Can Design Be Explained by Coincidence?

So far, we have examined how impossible the accidental formation of life is. Let us again ignore these impossibilities for just a moment. Let us suppose that millions of years ago a cell was formed which had acquired everything necessary for life, and that it duly "came to life." Evolution again collapses at this point. For even if this cell had existed for a while, it would eventually have died and after its death, nothing would have remained, and everything would have reverted to where it had started. This is because this first living cell, lacking any genetic information, would not have been able to reproduce and start a new generation. Life would have ended with its death.

The genetic system does not only consist of DNA. The following things must also exist in the same environment: enzymes to read the code on the DNA, messenger RNA to be produced after reading these codes, a ribosome to which messenger RNA will attach according to this code, transfer RNA to transfer the amino acids to the ribosome for use in production, and extremely complex enzymes to carry out numerous intermediary processes. Such an environment cannot exist anywhere apart from a totally isolated and completely controlled environment such as the cell, where all the essential raw materials and energy resources exist.

As a result, organic matter can self-reproduce only if it exists as a fully developed cell, with all its organelles. This means that the first cell on earth was formed "all of a sudden," together with its incredibly complex structure.

So, if a complex structure came into existence all of a sudden, what does this mean?

Let us ask this question with an example. Let us liken the cell to a high-tech car in terms of its complexity. (In fact, the cell is a much more complex and developed system than a car.) Now let us ask the following question: What would you think if you went out hiking in the depths of a thick forest and ran across a brand-new car among the trees? Would you imagine that various elements in the forest had come together by chance over millions of years and produced such a vehicle? All the parts in the car are made of products such as iron, copper, and rubber-the raw ingredients for which are all found on the Earth-but would this fact lead you to think that these materials had synthesized "by chance" and then come together and manufactured such a car?

There is no doubt that anyone with a sound mind would realize that the car was the product of an intelligent design-in other words, a factory-and wonder what it was doing there in the middle of the forest. The sudden emergence of a complex structure in a complete form, quite out of the blue, shows that this is the work of a design.

Believing that pure chance can produce perfect designs goes well beyond the bounds of reason. Yet every "explanation" put forward by the theory of evolution regarding the origin of life is like that. One outspoken authority on this issue is the famous French zoologist Pierre-Paul Grassé, the former president of the French Academy of Sciences. Grassé is an evolutionist, yet he acknowledges that Darwinist theory is unable to explain life and makes a point about the logic of "coincidence," which is the backbone of Darwinism:

The opportune appearance of mutations permitting animals and plants to meet their needs seems hard to believe. Yet the Darwinian theory is even more demanding: A single plant, a single animal would require thousands and thousands of lucky, appropriate events. Thus, miracles would become the rule: events with an infinitesimal probability could not fail to occur… There is no law against daydreaming, but science must not indulge in it.280

All living things in the world, all of which are clear examples of the intelligent planning we have just been discussing, are at the same time living evidence that coincidence can have no role to play in their existence. Each of its component parts-never mind a whole living creature-contains structures and systems so complex that they cannot be the work of coincidence. We need go no further than our own bodies to find examples of this.

One example of this is our eyes. The human eye sees by the working together of some 40 separate parts. If one of these is not present, the eye will be useless. Each of these 40 parts possesses complicated designs within itself. The retina at the back of the eye, for instance, is made up of 11 layers. Each layer has a different function. The chemical processes that go on inside the retina are so complex that they can only be explained with pages full of formulae and diagrams.

The theory of evolution is unable to account for the emergence of even such a flawless and complex structure as a single eye by means of "accident," let alone life itself, or mankind.

So, what does this extraordinary design in living things prove to us about the origin of life? As we made clear in the opening part of this book, only two different accounts can be given regarding the origin of life. One is evolution, the other intelligent creation. Since the evolution claim is impossible, scientific discoveries therefore prove the truth of creation. This truth may surprise some scientists, who from the nineteenth century to the present have seen the concept of "creation" as unscientific, but science can only progress by overcoming shocks of this kind and accepting the truth. Chandra Wickramasinghe describes the reality he faced as a scientist who had been told throughout his life that life had emerged as a result of chance coincidences:

From my earliest training as a scientist, I was very strongly brainwashed to believe that science cannot be consistent with any kind of deliberate creation. That notion has had to be painfully shed. At the moment, I can't find any rational argument to knock down the view which argues for conversion to God. We used to have an open mind; now we realize that the only logical answer to life is creation - and not accidental random shuffling.281

280 Pierre-P Grassé, Evolution of Living Organisms, Academic Press, New York, 1977, p. 103. (emphasis added)
281 Chandra Wickramasinghe, Interview in London Daily Express, August 14, 1981.

