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In 1953, Dr. Stanley Miller, an American biochemist, claimed he has tested a theory of life's origins on earth by circulating a mixture of heated gases which contained methane, ammonia, water vapor, and hydrogen through an electrical discharge chamber to duplicate primeval ocean-atmosphere condition. After condensation, each cycle produced a minute amount of liquid, which was collected at a trap at the bottom of the apparatus. It took a week to accumulate enough material for measurement. The final mixture contained amino acids and other compounds.
From then on, in many documents, textbooks, and encyclopedias; life is claimed to be very close to be produced. People are convinced that life can be produced from non-living chemicals, mankind is the end-product of these amino acids, through evolution.
As a matter of fact, this experiment was not any close to the production of life at all. It is an scientific observation that some simple forms of amino acids were made, and this experiment can be repeated, but any statement to imply that this can conclude life's origins, is deceptive and most absurd.
Human body has an estimated of 30 000 different proteins, and more than 50% of the dry weight of animals is made up of protein. Each protein molecule is composed of at least 20 different amino acid units, in a chain and coiling pattern. There are about 150 amino acids found in nature, only twenty of them are called standard amino acids, because they serve as building blocks of protein.
Amino acids, are in turn, composed of amino (--NH4) and carboxyl (--COOH) groups, they attach to a single carbon atom. A variable group of molecules also attach to this carbon atom to become different kinds of amino acids.
Proteins are very complex in structure and function. They make organs, brain, muscle, bone, skin, hair, nails, vessels, blood cells, hormones, enzymes, antibodies.
Each protein is formed according to a precise set of information contained in the nucleic acid, which is the genetic material of the cell. These instructions determine which of the 20 standard amino acids are to be incorporated and in what sequence. The right kind of cells will grow in the right place with the right size, right shape and for the right function. The liver cells will not be formed in lungs, nor the bone cells in hearts. More than this, the hereditary characteristics can be passed onto the next generation by forming the specific kinds of proteins.
Now with these basics, we can understand Dr. Miller's experiment better. There are certainly many dilemmas in his abiogenesis (living forms originate from non-living substance) laboratory experiment, and we going to discuss them:
Dr. Miller placed methane(CH4), nitrogen(N2), ammonia(NH4), hydrogen(H2), and water vapor in an confined environment to duplicate the primeval atmosphere. However the today's atmosphere contains 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen, 0.9% argon, 0.03% carbon dioxide, trace amount of hydrogen, methane, carbon monoxide, water vapor etc. We can see there is a huge difference between these two sets of gas mixture.
Dr. Miller argued the primeval atmosphere was an reducing one, which means there was no oxygen. However, this was not supported by the geologic findings, rocks that were claimed to be billions years old by the evolutionists, have free oxygen in them. No evidence of an ammonia-methane-hydrogen type of reduction atmosphere has ever been found in any geologic formation.
The reason Dr. Miller avoided putting oxygen in his experiment, is the oxygen would have easily oxidized all the amino acid produced. More than that, even the building blocks of amino acids would also be destroyed. Even renown evolutionist admitted that "as soon as the laboratory condition becomes oxidizing, the organic syntheses effectively turn off"(C. Sagan 1968). However if there was no oxygen, there would not be an ozone, the heat and the ultraviolet light would have no problem in destroying any amino acids at all. Oxygen can protect the products by shielding off the harmful radiation and heat, yet it disintegrate the products at the very same time. So we can see, no matter with or without oxygen in the natural world; there is no chance for abiogenesis.
Dr. Miller has so to design his lab work that the products were not returning to the cycle but went into a trap. It is because the repeated electrical discharges, the heat which required in the reaction would have disintegrated the amino acids. Heat is needed for the reaction, yet it destroy the end-products at the same time. Outside Dr. Miller 's laboratory, there is no such a trap to shelter the amino acids.
The amino acids produced in Dr. Miller's experiment, joined up at the wrong locations. So they were dead end products and would not form protein .
Like our two hands, amino acids have the varieties of left-handed and right-handed, they are symmetric and not identical. When they meet, they will react with each other and will not line up to form protein molecule. ALL the creatures i.e. animals and plants, have 100% left-handed amino acids in their protein molecule. In non-living substances, these two varieties of amino acids exist equally. In Dr. Miller's experiment, left-handed and right-handed amino acids were equal in quantity. There would not be any chance for these amino acids to form protein, no matter in the natural or in the controlled enviroment.
We can look at this statistics (F. Salisbury):
Any chances less than 10-170 lose its meaning, because it is considered to be zero. It is a poor hypothesis that if enough time is given to a system, it is going to end up in something productive. Not close to the truth at all, no law of chemistry and physics supports this. The second law of thermodynamics states the opposite truth: The universe is constantly getting more disorderly (Asimov 1970). No matter how much time is given to a pile of wood, or a piece of iron, the result is nothing but rotten wood and rusty iron. No matter how much time the monkeys play with ink and paper, there will not be a properly written book. The information of that book is not contained in the ink and paper, but the arrangement of the ink on the paper, which takes the intervention of a source of intelligence.
In one single cell, the energy required to form a DNA molecule with 4 million nucleotides needs 30 200 000 kcal/mole. For each mole of molecules, it is thermodynamically equivalent to having your bathtub spontaneously heated up tp 360 C. Even there is enough energy or heat to perform this chemical reaction, they in return will destroy or burn off the products at the same time. However, the DNA in our body carries information as much as 1000 books, 500 pages each, with smallest readable print. The information contains in this series of books cannot obtain from an explosion in a print shop, because information requires intelligence. It is also a misconception that energy can replace information. You cannot manufacture a Boeing jet by setting a bomb in the middle of a pile of metal, nor a camera by smashing or muddling around a pile of steel and lenses. Only when the source of energy, with purposeful and intellectual directions, can turn material into a meaningful product.
According to the assumption of evolution, these amino acids are supposed to form in the ocean, vaporize into the sky with water to become cloud, then they scatter all over the globe in the form of rain. However, even if this is true - up to 99% of the amino acids would be destroyed by the UV light, other chemical reactions etc. This would leave behind the concentration of amino acid as low as 10-24 mole in the soup, which is too weak for any biochemical reactions.
Proteins are extremely complex in their structure and function, and all are very sensitive to light, heat and pH value. There is no chance for them to sustain, and they would inevitably be destroyed.
Character of life in biology consists of:
- able to get energy and material from the environment,
- able to self repair,
- able to self-produce.
To fabricate certain simple dead-end amino products in the laboratory is just too far away from producing life. Amino acids are almost infinitely less complex than the simplest protein molecule. The protozoa, the simplest living system, are composed of great numbers of highly organized, specially functioning enzymes and proteins of many complex forms.
Let the Law of chemistry and physics speak. Then the most scientific statement is "In the beginning God created..."( Genesis 1:1)
Reference:
- Girouard, Michael. Is Life Just Chemistry? Institue of Creation
Research, California. 1993.
- Henry Morris M. The Biblical Basis for Modern Science. Baker,
Michigan. 1988.
