Genetic Algrorithms reconsidered and statistics fail dismally to support abiogenesis

GA first, as we have a commenter who claims to have ground-breaking information about them.  So here you go:


Evolutionary Algorithms: Are We There Yet? — December 17th, 2010 by Ann Gauger

In the recent past, several papers have been published that claim to demonstrate that biological evolution can readily produce new genetic information, using as their evidence the ability of various evolutionary algorithms to find a specific target. This is a rather large claim.

It has thus fallen to others in the scientific or engineering community to evaluate these published claims. How well do these algorithms model biology? How exactly was the work done? Do the results make sense? Are there unexamined variables that might affect the interpretation of results? Are there hidden sources of bias? Are the conclusions justified or do they go beyond the scope of what has been shown?


A new paper by Montañez et al. [1], just published in the journal BIO-Complexity, answers some of these questions for the evolutionary algorithm ev [2], one of the computer programs proposed to simulate biological evolution. As perhaps should be no surprise, the authors found that ev uses sources of active information (meaning information added to the search to improve its chances of success compared to a blind search) to help it find its target. Indeed, the algorithm is predisposed toward success because information about the search is built into its very structure.

These same authors have previously reported on the hidden sources of information that allowed another evolutionary algorithm, AVIDA [3-5], to find its target. Once again, active information introduced by the structure of the algorithm was what allowed it to be successful.
These results confirm that there is no free lunch for evolutionary algorithms. Active information is needed to guide any search that does better than a random walk.

