1. The origin of life argument
Summary:
Scientists have been unable to explain how life originally formed; therefore, God exists.
Franklin Harold, PhD, microbiologist, 1929-
“We should reject, as a matter of principle, the substitution of intelligent design for the dialogue of chance and necessity; but we must concede that there are presently no detailed Darwinian accounts of the evolution of any biochemical system, only a variety of wishful speculations.”
― Franklin Harold, The Way of the Cell, Oxford University Press, 2001
“We should reject, as a matter of principle, the substitution of intelligent design for the dialogue of chance and necessity; but we must concede that there are presently no detailed Darwinian accounts of the evolution of any biochemical system, only a variety of wishful speculations.”
― Franklin Harold, The Way of the Cell, Oxford University Press, 2001
Phillip E. Johnson, UC Berkley law professor, 1940-2019
“Biochemists assume that the three cellular kingdoms evolved from a single common ancestor, because the alternative of supposing an independent origin of life two or more times presents still greater difficulties. The common ancestor is merely hypothetical, as are the numerous transitional intermediate forms that would have to connect such enormously different groups to the ancestor. From a Darwinist viewpoint all these hypothetical creatures are a logical necessity, but there is no empirical confirmation that they existed.”
― Phillip E. Johnson, Darwin on Trial, InterVarsity Press, 1991 (3rd ed, 2010) p120
“Biochemists assume that the three cellular kingdoms evolved from a single common ancestor, because the alternative of supposing an independent origin of life two or more times presents still greater difficulties. The common ancestor is merely hypothetical, as are the numerous transitional intermediate forms that would have to connect such enormously different groups to the ancestor. From a Darwinist viewpoint all these hypothetical creatures are a logical necessity, but there is no empirical confirmation that they existed.”
― Phillip E. Johnson, Darwin on Trial, InterVarsity Press, 1991 (3rd ed, 2010) p120
Jonathan Wells, PhD, American theologian, 1942-
“The problem is you can't make a living cell. There's not even any point in trying. It would be like a physicist doing an experiment to see if he can get a rock to fall upwards all the way to the moon. No biologist in his right mind would think you can take a test tube with those molecules and turn them into a living cell...
“In my illustration, the cell is dead, and you can't put Humpty-Dumpty back together again. So even if you could accomplish the thousands of steps between the amino acids in the Miller tar–which probably didn't exist in the real world anyway–and the components you need for a living cell–all the enzymes, the DNA, and so forth–you're still immeasurably far from life...
“But my point remains the same–the problem of assembling the right parts in the right way at the right time and at the right place, while keeping out the wrong material, is simply insurmountable.”
― Jonathan Wells, PhD (quoted by Lee Strobel), A Case for a Creator, Zondervan, 2004 p41
“For instance, one popular theory was that RNA, a close relative of DNA, could have been a molecular cradle from which early cells developed. This ‘RNA world’ hypothesis was heralded as a great possibility for a while. But nobody could demonstrate how RNA could have formed before living cells were around to make it, or how it could have survived under the condition of early earth.
“Gerald Joyce, a biochemist at the Scripps Research Institute, ruled out the RNA-first theory very colorfully by saying, ‘You have to build straw man upon straw man to get to the point where RNA is a viable first molecule.’”
― Jonathan Wells, PhD (quoted by Lee Strobel), A Case for a Creator, Zondervan, 2004 p41-42
“The problem is you can't make a living cell. There's not even any point in trying. It would be like a physicist doing an experiment to see if he can get a rock to fall upwards all the way to the moon. No biologist in his right mind would think you can take a test tube with those molecules and turn them into a living cell...
“In my illustration, the cell is dead, and you can't put Humpty-Dumpty back together again. So even if you could accomplish the thousands of steps between the amino acids in the Miller tar–which probably didn't exist in the real world anyway–and the components you need for a living cell–all the enzymes, the DNA, and so forth–you're still immeasurably far from life...
“But my point remains the same–the problem of assembling the right parts in the right way at the right time and at the right place, while keeping out the wrong material, is simply insurmountable.”
― Jonathan Wells, PhD (quoted by Lee Strobel), A Case for a Creator, Zondervan, 2004 p41
“For instance, one popular theory was that RNA, a close relative of DNA, could have been a molecular cradle from which early cells developed. This ‘RNA world’ hypothesis was heralded as a great possibility for a while. But nobody could demonstrate how RNA could have formed before living cells were around to make it, or how it could have survived under the condition of early earth.