The Invalidity of the RNA World

The discovery in the 1970s that the gases originally existing in the primitive atmosphere of the earth would have rendered amino acid synthesis impossible was a serious blow to the theory of molecular evolution. Evolutionists then had to face the fact that the "primitive atmosphere experiments" by Stanley Miller, Sydney Fox, Cyril Ponnamperuma and others were invalid. For this reason, in the 1980s the evolutionists tried again. As a result, the "RNA World" hypothesis was advanced. This scenario proposed that, not proteins, but rather the RNA molecules that contained the information for proteins, were formed first.

According to this scenario, advanced by Harvard chemist Walter Gilbert in 1986, inspired by the discovery about "ribozymes" by Thomas Cech, billions of years ago an RNA molecule capable of replicating itself formed somehow by accident. Then this RNA molecule started to produce proteins, having been activated by external influences. Thereafter, it became necessary to store this information in a second molecule, and somehow the DNA molecule emerged to do that.

Made up as it is of a chain of impossibilities in each and every stage, this scarcely credible scenario, far from providing any explanation of the origin of life, only magnified the problem, and raised many unanswerable questions:

1. Since it is impossible to accept the coincidental formation of even one of the nucleotides making up RNA, how can it be possible for these imaginary nucleotides to form RNA by coming together in a particular sequence? Evolutionist John Horgan admits the impossibility of the chance formation of RNA;

As researchers continue to examine the RNA-World concept closely, more problems emerge. How did RNA initially arise? RNA and its components are difficult to synthesize in a laboratory under the best of conditions, much less under really plausible ones.274

2. Even if we suppose that it formed by chance, how could this RNA, consisting of just a nucleotide chain, have "decided" to self-replicate, and with what kind of mechanism could it have carried out this self-replicating process? Where did it find the nucleotides it used while self-replicating? Even evolutionist microbiologists Gerald Joyce and Leslie Orgel express the desperate nature of the situtation in their book In the RNA World:

This discussion… has, in a sense, focused on a straw man: the myth of a self-replicating RNA molecule that arose de novo from a soup of random polynucleotides. Not only is such a notion unrealistic in light of our current understanding of prebiotic chemistry, but it would strain the credulity of even an optimist's view of RNA's catalytic potential.275

3. Even if we suppose that there was self-replicating RNA in the primordial world, that numerous amino acids of every type ready to be used by RNA were available, and that all of these impossibilities somehow took place, the situation still does not lead to the formation of even one single protein. For RNA only includes information concerning the structure of proteins. Amino acids, on the other hand, are raw materials. Nevertheless, there is no mechanism for the production of proteins. To consider the existence of RNA sufficient for protein production is as nonsensical as expecting a car to assemble itself by simply throwing the blueprint onto a heap of parts piled up on top of each other. A blueprint cannot produce a car all by itself without a factory and workers to assemble the parts according to the instructions contained in the blueprint; in the same way, the blueprint contained in RNA cannot produce proteins by itself without the cooperation of other cellular components which follow the instructions contained in the RNA.

Proteins are produced in the ribosome factory with the help of many enzymes, and as a result of extremely complex processes within the cell. The ribosome is a complex cell organelle made up of proteins. This leads, therefore, to another unreasonable supposition-that ribosomes, too, should have come into existence by chance at the same time. Even Nobel Prize winner Jacques Monod, who was one of the most fanatical defenders of evolution-and atheism-explained that protein synthesis can by no means be considered to depend merely on the information in the nucleic acids:

The code is meaningless unless translated. The modern cell's translating machinery consists of at least 50 macromolecular components, which are themselves coded in DNA: the code cannot be translated otherwise than by products of translation themselves. It is the modern expression of omne vivum ex ovo. When and how did this circle become closed? It is exceedingly difficult to imagine.276

How could an RNA chain in the primordial world have taken such a decision, and what methods could it have employed to make protein production happen by doing the work of 50 specialized particles on its own? Evolutionists have no answer to these questions. One article in the preeminent scientific journal Nature makes it clear that the concept of "self-replicating RNA" is a complete product of fantasy, and that actually this kind of RNA has not been produced in any experiment:

DNA replication is so error-prone that it needs the prior existence of protein enzymes to improve the copying fidelity of a gene-size piece of DNA. "Catch-22" say Maynard Smith and Szathmary. So, wheel on RNA with its now recognized properties of carrying both informational and enzymatic activity, leading the authors to state: "In essence, the first RNA molecules did not need a protein polymerase to replicate them; they replicated themselves." Is this a fact or a hope? I would have thought it relevant to point out for 'biologists in general' that not one self-replicating RNA has emerged to date from quadrillions (10²⁴) of artificially synthesized, random RNA sequences.277

Dr. Leslie Orgel, one of the associates of Stanley Miller and Francis Crick from the University of California at San Diego, uses the term "scenario" for the possibility of "the origination of life through the RNA World." Orgel described what kind of features this RNA would have had to have and how impossible these would have been in his article "The Origin of Life," published in Scientific American in October 1994:

This scenario could have occurred, we noted, if prebiotic RNA had two properties not evident today: A capacity to replicate without the help of proteins and an ability to catalyze every step of protein synthesis.278

As should by now be clear, to expect these two complex and extremely essential processes from a molecule such as RNA is againt scientific thought. Concrete scientific facts, on the other hand, makes it explicit that the RNA World hypothesis, which is a new model proposed for the chance formation of life, is an equally implausible fable.