[1] doi:10.5048/BIO-C.2010.3
[2] doi:10.1093/nar/28.14.2794
[3] doi:10.1038/nature01568
[4] doi:10.1109/SSST.2010.5442816
[5] doi:10.1109/ICSMC.2009.5345941
rss — permalink

~~~~~~
So first we see that Genetic Algorithms are formal programs designed by an intelligent source and in no way a proof of macroevolution happening in organisms.  In all the years since Darwin first published we have never seen it.   Makes you wonder why so many scientists believe in it?   Believe is the key word.   Darwinism is a faith rather than a scientific fact.
   
Secondly, a commenter compared Powerball to the statistical odds of abiogenesis being possible.   The basic flaw in this premise is that a lottery of this kind is a random assortment of numbers that must be matched and it will continue to produce new numbers until someone matches them.  This commenter pegged the odds as "One chance in twenty-three billion."   That sounds like a very unlikely event.   Of course, there are around 6 billion people on the planet so if we all played four times, then one of us would win.   So it is not such an amazing number at all.

Now the formation of life is nothing like a lottery, because it requires all kinds of molecular combinations and chemical actions and reactions that do not happen to be able to happen in any kind of order in our atmosphere or in fact in any known atmosphere.   There are hard stops concerning chemical reactivity that stops chemicals from becoming amino acids for instance.   The kinds of building blocks needed for DNA do not form in the wild and even if they did they would be racemic anyway and that would preclude the formation of the DNA string.   But all that aside, a look at the numbers as if abiogenesis was in fact possible from an old post of mine:

The odds against life forming from non-life: Abiogenesis

Pasteur disproved it, but....naturalistic, materialistic scientists keep asserting that it happened - life forming from non-life.

"From its first formulation by Aristotle in the 4th century BC it was an article of both common and learned belief, at least in Europe, that complex living organisms arose spontaneously from non-living matter - fleas and adult mice from dirty laundry and from piles of wheat, maggots and flies from rotting meat, aphids from drops of dew. Life, in short, came about by spontaneous generation, or abiogenesis. Holes began to be knocked in Aristotle's dictum by early biologists in the 18th century, but not until the meticulous experiments of Louis Pasteur in 1862 was it finallyestablished that a truly sterile medium would remain forever sterile, and that complex living organisms come only from other complex living organisms. The "Law of Biogenesis", (omne vivum ex ovo or "all life from an egg") based on his work is now a cornerstone of modern biology.

The modern science of abiogenesis addresses a fundamentally different question: the ultimate origin of life itself. Pasteur had proved that abiogenesis was impossible for complex organisms. Charles Darwin's theory of evolution put forward a mechanism whereby such organisms might evolve over millennia from simple forms, but it did not address the original spark, as it were, from which even simple organisms might have arisen. Darwin was aware of the problem. In a letter to Joseph Dalton Hooker of February 1 1871, he made the suggestion that life may have begun in a "warm little pond, with all sorts of ammonia and phosphoric salts, lights, heat, electricity, etc. present, [so] that a protein compound was chemically formed ready to undergo still more complex changes". He went on to explain that "at the present day such matter would be instantly devoured or absorbed, which would not have been the case before living creatures were formed." In other words the presence of life itself prevents the spontaneous generation of simple organic compounds from occurring on Earth today - a circumstance which makes the search for the first life dependent on the laboratory.

The answer to Darwin's question was beyond the reach of the experimental science of his day, and no real progress was made during the 19th century. In 1936 Aleksandr Ivanovich Oparin, in his "The Origin of Life on Earth", demonstrated that, pace Pasteur, it was the presence of atmospheric oxygen, and other more sophisticated life-forms that prevented the chain of events that would lead to the evolution of life. Oparin argued that a "primeval soup" of organic molecules could be created in an oxygen-less atmosphere, through the action of sunlight. These, he suggested, combine in ever-more complex fashion until they are dissolved into a coacervate droplet. These droplets, he suggested, "grow" by fusion with other droplets, and "reproduce" through fission into daughter droplets, and so have a primitive metabolism in which those factors which promote "cell integrity" survive, those that don't become extinct. All modern theories of the origin of life take Oparin's ideas as a starting point."

Some evolutionary scientists continue to point to the Miller-Urey model as a starting point for envisioning the formation of the first life. Brad Harrub, Ph.D. and Bert Thompson, Ph.D. weigh in:

Have Scientists Created Life?: Examining the Miller-Urey Experiment


How did living cells emerge from nonliving chemicals? This simple question has dogged evolutionists for centuries. Try as they might, they never have been able to establish a firm foundation for how living things first appeared—a foundation on which they then could build an evolutionary tree of life.

In the past, the modus operandi was to teach the long-ago-disproved concept of spontaneous generation, hope that no one noticed the question of the actual origin of life had never been answered, and then teach the theory of evolution as if “somehow” the origin of life had been established as a fact. As a result, almost every science textbook printed within the last fifty years contains the now-famous Miller-Urey experiment of 1953. In this experiment, Harold Urey and his graduate student, Stanley Miller, tried to simulate what they thought represented the Earth’s early atmospheric conditions, in order to determine what products they could generate by adding an electrical spark (i.e. simulating lightening). These same textbooks never fail to mention that Miller and Urey were successful at producing a few simple amino acids—“the basic building blocks of life.” From there, the textbooks lead into a new chapter on evolution and the origin of life—allowing the student to draw the conclusion that scientists have thus proven that life can be generated from just a few nonliving chemicals.

