What About Origins? (CreationPoints)

by Dr A J Monty White

  A similar result on the hypothesis that the origin of life originated by chance is obtained by the use of information theory. Information theory is the quantitive study of the transmission of information. In an article entitled ‘Reflections of a Communication Engineer’, Marcel Golay wrote,

  Suppose we wanted to build a machine capable of reaching into bins for all of its parts, and capable of assembling from these parts a second machine, just like itself. What is the minimum amount of structure or information which should be built into the first machine? The answer came out to be of the order of 1500 bits—1500 choices between alternatives which the machine should be able to decide. This answer is very suggestive, because 1500 bits happens to be also the order of magnitude of the amount of structure contained in the simplest large protein molecule which, immersed in a bath of nutrients, can induce the assembly of these nutrients into another large protein molecule like itself, and then separate itself from it. That is what the process called life consists of, and unless and until we discover a new process in which simpler molecules have semi-life properties, the inquiry into the birth of life can be reduced to an inquiry into the possibility or probability of the spontaneous assembly of such a molecule, out of a bath of its essential constituents.9

  Golay then went on to show that, by making the most favourable assumptions regarding the conditions under which the spontaneous generation of life is thought to have occurred, the chemical evolutionist can only account for 150 of the 1,500 bits. These bits can be represented numerically as 2150 and 21500 respectively. The number 2150 is 10450 (that is, the figure 1 followed by 450 zeros). Even when this number is divided by the number of stars in the universe (1022), which is the number of the potential solar systems, the number obtained is 10428 (that is, the figure 1 followed by 428 zeros). Hence, by applying information theory to chemical evolution, it can be seen that the chance of life originating spontaneously anywhere in the universe is in the order of 10428 to 1 against. This number is again, to all intents and purposes, zero.

  Calculations such as these show that the probability of life having originated by chance is virtually zero. Evolutionists, however, argue that, since we are here, it must have happened in the way they propose, no matter how small the probability. It is my strong conviction that chemical evolutionists cling to chance random processes as the mechanism whereby life originated because the idea of an Almighty God who is the Creator of life is repugnant to them.

  Is God left-handed?

  Chemical evolutionists are confronted not only with the problems arising from the proposed composition of the earth’s pre-biotic atmosphere, but also with the problem that such a proposed composition would ensure that an infinite number of amino acids would have formed. Yet only twenty amino acids are found as the basic building blocks of the naturally occurring proteins. Chemical evolutionists have no adequate explanations as to why only these twenty are found.

  There is yet another problem that faces chemical evolutionists as they consider these twenty amino acids that are used as the basic building blocks of naturally occurring proteins. This problem is known as ‘chirality’. Every amino acid (except glycine) found in the proteins that exist in living organisms can exist in two forms, each one being the mirror image of the other. These two forms have the same relationship to each other that the right hand has to the left hand—they are mirror images that cannot be superimposed. As they have the same spatial relationship as hands, one is arbitrarily called ‘right-handed’ or ‘D’ (from the Latin dexter meaning ‘right’) and the other ‘left-handed’ or ‘L’ (from the Latin laevus meaning ‘left’). This classification is purely spatial, for the two forms are indistinguishable, having exactly the same chemical composition and properties, and exactly the same physical properties, such as melting point and solubility.

  It has been found, however, that all the amino acids that are found in the proteins that exist in living organisms are of the L, or left-handed, variety. The D, or right-handed, amino acids are not found in living systems. This has actually caused some to wonder whether God is left-handed!10 This use of L amino acids in the proteins found in living systems is a problem to chemical evolutionists, because the formation of the amino acids from inorganic substances in laboratory experiments always produces both D and L forms of amino acids in equal proportions. Hence the hypothetical primeval soup would have contained both the D and L forms of amino acids in equal proportions. Chemical evolutionists are unable to explain why it is that only the L form of amino acids is found in the proteins of living organisms. They cannot envisage a mechanism whereby only L amino acids are ‘used’ for protein synthesis in preference to the D forms. As the D and L forms would have been present in equal proportions in the hypothetical primeval soup, both forms should be found in proteins, but they are not—only the L forms are present.

  The form of amino acids used in protein synthesis also determines the overall shape of the protein. Naturally-occurring proteins exist as an α-helix. This is because the L forms of amino acids are used to build the protein. If only D forms were used, the protein would be the mirror image of the one containing only L forms. If D and L forms were linked up randomly, the protein would have no helical shape and would exist as a long ‘floppy’ chain. Again, chemical evolutionists are unable to explain why such floppy-chain proteins are not found in nature, as they should be if chemical evolution occurred.

