Life Is So Complex That Chance Processes, Even With Billions of Years, Cannot Explain Its Origin.

 28. Chemical Elements of Life

The chemical evolution of life, as you will see in the next few pages, is ridiculously improbable.   What could improve the odds?  One should begin with an earth having high concentrations of the key elements comprising life, such as: carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen.^a However, the closer one examines these elements, the more unlikely the evolution of life appears.

Carbon. The rocks that supposedly preceded life have very little carbon.^b One must imagine a strange, almost unreasonably carbon-rich atmosphere to supply the needed carbon.  For comparison, today's atmosphere only holds only 1/30,000th of the carbon that has been on the earth's surface since life first appeared.

 Oxygen. Did the early earth have oxygen in its atmosphere?  If it did, the compounds (called amino acids) needed for life to evolve would have been destroyed by oxidation.  But if there had been no oxygen, there would have been no ozone in the upper atmosphere, since ozone is simply a form of oxygen. Without ozone to shield the earth, the sun's ultraviolet radiation would destroy life.^c The only known way for both ozone and life to be here is for both to come into existence simultaneously—in other words, by creation.

Nitrogen.  Nitrogen is easily absorbed by clay and various rocks.  Had millions of years passed before life evolved, the sediments that preceded life should be filled with nitrogen.  Searches have never located such sediments^d

Basic chemistry does not support the evolution of life.^e

 29. Proteins

Living matter is composed largely of proteins—long chains of amino acids. Since 1930, it has been known that amino acids cannot join together if oxygen is present. In other words, proteins could not have evolved from chance chemical reactions if the atmosphere contained oxygen. However, the chemistry of the earth's rocks, both on land and below ancient seas shows that the earth had oxygen before the earliest fossils formed.^a Even earlier, oxygen would have been produced by solar radiation breaking water vapor apart into oxygen and hydrogen. Then some hydrogen, the lightest of all chemical elements, would have escaped into outer space, leaving behind oxygen.^b

 To form proteins, amino acids must also be highly concentrated. However, the early oceans or atmosphere would have diluted amino acids to the point where the required collisions between them would rarely have occurred. Besides, amino acids do not naturally link up to form proteins. Instead, proteins tend to break down into amino acids.^c Furthermore, the proposed energy sources for forming proteins (the earth's heat, electrical discharges, or the sun's radiation) destroy the protein products thousands of times faster than they could have formed.^d  The many attempts to show how life might have arrived on earth have only demonstrated the futility of the effort, the immense complexity of even the simplest life, and the need for a vast intelligence to precede life.^e

 30. The First Cell

If, despite the virtually impossible odds, proteins arose by chance processes, there is not the remotest reason to believe that they could ever form a membrane-encased, self-reproducing, metabolizing, living cell.^a There is no evidence that there are any stable states between the assumed naturalistic formation of proteins and the formation of the first living cells.  No scientist has ever advanced a testable procedure by which this fantastic jump in complexity could have occurred—even if the entire universe had been filled with proteins.^b

31. Barriers, Buffers, and Chemical Pathways

A typical living cell contains thousands of different chemicals, some acidic, others basic.  Many chemicals would react with others were it not for an intricate system of chemical barriers and buffers.  If living things evolved, these barriers and buffers must have also evolved—but at just the right time to prevent harmful chemical reactions. How could such precise, almost miraculous, events have happened for each of the many millions of species?^a

 All living organisms are maintained by thousands of chemical pathways, each involving a long series of complex chemical reactions. For example, the clotting of blood, which involves twenty to thirty steps, is absolutely vital to help heal a wound.  However, clotting could be fatal, if it happened inside the body.  Omitting one of the many steps, inserting an unwanted step, or altering the timing of a step would probably cause death. If one thing goes wrong, all the other marvelous steps that were performed flawlessly were in vain.  Apparently, these complex pathways were created as an intricate, highly integrated unit.