It is a logical progression, and one that, admittedly, works well in the classroom. The only problem is that this notion is totally false. Not once have scientists succeeded in producing living material from nonliving material. And yet, year after year the public is led into believing that the very foundation upon which evolution stands has been resolved. Nobel laureate George Wald of Harvard admitted:

We tell this story to beginning students of biology as though it represents a triumph of reason over mysticism. In fact it is very nearly the opposite. The reasonable view was to believe in spontaneous generation; the only alternative, to believe in a single, primary act of supernatural creation. There is no third position. For this reason many scientists a century ago chose to regard the belief in spontaneous generation as a ‘philosophical necessity.’ It is a symptom of the philosophical poverty of our time that this necessity is no longer appreciated. Most modern biologists, having reviewed with satisfaction the downfall of the spontaneous generation hypothesis, yet unwilling to accept the alternative belief in special creation, are left with nothing. I think a scientist has no choice but to approach the origin of life through a hypothesis of spontaneous generation (1954, 191:46).

Evolutionist John Horgan concluded that if he were a creationist today, he would focus on the origin of life because this

...is by far the weakest strut of the chassis of modern biology. The origin of life is a science writer’s dream. It abounds with exotic scientists and exotic theories, which are never entirely abandoned or accepted, but merely go in and out of fashion (1996, p. 138)."

So let us consider this problem. Now, there can be no natural selection or mutation involved in the development of the first self-replicating organism, because it is the first! Therefore, it must arise from chance. While scientists have tried in vain to carefully produce any set of circumstances possible in order to produce life, if the first life came about by chance it had no help but formed randomly.

Raw Facts

Scientists who believe in a long age for the Universe tend to believe the Universe is approximately 13.7 billion years old. That computes to about 10^18 seconds.

It is believed that there are about 10^78 electrons in the entire Universe.

If every electron had made one effort to form the first life each second of the supposed span of time of the Universe, that would be 10^96 trials. But electrons are quick moving little things, aren't they? Let us give them 10^3 trials per second. Now we are up to 10^99 trials to form life on Earth if every electron in all of space and all of time tries 1,000 times per second to form simple life.

10^99 trials to become life. That is a nice, big number!

Is it sufficient to allow life to have occurred? Has this been studied, quantified? Yes, it has. I turn to Dr. Harold J. Morowitz of Yale and NASA for some answers, excerpted from the book, EVOLUTION: POSSIBLE OR IMPOSSIBLE? MOLECULAR BIOLOGY AND THE LAWS OF CHANCE
IN NONTECHNICAL LANGUAGE

A new approach to the subject, based on
exciting recent discoveries involving
proteins and DNA, the "golden molecule "
of heredity

by

JAMES F. COPPEDGE, Ph.D.

Probability Research in Molecular Biology

"The Simplest Possible Living Thing

Dr. Harold J. Morowitz of Yale University has done extensive research for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to discover the theoretical limits for the simplest free-living thing which could duplicate itself, or, technically, the minimal biological entity capable of autonomous self-replication. He took into consideration the minimum operating equipment needed and the space it would require. Also, attention was given to electrical properties and to the hazards of thermal motion. From these important studies, the conclusion is that the smallest such theoretical entity would require 239 or more individual protein molecules.

This is not very much simpler than the smallest actually known autonomous living organism, which is the minuscule, bacteria-like Mycoplasma hominis H39. It has around 600 different kinds of proteins. From present scientific knowledge, there is no reason to believe that anything smaller ever existed. We will, however, use the lesser total of 239 protein molecules from Morowitz' theoretical minimal cell, which comprise 124 different kinds.

Proteins With Only Left-Handed Components

It was noted earlier that there obviously can be no natural selection if there is no way to duplicate all of the necessary parts. In order to account for the left-handed phenomenon, chance alone, unaided by natural selection, would have to arrange at least one complete set of 239 proteins with all-left-handed amino acids of the universal 20 kinds. There is reason to believe that all 20 of these were in use from the time of life’s origin.



Using figures that were furnished by Morowitz, it can be calculated that the average protein molecule in the theoretical minimal living thing would contain around 445 amino acid units of the usual 20 kinds. One of the 20 types of amino acids, glycine, cannot be left- or right-handed, because its “side chain”is not really a chain, but merely a hydrogen atom like the one opposite it. It can be presumed that this minimal theoretical cell would in many ways resemble bacteria in its make-up. In some bacteria, glycine accounts for just over 8 percent of the total amino acid molecules, so we will estimate that in the average protein of the minimal cell, there will be 35 glycine units in the chain. That will leave 410 of the total 445 which could be either left- or right-handed.

