The Origin Of Life

The Origin Of Life

By Isvara Krishna das

Abiogenesis, the theory that life originally arose from non-living matter, is an unproven theory.

The hypothesis about life generating from the spontaneous combination non-living matter is merely another assumption. There are other answers. For example, we could state that life did not generate from the spontaneous combination of material elements. There are no reasons to reject this possibility.

The moment of life's generation cannot be observed, thus some have the opinion that because of this impossibility this question does not belong to the realm of legitimate science. Scientists can only surmise a probable succession of events, they cannot offer tangible empirical proof for abiogenesis. The scientists developing this theory, and one of the articles of Nature magazine (Anon, Nature, 216, 1967, page 635), admit that this explanation of origin of life is based on assumptions, speculative theories. "Certain assumptions about abiogenesis, no matter how amazing they are, belong more into the realm of fiction than among theories supported by genuine observations".

Although the various assumptions about origin of life can be examined to some degree by laboratory experiment, these models are not testable, and cannot be verified when we discuss the origin of life. In other words the successive scenarios of life's origin remain the product of imagination and not factual knowledge. Interestingly, as we will see below, these imaginative theories have many contradictions.

It is very difficult to reconstruct the conditions pertaining to our earth planet billions of years ago. Moreover, it is impossible to understand them and obtain definitive knowledge by empirical means. For the scientists researching the origin of life this has advantages. There is a very wide selection of putative primordial conditions they can select to support their specific theories. Amazingly, despite of such a wide choice they cannot offer a single experimentally proven, detailed process that can result in the creation of a single self-replicating, complex molecule or cell from chemicals, that does not violate existing physico-chemical laws. The number of scientific problems is huge.

If we describe in full detail precisely how a house is to be built, then we have to explain the origin of each part and the ingredients making it up, and then how the various parts and ingredients connect together. We would expect a similar recipe from the proponents of the naturalistic origin of life, or at least an explanation of the origin of the biological components of the simplest (one-celled) species and the way they combine. So, let us examine what "chemical evolution" teaches us, and what are the theoretical and practical problems.

Manipulated experiments

According to popular theories of life's origin there were different sources of energy available (electricity in the form of lightning, geothermal heat, ultraviolet radiation etc.). The interactions of these energy sources with the primordial atmosphere produced organic molecules that accumulated in the primordial ocean, or according to other theories in lagoons, pools, clay, rocks etc. This is supposedly how the precursors of organic compounds originated, the amino acids, purines, pyrimidines, etc. Later it is assumed that these molecules combined (polymerised) into long chain molecules (e.g. polypeptides or proteins and polynucleotides). Then following this development cells surrounded by membranes appeared. These cells saw their inner complexity gradually increase so that enzymes and living cells evolved to be just as we know them. Scientists tried to prove the first step of this scenario of chemical evolution, the spontaneous generation of amino acids, sacchrides, purines, pyrimidines, by various laboratory experiments. They created many basic types of amino acids, saccharides and other various assumed components of the primordial soup.

Despite this, there are serious objections against these experiments. We know that the experiments are designed to produce these results. The experiments could only be acceptable if they accurately simulated the earth's primordial condition. Thus, the results of the experiments have to become unacceptable when the laboratory conditions do not resemble likely ancient natural conditions. In this analysis we show the unacceptable, crucial human interventions that influence the results of these experiments. In most cases the conditions during the experiments were highly artificial and grossly simplified so that they bore little or no resemblance of the processes occurring on the early earth.

Now, we discuss some of the unrealistic imposed conditions that would not occur naturally.

* When they were using ultraviolet radiation as the energy source, they used short wavelengths. Long wavelengths were avoided because they decompose the chemicals. In reality, the sun's whole spectrum would have reached the early earth.

* The electrical discharges used during the experiments to imitate lightning had a current density nine times greater than found naturally. It therefore cannot be considered to be an accurate representation of the natural phenomena. As C. E. Folsome in his book The Origin of Life (p.62) says - "Two days of sparking represents an energy input into the system comparable to some 40 million years on the surface of the primitive Earth".

Carl Sagan in his book "The Origins of Prebiological Systems" (page 195) explains that during the experiments the biochemist carefully extracts part of the desired chemical-products thus protecting the produced chemicals from decompositon caused by the energy source that generated them. Thus, as Sagan remarks, when we speak about the origin of life we also have to consider that there are not only generating processes but decomposing processes too, and thus the process produces other results if we do not remove the harmful products. 'We use energy sources to make organic molecules. It is found that the same energy sources CAN DESTROY these organic molecules...' (paraphrased quote)

* In the laboratory experiments energy sources were used separately. However, no consideration was given to the fact that one energy source can destroy the product created by another, additionally decomposition predominates.

* In several experiments it is assumed that if a chemical reaction occurs between one or more compounds while separated from other chemicals, these reactions could also occur in the presence of primordial soup containing other compounds. However, the presence of a third chemical can prevent the chemical reaction taking place at all or cause a differing reaction. Thus during the experiments such "desired" chemicals can be produced, which in reality could not be generated.

Therefore, as we can see, in the laboratory experiments scientists manipulated conditons. This is however contradicts their basic assumption that life could not originate under the direction of some external supernatural power. Thus, their prebiotic experiments prove nothing more than an understanding that life originated by ntelligent design, under well organized conditions and directed processes. As Brook and Shaw wrote: "These experiments...claim abiotic synthesis for what has in fact been produced and designed by highly intelligent and very much biotic man."

