responses to questions of abortion, same- sex marriage, cloning, stem-cell research, and even media choices. Because, in the end, it is our decisions and actions that reveal what we really believe. If we don’t really believe the truth of God and live it, then our witness will be confusing and misleading.
I commit to you that I will publish every single comment that meets this blog’s commenting criteria. You may want to review that criteria before adding your opinion here.
Before commenting here and telling me just how wrong I am about “Abiogenesis,” if you feel that you CAN delineate and experimentally confirm a biochemical mechanism which demonstrates that it is within reasonable statistical probability for biological information and life to have originated from non-living chemicals (“Abiogenesis”) by purely natural/material processes, without the agency of any intelligent designer, you may want to claim your million dollar prize.
The “Origin-of-Life Prize®” is offered through “The Gene Emergence Project®” of “The Origin-of-Life Science Foundation, Inc.” — and seems to be trying to coordinate a major effort to substantiate that “Abiogenesis” and a purely naturalistic materialist origin to life, is within reasonably reachable probability. Sadly, the overwhelming body of empirical evidence and statistical analysis indicates that any such attempt to provide a feasible mechanism for “Abiogenesis” will fail pretty spectacularly, but by all means go claim your 1 million dollars in cash.
Tell you what. If you win the million, come on back here and prove it, and I’ll personally throw in another $1,000.00 in cold hard cash. I am dead serious.
God Bless you and yours.
Gregg
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….”Notice I do not add water to the above mixture. After all, water contains oxygen, and oxygen would not allow amino acids to form. ”
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Do you mean that as a serious idea?
I’m trying not to lose patience since your comment amounts to little more than a generalized and unsupported epithet. Did you have a specific argument with what I present or just this unsupported castigation?
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Urey and Miller — just as an example — left out oxygen in their experiment, because the presence of oxygen would make formation of amino acids impossible. However, research has shown that the early atmosphere must have contained oxygen as proved by traces of oxidized iron and uranium in rocks estimated (by Darwinists) to be 3.5 billion years old. On the other hand, if oxygen was not present, life still could not have formed because of intense ultraviolet radiation that would have killed any molecules that happened to form by chance due to an absence of an ozone layer that would shield them from the sun’s radiation.
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“Oxygen is a poisonous gas that oxidizes organic and inorganic materials on a planetary surface; it is quite lethal to organisms that have not evolved protection against it.” P. Ward and D. Brownlee, Rare Earth (New York: Copernicus, 2000), p. 245
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“In the atmosphere and in the various water basins of the primitive earth, many destructive interactions would have so vastly diminished, if not altogether consumed, essential precursor chemicals, that chemical evolution rates would have been negligible.” C. Thaxton, W. Bradley, and R. Olsen, The Mystery of Life’s Origin: Reassessing Current Theories (New York: Philosophical Library, 1984), p. 66.
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“No new notable research or theory on the subject appeared until 1924, when Alexander Oparin reasoned that atmospheric oxygen prevents the synthesis of certain organic compounds that are necessary building blocks for the evolution of life. [etc. etc.]” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis (one of your favorite sources)
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“Our present atmosphere consists of 78% nitrogen (N2), 21% molecular oxygen (O2), and 1% of other gases, such as carbon dioxide CO2), argon (Ar), and water vapor H2O). An atmosphere containing free oxygen would be fatal to all origin of life schemes. While oxygen is necessary for life, free oxygen would oxidize and thus destroy all organic molecules required for the origin of life.” Duane Gish, Ph.D, A Few Reasons an Evolutionary Origin of Life Is Impossible
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In summary, Darwinists face an irresolvable dilemma: in the presence of oxygen, life could not POSSIBLY evolve; without oxygen, thus no ozone, life could not POSSIBLY evolve or even exist.
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Please state your objection.
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Thanks for your comment,
Gregg
Gregg:
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I know it is frustrating answering the same tired objections, especially since you have spent alot of time and effort laying out a pretty watertight case. Don’t lose heart; most of these religious atheists/agnostics get upset with you because you are attacking their RELIGION.
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Their objections are not based on logic but rather religious ferver, dogma and, in some university level cases, the sacred RESEARCH GRANT.
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They feel the need to construct some sort of ‘rescuing device’ to counteract your onslaught of logic, so they will nitpick at a minor point (like water/oxygen) to sidetrack you from your main theme.
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Arrian
But Miller and Urey didn’t leave out water. I don’t see how the formation of early cells could be hypothesized without any water since water is one of the components in cells.
