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THE MOLECULAR IMPASSE OF EVOLUTION
In previous sections of this book, we have related how the fossil record
invalidates the theory of evolution. In point of fact we need not have
related any of that, because the theory of evolution collapses long before
one gets to any claims about the "evolution of species" and the evidence
of fossils. The subject that renders the theory meaningless from the very
outset is the question of how life first appeared on earth.
When it addresses this question, evolutionary theory claims that life
started with a cell that formed by chance. According to the scenario,
four billion years ago various inorganic chemical compounds underwent
a reaction in the primordial earth atmosphere in which the effects of
thunderbolts and pressure caused them to form the first living cell.
The first thing that must be said is that the claim that inorganic materials
can come together to form life is an unscientific one that is not verified
by any experiment or observation so far. Life only generates from life.
Each living cell is formed by the replication of another cell. No one
in the world has ever succeeded in forming a living cell by bringing inorganic
materials together, not even in the most advanced laboratories.
The theory of evolution claims that the cell of a living being, which
cannot be produced even when all the power of the human intellect, knowledge
and technology are brought to bear nevertheless managed to form by chance
under primordial earth conditions. In the following pages, we will examine
why this claim is contrary to the most basic principles of science and
reason.
Can Life Result from Coincidences as Evolution Argues?
The theory of evolution holds that life started with a cell that formed
by chance under primitive earth conditions. Let us therefore examine the
composition of the cell with simple comparisons in order to show how irrational
it is to ascribe the existence of the cell - a structure which still maintains
its mystery in many respects, even at a time when we have just set foot
in the 21st century - to natural phenomena and coincidences.
With all its operational systems, systems of communication, transportation
and management, a cell is no less complex than any city. It contains power
stations producing the energy consumed by the cell, factories manufacturing
the enzymes and hormones essential for life, a databank where all necessary
information about all products to be produced is recorded, complex transportation
systems and pipelines for carrying raw materials and products from one
place to another, advanced laboratories and refineries for breaking down
imported raw materials into their usable parts, and specialised cell membrane
proteins for the control of incoming and outgoing materials. These constitute
only a small part of this incredibly complex system.
With all its operational systems, systems of communication, transportation
and management, a cell is no less complex than any city. |
Far from being formed under primitive earth conditions, the cell, which
in its composition and mechanisms is so complex, cannot be synthesised
in even the most sophisticated laboratories of our day. Even with the
use of amino acids, the building blocks of the cell, it is not possible
to produce so much as a single organelle of the cell, such as mitochondria
or ribosome, much less a whole cell. The first cell claimed to have been
produced by evolutionary coincidence is as much a figment of the imagination
and a product of fantasy as the unicorn.
The English mathematician and astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle
made a similar comparison in one of his interviews published in Nature
magazine dated November 12, 1981. Although an evolutionist himself, Hoyle
expressed that the chance that higher life forms might have emerged in
this way is comparable with the chance that a tornado sweeping through
a junk-yard might assemble a Boeing 747 from the materials therein.53
This means that it is not possible for the cell to come into being
by coincidence and therefore, it definitely should have been "created".
Proteins Challenge Coincidence
And it is not just the cell that cannot be produced: the formation, under
natural conditions, of even a single protein of the thousands of complex
protein molecules making up a cell is impossible.
Proteins are giant molecules consisting of amino acids arranged in a
particular sequence in certain quantities and structures. These molecules
constitute the building blocks of a living cell. The simplest is composed
of 50 amino acids; but there are some proteins that are composed of thousands
of amino acids. The absence, addition, or replacement of a single amino
acid in the structure of a protein in living cells, each of which has
a particular function, causes the protein to become a useless molecular
heap. Incapable of demonstrating the "accidental formation" of amino acids,
the theory of evolution founders on the point of the formation of proteins.
 |
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| Computer
simulations of two different complex protein molecules that are
vital for life. On the left is the protein of "acetylcholinesterase"
that functions with the acetylcholine enzyme supplying the electrical
transmission between nerves. When this protein is deficient, the
nerve system cannot function and the organism dies. On the right
is another protein molecule called "acetylcoabinding". |
We can easily demonstrate, with simple probability calculations anybody
can understand, that the functional structure of proteins can by no means
come about by chance.