John Horgan, in his book The End of Science, reports that Stanley Miller viewed the theories subsequently put forward regarding the origin of life as quite meaningless (It will be recalled that Miller was the originator of the famous Miller Experiment, which was later revealed to be invalid.):

In fact, almost 40 years after his original experiment, Miller told me that solving the riddle of the origin of life had turned out to be more difficult than he or anyone else had envisioned… Miller seemed unimpressed with any of the current proposals on the origin of life, referring to them as "nonsense" or "paper chemistry." He was so contemptuous of some hypotheses that, when I asked his opinion of them, he merely shook his head, sighed deeply, and snickered-as if overcome by the folly of humanity. Stuart Kauffman's theory of autocatalysis fell into this category. "Running equations through a computer does not constitute an experiment," Miller sniffed. Miller acknowledged that scientists may never know precisely where and when life emerged.279

This statement, by a pioneer of the struggle to find an evolutionary explanation for the origin of life, clearly reflects the despair felt by evolutionist scientists over the cul-de-sac they find themselves in.

274 John Horgan, "In the Beginning," Scientific American, vol. 264, February 1991, p. 119.
275 G. F. Joyce, L. E. Orgel, "Prospects for Understanding the Origin of the RNA World," In the RNA World, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, New York, 1993, p. 13.
276 Jacques Monod, Chance and Necessity, New York, 1971, p. 143. (emphasis added)
277 Dover, Gabby L., "Looping the Evolutionary loop, review of the origin of life from the birth of life to the origin of language," Nature, 1999, vol. 399, p. 218. (emphasis added)
278 Leslie E. Orgel, "The Origin of Life on the Earth," Scientific American, October 1994, vol. 271, p. 78.
279 Horgan, John, The End of Science, MA Addison-Wesley, 1996, p. 139.

DNA Cannot Be Explained by Non-Design

At this point, there is an important detail that deserves attention. An error in the sequence of the nucleotides making up a gene would render that gene completely useless. When it is considered that there are 200,000 genes in the human body, it becomes clearer how impossible it is for the millions of nucleotides making up these genes to have been formed, in the right sequence, by chance. The evolutionary biologist Frank Salisbury has comments on this impossibility:

A medium protein might include about 300 amino acids. The DNA gene controlling this would have about 1,000 nucleotides in its chain. Since there are four kinds of nucleotides in a DNA chain, one consisting of 1,000 links could exist in 4^1,000 forms. Using a little algebra (logarithms) we can see that 4^1,000=10⁶⁰⁰. Ten multiplied by itself 600 times gives the figure 1 followed by 600 zeros! This number is completely beyond our comprehension.264

The number 4^1,000 is the equivalent of 10⁶⁰⁰. This means 1 followed by 600 zeros. As 1 with 12 zeros after it indicates a trillion, 600 zeros represents an inconceivable number.

The impossibility of the formation of RNA and DNA by a coincidental accumulation of nucleotides is expressed by the French scientist Paul Auger in this way:

We have to sharply distinguish the two stages in the chance formation of complex molecules such as nucleotides by chemical events. The production of nucleotides one by one-which is possible-and the combination of these within very special sequences. The second is absolutely impossible.265

For many years, Francis Crick believed in the theory of molecular evolution, but eventually even he had to admit to himself that such a complex molecule could not have emerged spontaneously by chance, as the result of an evolutionary process:

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.266

The Turkish evolutionist Professor Ali Demirsoy was forced to make the following confession on the issue:

In fact, the probability of the formation of a protein and a nucleic acid (DNA-RNA) is a probability way beyond estimating. Furthermore, the chance of the emergence of a certain protein chain is so slight as to be called astronomic.267

A very interesting paradox emerges at this point: While DNA can only replicate with the help of special proteins (enzymes), the synthesis of these proteins can only be realized by the information encoded in DNA. As they both depend on each other, they have to exist at the same time for replication. Science writer John Horgan explains the dilemma in this way:

DNA cannot do its work, including forming more DNA, without the help of catalyticproteins, or enzymes. In short, proteins cannot form without DNA, but neither can DNA form without proteins.268

