Thinking to Believe

LiveScience reported on a new “breakthrough” in origin-of-life (OOL) research.  Robert Roy Britt began the article by describing the current state of OOL research: “One of life’s greatest mysteries is how it began.  Scientists have pinned it down to roughly this: Some chemical reactions occurred about 4 billion years ago – perhaps in a primordial tidal soup or maybe with help of volcanoes or possibly at the bottom of the sea or between the mica sheets – to create biology.” 

I like how Britt “pinned it down” to chemical reactions in a soup, or maybe volcanoes, or maybe the sea, or maybe between mica sheets.  The specificity is overwhelming.  Can you imagine if homicide detectives worked like this?: “Captain, we haven’t caught the killer yet, but we’ve pinned it down to a human being, living on some continent, on this planet.”  Good work guys.  I’m glad you narrowed it down for us.  Now I can check outer-space off my list as a possible location for the origin of life.  Oh wait, some scientists think life did originate in outer-space!  Maybe the killer isn’t living on this planet after all.  Someone better alert the detectives to broaden their search.  End of sarcasm.

So what was the big breakthrough?: a self-replicating RNA molecule.  Some background information will be helpful.  One theory of how life originated from inorganic material by purely chance, natural processes is the RNA-world hypothesis.  According to this hypothesis, RNA strands formed from nucleotides, which later gave rise to DNA, proteins, and the basic cell.  Among its many problems, however, is the fact that no RNA strand has ever self-replicated in the lab.  But Gerald Joyce and his team at the Scripps Research Institute was able to get RNA to do just that.  This isn’t much of a breakthrough, however, at least not as it concerns OOL research. 

Joyce was able to get RNA to replicate only by engineering the RNA molecules to copy “word-by-word” rather than letter-by-letter (nucleotide by nucleotide).  But that is not how RNA replicates in natural conditions, so why think this experiment tells us anything about how RNA might have been able to self-replicate on the early Earth, and how life got started?  If anything, it seems to demonstrate that for RNA to replicate apart from the cell requires an intelligent agent to manipulate it into behaving in ways it does not behave in nature.  And if that’s what we’re doing, then the results of the experiment don’t tell us anything about the chance, physical process by which life emerged. 

Then there is the matter of the nucleotide strings Joyce and his team put in the beaker with the RNA.  These raw materials are necessary for RNA replication, but why think they would have been available in the early Earth, and/or available in the quantities and locations needed?  If an ancient RNA molecule needed thousands of nucleotides at location X for replication to occur, but only 50 were present at location Y, there would be no replication.  As Stuart Kauffman wrote:

The rate of chemical reactions depends on how rapidly the reacting molecular species encounter one another-and that depends on how high their concentrations are. If the concentration of each is low, the chance that they will collide is very much lower. In a dilute prebiotic soup, reactions would be very slow indeed. A wonderful cartoon I recently saw captures this. It was entitled ‘The Origin of Life.’ Dateline 3.874 billion years ago. Two amino acids drift close together at the base of a bleak rocky cliff; three seconds later, the two amino acids drift apart. About 4.12 million years later, two amino acids drift close to each other at the base of a primeval cliff…. Well Rome wasn’t built in a day.[1]

Is it any surprise that if you provide the right kind of “RNA food” in the right quantities, in the right location, and re-program the RNA so that it is able to join itself to those nucleotides, that it does so?  No.  Because it is not surprising that when an intelligent agent involves itself in the process, what is naturally impossible becomes possible.  Take away that intelligent agent, however, and you are left with the impossible.  Joyce’s work was not a breakthrough for OOL research, but a reaffirmation of what we already know: intelligent agents can do things nature cannot do on its own.

ScienceDaily reported on work being done by Martin Egli, Ph.D. of the Vanderbilt University Medical Center on the origins of DNA. The article begins:

DNA’s simple and elegant structure—the “twisted ladder,” with sugar-phosphate chains making up the ‘rails’ and oxygen—and nitrogen—containing chemical “rungs” tenuously uniting the two halves—seems to be the work of an accomplished sculptor. Yet the graceful, sinuous profile of the DNA double helix is the result of random chemical reactions in a simmering, primordial stew.

Just how nature arrived at this molecule and its sister molecule, RNA, remains one of the greatest—and potentially unsolvable—scientific mysteries. But Vanderbilt biochemist Martin Egli, Ph.D., isn’t content to simply study these molecules as they are. He wants to know why they are the way they are. “These molecules are the result of evolution,” said Egli, professor of Biochemistry. “Somehow they have been shaped and optimized for a particular purpose.”<!–[if !supportFootnotes]–>[1]<!–[endif]–>

Isn’t it strange that something so elegant and complex doesn’t need a designer? Outside of the realm of biology (which has theistic implications), would the author make such ridiculous assertions? Would he speak of the elegant structure of the space shuttle, but then go on to claim it is the result of random chance processes occurring in a primordial junk yard? Or would he say that the simple and elegant structure of the pyramids—which appear to be the work of historical designers—are just the result of random chance processes in the desert? Of course not! I find it amazing how scientists can grasp the amazing complexity, specification, and elegance of the universe and its living inhabitants, and yet deny that such required a designer.

