Missives

It’s a mighty steep climb from chemistry to biology. Dr. C.L. Tan identifies 12 unavoidable steps all evolutionary scientists must climb if they wish to solve for a naturalistic origin of cells (see diagram, right). We’ve already written about the insurmountable challenges at the first two steps: there’s not enough time to assemble all the parts to make just half a protein, let alone make it out of homochiral (i.e., left-handed-only) parts. Now we face the third step –the water paradox– with a question: in the so-called “prebiotic earth”, was there water or not?

In the search for extraterrestrial life on other planets, finding water is finding life. But water is very corrosive, as any builder will tell you. Civil engineers work hard to ensure water doesn’t get inside. Even small leaks over time cause significant damage (see pictures, far right). We do (and must) allow water into habitable buildings, but only in controlled and sealed pipes, tanks, and watertight structures. This illustrates the same problem facing all evolutionists and their theories of abiogenesis; so let’s dip into chemistry to see why.

There’s a reason water is known as the universal solvent. Water works to prevent amino acids from forming peptides which then bind to form proteins, since only “dry” (water-free) amino acids can properly connect. In fact, water prevents all of life’s basic building blocks from polymerization (paula-mur-eye-ZAY-shun), the linkage process that forms phospholipids (foss-foe-LIP-ids) into cell walls, or nucleosides (NEW-clee-oh-sides) and phosphates into the “letters” of DNA. Furthermore, DNA and RNA polymerization produces water as a byproduct which needs to be removed. So, having more water around only impedes progress; this is like drying out a wet rag underwater. Worse yet, water naturally degrades DNA, RNA and proteins after they’re made; for instance, water-damaged DNA plays a role in creating cancer, because water destroys DNA’s repair mechanisms. [1]

Do you see their dilemma?  If water is present, bio-parts can’t glue together; but if water is absent, it won’t live after it’s made.  For these reasons, evolutionists lately propose that life didn’t arise from the oceans, but from dry land near some sea spray. [2]  (This adds the new problem of oxygen which also destroys cellular growth via oxidation, like rust on metal.) One evolutionary scientist proposed a lab-like process: add an unnatural solvent to each amino acid separately then wash it away, add another unnatural solvent to each amino acid again, then wash it away. This only produced peptides, not a viable protein. A few suggest a toxic solvent called formamide enabled non-life to become a living cell, which later adapted to use water. [3] No scientist suggests any of these chemicals existed in prebiotic earth. I seriously doubt Darwin’s warm little pond was next to a DuPont chemical lab.

No scientist has ever observed any of these chemical experiments occur in an unguided natural setting. These are not merely challenges; these are roadblocks and showstoppers. God says they’ve grown vain in their imaginations; despite professing themselves to be wise, they became fools. Perhaps the atheist upholds evolutionist’s credibility by ignoring these damaging issues.  I think they’re all wet behind the ears.