This situation once again undermines the scenario that life could have come about by accident. Homer Jacobson, Professor Emeritus of Chemistry, comments:

Directions for the reproduction of plans, for energy and the extraction of parts from the current environment, for the growth sequence, and for the effector mechanism translating instructions into growth-all had to be simultaneously present at that moment [when life began]. This combination of events has seemed an incredibly unlikely happenstance...269

The quotation above was written two years after the discovery of the structure of DNA by Watson and Crick. But despite all the developments in science, this problem for evolutionists remains unsolved. This is why German biochemist Douglas R. Hofstadter says:

'How did the Genetic Code, along with the mechanisms for its translation (ribosomes and RNA molecules), originate?' For the moment, we will haveto content ourselves with a sense of wonder and awe, rather than with an answer.270

Stanley Miller and Francis Crick's close associate from the University of San Diego, California, the highly reputed evolutionist Dr. Leslie Orgel says in an article published in 1994:

It is extremely improbable that proteins and nucleic acids, both of which are structurally complex, arose spontaneously in the same place at the same time. Yet it also seems impossible to have one without the other. And so, at first glance, one might have to conclude that life could never, in fact, have originated by chemical means.271

Alongside all of this, it is chemically impossible for nucleic acids such as DNA and RNA, which possess a definite string of information, to have emerged by chance, or for even one of the nucleotides which compose them to have come about by accident and to have survived and maintained its unadulterated state under the conditions of the primordial world. Even the famous journal Scientific American, which follows an evolutionist line, has been obliged to confess the doubts of evolutionists on this subject:

Even the simpler molecules are produced only in small amounts in realistic experiments simulating possible primitive earth conditions. What is worse, these molecules are generally minor constituents of tars: It remains problematical how they could have been separated and purified through geochemical processes whose normal effects are to make organic mixtures more and more of a jumble. With somewhat more complex molecules these difficulties rapidly increase. In particular a purely geochemical origin of nucleotides (the subunits of DNA and RNA) presents great difficulties.272

Of course, the statement "it is quite impossible for life to have emerged by chemical means" simply means that life is the product of an intelligent design. This "chemical evolution" that evolutionists have been talking about since the beginning of the last century never happened, and is nothing but a myth.

But most evolutionists believe in this and similar totally unscientific fairy tales as if they were true, because accepting intelligent design means accepting creation-and they have conditioned themselves not to accept this truth. One famous biologist from Australia, Michael Denton, discusses the subject in his book Evolution: A Theory in Crisis:

To the skeptic, the proposition that the genetic programmes of higher organisms, consisting of something close to a thousand million bits of information, equivalent to the sequence of letters in a small library of 1,000 volumes, containing in encoded form countless thousands of intricate algorithms controlling, specifying, and ordering the growth and development of billions and billions of cells into the form of a complex organism, were composed by a purely random process is simply an affront to reason. But to the Darwinist, the idea is accepted without a ripple of doubt - the paradigm takes precedence!273

264 Frank B. Salisbury, "Doubts about the Modern Synthetic Theory of Evolution," American Biology Teacher,September 1971, p. 336.
265 Paul Auger, De La Physique Theorique a la Biologie, 1970, p. 118.
266 Francis Crick, Life Itself: It's Origin and Nature, New York, Simon & Schuster, 1981, p. 88. (emphasis added)
267 Ali Demirsoy, Kalitim ve Evrim (Inheritance and Evolution), Meteksan Publishing Co., Ankara, 1984, p. 39.
268 John Horgan, "In the Beginning," Scientific American, vol. 264, February 1991, p. 119. (emphasis added)
269 Homer Jacobson, "Information, Reproduction and the Origin of Life," American Scientist, January 1955, p. 121.
270 Douglas R. Hofstadter, Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, Vintage Books, New York, 1980, p. 548.(emphasis added)
271 Leslie E. Orgel, "The Origin of Life on Earth," Scientific American, vol. 271, October 1994, p. 78. (emphasis added)
272 Cairns-Smith, Alexander G., "The First Organisms," Scientific American, 252: 90, June 1985. (emphasis added)
273 Michael Denton, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, London: Burnett Books, 1985, p. 351.

The Origin of the DNA Molecule

Our examinations so far have shown that the theory of evolution is in a serious quandary at the molecular level. Evolutionists have shed no light on the formation of amino acids at all. The formation of proteins, on the other hand, is another mystery all its own.

Yet the problems are not even limited just to amino acids and proteins: These are only the beginning. Beyond them, the extremely complex structure of the cell leads evolutionists to yet another impasse. The reason for this is that the cell is not just a heap of amino-acid-structured proteins, but rather the most complex system man has ever encountered.