If amino acids had been formed naturally in the “primitive” atmosphere, they would have occurred in statistically equal amounts of the left- and right-handed isomers. This became clear from experiments described in the preceding chapter. That means, then, that if a protein chain is to form by random linkups, all 410 of the nonglycine sites could be occupied with equal ease by either L- or D-type amino acids.

The first one has a 1 out of 2 chance of being left-handed. The same is true for each of the other 409. Since we are now figuring this at equal probability for either hand, the probability at anyone site is not affected by the amino acid before that one in the chain.

To calculate the probability in such a case, the formula to use is the multiplication rule, the heart of probability theory. Mathematician Darrell Huff said it thus: “To find the probability of getting all of several different things, multiply together the chances of getting each one.”

To get the probability of all 410 of the isomeric or handed amino acids of just one protein chain, we must multiply the 1/2 probability which is the case for each position in the chain. It is like flipping a coin 410 times, hoping to get all heads. For each step, there is 1 chance in 2, so we must multiply the 2 by itself (2 x 2 x 2 x . . . x 2). using the figure 410 times. That is 1 chance in 2^410. (The exponent means: Multiply together 410 two’s.

It will be easier to work with this figure if we translate it to powers of 10 instead of powers of 2. As you know, multiplying 10 by itself is just adding another zero. The equivalent of 2^410 is roughly 10^123.

The probability that an average-size protein molecule of the smallest theoretically possible living thing would happen to contain only left-handed amino acids is, therefore, 1 in 10^123, on the average.

That is a rather discouraging chance. To get the feel of that number, let’s look at it with all the 123 zeros: There is, on the average, 1 chance in –
1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
that all of the amino acids of a particular protein molecule would be left-handed!

Using All the Proteins That Ever Existed on Earth

Professor Murray Eden at Massachusetts Institute of Technology estimated that the total number of protein molecules that ever existed on earth might be 10^52 as an extremely liberal approximation. If we assume for the moment that all these were the same size as the average protein in the smallest possible autonomous living thing, we can then figure the probability, on the average, that anyone protein that ever existed on earth would have only left-handed amino acids just by chance:

The answer is 1 in 10^71 (which is 10^123 divided by 10^52). Written out, that is only 1 chance in –
100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
that even a single one of all these protein molecules that ever existed on earth would on the average happen by chance alone to have only L-amino acids. Saying it another way, the odds are a hundred billion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion to one against that happening!

That isn’t all. Even if one did occur, 238 more all-left-handed ones would be needed to work with it, or all would be lost. Since all 239 would have to be together in space and time, the probability of each of the remaining 238 would be 1/10^123. Those huge numbers would then have to be multiplied together and with the 1/10^71 probability of the first one, according to the multiplication rule. This would give the probability of the needed group of 239 protein molecules being all left-handed.

The number is beyond all comprehension, namely 1 in 10^29345. Even if we allow for overlapping groups, it cuts the exponents only a few “orders of magnitude” (powers of 10). And, if we had all of them, they still could not duplicate themselves, so it would be the end of the line, unless chance could also produce the DNA code and the entire translating system. The code, moreover, would have to specify that amino acids would be manufactured in the left-handed form, and the coding for all the enzymes would have to match.

For comparison, the number of inches across the known universe from one side to the other is only about 10^28. The odds against even one average-size protein having all left-handed amino acids is a figure 10 million trillion trillion trillion times that big, namely, 1 in 10^71. Remember, that is out of all the protein molecules that ever existed on earth. The foregoing calculations were on the assumption of equal likelihood that either hand would link up.

Probability Figured If 6/7 Preference for the Same Hand

Now, the probability is to be computed if this extreme is assumed, namely, a preference factor of six chances in seven that the same isomer will link up next.
If a handed amino acid happens to be first in the chain, no preference would be exerted upon it, since there would be none preceding it. We will assume the same to be true whenever another amino acid follows a glycine residue in the chain, since glycine is neither left- nor right-handed. For all the rest, we are to consider that the probability is 6/7 that the same hand will link up next as the one just preceding.

Let it be supposed that there are 32 sites in the chain of 445 where an isomeric amino acid either follows a glycine or comes first in the entire chain. Each of these 32 will therefore have a probability of 1/2 of being left-handed, as there is no handed amino acid preceding it to exert any preference. Each of the other 378 sites will have a probability of 6/7 that the position involved will be occupied by the same hand as the one just before it. When we remember the 35 glycines, this accounts for all 445.

Computing this for the 32 sites at 1/2 probability and for the 378 sites at 6/7 probability, we arrive at a probability of 1 in 8.7 x 10^34 that a particular protein would have only L-amino acids. Since a minimum of 239 such proteins is required before there are enough for the theoretical minimal living entity, and each would have the same probability, by the multiplication rule, we conclude that on the average the probability would be around 1 in 10^8350 that any given set of 239 would be all left-handed.