“Gerald Joyce, a biochemist at the Scripps Research Institute, ruled out the RNA-first theory very colorfully by saying, ‘You have to build straw man upon straw man to get to the point where RNA is a viable first molecule.’”
― Jonathan Wells, PhD (quoted by Lee Strobel), A Case for a Creator, Zondervan, 2004 p41-42
Lee Strobel, American author & investigative journalist, 1952-
“[Walter Bradley, author of The Mystery of Life's Origin (1984)] said that the mind-boggling difficulties in bridging the yawning gap between nonlife and life means that there may very well be no potential of ever finding a theory for how life could have arisen spontaneously. That's why he's convinced that the ‘absolutely overwhelming evidence’ points toward an intelligence behind life's creation.
“In fact, he said: ‘I think people who believe that life emerged naturalistically need to have a great deal more faith than people of reasonably infer that there's an Intelligence Designer.’
“Even those who look askance at religious faith have been forced to conclude that the odds against the spontaneous creation of life are so absurdly high that there must be more to the creation story than mere materialist processes. They can't help but invoke the only word that seems to realistically account for it all: miracle. It's a label many scientists are loathe to use but which the circumstances seem to demand.
“For instance, one of the country's leading science journalists, John Hogan, who identifies himself as a ‘lapsed Catholic,’ conceded in 2002 that scientists have no idea how the universe was created or ‘how inanimate matter on our little planet coalesced into living creations.’ Then came that word: ‘Science, you might say, has discovered that our existence is infinitely improbably, and hence a miracle.’
“Even biochemist and spiritual skeptic Francis Crick, who shared the Nobel Prize for discovering the molecular structure of DNA, cautiously invoked the word a few years ago. ‘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, so many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it going,’ he said.
“Others are more adamant. ‘If there isn't a natural explanation and there doesn't seem to be the potential of finding one, then I believe it's appropriate to look at a supernatural explanation,’ said Bradley. ‘I think that's the most reasonable inference based on the evidence.’”
― Lee Strobel, A Case for a Creator, Zondervan, 2004 p43-44
“[Walter Bradley, author of The Mystery of Life's Origin (1984)] said that the mind-boggling difficulties in bridging the yawning gap between nonlife and life means that there may very well be no potential of ever finding a theory for how life could have arisen spontaneously. That's why he's convinced that the ‘absolutely overwhelming evidence’ points toward an intelligence behind life's creation.
“In fact, he said: ‘I think people who believe that life emerged naturalistically need to have a great deal more faith than people of reasonably infer that there's an Intelligence Designer.’
“Even those who look askance at religious faith have been forced to conclude that the odds against the spontaneous creation of life are so absurdly high that there must be more to the creation story than mere materialist processes. They can't help but invoke the only word that seems to realistically account for it all: miracle. It's a label many scientists are loathe to use but which the circumstances seem to demand.
“For instance, one of the country's leading science journalists, John Hogan, who identifies himself as a ‘lapsed Catholic,’ conceded in 2002 that scientists have no idea how the universe was created or ‘how inanimate matter on our little planet coalesced into living creations.’ Then came that word: ‘Science, you might say, has discovered that our existence is infinitely improbably, and hence a miracle.’
“Even biochemist and spiritual skeptic Francis Crick, who shared the Nobel Prize for discovering the molecular structure of DNA, cautiously invoked the word a few years ago. ‘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, so many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it going,’ he said.
“Others are more adamant. ‘If there isn't a natural explanation and there doesn't seem to be the potential of finding one, then I believe it's appropriate to look at a supernatural explanation,’ said Bradley. ‘I think that's the most reasonable inference based on the evidence.’”
― Lee Strobel, A Case for a Creator, Zondervan, 2004 p43-44
Stephen C. Meyer, PhD, American philosopher, 1958-
“Whether natural selection really works at the level of biological evolution is open to debate, but it most certainly does not work at the level of chemical evolution, which tries to explain the origin of the first life from simpler chemicals. As Theodosius Dobzhansky said, ‘Prebiological natural selection is a contradiction in terms.’
“Darwinists admit that natural selection requires a self-replicating organism to work. Organisms reproduce, their offspring have variations, the ones that are better adapted to their environment survive better, and so those adaptations are preserved and passed on to the next generation.
“However, to have reproduction, there has to be cell division. And that presupposes the existence of information-rich DNA and proteins. But that's the problem–those are the very things they're trying to explain!