The idea in your statement that I question is that water must be omitted to avoid the detrimental effects of O2. I think the fact that water has oxygen as part of its structure is a different thing from the effect of the O2 molecule.
Do you suppose H2O can form without O?
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It would be a neat trick.
“We can see that the process of chemical evolution has failed at the first hurdle. But, in order to get a complete picture, let’s assume the problem can be solved (and no-one has done that yet!). We now need the amino acids to join together (polymerise) to form proteins. Here again we have a string of problems. Let’s start with the basic chemical one. To link the small molecules together, we need to remove water molecules between adjacent amino acid molecules. … This is an equilibrium reaction, which does not occur spontaneously, and the yield of protein depends on removing the water. But, the scenario pictured by evolutionary scientists is one that occurs in a pool of water! Not a promising start!” J. H. John Peet BSc, MSc, PhD, CChem, FRSC; The Miller-Urey experiment, http://www.truthinscience.org.uk/site/content/view/51/65/
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This is why Miller installed a condenser (trap) in his experimental loop. One doesn’t find many of those in nature. None in fact.
I have no idea where the water on earth came from, but wikipedia says one theory is that a lot of it may have come on asteroids or comets in the form of ice. If so, no need for atmospheric O2 on earth for its formation. Other options that occur to me – gaseous O2 could have been present at some time but mostly used up in synthesis of water and in synthesizing other molecules. Oxygen present in some molecule (for instance CO2) could be used to make H2O without a need for atmospheric oxygen. (These last two suggestions may have nothing to do with where water actually came from on the early earth.)
I don’t know anything about where the water came from, but from googling I see that a current idea is that ice-covered comets and asteroids hitting the early earth could have been an important source. In this case, no oxygen on earth was required. Also, water can be formed in reactions from molecules which contain oxygen but are not atmospheric molecular O2. Carbon dioxide is an example of an oxygen-containing gas which does not have the chemical actions of O2. I think it is atmospheric O2 that would have caused oxidation.
Do you mean that as a serious idea?
Where water comes from: Genesis 1:1-2 “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.”
Why yes, yes I do.
(I’m guessing it’s the ice-carrying asteroids that you might be questioning.)
I thought this comment had gotten lost or I had clicked the wrong button so I answered a second time; that’s why there are two similar comments.
The main point is, there could have been water on earth without a significant amount of O2 in the atmosphere. So you don’t have to omit water from your dirt and rocks example above.
There are so many problems with that it seems like a logical person would deem it as simple grasping at straws. One thing that comes to mind — if the earth were molten as Darwinists believe, then struck by a block of ice around -400 degrees, it would generate a heck of a lot of gas.
you say, “Let me ask you a hypothetical question. Let’s say I decided to start a conversation with you by calling you a “Jesusist” instead of a Christian, just because I felt like it. Then I informed you …”
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I would probably thank you for supporting my point.
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The direct allegory you have just drawn in your comment is that you feel I have attacked a religious stance and you, in turn, are attacking what you perceive is a religious stance.
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Depending upon how invested I was in my religion involving hopping, I might go to great lengths to defend it, devoting hours and hours and hundreds of words in additional comments in an attempt to frame my hopping on one foot 5 hours a week as reasonable. I would probably use fallacious arguments like, “Everyone believes in hopping on one foot. If you don’t believe it then you’re just weird!”
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I will probably use a LOT of equivocation, making hopping equal to standing up from a sitting position, lying down from a standing position, or even turning over in one’s sleep. I will probably directly equivocate macro-hopping with micro-hopping even though macro-hopping is entirely hypothetical and a rather ridiculous idea.
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And I will argue that because people who didn’t hop died hundreds of years ago, their non-hoppery died with them and modern folks don’t subscribe to such beliefs. Things like that.
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Thanks for your comment.
Gregg
….”Racemic mixtures of amino acids (both D- and L- variety) cannot produce useful proteins. Therefore, the amino rich environment would have to contain no oxygen and only L-amino acids.”
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I was surprised to see how long I’ve been commenting here. And I’m starting to forget things I read previously in order to comment. I think I did comment on the D and L amino acids somewhere here. Although proteins now (with a few exceptions in bacteria?) are made only from L-amino acids, the earliest proteins did not have to be only made from L-amino acids. There is nothing inherently toxic about D-amino acids and there is nothing intrinsic that would have prevented their use in early proteins.
