Page 92 - Paradise: The Believers' Real Home

90 PARADISE

even in the most developed laboratories of the world, a living
cell cannot be produced by bringing organic chemicals to-
gether.
The conditions required for the formation of a cell are too
great in quantity to be explained away by coincidences. The
probability of proteins, the building blocks of a cell, being syn-
thesized coincidentally, is 1 in 10 950 for an average protein
made up of 500 amino acids. In mathematics, a probability
50
smaller than 1 over 10 is considered to be impossible in
practical terms.
The DNA molecule, which is located in the nucleus of a
cell and which stores genetic information, is an incredible
databank. If the information coded in DNA were written
down, it would make a giant library consisting of an estimated
900 volumes of encyclopedias consisting of 500 pages each.
A very interesting dilemma emerges at this point: DNA can
replicate itself only with the help of some specialized proteins

(enzymes). However, the synthesis of these enzymes can be
realized only by the information coded in DNA. As they both
depend on each other, they have to exist at the same time for
replication. This brings the scenario that life originated by it-
self to a deadlock. Prof. Leslie Orgel, an evolutionist of repute
from the University of San Diego, California, confesses this
fact in the September 1994 issue of the Scientific American
magazine:
It is extremely improbable that proteins and nucleic acids,
both of which are structurally complex, arose sponta-