Why is origin of life such a difficult problem?: A few considerations
by Denyse O’Leary
ARN correspondent
We sometimes hear that the origin of life is a simple question with simple answers.
Couldn’t life begin with simple entities like bacteria with few genes, viruses, viroids*, or proteins such as prions** and then gradually build up to complex forms?
Not as far as we know, because all these entities are parasites on more complex life forms. Whatever the answer is, they are not the answer. A life form that devolves into a parasite may indeed survive even though it sacrifices complexity – but only because the much more complex host provides many needed functions.
*viroids – short stretches of RNA that lack a protein coat, known to cause plant diseases
** complex folded proteins
The National Academy of Sciences identifies origin of life as an active research area that will soon yield key answers:
Of course, even if a living cell were to be made in the laboratory, it would not prove that nature followed the same pathway billions of years ago. But it is the job of science to provide plausible natural explanations for natural phenomena. The study of the origin of life is a very active research area in which important progress is being made, although the consensus among scientists is that none of the current hypotheses has thus far been confirmed. The history of science shows that seemingly intractable problems like this one may become amenable to solution later, as a result of advances in theory, instrumentation, or the discovery of new facts.
But the telling phrase is “seemingly intractable problems like this one.” “Seemingly” intractable or actually intractable? And in either case, why?
Now, it’s fine with me if NAS members solve the problem tomorrow. BUT … we need to be clear about one thing: It is perfectly possible that they will never solve it, not because it is some kind of forbidden knowledge, but simply because the relevant information is lost. In other words, it could be a cold case file with no new clues.
After all, most NAS members believe in a naturalistic materialist universe, so there is no reason to assume that the information about the origin of life was saved. In their own view, no intelligence created it or took the trouble to save it.
Here is a timeline that gives some idea what to expect from this line of research:
1988 Klaus Dose, Director of the Institute for Biochemistry at the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany candidly admitted in Interdisciplinary Science Reviews :
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 a stalemate or in a confession of ignorance.
1992 Dr. Werner Arber, Professor of Microbiology at the University of Basel and recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology/Medicine in 1978, stated:
Although a biologist, I must confess that I do not understand how life came about. . . . I consider that life only starts at the level of a functional cell. The most primitive cell may require at least several hundred different specific biological macro-molecules. How such already quite complex structures may have come together, remains a mystery to me. The possibility of the existence of a Creator, of God, represents to me a satisfactory solution to this problem.
1998 Trends in Ecology and Evolution (March 3) contained a report on a NASA-sponsored workshop called “Evolution: A Molecular Point of View.” Many of the big names in origins research were present and a lot of interesting points of view were discussed. The author of the article noted:
Sherwood Chang opened the program with the cautious reminder that any canonical scenario for the stepwise progression toward the origin of life is still a ‘convenient fiction.’ That is, we have almost no data to support the historical transitions from chemical evolution to prebiotic monomers, polymers, replicating enzymes, and finally cells.
2004 Andy Knoll, a professor of biology at Harvard and author of Life on a Young Planet: The First Three Billion Years of Life, was interviewed (May 3) as part of a PBS NOVA program. He is described as a person who has “exhaustively investigated” the origin of life. Here are excerpts from an interview:
NOVA: In a nutshell, what is the process? How does life form?
Knoll: The short answer is we don’t really know how life originated on this planet. There have been a variety of experiments that tell us some possible roads, but we remain in substantial ignorance.
NOVA: So at this point we’re seeing the origins of life through a glass darkly?
Knoll: If we try to summarize by just saying what, at the end of the day, do we know about the deep history of life on Earth, about its origin, about its formative stages that gave rise to the biology we see around us today, I think we have to admit that we’re looking through a glass darkly here. . . .
. . . We don’t know how life started on this planet. We don’t know exactly when it started, we don’t know under what circumstances.
It’s a mystery that we’re going to chip at from several different directions. . . .
NOVA: Will we ever solve the problem?
Knoll: I don’t know. I imagine my grandchildren will still be sitting around saying that it’s a great mystery, but that they will understand that mystery at a level that would be incomprehensible to us today.
2005 The July 1 issue of Science included in its top 25 questions facing science “How and where did life on earth arise?”
2005 The article “Jump-Starting a Cellular World: Investigating the Origin of Life, from Soup to Networks” in the November 15, 2005 issue of PLOS (Public Library of Science) included:
“But beyond assuming the first cell must have somehow come into existence, how do biologists explain its emergence from the prebiotic world four billion years ago?
“The short answer is that they can’t, yet.”
Actually, scientists would be better to put their faith in intelligent design if they want to solve origin of life mysteries, because then they might reasonably believe that someone left them clues – in much the same way that Arthur Conan Doyle always left clues for his great detective Sherlock Holmes to find. But it’s okay with me if they don’t. I have other stories to cover. Most of the world’s problems can be addressed without knowing the origin of life anyway.
Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O’Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada’s Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain (Harper 2007).