Going back to the 10^52 protein molecules that ever existed according to Dr. Eden, we may divide these into contiguous sets of 239 for such a minimal cell. There are 10^49 such sets, rounded. By dividing this figure into 10^8350, and further dividing by a million to allow for overlapping sets, we arrive at the astounding conclusion that there is, on the average, one chance in 10^8295 that of all the proteins that ever existed on earth there would be a set of 239 together which were all left-handed, the minimum number required for the smallest theoretical cell. Another concession was given to make it easier for chance, in that we did not consider the time factor for the 10^52 proteins that ever existed, and calculated as if they all existed at the same time.

Out of all the protein molecules that ever existed on earth, the odds against there being even one set with only left-handed components sufficient for the smallest theoretical living entity are 10^8295 to 1. This is the conclusion when it is assumed that there is a 6/7 selectivity factor for the same enantiomorphic form. Compare that with the number of seconds since the universe began, which is 10^18 for about the longest such estimate – about 15 billion years.

Even if the L-amino acids were 100 times as likely to link with L- as with D-, the odds would be 184 billion to 1 against an average size protein molecule having only L-amino acids. To get the required set of 239 would make the probability slimmer than 1 in 10^2642 out of all the proteins that ever existed on earth. And, even if we also allowed 100 to 1 preference in the case of the 32 amino acids which follow glycine – supposing that the preceding portion of the chain could exert such selectivity – the probability would still be astronomical beyond the ability of the human mind to conceive, namely, 1 chance in 5 x 10^373, using all the proteins that ever existed on earth.
To be more realistic, however, let’s go back to the figure for one minimum set if the preference is assumed to be 6/7. That was a probability averaging 1 in 10^8295. Just to print the number would require more than four full pages. It would take six minutes to say the number in billions, speaking rapidly all the while. These numbers are too fantastic to understand. Chapter 7 on large numbers will offer comparisons that will help.

What if we suppose, contrary to any actual evidence, that at the start there were only forty proteins required, of only forty units in length,16 with 6/7 preference for the same hand? Considering three of these to be glycine, the odds would be sixty billion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion to one that no single set of protein molecules out of all that ever existed would have only left-handed amino acids. (That is 60 x 10^69 to 1.)

Conclusion: No Conceivable Probability

No natural explanation which can adequately explain this left-handed mystery is in sight. We have just seen that the odds against its happening by chance are so tremendous as to be completely incomprehensible.

If, on the other hand, there was a Creator of living things, He could have decided for reasons of His own to use just L-amino acids in proteins. He would have placed the proper L-enzymes and coding in the cells which would form only left-handed amino acids for use in proteins.

These created enzymes would thereafter be replaced as needed at the orders of the DNA code. The same Creator would be the Author of that amazing code which carries complete instructions that are incredibly comprehensive and detailed in the genes of every living thing on earth.

For those whose philosophy is evolution, this left-handed matter is an embarrassing problem. The many efforts at solutions that have been made are noteworthy for the questions they bring up rather than for answers. It is not likely that this mystery will ever be adequately explained, as long as the evidence of intelligent planning is ignored."

Hmmmm. Even with 10^99 trials in all of space in all of time, the odds against a simple self-replicating organism appear to be generously given as 1 in 10^8196, which is far more than the 1 in 10^50 considered to be the number beyond which a chance is considered an impossibility.

Now, these are simultaneous trials continually ongoing, so no complaints there. The math is simple statistics, the old coin flip math, much like the binary choices made in a computer. On or off, yes or no, heads or tails, although certain advantages are given to the proteins to make it easier for life to form....and yet statistically it could not have happened!

No strawmen or fallacies here

The math is straight-forward. But you say, suppose the Universe has formed and re-formed infinite times and with so many different Universes, one had to have formed life! Here is the evidence for multiple formation of the Universe:


still waiting?


gee, no evidence? In fact, the fine-tuning required in the formation of this Universe is such that many scientists admit it could not have happened by chance. So to suggest that it has happened over and over and over is, well, silly.


But you say, evolution doesn't require life from non-life, but simply describes simple to complex life. Okay, where did the life come from? If you say, "God", then you didn't need evolution to make all the creatures found today. The remarkable leaps of faith to believe that irreducibly complex systems just happened are no longer necessary......neither is evolution. No, the true evolutionist is a naturalistic materialist who will not conceive of God or any factors beyond the ability of his five senses to apprehend. If you assert that you are a God-believing evolutionist, well, that makes no sense to me, frankly. Panspermia????? We have seen that the conditions in outer space will kill off any simple life that might be drifting in from another location.

Go ahead and try to show me how Morowitz got it wrong. But if you try to assert that "much simpler life-forms existed then" or "simpler self-replicators formed together" or "conditions were more conducive to the formation of life" you had better present evidence or you are just repeating a 'just-so' story that you heard in school. Cheers!

