With our current understanding, the
life process may be represented as: DNA-RNA-Protein.
Twenty amino acids are considered
essential ingredients of life, the bricks that make the skyscrapers. They are subunits of fantastically more complex
molecules: proteins. Proteins are what
constitute living tissue.
It must be pointed out that it is not
simply a number of amino acids joined that make life, but their organization by DNA into
precise chains, each falling in exactly the right location along each chain. DNA is then the mediator of all forms of life,
possessing all the genetic information, issuing all the necessary instructions for life to
proceed. It consists of a string of 4 bases
(called nucleotides), repeated many billions of times in a specific sequence. The length of the DNA tape is a measure of the
enormity of information it contains. The
total length of the DNA tape contained in the human body is greater than the distance
between the sun and our moon. On the tape
each group of three nucleotides (always three) make up a gene; and each gene specifies an
amino acid. This in effect is a command
which is decoded, carried out by RNA. When all the commands are carried out, amino
acids are produced in a specific sequence; proteins are formed. Depending on the specific genetic does, the
proteins conglomerate further and there emerges an elephant, a fish, a flower, etc.
In any discussion of the origins of
life we need to answer three questions: 1) Did life start at some point in the past? 2)
What were the conditions that existed at the time? 3) How could simple, lifeless molecules
be organized into far more complex living ones?
According to accepted cosmological
models, Earth was formed 4.5 billion years ago. During the first half billion years large shields
of rock began to form. When these oldest
rocks are examined, there is no evidence of life. We
then move to Australian rocks which are 3.5 billion years old. They are teeming with the fossil remains of
primitive bacteria. This indicates that life
must have emerged between 3.5 and 4.0 billion years ago.
It is almost certain that all the
elements that make up the Earth today were present from the very beginning, swept up from
space as the solar system was formed.
It is when we try to answer the third
question that the enigmatic nature of life becomes apparent. What could possibly be the mechanism, the process
that organized thousands of amino acids into precise chains? It is interesting to note that until 15 to 20
years ago scientists were more certain that the puzzle of life had been solved. Today, they are not so certain, and a large
segment admits there is an enigma here.
The Russian biochemist, Oparin was the
first to consider the atmosphere of primordial Earth to have been a mixture of methane and
ammonia, containing all the elements necessary for formation of amino acids. In 1954, Miller performed his now celebrated
experiment of putting a mixture of water, ammonia, methane and hydrogen in a flask and
passing an electric charge through them. At
the end of a week he found a mixture of 4 amino acids.
This result caused great excitement in both the scientific cornmunity and
the population at large. The implication was
that the mechanism for the origin of life had been found.
This view, has been totally rejected by
many specialists in the field. Edey &
Johanson (Blueprints: Solving the Mystery
of Evolution), for example: "Put bluntly the enthusiasm of the press at the time
was overblown. All Miller had succeeded in
proving was that small bits of RNA and a few amino acids could be created in an otherwise
sterile primordial sea." It is a very long trip from bricks (amino acids) to
skyscrapers (proteins). Even this comparison
is weak due to the complexity of proteins.
Conklin earlier put it: "The
probability of life originating from an accident is comparable to the probability of the
Unabridged Dictionary resulting from an explosion in a printing factory."
Oparin, in his Origin of Life, gives a similar analogy when
pointing to the absurdity of chance as an explanation: "There is no logical theory,
none, except for the specific design of God that can explain how this magnificent system
would originate. A computer will only
function if it is programmed, and has a programming intellect providing the information
required to operate the system."
Fred Hoyle, among others, has
calculated that the chance of a random ordering of 20 amino acids falling into the right
locations would be 1 in 10 (raised to the 20th power), and as there are 2000
enzymes the probability that all would fall at exactlv the right places is 1 in 10 (raised
to the 40,000th power), an outrageously small probability that could not be faced,
even if the whole Universe consisted of organic soup.
The odds here are even higher than the
ones faced if we assume a haphazard origin of the Big Bang.
If the explosive power of the Big Ban were different by only 1 in 10 (raised
to the 60th power), we would not be here. In fact, there would be no amino acids to start
any process, by chance or by design!
In spite of the overwhelming evidence,
the scientific community generally refuses to acknowledge the existence of God and His
magnificent design. But their refusal does
not alter His reality nor design.
- Hossein Kowsari.