- by “this” I mean where life came from in the first place. See post #27, A.G. Fisher of Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia (2002) states, “Both the origin of life, and the origin of the major groups of animals remain unknown” (fossil section)

From post #19 – “. . . one major scientific truth which vast numbers of people refuse to accept . . . –the fact of evolution.”

Like it or not TOS, IJ is clearly discussing macroevolution here.
The title of IJ’s article is “The Short Proof [sic] of Evolution” – and IJ begins with calling [macro]evolution a fact. That’s like my writing an article to prove God’s existence and starting with assuming God’s existence.

“The first step in demonstrating the truth of evolution is to make the claim that all living creatures must have a living parent.” IJ shows he’s not a scientist here – and a dozen other places in the article. Macroevolution means major change from 1 kind of creature into something else. Macroevolution also assumes life came from non-life. But IJ just talks about parentage. Oranges & apples.

IJ mentions Pasteur – the creation scientist. Nice touch, but Pasteur’s work doesn’t help the ‘organic life from inorganic non-life’ position. Life only comes from life and the onus is on the macroevolutionists TOS & boyce to show how this ocurred. Meanwhile, Sven, check out Meyer’s article in The Intercollegiate Review (v. 31 #2). Outstanding reading. A certain feminist/chemist/atheist in Illinois really needs to read it.

IJ mentions “some primordial soup” – and certainly “the existence of a prebiotic soup is crucial to the whole scheme” – M. Denton (agnostic). Sadly for IJ, TOS & boyce, the oldest rocks have been carefully examined over the past 4 decades. None of them has a “trace of abiotically produced organic cpds.” None.

IJ states, “But what is clear is that any such origin for living things or living material must result in a very simple organism.”

First, it’s not at all “clear”! That’s what we’re having this debate. He then commits errors-of-assumption. IJ assumes life can spring from non-life and further assumes it will be “simple”. “Simple life” is an oxymoron.

“. . . simple animals and plants existed on earth long before more complex ones . . . ” This is an extremely subjective, if not a flat-out false statement. Ask any zoologist or botanist that studies “simple animals and plants” and (s)he will tell you simplicity is not part of their vocabulary. Ask any plant biologist if an algal cell is “simple”. The agnostics on this site need to review the light & dark stages of photosynthesis and get back to me with how simple the process is. Once folk like IJ understand life’s complexity, then all they are left with is the vacuous ‘life has been on Earth a long time’ idea. Big deal. Now, please show me proof for macroevolution.

Sigh. Once again, you failed to read my post: my answer to IJ, “PART I.” Did you see that TOS? IJ starts with his brand of semantics and I responded to his word juggling. He’s setting the stage with his own brand of macroevolution and I expose that before going on.

You, bartlett & boyce are welcome to attempt to explain why the macroevolutionists didn’t really mean what they said – and then what they really meant. Good luck.
Meanwhile the quotes by the secular scientists stand. All the agnostics can do is level the tired “google” “copy & paste” “wordsmith” accusation. Well, when there’s no fact of macroevolution, I guess that’s the only route to take. Example, you & boyce have not adequately answered any of my posts (e.g. If there is “proof” of [macro]evolution as IJ states, then why must macroevolutionists resort to using unscientific terms such as Dyer & Obar’s (1994) “wonderland” “fantasy” and “imagination” (post #10)? Alan Guth of MIT & Steinhart said in 1984 -
“It is tempting to go 1 step further and speculate that the entire universe evolved from literally nothing” (Scientific American). martin & TOS, please describe for us an experiment showing how something can come from “literally nothing.” TOS – do you atribute these to ‘cut & paste’ or ‘wordsmithing’? Are you & boyce going to answer?