~~~~~~

So now we give an overview of the problems for a naturalistic origination of life from another source:


Origin of life

From CreationWiki, the encyclopedia of creation science

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Abiogenesis.png
The origin of life is a key point of distinction between the theistic and atheistic worldviews and between the Creationistic and Darwinistic scientific schools of thought. Creationists believe that life was created by God, whereas the naturalists contend that organisms originated through purely natural processes from nonliving, inanimate material at some point in the very distant past. This theory is commonly known as abiogenesis (Greek a "without", bios "life", and genesis "beginning, origin").

Evolutionists typically believe that this life came from a single self-replicating protocell which in turn originally came into existence through spontaneous chemical reactions. In contrast to this atheistic perspective, most creationists believe that God created the the first ancestors of all forms of life on earth (including humans), endowing non-living matter with life through a deliberate, supernatural act.

To date, scientists have not observed abiogenesis happening in nature, nor have they been able to create a lifeform through controlled experiments. In fact, experimental simulations resembling the Earth's early conditions have even failed to produce the most basic homochiralic polymers that all lifeforms possess (protein, DNA, RNA, etc.). It therefore appears that intelligent design is more reasonable explanation for the origin of life than the evolutionary model. At present, each model still requires faith and currently falls outside of the realms of science since neither has been observed nor have they been proven by experimentation.
Although Darwinists often insist that abiogenesis (the origin of life) and biological evolution are separate issues, this is done merely as a debate strategy. The theory of evolution must (and does) include a theory of the origin of life, much as stellar evolution also postulates a mechanism for the birth of stars.

Contents

[hide]

Critiques

Critiques of naturalistic abiogenesis fall into several categories:
  • Arguments from impossibility: purporting to show that the nature of life itself precludes naturalistic abiogenesis
  • Arguments from improbability: purporting to show that the coincidences necessary to provide for spontaneous abiogenesis are so improbable as to be unreasonable and unscientific;
  • Arguments from inexplicability: purporting to show that there is currently no explanation or demonstration of naturalistic abiogenesis, and that belief in it is a matter of faith and speculation, rather than science.
Despite repeated attempts under every reproducible circumstance, atheistic scientists have been unable to reproduce a reasonable method for the origin of life without a creator, nor do they have a clear understanding of the chemistry involved. Many evolutionists have now chosen to remain agnostic on the actual origin of life, and will frequently try to dodge the issue by claiming that abiogenesis is not part of the theory of evolution.
Lee Strobel in his book, A Case for Faith quotes William Bradley:

“ The optimism of the 1950's is gone. The mood at the 1999 International Conference on Origin of Life was described as grim-full of frustration, pessimism and desperation. ”
In contrast, creationists have issued several probabilistic studies indicating the difficulty of any such phenomenon. Although some contend that these studies do not accurately portray the modelling involved, it is clear that no credible explanation for abiogenesis has been demonstrated by evolutionary biologists.
The Nobel laureate Dr. Francis H. Crick, in his 1981 book, Life Itself insists that the probability of life's chance at origin simply defies calculation. Crick, an atheist, had this to say:
“ What is so frustrating for our present purpose is that it seems almost impossible to give any numerical value to the probability of what seems a rather unlikely sequence of events... An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle. ”
On this point creationists would find themselves in complete agreement.

Chemical evolution

Chemical evolution.png
Theories concerning molecular evolution generally assume molecules naturally coalesce in to macromolecules during times when both their concentration, and their atmospheric conditions favor such contact. In 1924, Alexander I. Oparin determined which chemicals must be in the earth's atmosphere for amino acids to form (e.g. methane, hydrogen, ammonia) and which chemicals would prohibit the formation of amino acids (e.g. Oxygen).