There are twenty different amino acids. If we consider that an average-sized
protein molecule is composed of 288 amino acids, there are 10300 different
combinations of acids. Of all of these possible sequences, only "one"
forms the desired protein molecule. The other amino-acid chains are either
completely useless or else potentially harmful to living things. In other
words, the probability of the coincidental formation of only one protein
molecule cited above is "1 in 10300". The probability of this "1" occurring
out of an "astronomical" number consisting of 1 followed by 300 zeros
is for all practical purposes zero; it is impossible. Furthermore, a protein
molecule of 288 amino acids is rather a modest one compared with some
giant protein molecules consisting of thousands of amino acids. When we
apply similar probability calculations to these giant protein molecules,
we see that even the word "impossible" becomes inadequate.
The same fact is confessed by many evolutionists. For
example, Harold F. Blum, a famous evolutionist scientist states that
"the spontaneous formation of a polypeptide of the size of the smallest
known proteins seems beyond all probability."54
Evolutionists claim that molecular evolution took place
within a very long period of time and that this long period made the impossible
possible. Nevertheless, no matter how long the given period may be, it
is not possible for amino acids to form proteins by chance. William Stokes,
an American geologist, admits this fact in his book Essentials of Earth
History writing that this chance is so small "that it (protein) would
not occur during billions of years on billions of planets, each covered
by a blanket of concentrated watery solution of the necessary amino acids."55
So what does all this mean? Perry Reeves, a professor of chemistry, answers
this question:
When one examines the vast number of possible structures
that could result from a simple random combination of amino acids in an
evaporating primordial pond, it is mind-boggling to believe that life
could have originated in this way. It is more plausible that a Great
Builder with a master plan would be required for such a task.56
If the coincidental formation of even one of these proteins is impossible,
it is billions of times more impossible for about one million of those
proteins to come together properly by chance and make up a complete human
cell. What is more, a cell is at no time composed of a mere protein heap.
In addition to the proteins, a cell also includes nucleic acids, carbohydrates,
lipids, vitamins, and many other chemicals like electrolytes arranged
in a specific proportion, harmony, and design in terms of both structure
and function. Each of them functions as a building block or co-molecule
in various organelles.
Robert Shapiro, a professor of chemistry at New York
University and a DNA expert, calculated the probability of the coincidental
formation of the 2000 types of proteins found in a single bacteria (There
are 200,000 different types of proteins in a human cell). The number that
was found was 1 over 1040000.57 (This is an incredible
number obtained by putting 40,000 zeros next to 1)
A professor of applied mathematics and astronomy from University College
(Cardiff, Wales), Chandra Wickramasinghe, comments:
The likelihood of the spontaneous formation of life
from inanimate matter is one to a number with 40,000 noughts after it...
It is big enough to bury Darwin and the whole theory of evolution. There
was no primeval soup, neither on this planet nor on any other, and if
the beginnings of life were not random, they must therefore have
been the product of purposeful intelligence.58
Sir Fred Hoyle comments on these implausible numbers:
Indeed, such a theory (that life was assembled by an
intelligence) is so obvious that one wonders why it is not widely accepted
as being self-evident. The reasons are psychological rather than scientific.59
The reason Hoyle used the term "psychological" is the self-conditioning
of evolutionists not to accept that life could have been created. These
people have determined the rejection of Allah's existence as their main
target. For this reason alone, they go on defending unreasonable scenarios
which they also acknowledge to be impossible.
The Failure of Evolutionary Scenarios on the Origin of
Life
The theory of evolution faces no greater crisis than on the point of
explaining the emergence of life. The reason is that organic molecules
are so complex that their origin cannot possibly be explained as being
coincidental and it is manifestly impossible for an organic cell to have
been formed by chance.
Evolutionists confronted the question of the origin of life in the second
quarter of the 20th century. One of the leading authorities of the theory
of molecular evolution, the Russian evolutionist Alexander I. Oparin,
said this in his book The Origin of Life, which was published in 1936:
Unfortunately, the origin of the cell remains a question
which is actually the darkest point of the complete evolution theory.60
Since Oparin, evolutionists have performed countless experiments, conducted
research, and made observations to prove that a cell could have been formed
by chance. However, every such attempt only made clearer the complex design
of the cell and thus refuted the evolutionists' hypotheses even more.
Stanley Miller's experiment of 1953 was once regarded as an evidence for
evolution in the molecular level, but after the 1970's, the Miller experiment
and similar evolutionary studies lost all their credibility due to the
findings about the early athmosphere. It was discovered that the early
atmosphere was very unsupportive of the formation of organic molecules.