While the theory of evolution was having such trouble providing a coherent explanation for the existence of the molecules that are the basis of the cell structure, developments in the science of genetics and the discovery of nucleic acids (DNA and RNA) produced brand-new problems for the theory. In 1953, James Watson and Francis Crick launched a new age in biology with their work on the structure of DNA.

The molecule known as DNA, which is found in the nucleus of each of the 100 trillion cells in our bodies, contains the complete blueprint for the construction of the human body. The information regarding all the characteristics of a person, from physical appearance to the structure of the inner organs, is recorded in DNA within the sequence of four special bases that make up the giant molecule. These bases are known as A, T, G, and C, according to the initial letters of their names. All the structural differences among people depend on variations in the sequences of these letters. In addition to features such as height, and eye, hair and skin colors, the DNA in a single cell also contains the design of the 206 bones, the 600 muscles, the 100 billion nerve cells (neurons), 1.000 trillion connections between the neurons of the brain, 97,000 kilometers of veins, and the 100 trillion cells of the human body. If we were to write down the information coded in DNA, then we would have to compile a giant library consisting of 900 volumes of 500 pages each. But the information this enormous library would hold is encoded inside the DNA molecules in the cell nucleus, which is far smaller than the 1/100th-of-a-millimeter-long cell itself.

Fox's Experiment

Challenged by the above dilemma, evolutionists began to invent unrealistic scenarios based on this "water problem" that so definitively refuted their theories. Sydney Fox was one of the best known of these researchers. Fox advanced the following theory to solve the problem. According to him, the first amino acids must have been transported to some cliffs near a volcano right after their formation in the primordial ocean. The water contained in this mixture that included the amino acids must have evaporated when the temperature increased above boiling point on the cliffs. The amino acids which were "dried out" in this way, could then have combined to form proteins.

However this "complicated" way out was not accepted by many people in the field, because the amino acids could not have endured such high temperatures. Research confirmed that amino acids are immediately destroyed at very high temperatures.

But Fox did not give up. He combined purified amino acids in the laboratory, "under very special conditions," by heating them in a dry environment. The amino acids combined, but still no proteins were obtained. What he actually ended up with was simple and disordered loops of amino acids, arbitrarily combined with each other, and these loops were far from resembling any living protein. Furthermore, if Fox had kept the amino acids at a steady temperature, then these useless loops would also have disintegrated.

Another point that nullified the experiment was that Fox did not use the useless end products obtained in Miller's experiment; rather, he used pure amino acids from living organisms. This experiment, however, which was intended to be a continuation of Miller's experiment, should have started out from the results obtained by Miller. Yet neither Fox, nor any other researcher, used the useless amino acids Miller produced.

Fox's experiment was not even welcomed in evolutionist circles, because it was clear that the meaningless amino acid chains that he obtained (which he termed "proteinoids") could not have formed under natural conditions. Moreover, proteins, the basic units of life, still could not be produced. The problem of the origin of proteins remained unsolved. In an article in the popular science magazine, Chemical Engineering News, which appeared in the 1970s, Fox's experiment was mentioned as follows:

Sydney Fox and the other researchers managed to unite the amino acids in the shape of "proteinoids" by using very special heating techniques under conditions which in fact did not exist at all in the primordial stages of Earth. Also, they are not at all similar to the very regular proteins present in living things. They are nothing but useless, irregular chemical stains. It was explained that even if such molecules had formed in the early ages, they would definitely be destroyed.263

Indeed, the proteinoids Fox obtained were totally different from real proteins, both in structure and function. The difference between proteins and these proteinoids was as huge as the difference between a piece of high-tech equipment and a heap of unprocessed iron.

Furthermore, there was no chance that even these irregular amino acid chains could have survived in the primordial atmosphere. Harmful and destructive physical and chemical effects caused by heavy exposure to ultraviolet light and other unstable natural conditions would have caused these proteinoids to disintegrate. Because of the Le Châtelier principle, it was also impossible for the amino acids to combine underwater, where ultraviolet rays would not reach them. In view of this, the idea that the proteinoids were the basis of life eventually lost support among scientists.

63 S. W. Fox, K. Harada, G. Kramptiz, G. Mueller, "Chemical Origin of Cells," Chemical Engineering News, June 22, 1970, p. 80.

The Problem of Protein Synthesis in Water

As we saw before, when combining to form proteins, amino acids form a special bond with one another called the peptide bond. A water molecule is released during the formation of this peptide bond.

This fact definitely refutes the evolutionist explanation that primordial life originated in water, because, according to the "Le Châtelier principle" in chemistry, it is not possible for a reaction that releases water (a condensation reaction) to take place in a hydrous environment. The chances of this kind of a reaction happening in a hydrate environment is said to "have the least probability of occurring" of all chemical reactions.