 32. Genetic Distances

Techniques now exist for measuring the degree of similarity between forms of life. These "genetic distances" are calculated by taking a specific protein and examining the sequence of its components. The fewer changes required to convert a protein of one organism into the corresponding protein of another organism, supposedly the closer their relationship. Similar comparisons can now be made between the genetic material (DNA and RNA) of different organisms.   The results of these studies seriously contradict the theory of evolution^a There is not a trace of evidence at the molecular level for the traditional evolutionary series: simple sea life—-fish-»amphibians-*reptiles—•mammals.^b  Each category of organism appears to be almost equally isolated.^c One computer-based study, using cytochrome c, a protein used in energy production, compared 47 different forms of life. If evolution happened, this study should have found that, for example, the rattlesnake was most closely related to other reptiles.  Instead, based on this one protein, the rattlesnake was most similar to man.^d  Since this study, hundreds of similar contradictions have been discovered.

 33. Genetic Information

The genetic information contained in each cell of the human body is roughly equivalent to a library of 4,000 books^a  The probability that mutations and natural selection produced this vast amount of information, even if matter and life somehow arose, is essentially zero.^b  It would be analogous to continuing the following procedure until 4,000 books have been produced:^c

a.       Start with a meaningful phrase.

b.      Retype the phrase, but make some errors and insert some additional letters.

c.       Examine the new phrase to see if it is meaningful.

d.      If it is, replace the original phrase with it.

e.       Return to step "^b."

To accumulate 4,000 books of meaningful information, this procedure would have to produce the equivalent of far more than 10^40,0000 animal offspring.  (Just to begin to understand how large 10^40.000 is, realize that the visible universe has less than 10⁸⁰ atoms in it.)

 34. DNA Production

To produce DNA, a cell requires more than 75 different types of proteins^a  But these proteins, in turn, are produced only at the direction of DNA.^b  Since each requires the other, a satisfactory explanation for the origin of one must also explain the origin of the other.^c  Apparently, this entire manufacturing system came into existence simultaneously. This implies creation.

 35. Handedness: Left and Right

Genetic material, DNA and RNA, is composed of nucleotides.  In living things, nucleotides are always "right-handed."  (They were initially named "right-handed" because a beam of polarized light passing through them rotated like a right-handed screw.)  Nucleotides rarely form outside of life, but when they do, half are left-handed, and half are right-handed. In other words, nucleotides that might have formed before life appeared on earth would be unsuitable for the evolution of life's genetic material.^a

 Each type of amino acid, when found in nonliving material or when synthesized in the laboratory, comes in two chemically equivalent forms. Half are right-handed and half are left-handed—mirror images of each other. However, the amino acids in life, including plants, animals, bacteria, molds, and even viruses, are essentially all left-handed. No known natural process can isolate either the left-handed or the right-handed variety. The mathematical probability that chance processes could produce merely one tiny protein molecule with only left-handed amino acids is virtually zero.^b

 A similar observation can be made concerning a special class of organic compounds called "sugars."  In living systems, sugars are all right-handed.  Based on our present understanding, natural processes produce equal proportions of left-handed and right-handed sugars. Since the sugars in living things are almost ail right-handed, our present understanding leads to the conclusion that random natural processes did not produce life.

 If any living thing took in (or ate) amino acids or sugars that had the wrong handedness, the organism's body could not process it. Such food would be useless. Since evolution favors slight variations that enhance survivability and produce more offspring, consider just how advantageous a mutation might be that switched (or inverted) a plant's handedness.  "Inverted" (or wrong-handed) trees would proliferate rapidly since they would no longer provide nourishment to bacteria, mold, or termites.   "Inverted" forests would fill the continents. Other "inverted" plants and animals would also benefit and would overwhelm the balance of nature. Why do we not see such species with right-handed amino acids and left-handed sugars?  Similarly, why are there not more poisonous plants? Why doesn't any beneficial mutation permit its carriers to swamp most other species? Apparently, beneficial mutations are rarer than evolutionists believe. (See Mutations on page 6.)

 36. Improbabilities

The simplest conceivable form of life should have at least 600 different protein molecules. The mathematical probability that only one molecule could form by the chance arrangement of the proper sequence of amino acids is far less than 1 in 10^450a~ (The magnitude of the number 10⁴⁵⁰ can begin to be appreciated by realizing that the visible universe is about 10²⁸ inches in diameter.)