In the 1950s, Stanley L. Miller performed the first experiment attempting to reproduce these conditions. Methane, ammonia, hydrogen and water were placed in a flask that was subject to an electrical discharge. After several days, the experiment yielded several organic compounds including amino acids. Other researchers repeated these experiments using different energy sources such as UV, and other presumed primitive atmospheres. When hydrogen cyanide was used, even nitrogenous bases were obtained, which are a component of the building blocks for DNA.
Diagram that depicts the experimental set-up of Urey-Miller. By passing electrical sparks through mixtures of hydrogen, methane, ammonia, and water vapor, scientists produced several amino acids, the building blocks of organic life.
Replication of the Urey-Miller experiment.
 
However, in all of these experiments that attempted to produce life's building blocks, molecular oxygen was absent. The earth possesses an oxygen rich atmosphere, and even the oldest rocks (according to radiometric dating) contain oxides, which is evidence that they were formed in the presence of oxygen. In fact, oxides have been found in rocks supposedly 300 million years older than the first living cells. Oxygen is produced by all photosynthetic organisms, and is required for metabolism by all life forms except a few microorganisms. A hydrogen-rich reducing atmosphere was used in these experiments only because amino acids and nitrogenous bases simply will not form spontaneously in an oxidizing environment.

Interestingly, in his experiment of passing an electric spark through his simulated atmosphere, Miller saved the amino acids he produced only because he removed them from the area of the spark. Had he left them there, the spark would have decomposed them. Moreover, assuming the amino acids survived the destructive ultraviolet atmosphere of primitive earth and reached the ocean to form a theoretical "organic soup," further chemical reactions would not have been possible as bodies of water are not conducive to the necessary chemistry.

Another problem arises in relation to the amino acids that were theorized to have generated by chance. Even the correct sequence of the right amino acids is still not enough for the formation of a functional protein molecule. Each of the 20 different types of amino acids present in the composition of proteins must be "left-handed." Yet, while some amino acids are "left-handed," others are "right-handed." Should they be formed at random in a "organic soup," it is most likely that they would occur in roughly equal proportions. The question of how a specifically required combination of "left-handed" amino acids could unite by chance, while excluding "right-handed" amino acids, constitutes an impasse for abiogenesis.

Nevertheless, many evolutionists still believe that experiments like Miller's have shown that life could have begun by fortunate interactions in the early Earth.

Ozone

Main article: Abiogenesis and ozone
Ozone poses a major problem for naturalistic models of abiogenesis. Ozone (O3) forms when molecular oxygen (O2) is struck by cosmic radiation. Thus, without oxygen in the atmosphere, there can be no ozone. Without ozone, ultraviolet radiation would destroy any life exposed to the sun. All known life that produces oxygen requires exposure to the sun. Without life able to survive in the sun, no oxygen can be produced. Without oxygen produced, there can be no ozone, and therefore no life.
In order to solve this problem, naturalistic evolutionists must provide one of the following:
  • A way that ozone can form without atmospheric oxygen;
  • A way that oxygen can be produced without life that requires sunlight;
  • A way that oxygen-producing lifeforms can survive without ozone.
Thus far, the first two have been utter failures. There is no known way for ozone to form without atmospheric oxygen, or for oxygen to form without life that requires sunlight. Several attempts have been made to show that oxygen-producing life can survive without the protection of the ozone layer, but none have succeeded.

History

Spontaneous generation was the original theory that proposed life could originate from nonliving matter. It is now well known that the spontaneous generation of life in our present ecosystem is impossible. Louis Pasteur abolished the theory of spontaneous generation in 1859 because he believed that life was far too complex to have originated instantaneously from nonliving matter. He simultaneously established the theory of biogenesis (the origin of life from preexisting life). Within ten years of Pasteur's experiments Thomas Huxley had coined the term abiogenesis.
“ I shall call the... doctrine that living matter may be produced by not living matter, the hypothesis of abiogenesis. (Huxley, 1870) ”
Observations and experiments have proven conclusively that all recognized life forms are produced by preexisting organisms or life forms, called the law of biogenesis. Despite the absence of substantiation for the theory, abiogenesis has become accepted by nearly all practicing scientists. The hypothesis of abiogenesis remains virtually unchanged since its inception in the 1920s, and assumes that life originated at some point in earth's past under conditions no longer present. This particular tenet of evolution can be summed-up by the phrase "abiogenesis at first, biogenesis ever since". It is taught today as a certainty, although the exact mechanisms remain theoretical. Discussions in evolutionary biology textbooks go to great lengths to demonstrate how abiogenesis could have occurred under multiple primordial scenarios.

