It’s been awhile since I’ve continued this series, and any readers still with me may want to refresh their memories by going back at least to the first two installments here and here. Essentially, I am evaluating the creation/evolution controversy using a list of fifteen alleged "answers to Creation" meant to show how all Creationists are troglodytes who need to be put away for their own safety and the public’s protection. We have looked at six such answers and found them to be totally devoid of validity. The data when objectively considered actually supports creation rather than evolution. We will now turn to the seventh attempt:

7. Evolution cannot explain how life first appeared on earth.

The origin of life remains very much a mystery, but biochemists have learned about how primitive nucleic acids, amino acids and other building blocks of life could have formed and organized themselves into self-replicating, self-sustaining units, laying the foundation for cellular biochemistry. Astrochemical analyses hint that quantities of these compounds might have originated in space and fallen to earth in comets, a scenario that may solve the problem of how those constituents arose under the conditions that prevailed when our planet was young.

Creationists sometimes try to invalidate all of evolution by pointing to science’s current inability to explain the origin of life. But even if life on earth turned out to have a nonevolutionary origin (for instance, if aliens introduced the first cells billions of years ago), evolution since then would be robustly confirmed by countless microevolutionary and macroevolutionary studies.

Notice how Mr. Rennie is at least honest enough to say that the origin of life is "a mystery," but then rushes to assure us that Science (the capital "S" is implied by this author’s attitude as revealed all along; one should perhaps also read that word in a "deep voice of authority" to fully capture the desired effect; see earlier posts in this series) has "robustly confirmed" that however that mystery will be solved, it most certainly will not require God! OK, I thought the definition of "mystery" entails something "unknown" by definition, and if it is unknown, how can you exclude any such answer if you do not know what you will find? Note also the language he chooses for the current status of knowledge: basic building blocks of life "could have formed...", astrochemical analyses "hint that...", and compounds "might have originated...." Again, at least it is accurate and honest language, but such uncertain language which accurately reflects true uncertainty is hardly an "answer" to creationism.

To address his assertions point by point, we must first observe that just because someone figures out how to make bricks does not mean the Empire State Building will inevitably self-assemble (need I also point out that "someone" has to make bricks?). In fact, if you look at those experiments closely, they all start out making assumptions about the "primitive atmosphere" and other atmospheric conditions (e.g., lightning) for which they have little means of verifying (since no scientist was there to observe). All that really has been shown is that IF such conditions prevailed, THEN some building blocks of, not life, but cellular biochemistry, can be formed. To conclude the absolute truth of that scenario from this data is to argue in a circle, at best.

Moreover, our antagonist reveals more about himself than the science of the situation in what he has failed to mention: not all building blocks have been so formed and, in fact, some major building blocks CANNOT be formed, e.g., cytosine.

His assertion regarding self-replicating, self-sustaining units is just plain bluster. Spontaneous self-sustaining polymerization has yet to be demonstrated. In addition, he carefully fails to mention some other significant problems related to the chemical origins of life, such as the "handedness" or chirality of biomolecules, or the inability to generate any self-replicating chemical system of relevance to living cells.

The dismal failure of chemical evolutionists to conclusively produce meaningful data regarding life’s origins on this planet has led one scientist of no less stature than Francis Crick of the DNA double helix fame to abandon such hope and propose an hypothesis that has not a shred of evidence that he calls "panspermia," the implantation of life in some form by extraterrestrials (I think his original work favored not comets but intelligent life, but I could be mistaken there; regardless, the lack of evidence for either proposition makes this more a statement of faith than science). The possibility of a theistic origin of life is so distasteful to such individuals they reject it despite any evidence, convinced in their invincible ignorance.

Finally, without informing the reader, Mr. Rennie closes this alleged argument by clouding definitions. "Evolution" in the sense of the origin of life becomes proven by "macroevolution" and "microevolution." (The distinction between "macro" and "micro" evolution is one recognized by creationists. In both cases, however, we are dealing with pre-existing life forms.) Unfortunately, this statement only begs the question and engages in circular reasoning. It begs the question whether or not either "macroevolution" and "microevolution" have sufficient evidence to warrant the Darwinian theory for origins of species, and it is circular in that it assumes an alleged effect (life) proves its alleged cause (the inorganic to organic transition) without demonstrating that its desired alleged cause is the only possible explanation available.

The truth of the matter is that the difference between inorganic, or even organic molecules, and life itself involves multiple quantum leaps in complexity at the chemical, organizational, and informational levels. As just one example, it has been pointed out that a Boeing 747 consists of about 4.5 million non-flying parts. In order for that plane to get off the ground, all those parts must be intelligently assembled in the right way. In contrast, a "simple living cell" consists of billions of non-living components, yet we are to accept that it has been "proven" that these have all developed from inorganic matter plus lots and lots of time and no intelligence behind it at all? Sorry, I don’t have that kind of faith.

The subsystems within an individual living cell are multiple, complex, and interlocked in a way that defies naturalistic origins. Moreover, from where comes the information content of such systems? The genetic code that provides the basis for life, how was it determined that this particular triplet of codons translates into this specific amino acid and not another? The information content of the DNA molecule is phenomenal. All this consideration does not begin to scratch the surface of how a multicellular organism might come about. When the Psalmist says we are fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14), he was not just whistlin’ Dixie! Multiple complex systems interact and synergize in a codependent network of networks that we still haven’t fully figured out.

For example, the eye has 40,000,000 nerve endings (give or take a few here and there), the focusing muscles move an estimated 100,000 times a day, and the retina contains 137,000,000 light sensitive cells. I bring this up to point out that even Darwin himself says in his On the Origin of the Species,

"To suppose that the eye, with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree."

As another illustration of what we are talking about here, watch this narrated video of "The Inner Life of the Cell."  The whole thing is quite dynamic, choreographed with a precision that defies a random origin from chaos. Something has to start the march against entropy, and no naturalistic mechanism yet devised is capable of doing so in the sustained pattern needed to create life.

At this point, many evolutionists like to dismiss creationism as an unverifiable proposition, relying on a "God of the Gaps" approach that will just shut down scientific investigation with the simple expression, "God did it, that settles it, end of story." Such objections, however, display an abysmal ignorance of the history of science and of the nature of creationism; sadly, this is all too common in today’s scientific community that has been nurtured in the leftist anti-theistic environment of the modern university. I covered this in greater detail in part 4 of this series. The truth is, creationism does provide difference from evolution that can be tested by an examination of the fossil record, and I will refer you back to part 6 of this series for further details.

Even as I was writing this post, it was reported (HT: Uncommon Descent) in the April 10^th issue of Nature that some of the earliest known life forms according to the evolutionary model are more complex that previously thought.

The conclusion of this matter: Mr. Rennie has once again failed to generate a conclusive argument against creation, this time in the area of the transition from inorganic molecules to life. This is, perhaps, the weakest link in the Darwinian version of how life came to be.