Stephen E. Jones

Creation/Evolution Quotes: Origin of Life #6: Supernatural

Origin of Life #6: Supernatural:

1. Described in terms of the miraculous
• "[A]lmost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it going"
2. Sudden appearance
• "Life arose rapidly, perhaps as soon as the earth cooled down sufficiently to support it"
3. Improbable
• "The origin of life was an almost utterly improbable event with almost impossible odds"
4. Total sequence of steps the problem for evolution
• "The total sequence would challenge our credibility"
5. Supervision needed
• "But how, without supervision, did all the building blocks come together at high enough concentrations in one place and at one time?"
6. Intelligent intervention confirms creation
• "Under the influence of intelligence they are hoping to produce living matter .... This is precisely the supernaturalist point of view"
• "[I]n every origin of life experiment ... the intelligence of the experimenter is involved in such a way as to prejudice the experiment"
• "[P]rebiotic simulation experiments actually owe their success to the ... illegitimate role of the investigator"
• "But all such 'molecules of life' ... [t]heir detection often owes more to the skill of the experimenter"

Origin of Life #6: Supernatural:

1. Described in terms of the miraculous
• "[A]lmost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it going"

"An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it going." (Crick, Francis H.C. [Co- discoverer of the structure of DNA, Nobel laureate 1962, Professor at the Salk Institute, USA], "Life Itself: Its Origin and Nature," Simon & Schuster: New York NY, 1981, p.88). [Top of page]

2. Sudden appearance
• "Life arose rapidly, perhaps as soon as the earth cooled down sufficiently to support it"

"If true monerans were alive 3.4 billion years ago, then the common ancestor of monerans and these newly christened "methanogens" must be considerably more ancient. Since the oldest dated rocks, the Isua Supra-crustals of West Greenland, are 3.8 billion years old, we are left with very little time between the development of suitable conditions for life on the earth's surface and the origin of life itself....In Wald's view ... life is so staggeringly complex that its origin from simple chemicals must have consumed an immense amount of time probably more time than its entire subsequent evolution from DNA molecule to advanced beetles .... Thousands of steps each requiring the one before, each improbable in itself. Only the immensity of time guaranteed the result .... Still, the notion that life has been found in the oldest rocks that could contain evidence of it forces us, I think, to abandon the view of life's slow, steady, and improbable development. Life arose rapidly, perhaps as soon as the earth cooled down sufficiently to support it." (Gould, Stephen J. [Professor of Zoology and Geology, Harvard University, USA], "An Early Start, in "The Panda's Thumb: More Reflections in Natural History," [1980], Penguin: London, 1990, reprint, pp.181-183). [Top of page]

3. Improbable
• "The origin of life was an almost utterly improbable event with almost impossible odds""

"It is still to be demonstrated how these essential molecules, such as haemoglobin, chlorophyll and other proteins and nucleic acids were formed. But even if we were to allow a primeval soup to have existed for the full history of the Earth (4,000-4,500 million years), complex proteins and nucleic-acid molecules could never have been produced by random, chance interactions. However, here are you and I on Earth today. And the evidence of the fossil record shows that some sequence of events of almost zero probability did take place over 3,500 million years ago. Before the event, the chances that it would occur were exceedingly small. What is more, from out understanding of the possible processes leading to the origin of life and the critical part played by living organisms in the development processes, the transition from non-living to living matter probably occurred only once and could have occurred only once. The origin of life was an almost utterly improbable event with almost impossible odds against a chance happening But life did originate. So was it by chance? Or was it by design and control?" (Brooks, Jim [geochemist, former Vice-President, Geological Society], "Origins of Life," Lion: Tring, Hertfordshire UK, 1985, p.87). [Top of page]

4. Total sequence of steps the problem for evolution
• "The total sequence would challenge our credibility"

"Different accounts leading to the origin of the replicator could be constructed, using other experiments published in the literature. Some would be less spectacular than the above one, but all would share the same general defects. Many steps would be required which need different conditions, and therefore different geological locations. The chemicals needed for one step may be ruinous to others. The yields are poor, with many undesired products constituting the bulk of the mixture. It would be necessary to invoke some imagined processes to concentrate the important substances and eliminate the contaminants. The total sequence would challenge our credibility, regardless of the time allotted for the process." (Shapiro, Robert. [Professor of Chemistry, New York University], "Origins: A Skeptic's Guide to the Origin of Life," Summit: New York NY, 1986, p.186). [Top of page]

5. Supervision needed
• "But how, without supervision, did all the building blocks come together at high enough concentrations in one place and at one time?"