The theories of life's origin miss the point that even if life could be generated outside the laboratory, there are still many factors that could block further development, and actually destroy it. Some factors are: ultraviolet radiation from the sun; the decomposition of hydrogen cyanide (HCN) and nitriles (RCN); the reactions of the carbonyl groups with amino groups; accidental amide synthesis during the generation of polypeptides; the break down of polymerisation of polypeptides and polynucleotides; the hydrolysation or decomposition of amino acids and polypetides etc.

It seems therefore that evolutionary biology cannot yet give a satisfactory account of the origin of life's "building-blocks" let alone the whole "building", of one celled organisms.

Like a huge airship

Here is one quote describing the complexity of living cells.

To grasp the reality of life as revealed by molecular biology, we must magnify a cell a thousand million times until it is twenty kilometers in diameter and resembles a giant airship large enough to cover a great city like London or New York. On the surface of the cell we would be able to see millions of openings, like port holes of a ship, each opening and closing allowing a continual stream of materials to flow in and out.

If we were to enter one of these openings we would find ourselves in a world of amazing technology and bewildering complexity. We would see endless highly organized corridors and conduits branching in all directions away from the perimeter of the cell, some leading to the central memory bank in the nucleus and others to assembly plants and processing units. The nucleus itself would be a vast spherical chamber more than a kilometer in diameter, resembling a geodesic dome inside of which we would see, neatly stacked together in ordered arrays, the miles of coiled chains of DNA molecules. We would see around us, in every direction, all sorts of robot-like machines. We would notice that the simplest functional components of the cell, the protein molecules, were astonishingly complex pieces of molecular machinery, each one consisting of about three thousand atoms arranged in highly organized 3-D spatial conformation." (Michael Denton, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis).

In a single cell more than 10,000 molecular machines are working together in amazing harmony. The unsolved problem regarding the origin of life is: Can non-living, dull matter simply governed by the laws of physics and chemistry generate this amazing complexity in even the most simple cell. It well within the realms of possibility, that one who tries to explain the process of generation of such complexity is undertaking an impossible task.

A missing mechanism

Even if the building blocks of living organisms could originate randomly, for which no present theory comes close to providing an explanation, a difficult question still remains to be answered. What is the mechanism by which simple chemicals could combine to form life's vital complex proteins, nucleic acids, and complete organisms. Obviously, for this process there is a need for energy, heat, electricity, chemical energy or energy from the sun. It is clear that energy is required. However, energy alone is not a sufficient condition for the formation of macromolecules. For example, the energy of dynamite is not constructive and thus cannot create a house from a pile of bricks.

For the energy to be useful, it has to be properly directed by some mechanism. There are many thousands of scientific papers and reports on attempted protein and DNA synthesis in the laboratory. Although they allow doubtful prebiotic conditions, the experiments have not succeeded. Thus, these failures only illustrate how difficult it is to create a particular complex system with high information content without a flow of directed energy.

Do they know or only believe?

Whilst the theories sound good, like Dean Swift's story of Gulliver's Travels and the flying Island of Laputa, it is possible with non-functional and unproven materialistic speculations to build a tower in the sky. However, if we consider objectively what scientists know for sure about the origin of life then the short answer is, NOTHING. There are therefore no compelling reasons for us to accept these naturalistic assumptions.

Anybody can propose and demonstrate a theory for the development of complex mechanisms that have the ability to develop into self-replicating organisms. However, so long as there is a lack of experimental proof, we have to accept that there is no proof of the 'recognized' naturalistic origin of life.

The scientific community is well informed about the basic difficulties regarding the origin of life. It is likely that this why Harvard University give annual grant of one million dollars to a group of scientists researching the origin of life. If, despite the many dollars and effort expended, we still do not have a proper answer, then we have to consider seriously another possible explanation.

According to observation and experience, the material elements do not generate living entities, either spontaneously or under artificial circumstances. Although the majority of the biologists assume that life originated by biochemical process, they cannot support this theory by experiment. It is very strange that the modern science, despite all its endeavors, cannot reproduce what supposedly happened in nature spontaneously in the past! All the combined efforts of scientists, all the money invested in the experiments and all the consciously directed and controlled laboratory conditions have been to no avail because they have not yet created life from matter. Believers in the materialistic viewpoint take refuge by escaping into an undefined far future and the hope that eventually they will succeed in carrying out an experiment that no one today can do. But then it may be that even then it will be impossible.

If anyone still thinks that scientists will be able to create self-replicating organisms, then it must be considered, how important conscious manipulation in planning, direction, dosage, regulating and calibrating laboratory instruments are for the accomplishment of such an experiment. This acts as a proof of the impossibility of abiogenesis or the creation of life from lifeless, dull matter and instead supports the idea that biological complexity can be created only by an intelligence that is higher than lifeless dull matter.

We have to accept that there are people who believe in the origin of life from matter. However, we should not condemn them for this nor that they carry out research according to such an understanding. Despite their views, the concept that the world was planned is entirely plausible and remains an explanation without problem. We can think about the origin of life in the following way. If neither nature nor we have the ability to make organisms from matter, then maybe a higher power is able to do this. We would also suggest the material structures are not living, but rather within the material bodies there is a nonmaterial factor that is the cause of life and consciousness. Such an approach is in complete agreement with our observations and simultaneously gives a reasonable answer why the theoretical and practical attempts of the scientists to create life from mere reactions of chemicals are always doomed to failure.

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