Page 86 - Islam: The Religion of Ease

ISLAM: THE RELIGION OF EASE

THE COMPLEX STRUCTURE OF LIFE

The primary reason why the theory of evolution ended up in
such a great impasse regarding the origin of life is that even those
living organisms deemed to be the simplest have outstandingly
complex structures. The cell of a living thing is more complex
than all of our man-made technological products. Today, even in
the most developed laboratories of the world, a living cell can-
not be produced by bringing organic chemicals together.
The conditions required for the formation of a cell are too great
in quantity to be explained away by coincidences. The probabil-
ity of proteins, the building blocks of a cell, being synthesized
coincidentally, is 1 in 10 950 for an average protein made up of
500 amino acids. In mathematics, a probability smaller than 1
50
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 a magnificent databank.
If the information coded in DNA were written down, it would
make a giant library consisting of an estimated 900 volumes of en-
cyclopedias 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 (en-
zymes). 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 itself 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 spontaneously in the

84