  To complicate matters even further, chemical evolutionists must also explain why it is only the D forms of the nucleic-acid sugars (ribose and deoxyribose) that are found in living organisms. If chemical evolution occurred, both the D and L forms of the nucleic-acid sugars should be found in living systems, because both forms would have been formed in the hypothetical primeval soup. But the L forms are conspicuously absent. If the L forms were found in equal proportion to the D forms (as one would expect if living systems evolved from the chemical evolutionists’ hypothetical primeval soup, which would have contained the D and the L forms in equal proportions), the structure of DNA, for example, would not have the beautiful double-helix structure that it has, but would be irregular. If it had such an irregular structure, it would not be able to self-replicate as it does.

  It has been suggested that the specific ‘handedness’ of the amino acids in living proteins is due to the fact that the first proteins that were used in living systems formed on clays. The reason for this is that experiments performed in the laboratory using clays as a medium for the synthesis of proteins from 50/50 left-/right-handed amino acids have shown a slight predisposition (or bias) towards the left-handed amino acids being used to form the proteins. However, even if modern clays (like those used in laboratory experiments) do have such a bias towards one form of handedness over another, this is due to the contamination by optically active biomolecules produced by living systems that are alive today, and also by life forms that lived in the past (when the clay was forming). This would mean that clays that existed before there was life on the earth would not have had the bias that is observed in the laboratory experiments.

  There is, in fact, no structural reason for selecting organic compounds of one type of ‘handedness’ rather than the other. Nor is there any convincing argument that explains why all amino acids in proteins have the same configuration. Nor is there any explanation for the fact that it is only the D forms of naturally occurring sugars that are found in living organisms. Nor is it understood why L amino acids, rather than D amino acids, are associated with D nucleic-acid sugars. Perhaps the fact that only the L forms of amino acids and the D forms of nucleic-acid sugars are found in living organisms means that God is not left-handed at all—maybe it shows that he is ambidextrous!

  Monkeys and typewriters

  Before we look at the results of the experiments performed by our simian friends on computer keyboards, let us remind ourselves that the chemical instructions for the construction of a human being exist in every fertilized egg. The amount of information in the chromosomes o
f a fertilized human egg is equivalent to a library of about 5,520 books, each 250 pages long (assuming about 350 words per page). Thus each human male’s sperm and each human female’s ovum functions like a miniaturized library filled with written chemical instructions to build a human being. In fact, every fertilized egg of any living organism (plant or animal) contains the chemical instructions to construct that particular living organism.

  For evolutionists, this chemical writing on the genes is no proof at all that it has been written, designed or developed by a Creator. For them, the laws of nature and the properties of matter wrote and ‘designed’ everything—a Creator had nothing at all to do with it whatsoever! Creationists are considered to be naïve, believing, as they do, in a Divine Author of this chemical writing on the genes. The evolutionists attribute this writing to purely random factors; chance and the laws of nature are considered to be the final cause of the entire genetic code and its chemical projects (that is, living organisms). For them, the entire genetic mechanism, as well as its contents, simply developed because of the laws of nature. For them, the genetic language, with all its grammar and correction mechanisms, developed merely by chance. For them, the chemical instructions to construct eyes, ears, brains, hearts, livers, kidneys, hair, bones, muscles, skin and so on (and the instructions to put them together in an ordered fashion and to make them function in and as a body) developed by purely random processes.

  Evolutionists also tell us that chance was sorted by natural selection. It should be noted, however, that natural selection itself can create nothing—it can only sort out that which has supposedly been provided by random natural processes. Yet, in spite of this, belief in a constructive Creator of the body parts found in organisms and the information and code involved with their making and functioning is considered to be totally superfluous by evolutionists. The sugars, the phosphates and the four bases that are the building blocks of DNA (guanine, thymine, cytosine and adenine) supposedly formed the DNA molecule (in helical form) under the influence of the laws of nature present in all matter. At the same time—or with time—the grammar and punctuation of the genetic language is supposed to have developed randomly, guided by the same laws of nature.

  Chance and the laws of nature then supposedly provided plans for organs such as eyes, ears, brains (which can be considered as electronically based computers with millions of switching mechanisms to provide intelligence, consciousness and memory); for hearts (which are capable of pumping blood continuously for periods exceeding seventy years, while simultaneously undergoing repair processes); for livers; for kidneys; for hair, bones, muscles, skin and so on. Additionally, these chance processes are said to have provided plans for nerve endings to equip organisms with taste and sensation such as touch; for tongues and vocal chords to speak (plus a mini-computer to control the tongue and coordinate speech); for cells that produce blood; for digestive systems, which at a slightly elevated temperature break down food (which can be considered to be fats, carbohydrates and proteins) into their constituents; for repair mechanisms to heal wounds—in brief, all the know-how to produce and maintain a complex living organism. All this, according to evolutionists, developed by itself through purely random processes.

  Now, if this is so, the laws of thermodynamics must be in error. These laws show that matter has neither project-content nor teleology—that is, a goal-directed activity. Because humans, animals and plants are biological machines built by means of a programmed language, the questions that we must ask are: If matter is agitated, will it build a machine? Can chance alone plan and construct a machine? Can randomness devise a meaningful language? Can chance, collaborating with the non-teleological laws of nature, have built any teleological machine or programme?