In a 1988 article, Professor Klaus Dose, the president of the Institute
of Biochemistry at the University of Johannes Gutenberg, stated:
More than 30 years of experimentation on the origin
of life in the fields of chemical and molecular evolution have led to
a better perception of the immensity of the problem of the origin of life
on Earth rather than to its solution. At present all discussions on principal
theories and experiments in the field either end in stalemate or in a
confession of ignorance.61
In a 1998 article, a statement came from the the renowned evolutionary
geochemist Jeffrey Bada of the San Diego Scripps Institute, which summarized
the Darwinist failure on the origin of life:
Today as we leave the twentieth century, we still face
the biggest unsolved problem that we had when we entered the twentieth
century: How did life originate on Earth?62
What evolutionists are trying to do is to display that life can randomly
arise from non-living matter. But all experiments and research indicate
that this is only a fantasy which has no reality in the real world. Evolutionist
biologist Andrew Scott admits the same fact:
Take some matter, heat while stirring and wait. That
is the modern version of Genesis. The 'fundamental' forces of gravity,
electromagnetism and the strong and weak nuclear forces are presumed to
have done the rest... But how much of this neat tale is firmly established,
and how much remains hopeful speculation? In truth, the mechanism of almost
every major step, from chemical precursors up to the first recognizable
cells, is the subject of either controversy or complete bewilderment.63
In fact, all studies in the subject point to the same law: Life only
comes from life. This simply means that the first life on Earth has been
originated by Allah.
The Miraculous Molecule: DNA
The theory of evolution has been unable to provide a coherent explanation
for the origin of the molecules that are the basis of the cell. Furthermore,
developments in the science of genetics and the discovery of the nucleic
acids (DNA and RNA) have produced brand-new problems for the theory of
evolution.
In 1955, the work of two scientists on DNA, James Watson and Francis
Crick, launched a new era in biology. Many scientists directed their attention
to the science of genetics. Today, after years of research, scientists
have largely mapped the structure of DNA.
Here, we need to give some very basic information on the structure and
function of DNA:
The molecule called DNA, which is found in the nucleus of each of the
100 trillion cells in our body, contains the complete construction plan
of the human body. Information regarding all the characteristics of a
person, from the physical appearance to the structure of the inner organs,
is recorded in DNA by means of a special coding system. The information
in DNA is coded within the sequence of four special bases that make up
this molecule. These bases are specified as A, T, G, and C according to
the initial letters of their names. All the structural differences among
people depend on the variations in the sequence of these bases. There
are approximately 3.5 billion nucleotides, that is, 3.5 billion letters
in a DNA molecule.
The DNA data pertaining to a particular organ or protein is included
in special components called "genes". For instance, information about
the eye exists in a series of special genes, whereas information about
the heart exists in quite another series of genes. The cell produces proteins
by using the information in all of these genes. Amino acids that constitute
the structure of the protein are defined by the sequential arrangement
of three nucleotides in the DNA.
At this point, there is an important detail that deserves attention.
An error in the sequence of nucleotides making up a gene would render
the gene completely useless. When we consider that there are 200 thousand
genes in the human body, it becomes more evident how impossible it is
for the millions of nucleotides making up these genes to be formed by
accident in the right sequence. An evolutionist biologist, Frank Salisbury,
comments on this impossibility by saying:
A medium protein might include about 300 amino acids.
The DNA gene controlling this would have about 1,000 nucleotides in its
chain. Since there are four kinds of nucleotides in a DNA chain, one consisting
of 1,000 links could exist in 41000 forms. Using a little algebra (logarithms),
we can see that 41000=10600. Ten multiplied by itself 600 times gives
the figure 1 followed by 600 zeros! This number is completely beyond our
comprehension.64
The number 41000 is equivalent to 10600. We obtain this number by adding
600 zeros to 1. As 10 with 11 zeros indicates a trillion, a figure with
600 zeros is indeed a number that is difficult to grasp.
Evolutionist Prof. Ali Demirsoy was forced to make the following admission
on this issue:
In fact, the probability of the random formation of
a protein and a nucleic acid (DNA-RNA) is inconceivably small. The chances
against the emergence of even a particular protein chain are astronomic.65
In addition to all these improbabilities, DNA can barely be involved
in a reaction because of its double-chained spiral shape. This also makes
it impossible to think that it can be the basis of life.