Law of Biogenesis

The Law of biogenesis states that life can only come from life. This principle was demonstrated by Louis Pasteur. Note that this is in direct conflict with the hypothesis of abiogenesis, not only that life can be formed from non-living material, but that this can happen by random chance. The arguments usually given by some evolutionists fall under two types: 1.) The Law of biogenesis does not apply to early earth, 2.) The Law of biogenesis does not apply to less complex lifeforms, such has those supposedly formed in the primordial soup.
1) The Law does not apply to early Earth The Law of biogenesisis a scientific law because it meets the criteria of being simple, true, universal and absolute. In order to meet these criteria, there has not been any known exception to the Law of biogenesis. A scientific law is defined as a principle taken to be universally applicable.[1] The only known exception to a law in terms of time is at the starting or ending of the universe, clearly evolutionists are not arguing that life formed at the same time the universe formed. There is no reason to think that time would affect the law of biogenesis, just as there is no reason to believe that the Law of Motion did not apply on early Earth.

1) The Law does not apply to less complex lifeforms While it is true that some laws have had to be modified in order to account for known exceptions (this is true of Einstein’s correction to Newton’s Law of Motion at speeds approaching the speed of light), these exceptions must be demonstrated. Currently, the Law of biogenesis states that life can only come from life, it makes no distinction between single-celled and multi-cellular organisms. While the evolutionists state that the law was only tested on maggots and rats, this is entirely untrue. There have been many experiments in which scientists have tried to create life from non-living material. All of these experiments have been unsuccessful in creating life. Scientifically, it would then be assumed that the Law of Biogenesis is as applicable to single-celled organisms as to multi-celled organisms. This law should only be refuted if a scientist were able to create a life from non-living material.
An argument made by Talk.Origins states that Louis and Redi solely disproved one form of creationism.[2] This is entirely incorrect (see: CreationWiki response). First, it is impossible to disprove the supernatural with science, the study of nature. Second, Louis and Redi demonstrated that there is no type of naturalistic explanation that will lead to life that does not contradict with the Law of Biogenesis. Only a supernatural (an intelligent designer greater than the laws of the universe) explanation would be able to account for life forming from nonliving material.

The Law of biogenesis (life can only come from life) differs from the Biogenetic Law (embryology recapitulates ontology). The biogenetic law which states that during the stages of birth, the embryo goes through all of the stages of evolution. This “Law” was supported by many evolutionists. It was found to be untrue and that Haeckel (the champion of this Law) had doctored and forged work to support this Law. This is the only scientific law which has been proven entirely false. It is interesting that the only law to be proven false was used to support evolution. It also seems ironic that evolutionists would so readily ignore a true scientific law when it does not suit their purpose, yet propose a false scientific law that does.

Future work

If indeed a self-replicating lifeform is, at some future date, created in the lab, its plausibility and actual manifestation of a mechanism for the origin of life was made possible through deliberate design of intelligent minds. There will still be no known process acting in nature to produce life from non-life, therefore, abiogenesis seems out of the realm of empirical science. Furthermore, the extreme complexity of all lifeforms seems to point in the direction of an established Intelligence outside of nature. The Intelligence designed life to be governed by what are observed natural mechanisms or processes that enable diversity. This is perhaps why Francis Crick (one of the Discoverers of DNA) and Leslie Orgel (a microbiologist) proposed the theory of directed panspermia: the belief that life came to earth from outer space.

The origin of life conundrum has scientists theorizing that life might have begun on some other planet (See: Panspermia). The theory is currently experiencing a revival and much of the research currently underway by NASA is an attempt to discover signs of life on other planets, such as Mars. If found, however, this would not explain the origin of life, but merely push the question to a more distant location.

References

  1. ↑ Scientific Law MSN Encarta
  2. ↑ Index to Creationist Claims: Claim CB000 by by Mark Isaak, Talk.Origins. 2004.

See Also

External links

Creationist
Secular
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Science and information.   Can you take the time to read up on this subject and think carefully about it?  Pasteur was right, Redi was right, life cannot come from non-life. 
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