  In reality, evolutionists are asking us to believe that the paper on which the text of a book is written developed not only the language in which the book is written, but also all its concepts, ideas, and thoughts—in other words, that the paper wrote the entire book! Creationists, on the other hand, believe in an Author who wrote the book of life—just as any other book, without exception, has been written by an author and not by the paper on which it is written! Life consists of various genetic books—a different genetic book for each kind of life. Although the genetic language (the genetic code) is identical in all forms of life, the content varies according to the kind of life. This explains the fact that, although organisms as different as daffodils, lettuces, mice, chimpanzees and humans have the same genetic code, they differ from one another genetically. Humans and chimpanzees share 96 per cent of their genes; humans and mice 80 per cent; humans and lettuce 40 per cent; and humans and daffodils 35 per cent (that’s one for all us Welsh people to contemplate). Both similarities and differences in these organisms can be explained because the genetic language is identical in all these organisms but the content varies, according to the kind of life. This does not prove evolution; rather it points to a Creator who always employed the same language to store and realize his ideas, projects and life concepts. Creationists therefore regard their belief in a Creator to be rational and also experimentally justifiable.

  From a study of the information found in DNA, Dr Werner Gitt, an expert in information systems, has concluded that both chemical and biological evolution is false. His arguments and logical deductions can be summarized as follows:

  Since the DNA code has all the essential characteristics of information, there must have been a sender of this information.

  Since the density and complexity of the DNA information is millions of times greater than man’s present technology, the sender must be supremely intelligent.

  Since the sender must have encoded (stored) the information into the DNA molecule and constructed the molecular biomachines to encode, decode and run the cells, the sender must be purposeful and supremely powerful.

  Since information is a nonmaterial entity and cannot originate from matter, the sender must have a nonmaterial component (spirit).

  Since information cannot originate from matter and is also created by man, man’s nature must have a nonmaterial component (spirit).

  Since biological information can only originate from an intelligent sender and all theories of chemical and biological evolution are based on the premise that information comes solely from matter and energy (with no sender), then the theories of chemical and biological evolution are false.11

  As we can see, Dr Gitt’s study of the information found in DNA not only shows that chemical evolution is unscientific, but it also leads inevitably to the conclusion that there is a Creator God.

  The fundamental question that arises is: Where did the information that is found in living organisms come from? The evolutionists’ stock answer is, as we have seen, that it originated by chance. ‘Darwin’s Bulldog’, Thomas Huxley, is often misquoted as having said that, if an infinite number of monkeys tapped away at an infinite number of typewriters, they would eventually produce the complete works of Shakespeare.12 In order to investigate this hypothesis, students from the University of Plymouth put a computer keyboard in the macaques’ enclosure at Paignton Zoo in Devon and let the six inhabitants tap away to their hearts’ content. The result of the month-long experiment was that, not only did the monkeys fail to produce one of the Bard’s plays, neither did they write a single proper word!13 It could be argued that chemical evolutionists are straining at monkeys and swallowing typewriters (see Matt. 23:24).

  Junk yards and jumbo jets

  Although I do not agree with all the conclusions reached by E. K. Victor Pearce in his book Who was Adam?, he does describe a very amusing analogy that reflects some of the arguments used by chemical evolutionists in their explanation of the origin of life:

  When the Melanesian New Stone Age natives were discovered this century [the author is referring to the twentieth century] the natives debated the origin of the white man’s goods and aeroplanes. Some tribes were unwilling to believe that the white man had manufactured them in his own factories. T
hey had never seen a factory, so why believe in them? They were also unwilling to think that the white man had outwitted the spirits of their ancestors.

  Eventually they hit upon an amusing explanation called ‘Cargo’, as we shall see, but in order to illustrate our points we shall imagine a conversation which might have ensued between a native and a white man. If the analogy seems ludicrous it should be remembered that it reflects the arguments of some ‘Origin of Life’ biologists, but stripped of their technical language, which can often hide fallacies. It is also relevant because we now know that the mechanism of life is made of non-living crystals.

  A native stands before the airliner—a native who has only recently been introduced to metals and smelting. The white man, impatient at the native’s refusal to believe in the white man’s aeroplane factories, ironically dismisses the native’s curiosity by saying, ‘This is how the airliner originated. One day there was a terrific thunderstorm. Lightning played upon ore-bearing rocks, and fused the various ores into lumps of molten iron, copper and bauxite. Again the lightning struck before the metals had cooled, so that the metals formed themselves into patterns inherent in their atomic particles. This resulted in simple components being formed—nuts, bolts, aluminium plates etc. Again the lightning struck and formed more complex components—cylinder heads, pistons, rings, wires (ready insulated), turbines, blades, propeller parts, wheels, and melted some rubber trees into tyres and left all these in a heap.