Moreover, while DNA can replicate only with the help of some enzymes
that are actually proteins, the synthesis of these enzymes can be realised
only by the information coded in DNA. As they both depend on each other,
either they have to exist at the same time for replication, or one of
them has to be "created" before the other. American microbiologist Jacobson
comments on the subject:
The complete directions for the reproduction of plans,
for energy and the extraction of parts from the current environment, for
the growth sequence, and for the effector mechanism translating instructions
into growth - all had to be simultaneously present at that moment (when
life began). This combination of events has seemed an incredibly unlikely
happenstance, and has often been ascribed to divine intervention.66
The quotation above was written two years after the disclosure of the
structure of DNA by James Watson and Francis Crick. Despite all the developments
in science, this problem remains unsolved for evolutionists. To sum up,
the need for DNA in reproduction, the necessity of the presence of some
proteins for reproduction, and the requirement to produce these proteins
according to the information in the DNA entirely demolish evolutionist
theses.
Two German scientists, Junker and Scherer, explained that the synthesis
of each of the molecules required for chemical evolution, necessitates
distinct conditions, and that the probability of the compounding of these
materials having theoretically very different acquirement methods is zero:
Until now, no experiment is known in which we can obtain
all the molecules necessary for chemical evolution. Therefore, it is essential
to produce various molecules in different places under very suitable conditions
and then to carry them to another place for reaction by protecting them
from harmful elements like hydrolysis and photolysis.67
In short, the theory of evolution is unable to prove any of the evolutionary
stages that allegedly occur at the molecular level.
To summarise what we have said so far, neither amino acids nor their
products, the proteins making up the cells of living beings, could ever
be produced in any so-called "primitive atmosphere" environment. Moreover,
factors such as the incredibly complex structure of proteins, their right-hand,
left-hand features, and the difficulties in the formation of peptide bonds
are just parts of the reason why they will never be produced in any future
experiment either.
Even if we suppose for a moment that proteins somehow did form accidentally,
that would still have no meaning, for proteins are nothing at all on their
own: they cannot themselves reproduce. Protein synthesis is only possible
with the information coded in DNA and RNA molecules. Without DNA and RNA,
it is impossible for a protein to reproduce. The specific sequence of
the twenty different amino acids encoded in DNA determines the structure
of each protein in the body. However, as has been made abundantly clear
by all those who have studied these molecules, it is impossible for DNA
and RNA to form by chance.
The Fact of Creation: Intelligent Design
With the collapse of the theory of evolution in every field, prominent
names in the discipline of biochemistry today admit the fact of creation
and have begun to defend the view that everything is created by a conscious
Creator as part of an exalted creation. This is already a fact that people
cannot disregard. Scientists who can approach their work with an open
mind have developed a view called "intelligent design". Michael J. Behe,
one of the foremost of these scientists, states that he accepts the absolute
being of the Creator and describes the impasse of those who deny this
fact:
The result of these cumulative efforts to investigate the cell - to investigate
life at the molecular level - is a loud, clear, piercing cry of "design!"
The result is so unambiguous and so significant that it must be ranked
as one of the greatest achievements in the history of science. This triumph
of science should evoke cries of "Eureka" from ten thousand throats.
But, no bottles have been uncorked, no hands clapped.
Instead, a curious, embarrassed silence surrounds the stark complexity
of the cell. When the subject comes up in public, feet start to shuffle,
and breathing gets a bit laboured. In private people are a bit more relaxed;
many explicitly admit the obvious but then stare at the ground, shake
their heads, and let it go like that. Why does the scientific community
not greedily embrace its startling discovery? Why is the observation of
design handled with intellectual gloves? The dilemma is that while one
side of the elephant is labelled intelligent design, the other side must
be labelled God.68
Today, many people are not even aware that they are in a position of
accepting a body of fallacy as truth in the name of science, instead of
believing in Allah. Those who do not find the sentence "Allah created
you from nothing" scientific enough can believe that the first living
being came into being by thunderbolts striking a "primordial soup" billions
of years ago.
As we have described elsewhere in this book, the balances in nature are
so delicate and so numerous that it is entirely irrational to claim that
they developed "by chance". No matter how much those who cannot set themselves
free from this irrationality may strive, the signs of Allah in the heavens
and the earth are completely obvious and they are undeniable.
Allah is the Creator of the heavens, the earth and all that is in between.
The signs of His being have encompassed the entire universe.
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