Page 32 - The Origin of Life and the Universe - International Conference 2016

The Origin of Life and the Universe

7 ) . coincidental formation of even one of the nucleotides
making up RNA, how can it be possible for these
+ 4 . & imaginary nucleotides to form RNA by coming to-
gether in a particular sequence? Evolutionist John
257 - 8 Horgan admits the impossibility of the chance for-
mation of RNA:
As researchers continue to examine the RNA-
th
Ever since the start of the 20 century, evolutio- world concept closely, more problems emerge.
nists have developed various theories to explain How did RNA initially arise? RNA and its compo-
how the first living cell emerged. The Russian bio- nents are difficult to synthesize in a laboratory
logist Alexander Oparin, who proposed the first under the best of conditions, much less under
evolutionary thesis on the subject, suggested that really plausible ones. 1
in the primitive world of hundreds of millions of 2. Even if we suppose that it formed by chance,
years ago, a series of coincidental chemical reac- how could this RNA consisting of just a nucleotide
tions led to first of all proteins, and that cells were chain have "decided" to self-replicate and with
then born when these came together. Discoveries what kind of a mechanism could it have carried
made in the 1970s showed that even the most out this self-replicating process? Where did it find
fundamental assumptions of this claim, which the nucleotides it used while self-replicating? Even
Oparin made in the 1930s, were mistaken. Oparin's evolutionist microbiologists Gerald Joyce and Leslie
"primitive world atmosphere" scenario contained Orgel express the desperateness of the situation
the gases methane and ammonia to allow the for- in their book titled In the RNA World:
mation of organic molecules. However, it was rea- This discussion... has, in a sense, focused on a
lized that the hypothesis of an early methane-am- straw man: the myth of a self-replicating RNA
monia atmosphere is without solid foundation and molecule that arose de novo from a soup of
indeed is contradicted, and that the early atmosphere random polynucleotides. Not only is such a notion
contained a large amount of oxygen which destroys unrealistic in light of our current understanding of
organic molecules as they form. prebiotic chemistry, but it would strain the credulity
This was a big blow to the theory of molecular of even an optimist's view of RNA's catalytic po-
evolution. Evolutionists then had to face the fact tential. 2
that the "primitive atmosphere experiments" by 3. Even if we suppose that there was self-repli-
Stanley Miller, Sidney Fox and Cyril Ponnamperuma cating RNA in the primordial world, that numerous
and others were invalid. For this reason, in the amino acids of every type ready to be used by
1980s evolutionists tried again. As a result, "RNA RNA were available and that all of these impossi-
World" hypothesis was advanced. This scenario bilities somehow took place, the situation still does
proposed that, not proteins, but rather the RNA not lead to the formation of even one single protein.
molecules that contained the information for proteins For RNA only includes information concerning the
were formed first. According to this scenario ad- structure of proteins. Amino acids, on the other
vanced by Harvard chemist Walter Gilbert in 1986, hand, are raw materials. Nevertheless, there is no
billions of years ago an RNA molecule capable of mechanism for the production of proteins. To con-
replicating itself, formed somehow by accident. sider the existence of RNA sufficient for protein
Then this RNA molecule started to produce proteins, production is as nonsensical as expecting a car to
having been activated by external influences. The- assemble itself by simply throwing the blueprint
reafter, it became necessary to store this information onto a heap of parts piled on top of each other. A
in a second molecule, and somehow the DNA mo- blueprint cannot produce a car all by itself without
lecule emerged to do that. a factory and workers to assemble the parts ac-
Made up of a chain of impossibilities in each cording to the instructions contained in the blueprint;
and every stage, this scarcely credible scenario, in the same way, the blueprint contained in RNA
far from providing any explanation of the origin of cannot produce proteins by itself without the coo-
life, only magnified the problem and raised many peration of other cellular components which follow
unanswerable questions: the instructions in the RNA.
1. Since it is impossible to explain the Proteins are produced in the ribosome factory