“In other words, you've got to have a self-replicating organism for Darwinian evolution to take place, but you can't have a self-replicating organism until you have the information necessary in DNA, which is what you're trying to explain in the first place. It's like the guy who falls into a deep hole and realizes he needs a ladder to get out. So he climbs out, goes home, gets a ladder, jumps back into the hole, and climbs out. It begs the question.”
― Stephen C. Meyer, PhD (quoted by Lee Strobel), A Case for a Creator, Zondervan, 2004 p243-244
“There's a minimal complexity threshold. There's a certain level of folding that a protein has to have, called tertiary structure, that is necessary for it to perform a function. You don't get tertiary structure in a protein unless you have at least seventy-five amino acids or so. That may be conservative. Now consider what you'd need for a protein molecule to form by chance.
“First, you need the right bonds between the amino acids. Second, amino acids come in right-handed and left-handed versions, and you've got to get only left-handed ones. Third, the amino acids must link up in a specified sequence, like letters in a sentence.
“Run the odds of these things falling into place on their own and you find that the probabilities of forming a rather short functional protein at random would be one chance in a hundred thousand trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion. That's a ten with 125 zeroes after it!
“And that would only be one protein molecule–a minimally complex cell would need between three hundred and five hundred protein molecules. Plus, all of this would have to be accomplished in a mere 100 million years, which is the approximate window of time between the Earth cooling and the first microfossils we've found.
“To suggest chance against those odds is really to invoke a naturalistic miracle. It's a confession of ignorance. It's another way of saying, ‘We don't know.’ And since the 1960s, scientists, to their credit, have been very reluctant to say that chance played any significant role in the origin of DNA or proteins–even though, as you say, it's still unfortunately a live option in popular thinking.”
― Stephen C. Meyer, PhD (quoted by Lee Strobel), A Case for a Creator, Zondervan, 2004 p242
“Whether natural selection really works at the level of biological evolution is open to debate, but it most certainly does not work at the level of chemical evolution, which tries to explain the origin of the first life from simpler chemicals. As Theodosius Dobzhansky said, ‘Prebiological natural selection is a contradiction in terms.’
“Darwinists admit that natural selection requires a self-replicating organism to work. Organisms reproduce, their offspring have variations, the ones that are better adapted to their environment survive better, and so those adaptations are preserved and passed on to the next generation.
“However, to have reproduction, there has to be cell division. And that presupposes the existence of information-rich DNA and proteins. But that's the problem–those are the very things they're trying to explain!
“In other words, you've got to have a self-replicating organism for Darwinian evolution to take place, but you can't have a self-replicating organism until you have the information necessary in DNA, which is what you're trying to explain in the first place. It's like the guy who falls into a deep hole and realizes he needs a ladder to get out. So he climbs out, goes home, gets a ladder, jumps back into the hole, and climbs out. It begs the question.”
― Stephen C. Meyer, PhD (quoted by Lee Strobel), A Case for a Creator, Zondervan, 2004 p243-244
“There's a minimal complexity threshold. There's a certain level of folding that a protein has to have, called tertiary structure, that is necessary for it to perform a function. You don't get tertiary structure in a protein unless you have at least seventy-five amino acids or so. That may be conservative. Now consider what you'd need for a protein molecule to form by chance.
“First, you need the right bonds between the amino acids. Second, amino acids come in right-handed and left-handed versions, and you've got to get only left-handed ones. Third, the amino acids must link up in a specified sequence, like letters in a sentence.
“Run the odds of these things falling into place on their own and you find that the probabilities of forming a rather short functional protein at random would be one chance in a hundred thousand trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion. That's a ten with 125 zeroes after it!
“And that would only be one protein molecule–a minimally complex cell would need between three hundred and five hundred protein molecules. Plus, all of this would have to be accomplished in a mere 100 million years, which is the approximate window of time between the Earth cooling and the first microfossils we've found.
“To suggest chance against those odds is really to invoke a naturalistic miracle. It's a confession of ignorance. It's another way of saying, ‘We don't know.’ And since the 1960s, scientists, to their credit, have been very reluctant to say that chance played any significant role in the origin of DNA or proteins–even though, as you say, it's still unfortunately a live option in popular thinking.”
― Stephen C. Meyer, PhD (quoted by Lee Strobel), A Case for a Creator, Zondervan, 2004 p242