What I find really amazing is the quote from Dr. Vanderbilt. He claims the DNA molecule is the result of evolution, and yet also maintains that it was “shaped and optimized for a particular purpose.” What! That is a Darwinian no-no. He is sneaking teleology into evolution. The two are incompatible. Theism, not evolution, allows for teleology. If there is no intelligent designer designing the universe, and all that is came about by random chance processes, then whatever is just is. Evolution does not foresee what it is creating. It does not select one mutation over another for some ultimate goal in the unforeseen future. Natural selection selects whatever is beneficial for immediate survival; nothing else. Evolution has no foresight, and no purpose.

Even evolutionists cannot escape the recognition that the universe contains purpose. Sometimes they even slip and admit it publicly. Unfortunately they fail to recognize that purpose implies design, and design implies a designer.

TIME magazine’s latest cover story, “What Makes Us Different?”, explores just what it is that makes man different from chimps. Do you think they identified it as a qualitative difference rooted in the fact that we are made in the image of God? Of course not. Genetics explains it all. Of the many quotable quotes, this really caught my eye:

Yet tiny differences, sprinkled throughout the genome, have made all the difference. Agriculture, language, art, music, technology and philosophy–all the achievements that make us profoundly different from chimpanzees and make a chimp in a business suit seem so deeply ridiculous–are somehow encodedarranged in a specific order, that endow us with the brainpower to outthink and outdo our closest relatives on the tree of life. They give us the ability to speak and write and read, to compose symphonies, paint masterpieces and delve into the molecular biology that makes us what we are.<!–[if !supportFootnotes]–>[1]<!–[endif]–> within minute fractions of our genetic code. Nobody yet knows precisely where they are or how they work, but somewhere in the nuclei of our cells are handfuls of amino acids,

…

Laid side by side, these three sets of genetic blueprints [human, chimpanzee, and Neanderthal]—plus the genomes of gorillas and other primates, which are already well on the way to being completely sequenced—will not only begin to explain precisely what makes us human but could lead to a better understanding of human diseases and how to treat them.<!–[if !supportFootnotes]–>[2]<!–[endif]–>

Two things should be noted. First, notice their use of design language: “encoded,” “arranged in a specific order.” Natural selection is blind and random. It can’t encode or arrange anything. Only designers can do that. It’s amazing how often those who deny design affirm it in the way they speak. They simply cannot escape their intuitive recognition of design.

Second, I am struck by the reductionism advanced in this article (reductionism is when what is perceived to be two things are reduced to one). For the authors, we don’t simply have genes; we are our genes. What makes us human can be reduced to our genes (“genetic blueprints…explain precisely what makes us human”). Furthermore, behaviors peculiar to human beings such as ingenuity, creativity, and speech, can all be explained entirely in terms of genetics. If we were able to insert the genes for writing and creativity into a chimp, he may become the next Shakespeare.

The authors commit the fallacy of deducing causation from correlation. This fallacy mistakenly assumes that if there is a correlation between A and B, A must be the cause of B. If a particular gene (A) correlates with a certain behavior (B), it must be the cause of that behavior. To see why this reasoning is fallacious consider the following example: every morning the rooster crows, and then the sun rises; therefore, the rooster’s crow causes the sun to rise. This is obviously fallacious. Consider another example: studies have shown a correlation between reading ability and feet size. Those with very small feet cannot read, while those with larger feet can. Larger feet, therefore, cause one’s ability to read. That might sound persuasive until you learn that those with very small feet are toddlers who have not yet been taught to read!

The authors mistakenly assume that if there is a correlation between a particular gene and a particular human behavior/ability, that the gene must be the cause of the behavior. That could be, but it cannot be assumed based on the correlation alone. As dualists, we would argue that the soul utilizes the genes to perform such behaviors and exercise such abilities, but that the abilities themselves are grounded in the soul. This does not deny the causal involvement of the genes, but it removes them from being the ultimate cause to a mere intermediate cause. It’s one thing to say certain genes are involved in certain behaviors/abilities, but wholly another to say certain genes cause those behaviors/abilities.

The notion that life came from non-life is one of the most absurd aspects of evolutionary biology, and yet it is believed without evidence by many seemingly intelligent people. To see the absurdity of such a notion check out this short video. It makes mockery of a naturalistic view of life’s origin by rewriting the Darwinian story a little. Check it out!

HT: William Dembski