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Is
PHYSICAL LIFE
the Result of
BLINDC
by
William Stenger
Here are clear, concise answers to the challenges of evolutionists.
T
HE ORIGIN
of life
ÍS
the
least understood bio–
logical problem.
While acknowledging this
fact, evol utionists go on to
believe as an art icle of faith that
life carne into ex istence on this
planet spontaneously from non–
living matter by chemical pro–
cesses. They further accept as
an article of faith that life pro–
gressively evolved by b lind
chance into the vast array of liv–
ing things we see today. This
belief is claimed to be "fact."
Those who do not accept this
"fact" are ridiculed as ignorant
and unscientific.
Is evolution scientific fact, or is
it science fiction?
In an earlier
Plain Truth
article
titled "This Physical Life ... Did
It
Begin by Chance?"-which
appeared in the September, 1981,
U.S. edition (see box for brief sum–
mary)-we showed the fantastic
odds against even very "simple"
constituents of living organisms
occurring by chance. And we
proved the even greater improba–
bility of such constituents produc–
ing living organisms by chance.
In particular we considered a
protein consisting of a chain of
about 100 amino acids. We showed
that if all the known stars in the
universe had 1O earths, and if all
the earths had oceans of "amino
acid soup," and if all the amino
acids linked up in chains
100
acids
10
long every second for the entire
estimated history of the universe,
even then the chance occurrence of
a given very simple protein would
be extremely improbable.
We also answered a number of
the more cornrnon evolutionary
counterarguments. Since then we
have received additional queries.
Here are the queries with our
answers:
There may be many combina–
tions of amino acids that would
work. So the probability of their
form ing by chance would be much
greater than that of a specijic com–
binati on.
No scientific experimentation
has shown that a different combi–
nation of amino acids could be sub–
stituted for a given protein and still
perform exactly the same way. The
marvelous complexity of the specif–
ic functions perforrned by the com–
bination that does work in nature
demands the correct sequence of
arnino acids to be present in each
case. (We are aware, of course, that
various proteins rnay be consurned
and reassernbled into other proteins
by an existing living organism.)
A given life form requires specif–
ic combinations of specific mole–
cules. Just any arbitrary random
cornbination will not work.
It is rnuch like a combination
lock. If you do not know the combi–
nation, you can spin nurnbers at
randorn to try to open the lock.
You rnay spin perfectly good num–
bers. They might even work on
sorne other lock at sorne other time
and in sorne other place. But if they
do not open the given lock- the
one you are trying to open- it does
not do you a bit of good.
Now if you would calculate the
probability of finding the right
cornbination by randorn spinning,
the probability depends only on the
availabJe nurnbers for the given
lock. The probability has absolutely
nothing to do with whether or not
sorne other cornbinations rnay open
sorne other locks.
You did not specify which protein
and therefore were only dealing in
possibilities not probabilities.
We used the standard mathernat–
ical definition of probability as
applicable to the problern under
discussion. The probability of a
giv–
en
protein of
100
arnino acids
occurring by chance is 1
0"
130 •
The
fact that we did not specify which
one is irrelevant. The article was
written for a general audience, not
for an audience of biochernists. If it
were a more technical article, we
easily could have specified a com–
plicated protein, say hemoglobin,
and used essentially the same line
of reasoning. The point is that even
the supposedly sirnplest compo–
nents found in living things are
actually very cornplex. Their exis–
tence cannot be explained on the
basis of blind chance.
The experiments of Stanley L.
Miller in the 1950s showed that the
"primeva/ soup" of the sea would
contain surprisingly large quanti–
ties of t he building block s of Lije:
amino acids, nucleotides, etc.
The
PLAIN TRUTH