"Miller had performed the first prebiotic chemistry experiment He had discovered plausible means whereby the building blocks of proteins might have been formed on the early earth. .... Similar experiments have shown that it is possible (though with much greater difficulty) to form the nucleotide building blocks of DNA RNA, and fatty molecules and hence, through them, the structural material for cellular membranes. Many other small molecular components of organisms have been synthesized abiogenically. But substantial puzzles remain. Robert Shapiro notes in his book Origins: A Skeptic's Guide to the Creation of Life on Earth that even though scientists can show that it is possible to synthesize the various ingredients of life, it is not easy to get them to cohere into a single story. One group of scientists discovers that molecule A can be formed from molecules B and C in a very low yield under a certain set of conditions Then, having shown that it is possible to make A, another group starts with a high concentration of the molecule and shows that by adding D one can form E-again in a very low yield and under quite different conditions. Then another group shows that E, in high concentration can form F under still different conditions. But how, without supervision, did all the building blocks come together at high enough concentrations in one place and at one time to get a metabolism going? Too many scene changes in this theater, argues Shapiro, with no stage manager." (Kauffman, Stuart A. [theoretical biologist, Santa Fe Institute, New Mexico, USA], "At Home in the Universe: The Search for Laws of Self-Organization and Complexity," [1995], Penguin: London, 1996, reprint, p.36) . [Top of page]

6. Intelligent intervention confirms creation
• "Under the influence of intelligence they are hoping to produce living matter .... This is precisely the supernaturalist point of view"

"The scientific materialists are bending all their efforts to demonstrate that, if a reaction leading up to life can take place now, in laboratory reaction vessels, without supernatural aid, then proof positive has been effectively delivered that no supernatural agency was needed to produce life at the beginning, at archebiopoesis. Thus any synthetic, laboratory production of life in the laboratory, under what are presumed to be conditions resembling those on the earth when life arose for the first time, is heralded in many circles as driving the last nail in God's and the supernaturalist's coffins. Who needs God and the supernaturalist position if life on the earth can be effectively accounted for without either? Before accepting this commonly assumed position let us consider the following: Is it not remarkable that this view is not generally recognized for what it is-an absolute contradiction? For all the efforts of the scientific naturalists to prove their point by the above mentioned method only serve, in fact, to verify the correctness of the supernaturalist position. For, is it not true that the scientific materialists are, in their experiment, applying intelligence and thought to the ordering of matter? Under the influence of intelligence they are hoping to produce living matter from its nonliving base. This is precisely the supernaturalist point of view." (Wilder-Smith A.E.*, "The Creation of Life: A Cybernetic Approach to Evolution," T.W.F.T. Publishers: Costa Mesa CA, 1988, pp.xix-xx). [Top of page]

• "[I]n every origin of life experiment ... the intelligence of the experimenter is involved in such a way as to prejudice the experiment"

"One clear message should emerge from this discussion. A variety of results may be possible from the same general type of experiment. The experimenter, by manipulating apparently unimportant variables, can affect the outcome profoundly. The data that he reports may be valid, but if only these results are communicated, a false impression may arise concerning the universality of the process. This situation was noticed by a Creationist writer, Martin Lubenow ["From Fish To Gish," 1983, pp.168-169], who commented: `I am convinced that in every origin of life experiment devised by evolutionists, the intelligence of the experimenter is involved in such a way as to prejudice the experiment.'" " (Shapiro, Robert D. [Professor of Chemistry, New York University], "Origins: A Skeptic's Guide to the Origin of Life," Summit: New York NY, 1986, p.103) [Top of page]

• "[P]rebiotic simulation experiments actually owe their success to the ... illegitimate role of the investigator"

"Over the years a slowly emerging line or boundary has appeared which shows observationally the limits of what can be expected from matter and energy left to themselves, and what can be accomplished only through what Michael Polanyi has called "a profoundly informative intervention." (Polanyi M., "Life Transcending Physics and Chemistry", Chemical Engineering News, August 21, 1967, p54). When it is acknowledged that most so-called prebiotic simulation experiments actually owe their success to the crucial but illegitimate role of the investigator, a new and fresh phase of the experimental approach to life's origin can then be entered. Until then however, the literature of chemical evolution will probably continue to be dominated by reports of experiments in which the investigator, like a metabolizing Maxwell Demon, will have performed work on the system through intelligent, exogenous intervention. Such work establishes experimental boundary conditions, and imposes intelligent influence/control over a supposedly "prebiotic" earth. As long as this informative interference of the investigator is ignored, the illusion of prebiotic simulation will be fostered. We would predict that this practice will prove to be a barrier to solving the mystery of life's origin." (Thaxton, Charles B. [Chemist, Visiting Assistant Professor, Charles University Prague, Czech Republic], Bradley, Walter L. [Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Texas A&M University] & Olsen, Roger L. [Geochemist], "The Mystery of Life's Origin: Reassessing Current Theories," [1984], Lewis & Stanley: Dallas TX, 1992, Second Printing, p.185. Emphasis in original.) [Top of page]

• "But all such 'molecules of life' ... [t]heir detection often owes more to the skill of the experimenter"

"It is true that some of the simpler amino acids have been found in complex mixtures generated under conditions simulating those that might have been present on the primitive Earth. Even nucleotide letters have been found in mixtures that are said to be plausible simulations of probiotic products. But all such 'molecules of life' are always minority products and usually no more than trace products. Their detection often owes more to the skill of the experimenter than to any powerful tendency for the 'molecules of life' to form." (Cairns-Smith, A. Graham, [Reader in Chemistry, University of Glasgow], "Seven Clues to the Origin of Life: A Scientific Detective Story," Cambridge University Press: Cambridge UK, 1993, reprint, pp.44-45). [Top of page]

* Authors with an asterisk against their name are believed to be creationists.

This page has been accessed times.