….” On the other hand, if oxygen was not present, life still could not have formed because of intense ultraviolet radiation that would have killed any molecules that happened to form by chance due to an absence of an ozone layer that would shield them from the sun’s radiation.”
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Doesn’t water have some shielding effect on UV radiation?
sorry, I think I’m running down on my ability to make good comments here.
My reaction to that quote from Peet in that paragraph you have quoted there is that it is talking about spontaneous formation of proteins from amino acids. I think the hypothesis that proteins are formed in a catalyzed reaction, for instance by some type of RNA, especially with an energy input, avoids this problem.
I expect you will say that the idea of RNA catalyzing protein formation etc. is even more unlikely. But the people working on this problem are not blind to these issues you keep bringing up. They are trying to come up with models that work under the hypothesized conditions of the ealy earth. Some idea are like brainstorming and may or may not turn out to be useful. Either you try to figure out how this could have happened or you close the door to investigation and accept ignorance.
You talk about panspermia as if it is an accepted idea. What is accepted about it is that at this point we can’t rule it out, but since there is no evidence for it it seems unlikely. Until or unless we find evidence of life on another planet like Mars, or we find evidence of life on a meteorite, or unless we find the wrecked remains of a space ship (maybe with a label like Survey Team) the idea of panspermia is going to remain a possibiity but one that is thought unlikely. (Of COURSE it moves the problem of the origin of life to another location.)
(I said, “the idea of panspermia is going to remain a possibiity “. Just to be clear, I don’t mean that anyone has demonstrated that is possible, but that it hasn’t been shown to be impossible.)
I haven’t posted before, but I thought I should tell you about my own experience. I started reading this blog a few months ago, thinking that the arguments for God were vacuous. Although I didn’t argue with you in public as many of the Darwinists did, in my mind I would try to work out why you must be wrong in what you were saying.
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I gradually realised that the arguments were not vacuous at all. Eventually I sought God through prayer. I reasoned that, if there was no God, it would do no harm. If there was a God, it could result in Him revealing Himself to me. I believe that God did indeed reveal Himself to me, and so largely as a result of the things I have read here, I have become a Christian.
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I suppose I just felt I should say thank you for posting these articles, and if arguing with the Darwinists ever feels like a waste of time, please rest assured that it is not.
You really need to back off on the rhetoric just a notch. You can make your point without sounding condescening.
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The fact of the matter is that I feel it is necessary to use layman’s terms. The further fact is that I probably know more about protein synthesis than you do, so there really isn’t any need to sound snotty. It doesn’t help your argument.
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You state your point 2 above as if it is a) known fact and b) observable/testable/reproducible. It is neither. There is no evidence that any of this is the case. That is a fact. There are thousands of problems with even the weak hypothesis. That is also a fact. If you choose to believe in the impossibility of it, that is a religious choice you are making. I have a different religious belief. Those are further facts.
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In your point 3 above, you neglect to point out that water can only exist between certain temperatures. Water cannot exist when exposed without any kind of shielding — like an ozone layer — when exposed to the naked raw power of our sun. Water would instantly boil away as a gas. This is another fact. Thus your premise begs the question based on an impossible assumption in defiance of fact — that water could exist when water could not exist.
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It also begs the question that if simple amino acids and proteins can form, then life can instantly come about as a result. This is the impossibility that no one has ever been able to overcome from even long before the time of Oparin. If you choose to believe the impossibility of all of this as somehow possible, then that is a religious choice you are making. I have a different religious belief.
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Thank you for your comment. I am sorry that you do not have better assembled actual facts lacking huge assumptions.
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Gregg
Mr. Summers,
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First, praise God! Thank you God for allowing me to speak Your voice of truth. Thank You for them with ears who hear. Thank You Father for allowing the Holy Spirit to move my brother in Christ into a meaningful relationship with You. Thank You for Your gift of salvation in the person of your only begotten Son, and for the truth of Your holy word that instructs us in the ways of discipline that we may fulfill Your purposes in this material plane.
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Secondly, thank you for writing this comment. Thank you for the encouragement. If you read my very first Creation post “Death of a Nimrod” then you know that I walked a similar journey. In walking that journey, I also had to set aside assumptions, investigate facts, learn to think critically, and then reassess all of the evidence and the conclusions to which the evidence led.
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The difference, I suppose, is that I always knew that there had to be a Creator of everything because nothing ever makes itself. The laws of the universe are too finely tuned and far too perfect. There is no waste. Witness the law of conservation. The thing I had tried to do all my life was try to wedge what I knew about science into my belief in a Creator.