Hence the ocean, which is claimed to be where life began and amino acids originated, is definitely not an appropriate setting for amino acids to form proteins.262 On the other hand, it would be irrational for evolutionists to change their minds and claim that life originated on land, because the only environment where amino acids could have been protected from ultraviolet radiation is in the oceans and seas. On land, they would be destroyed by ultraviolet rays. The Le Châtelier principle, on the other hand, disproves the claim of the formation of life in the sea. This is another dilemma confronting evolution.

262 Richard Dickerson, "Chemical Evolution," Scientific American, vol. 239:3, 1978, p. 75. Chemist Richard Dickerson explains the reason for this in this way: "If polymeric chains of proteins and nucleic acids are to be forged out of their precursor monomers, a molecule of water must be removed at each link in the chain. It is therefore hard to see how polymerization could have proceeded in the aqueous environment of the primitive ocean, since the presence of water favors depolymerization rather than polymerization."

The Primordial Atmosphere and Proteins

Evolutionist sources use the Miller experiment, despite all of its inconsistencies, to try to gloss over the question of the origin of amino acids. By giving the impression that the issue has long since been resolved by that invalid experiment, they try to paper over the cracks in the theory of evolution.

However, to explain the second stage of the origin of life, evolutionists faced an even greater problem than that of the formation of amino acids-namely, the origin of proteins, the building blocks of life, which are composed of hundreds of different amino acids bonding with each other in a particular order.

Claiming that proteins were formed by chance under natural conditions is even more unrealistic and unreasonable than claiming that amino acids were formed by chance. In the preceding pages we have seen the mathematical impossibility of the haphazard uniting of amino acids in proper sequences to form proteins with probability calculations. Now, we will examine the impossibility of proteins being produced chemically under primordial Earth conditions.

Four Facts That Invalidate Miller's Experiment

Miller's experiment sought to prove that amino acids could form on their own in primordial earth-like conditions, but it contains inconsistencies in a number of areas:

1- By using a mechanism called a "cold trap," Miller isolated the amino acids from the environment as soon as they were formed. Had he not done so, the conditions in the environment in which the amino acids were formed would immediately have destroyed these molecules.

Doubtless, this kind of conscious isolation mechanism did not exist on the primordial earth. Without such a mechanism, even if one amino acid were obtained, it would immediately have been destroyed. The chemist Richard Bliss expresses this contradiction by observing that "Actually, without this trap, the chemical products, would have been destroyed by the energy source."254 And, sure enough, in his previous experiments, Miller had been unable to make even one single amino acid using the same materials without the cold trap mechanism.

2- The primordial atmosphere that Miller attempted to simulate in his experiment was not realistic. In the 1980s, scientists agreed that nitrogen and carbon dioxide should have been used in this artificial environment instead of methane and ammonia.

So why did Miller insist on these gases? The answer is simple: without ammonia, it was impossible to synthesize any amino acid. Kevin Mc Kean talks about this in an article published in Discover magazine:

Miller and Urey imitated the ancient atmosphere on the Earth with a mixture of methane and ammonia. ...However in the latest studies, it has been understood that the Earth was very hot at those times, and that it was composed of melted nickel and iron. Therefore, the chemical atmosphere of that time should have been formed mostly of nitrogen (N₂), carbon dioxide (CO₂) and water vapour (H₂O). However these are not as appropriate as methane and ammonia for the production of organic molecules.255

 The American scientists J. P. Ferris and C. T. Chen repeated Miller's experiment with an atmospheric environment that contained carbon dioxide, hydrogen, nitrogen, and water vapor, and were unable to obtain even a single amino acid molecule.256

3- Another important point that invalidates Miller's experiment is that there was enough oxygen to destroy all the amino acids in the atmosphere at the time when they were thought to have been formed. This fact, overlooked by Miller, is revealed by the traces of oxidized iron found in rocks that are estimated to be 3.5 billion years old.257

There are other findings showing that the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere at that time was much higher than originally claimed by evolutionists. Studies also show that the amount of ultraviolet radiation to which the earth was then exposed was 10,000 times more than evolutionists' estimates. This intense radiation would unavoidably have freed oxygen by decomposing the water vapor and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

This situation completely negates Miller's experiment, in which oxygen was completely neglected. If oxygen had been used in the experiment, methane would have decomposed into carbon dioxide and water, and ammonia into nitrogen and water. On the other hand, in an environment where there was no oxygen, there would be no ozone layer either; therefore, the amino acids would have immediately been destroyed, since they would have been exposed to the most intense ultraviolet rays without the protection of the ozone layer. In other words, with or without oxygen in the primordial world, the result would have been a deadly environment for the amino acids.

