Page 94 - The Mercy of Believers

92
THE MERCY OF BELIEVERS

of Pasteur for a long time. However, as the development of
science unraveled the complex structure of the cell of a living
being, the idea that life could come into being coincidentally
faced an even greater impasse.

Inconclusive Efforts in the
Twentieth Century

The first evolutionist who took up the subject of the ori-
gin of life in the twentieth century was the renowned
Russian biologist Alexander Oparin. With various theses he
advanced in the 1930's, he tried to prove that the cell of a liv-
ing being could originate by coincidence. These studies,
however, were doomed to failure, and Oparin had to make
the following confession: "Unfortunately, however, the prob-
lem of the origin of the cell is perhaps the most obscure point
in the whole study of the evolution of organisms." 3
Evolutionist followers of Oparin tried to carry out exper-
iments to solve the problem of the origin of life. The best
known of these experiments was carried out by American
chemist Stanley Miller in 1953. Combining the gases he al-
leged to have existed in the primordial earth's atmosphere in
an experiment set-up, and adding energy to the mixture,
Miller synthesized several organic molecules (amino acids)
present in the structure of proteins.
Barely a few years had passed before it was revealed that
this experiment, which was then presented as an important
step in the name of evolution, was invalid, the atmosphere
used in the experiment having been very different from real
earth conditions. 4
After a long silence, Miller confessed that the atmosphere
medium he used was unrealistic. 5
All the evolutionist efforts put forth throughout the