BTW, boyce said, “you’re wasting your time with these nutcases!” But here he is (post #29). What’s it going to be boyce, jump in & defend the people-from-hydrogen philosophy or leave this Website?

http://members.aol.com/anapsid5/sherwin.html

You’ve got fans!

But hey, here’s a nice article by the NYTimes about the bogus petition SOT has linked to:

Few Biologists but Many Evangelicals Sign Anti-Evolution Petition

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/21/science/sciencespecial2/21peti.html?ex=1141880400&en=45db30424930729a&ei=5070

James Tour, one of your own, even says he remains open-minded about evolution. Since he’s an evangelical Christian, I doubt that means he’s giving up God any time soon. I guess he believes it’s possible to believe in both. Go figure!

The Short Proof of Evolution
by
Ian Johnston
Malaspina University-College
Nanaimo, BC

The first 2 mistakes in IJ’s article are in none other than the title. It goes downhill from there. Fast.
1. To prove something means to test by experiment; to establish as true (Webster’s New World Dictionary). Although IJ doesn’t use the term, in paragraph #2 he defines – like it or not – MACROevolution, which I have constantly & directly addressed in earlier posts on this Website. But then IJ does something only a philosopher would do – he allows himself a massive amount of wiggle room so a scientist can’t pin him down. IJ states, “This definition [MACROevolution], it should be noted, makes no claims about how the process might occur, and thus it certainly does not equate the concept of evolution with Darwinian Natural Selection, as so many people seem to do. It simply defines the term by its effects (not by how those effects are produced, which could well be the subject of another argument).”
Does everyone see what IJ is doing here? Try to nail him down on any point and I’ll just bet he’ll say, “Well, that’s the subject of another argument.”
2. So, the second mistake of IJ is that he refuses to use terminology in his title that would show the reader exactly what he’s addressing (i.e why doesn’t he say, “The Short Proof of Macroevolution”?)

OK, see the above definition of proof. Now read his statement, “This definition, it should be noted, makes no claims about how the process might occur . . . ” What IJ is saying is, “we have fish [that] gets transformed (or evolves) through various stages into a cow, a kangaroo, or an eagle” – but he “makes no claims about how the process might occur.” Well, if that’s the case then of course he can “prove” macroevolution! He won’t allow himself to be pinned down into having to define a clear macroevolutionary process. Good Night, that’s the whole point of this debate!!!

In other words, IJ is saying we have fish, cows, kangaroos & eagles, and macroevolution says they evolved – we just don’t know the process. Put another way, macroevolution is supposedly “proved” (without a process) because we have fish, cows, kangaroos & eagles.

The problem is macroevolutionists such as A.G. Fisher of Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia (2002) state, “Both the origin of life, and the origin of the major groups of animals remain unknown” (fossil section). Darwin’s infamous book (1859) was On the Origin of Species – but he never addressed the origin of species. In 2002 macroevolutionists still don’t know the origin of species. We certainly cannot – contrary to IJ – “test by experiment” the origin of the major animal groups (or I would add, prokaryotic-to-eukaryotic cell transition).

If there is “proof” of [macro]evolution as IJ states, then why must macroevolutionists resort to using unscientific terms such as Dyer & Obar’s (1994) “wonderland” “fantasy” and “imagination” (post #10)?

TOS – OK, I understand you’re not an atheist. But you still did not take the time to carefully read my post (#20). I believe I was quite clear that one must utilize legal/historical evidence eithter for or against the Resurrection of Christ. (For those atheists/”agnostics” reading this post, that means if Jesus did rise from the dead, miracles – such as creation from nothing – are possible because the God of the Bible is real)
One cannot scientifically prove Lincoln was shot in Ford’s Theatre. However, using legal/historical evidence, one can make an air-tight case.
What turned 11 cowardly men and 1 raving anti-Christian into dynamos for Jesus – to the extent they all suffered a martyr’s death (save John)? Answer: the stone was rolled away . . . .

Let’s understand the clear difference between scientific & legal/historical evidence.

The Other Sven (TOS)