4- At the end of Miller's experiment, many organic acids had also been formed with characteristics detrimental to the structure and function of living things. If the amino acids had not been isolated, and had been left in the same environment with these chemicals, their destruction or transformation into different compounds through chemical reactions would have been unavoidable.

Moreover, Miller's experiment also produced right-handed amino acids.258 The existence of these amino acids refuted the theory even within its own terms, because right-handed amino acids cannot function in the composition of living organisms. To conclude, the circumstances in which amino acids were formed in Miller's experiment were not suitable for life. In truth, this medium took the form of an acidic mixture destroying and oxidizing the useful molecules obtained.

All these facts point to one firm truth: Miller's experiment cannot claim to have proved that living things formed by chance under primordial earth-like conditions. The whole experiment is nothing more than a deliberate and controlled laboratory experiment to synthesize amino acids. The amount and types of the gases used in the experiment were ideally determined to allow amino acids to originate. The amount of energy supplied to the system was neither too much nor too little, but arranged precisely to enable the necessary reactions to occur. The experimental apparatus was isolated, so that it would not allow the leaking of any harmful, destructive, or any other kind of elements to hinder the formation of amino acids. No elements, minerals or compounds that were likely to have been present on the primordial earth, but which would have changed the course of the reactions, were included in the experiment. Oxygen, which would have prevented the formation of amino acids because of oxidation, is only one of these destructive elements. Even under such ideal laboratory conditions, it was impossible for the amino acids produced to survive and avoid destruction without the "cold trap" mechanism.

In fact, by his experiment, Miller destroyed evolution's claim that "life emerged as the result of unconscious coincidences." That is because, if the experiment proves anything, it is that amino acids can only be produced in a controlled laboratory environment where all the conditions are specifically designed by conscious intervention.

Today, Miller's experiment is totally disregarded even by evolutionist scientists. In the February 1998 issue of the famous evolutionist science journal Earth, the following statements appear in an article titled "Life's Crucible":

Geologist now think that the primordial atmosphere consisted mainly of carbon dioxide and nitrogen, gases that are less reactive than those used in the 1953 experiment. And even if Miller's atmosphere could have existed, how do you get simple molecules such as amino acids to go through the necessary chemical changes that will convert them into more complicated compounds, or polymers, such as proteins? Miller himself throws up his hands at that part of the puzzle. "It's a problem," he sighs with exasperation. "How do you make polymers? That's not so easy."259

As seen, today even Miller himself has accepted that his experiment does not lead to an explanation of the origin of life. In the March 1998 issue of National Geographic, in an article titled "The Emergence of Life on Earth," the following comments appear:

Many scientists now suspect that the early atmosphere was different to what Miller first supposed. They think it consisted of carbon dioxide and nitrogen rather than hydrogen, methane, and ammonia.

That's bad news for chemists. When they try sparking carbon dioxide and nitrogen, they get a paltry amount of organic molecules - the equivalent of dissolving a drop of food colouring in a swimming pool of water. Scientists find it hard to imagine life emerging from such a diluted soup.260

In brief, neither Miller's experiment, nor any other similar one that has been attempted, can answer the question of how life emerged on earth. All of the research that has been done shows that it is impossible for life to emerge by chance, and thus confirms that life is created. The reason evolutionists do not accept this obvious reality is their blind adherence to prejudices that are totally unscientific. Interestingly enough, Harold Urey, who organized the Miller experiment with his student Stanley Miller, made the following confession on this subject:

All of us who study the origin of life find that the more we look into it, the more we feel it is too complex to have evolved anywhere. We all believe as an article of faith that life evolved from dead matter on this planet. It is just that its complexity is so great, it is hard for us to imagine that it did.261

254 Richard B. Bliss, Gary E. Parker, Duane T. Gish, Origin of Life, C.L.P. Publications, 3rd ed., California, 1990, pp. 14-15.
255 Kevin Mc Kean, Bilim ve Teknik (Science and Technology), no. 189, p. 7.
256 J. P. Ferris, C. T. Chen, "Photochemistry of Methane, Nitrogen, and Water Mixture As a Model for the Atmosphere of the Primitive Earth," Journal of American Chemical Society, vol. 97:11, 1975, p. 2964.
257 "New Evidence on Evolution of Early Atmosphere and Life," Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, vol. 63, November 1982, pp. 1328-1330.
258 Richard B. Bliss & Gary E. Parker, Duane T. Gish, Origin of Life, C.L.P. Publications, 3rd ed., California, 1990, p. 16.
259 "Life's Crucible," Earth, February 1998, p. 34. (emphasis added)
260 "The Rise of Life on Earth," National Geographic, March 1998, p. 68. (emphasis added)
261 W. R. Bird, The Origin of Species Revisited, Thomas Nelson Co., Nashville, 1991, p. 325. (emphasis added)

