This is an entirely different realm of study, the study of the origin of life.
Historical events cannot be repeated. We can't repeat the origin of the universe. Science can help us determine what might have happened but it does not deal with history and cannot tell us how it happened.
Science has not been able to turn dead into living. we cannot create or recreate life.
"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."
Klaus Dose, "The Origin of Life: More Questions Than Answers", Interdisciplinary Science Reviews, Vol 13. No.4, 1988, p.348
The cell is the most complex and most elegantly designed system man has ever witnessed since the advent of the electron microscope. Professor of Biology Michael Denton, in his book entitled Evolution: A Theory in Crisis explains this complexity with an example:
To grasp the reality of life as it has been 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. What we would then see is an object of unparalelled complexity and adaptive design. On the surface of the cell we would see millions of openings like port holes of a vast space ship, opening and closing to allow 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 supreme technology and bewildering complexity... (a complexity) beyond our own creative capacities, a reality which is the very antithesis of chance, which excels in every sense anything produced by the intelligence of man..."An alternative theory:
Panspermia - temporary fix. Sure it pushes off the question for a little while. But you still have to answer the question, where did the aliens come from?
Chandra Wickramasinghe:
‘The emergence of life from a primordial soup on the Earth is merely an article of faith that scientists are finding difficult to shed. There is no experimental evidence to support this at the present time.
‘Indeed all attempts to create life from non-life, starting from Pasteur, have been unsuccessful. Also recent geological evidence indicates that life was present on Earth over 3.6 billion years ago, at a time when the Earth was being pummeled by comet and meteorite impacts, and no primordial soup could have been expected to brew.
‘Not all microbes in interstellar space would survive of course, but the survival of even a minute fraction of microbes leaving one solar system and reaching the next site of planet formation would be enough for panspermia to be overwhelmingly more probable than starting life from scratch in a new location.
‘The odds against microbes surviving such a space journey pales into insignificance when compared with the insuperable odds against starting life anew in a warm little pond on the Earth.’7
"Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common- Lewontin R.C., "Billions and Billions of Demons", Review of "The
sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between
science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of
the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its
failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and
life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for
unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a
commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions
of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the
phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a
priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of
investigation and a set of concepts that produce material
explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how
mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute,
for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door."
Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark," by Carl Sagan,
New York Review, January 9, 1997
This is an amazing quote. Here is a solid admission that a lot of science is counter intuitive. And that Darwinits are assuming materialism a poi. Before even looking at the evidence.
Whether one accepts or rejects the design hypothesis…there is no avoiding the conclusion that the world looks as if it has been tailored for life; it appears to have been designed. All reality appears to be a vast, coherent, teleological whole with life and mankind as its purpose and goal.(Michael Denton, Nature’s Destiny: How the Laws of Biology Reveal Purpose in the Universe, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1998, p 387, emp. in original)
The more statistically improbable a thing is, the less we can believe that it just happened by blind chance. Super-ficially the obvious alternative to chance is an intelli-gent Designer.(Richard Dawkins, “The Necessity of Darwinism,” New Scientist, April 15,1982)
The complexity of living organisms is matched by the elegant efficiency of their apparent design. If anyone doesn’t agree that this amount of complex design cries out for an explanation, I give up!(Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker, W.W. Norton, New York, 1986, preface)
Poor Richard...if it looks like Design, then it probably is ...Design!
For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.(Robert Jastrow, God and the Astronomers, W.W. Norton, New York, 1978, p. 116)
I cannot believe that our existence in this universe is a mere quirk of fate, an accident of history, an incidental blip in the great cosmic drama… Through conscious beings the universe has generated self-awareness. This can be no trivial detail, no minor by-product of mindless, purposeless forces. We are truly meant to be here.(Paul Davies, The Mind of God, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1992, p h3232)
The Probability of a Protein Being Formed by Chance is Zero
There are 3 basic conditions for the formation of a useful protein:
1. All the amino acids in the protein chain are of the right type and in the right sequence.
2. All the amino acids in the chain are lef-handed.
3. All of these amino acids are united between them by forming a chemical bond called Peptide Bond.
In order for a protein to be formed by chance, all three basic conditions must exist simultaneously. The probability of the formation of a protien by chance is equal to the multiplication of the probabilities of the realisation of each of these conditions.
For instance, for an average molecule comprising of 500 amino acids:
1. The probability of the amino acids being in the right sequence:
There are 20 types of amino acids used in the composition of proteins. According to this:
- The probability of each amino acid being chosen correctly among these 20 types
= 1/20- The probability of all of those 500 amino acids being chosen correctly
= 1/20500 = 1/10650 = 1 chance in 10650
2. The probability of the amino acids being lef-handed:
- The probability of only one amino acid being left-handed
= 1/2- The probability of all those 500 amino acids being left-handed at the same time
= 1/2500 = 1/10150 = 1 chance in 10150
3. The probability of the amino acids being combined with a "peptide bond":
Amino acids can combine with each other with different kinds of chemical bonds. In order for a useful protein to be formed, all the amino acids in the chain must have been combined with a special chemical bond called a "peptide bond". It is calculated that the probability of the amino acids being combined not with another chemical bond but by a peptide bond is 50%. In relation to this:
- The probability of two amino acids being combined with a "peptide bond"
= 1/2- The probability of 500 amino acids all combining with peptide bonds
= 1/2499 = 1/10150 = 1 chance in 10150
Total Probability = 1/10650 X 1/10150 X 1/10150= 1/10950
= 1 chance in 10950
So to summarise - The probability of an average protein molecule made up of 500 amino acids being arranged in the correct quantity and sequence in addition to the probability of all of the amino acids it contains being only left-handed and being combined with only peptide bonds is "1" over 10950.
The above is only a written probability. Practically, such a possibility has "0" chance at realisation. In mathematics, a probability smaller than 1/1050 is statistically considered to have a "0" probability of realisation. A probability of "1/10950" is far beyond the limits of this definition.
7 - Britt, R., Panspermia Q and A: leading proponent Chandra Wickramasinghe, <http://www.space.com/searchforlife/chandra_sidebar_001027.html>, 27 October 2000. Return to text.