 37. Symbiotic Relationships

Many different forms of life are completely dependent upon each other. Examples include fig trees and the fig gall wasp,^a the yucca plant and the yucca moth,^b many parasites and their hosts, and pollen-bearing plants and the honeybee. Even the members of the honeybee family, consisting of the queen, workers, and drones, are interdependent.  If one member of each interdependent group evolved first (such as the plant before the animal, or one member of the honeybee family before the others), it could not have survived. Since all members of the group obviously have survived, they must have come into existence at essentially the same time. In other words, creation.

A few "stem cells" in your bone marrow produce more than 100 billion of these white blood cells a day, plus other types of blood cells. Each white blood cell moves at up to 30 microns (almost half the diameter of a human hair) each minute.  So many white blood cells are in your body that their total distance traveled every day would circle the earth twice. © Boehringer Ingelheim  International GmbH; photo by Lennait Nilsson.

 38. Sexual Reproduction

If sexual reproduction in plants, animals, and humans is a result of evolutionary sequences, an absolutely unbelievable series of chance events must have occurred at each stage.

 a.       The amazingly complex, radically different, yet complementary reproductive systems of the male and female must have completely and independently evolved at each stage at about the same time and place. Just a slight incompleteness in only one of the two would make both reproductive systems useless, and the organism would become extinct.

b.      The physical, chemical, and emotional systems of the male and female would also need to be compatible.

c.       The millions of complex products of the male reproductive system (pollen or sperm) must have an affinity for and a mechanical, chemical,^a and electrical^b compatibility with the eggs of the female reproductive system.

d.      The many intricate processes occurring at the molecular level inside the fertilized egg would have o work with fantastic precision - processes that scientists can only describe in a general sense.

e.       The environment of this fertilized egg, from conception through adulthood and until it also reproduced with another sexually capable adult (who also "accidentally" evolved), would have to be tightly controlled.

f.        This remarkable string of accidents must have spread throughout millions of species.

 Either this series of incredible and complementary events occurred by random, evolutionary processes, or else, an intelligent designer created sexual reproduction. Furthermore, evolutionary theory predicts that nature would elect asexual rather than sexual reproduction.^c But if sexual reproduction (the splitting of an organism into two identical organisms) evolved before sexual reproduction, how did complex sexual diversity arise or survive? Evolution cannot explain it.

 39. Immune Systems

How could immune systems of animals and plants have evolved? Each immune system can recognize invading bacteria, viruses, and toxins.  Each system can quickly mobilize just the right type of defenders to search out and destroy these invaders. Each system has a memory and learns from every attack.

If the many instructions that direct an animal's or plant's immune system were not already programmed into the organism's genetic system when it first appeared on the earth, the first of thousands of potential infections would have destroyed the organism. This would have nullified any rare genetic improvements that might have accumulated.  In other words, the large amount of genetic information governing the immune system could not have accumulated in a slow, evolutionary sense^a Obviously, for the organism to have survived, and this information must have all been there from the beginning. Again, creation.

 

Many bacteria, such as Salmonella, Escherichia coli, and some Streptococci, propel themselves with a type of miniature motor.  Speeds of up to 15 body-lengths per second are achieved." These extremely efficient, reversible motors rotate up to 100,000 revolutions per minute.^d Each shaft rotates a bundle of whiplike flagella that act as a propeller.  The motors, having rotors and stators, are similar in many respects to electrical motors.^e  The electrical charges come from a flow of protons.   Several million dollars per year are being spent, primarily in Japan, trying to learn how these motors work. Since the bacteria can stop, start, and change directions and speeds, they probably have sophisticated sensors, switches, and control mechanisms. All of this is highly miniaturized.   Eight million of these bacterial motors would fit in the cross-sectional area of an average human hair.'  Evolutionary theory teaches that bacteria were one of the first forms of life to evolve, and therefore, they are simple. While bacteria are small, they are not simple.

 41. The Validity of Thought

If life is ultimately the result of random processes or chance, then so is thought.  Your thoughts-including what you are thinking now-would, in the final analysis, be a consequence of a long series of accidents. There- fore, your thoughts would have no validity, including the thought that life is a result of chance, or natural, processes' By destroying the validity of ideas, evolution undercuts even the idea of evolution.

 We have all heard it said that humans use only a small fraction of their mental abilities. If this is true, how could such unused abilities have evolved?  Certainly not by natural selection, since those capabilities are not used.^b