Miller's Experiment

The most generally respected study on the origin of life is the Miller experiment conducted by the American researcher Stanley Miller in 1953. (The experiment is also known as the "Urey-Miller experiment" because of the contribution of Miller's instructor at the University of Chicago, Harold Urey.) This experiment is the only "evidence" evolutionists have with which to allegedly prove the "chemical evolution thesis"; they advance it as the first stage of the supposed evolutionary process leading to life. Although nearly half a century has passed, and great technological advances have been made, nobody has made any further progress. In spite of this, Miller's experiment is still taught in textbooks as the evolutionary explanation of the earliest generation of living things. That is because, aware of the fact that such studies do not support, but rather actually refute, their thesis, evolutionist researchers deliberately avoid embarking on such experiments.

Stanley Miller's aim was to demonstrate by means of an experiment that amino acids, the building blocks of proteins, could have come into existence "by chance" on the lifeless earth billions of years ago. In his experiment, Miller used a gas mixture that he assumed to have existed on the primordial earth (but which later proved unrealistic), composed of ammonia, methane, hydrogen, and water vapor. Since these gases would not react with each other under natural conditions, he added energy to the mixture to start a reaction among them. Supposing that this energy could have come from lightning in the primordial atmosphere, he used an electric current for this purpose.

Miller heated this gas mixture at 100°C for a week and added the electrical current. At the end of the week, Miller analyzed the chemicals which had formed at the bottom of the jar, and observed that three out of the 20 amino acids which constitute the basic elements of proteins had been synthesized.

This experiment aroused great excitement among evolutionists, and was promoted as an outstanding success. Moreover, in a state of intoxicated euphoria, various publications carried headlines such as "Miller creates life." However, what Miller had managed to synthesize was only a few inanimate molecules.

Encouraged by this experiment, evolutionists immediately produced new scenarios. Stages following the development of amino acids were hurriedly hypothesized. Supposedly, amino acids had later united in the correct sequences by accident to form proteins. Some of these proteins which emerged by chance formed themselves into cell membrane-like structures which "somehow" came into existence and formed a primitive cell. These cells then supposedly came together over time to form multicellular living organisms.

However, Miller's experiment has since proven to be false in many respects.

The Evolutionary Argument about the Origin of Life

Above all, there is one important point to take into consideration: If any one step in the evolutionary process is proven to be impossible, this is sufficient to prove that the whole theory is totally false and invalid. For instance, by proving that the haphazard formation of proteins is impossible, all other claims regarding the subsequent steps of evolution are also refuted. After this, it becomes meaningless to take some human and ape skulls and engage in speculation about them.

How living organisms came into existence out of nonliving matter was an issue that evolutionists did not even want to mention for a long time. However, this question, which had constantly been avoided, eventually had to be addressed, and attempts were made to settle it with a series of experiments in the second quarter of the twentieth century.

The main question was: How could the first living cell have appeared in the primordial atmosphere on the earth? In other words, what kind of explanation could evolutionists offer?

The first person to take the matter in hand was the Russian biologist Alexander I. Oparin, the founder of the concept of "chemical evolution." Despite all his theoretical studies, Oparin was unable to produce any results to shed light on the origin of life. He says the following in his book The Origin of Life, published in 1936:

Unfortunately, however, the problem of the origin of the cell is perhaps the most obscure point in the whole study of the evolution of organisms.250

Since Oparin, evolutionists have performed countless experiments, conducted research, and made observations to prove that a cell could have been formed by chance. However, every such attempt only made the complex design of the cell clearer, and thus refuted the evolutionists' hypotheses even more. Professor Klaus Dose, the president of the Institute of Biochemistry at the University of Johannes Gutenberg, states:

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.251

In his book The End of Science, the evolutionary science writer John Horgan says of the origin of life, "This is by far the weakest strut of the chassis of modern biology."252

The following statement by the geochemist Jeffrey Bada, from the San Diego-based Scripps Institute, makes the helplessness of evolutionists clear:

Today, as we leave the twentieth century, we still face the biggest unsolved problem that we had when we entered the twentieth century: How did life originate on Earth?253

Let us now look at the details of the theory of evolution's "biggest unsolved problem". The first subject we have to consider is the famous Miller experiment.

250 Alexander I. Oparin, Origin of Life, Dover Publications, NewYork, 1936, 1953 (reprint), p. 196.
251 Klaus Dose, "The Origin of Life: More Questions Than Answers," Interdisciplinary Science Reviews, vol. 13, no. 4, 1988, p. 348. (emphasis added)
252 Horgan, John, The End of Science, MA Addison-Wesley, 1996, p. 138. (emphasis added)
253 Jeffrey Bada, "Life's Crucible," Earth, February 1998, p. 40. (emphasis added)