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It took some time and earnest study to realize that what I was told was “science” with respect to Darwinism — first of all has much more to do with religion than science — and secondly cannot possibly be reconciled with God’s holy word.
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As my brilliant wife once said, “They have Wikipedia. We have the Bible.”
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I pray you continue on your journey and visit and comment often.
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God Bless,
Gregg
Re: RNA — The main issue is always a chicken and egg problem. The DNA contains the instructions to build chromosomes and the like and they are the micro-machines that unwind the DNA to use messenger RNA in the creation of proteins. So which came first? Or were they spontaneously formed at the exact same time via a process of random and purely undirected happenings?
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To me, Panspermia is eliminated on a mathematical basis alone. If there is not enough time to create life on earth via a purely undirected random processes, then how to you account for sufficient time for it to happen somewhere else first? The naive notion that life can happen, just add water, power, and unknown or as yet unexplained mystical “evolutionary forces” cannot account for it unless you go all the way back to saltation. So, in my opinion at least, it is only possible inasmuch as it is possible that pigs might start flying tomorrow.
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Thanks for the comment.
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Gregg
How does water exist if there is no ozone layer?
I have tried to find some info on this by googling and looking in a few books. What I am seeing is that UV can dissociate the water molecule, producing some assortment of H and O, and this can result in some water loss. But I’m not seeing it discussed as a threat to the presence of water on earth. There is some loss of water without the ozone later, but I’m not getting the sense that it contradicts the presence of water. It is not thought to be an all or nothing thing. Some breakdown of water leads to some production of O2 in this model.
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In a comment in response to another commenter, you said:
…”In your point 3 above, you neglect to point out that water can only exist between certain temperatures. Water cannot exist when exposed without any kind of shielding — like an ozone layer — when exposed to the naked raw power of our sun. Water would instantly boil away as a gas. ”
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I am not seeing anything in the sources I looked at that fits with this. Because of the heat of the early earth, apparently it is thought that until the earth cooled to a certain point the water was in the form of water vapor. It did not go off into space the way H2 did because it was heavy enough that gravity kept it in the atmosphere. When the earth cooled it condensed as rain.
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This is not an area I’m familiar with, and it is hard for me to make a good assessment of what I’m reading. But in a superficial search I am not seeing views that match what you said above. It would help if you supported those ideas with some references.
(I’m also thinking that UV light is used to irradiate water to kill bacteria, and it acts by breaking the bonds in the DNA, not by boiling the water.)
So what kind of atmosphere are we assuming? One that is perfectly intact as it is today minus the ozone layer? That seems like a reach. However, NASA has performed a model of what an ozone layer reduction of greater than 67% might do.
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http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/03/090319090754.htm
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http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/view.php?id=37588
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If we are talking about a very thin “primitive” atmosphere, observe that our moon has a very, very thin atmosphere and nearly has our orbit. Let’s assume we measure from a central temperate zone. The mean temperature of the moon ranges from -23°C to 157°C. That is not conducive to water existing. Mars has a thin atmosphere, is farther from the sun, and has a mean temperature range of -60°C to -8°C.
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By contrast, earth ranges from about 15 to 58 C.
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Gregg
Science daily
sorry, you’re getting out of my depth. But I don’t think you mean temperatures in C? Those ranges don’t look right.
hmmm, I wasn’t thinking about means.
(I think water can exist at 157 degrees C, but it would be in the form of vapor.)
There is a chain of problems that begins with any such causality. Water vapor does not grow aminos. Useful proteins do not form themselves from aminos (without an instruction set). No living thing can create itself from proteins. Etc. Etc. Etc.
The early earth’s atmosphere was thought to be different at different times in its history as it cooled. It was not thought to be the same as our atmosphere now, minus the ozone layer. At some point it is thought to have had more CO2 than it has now, N2, some other gases including methane and ammonia (depending on the point in history) and water vapor. I wouldn’t assume you can draw useful conclusions about the thickness of the earth’s atmosphere from the thickness of the moon’s atmosphere because the earth is larger and gravity would hold in the gases more strongly. So I don’t think the moon’s temperatures can be used without additional information to make predictions about the early earth.
I don’t know what the numbers are, but my impression from what I’ve read is that the people who study all these factors in detail have copncluded that the earth had liquid water on its surface despite the lack of an ozone layer.