Page 110 - The School of Yusuf (as)

THE SCHOOL OF YUSUF

tures. The cell of a living thing is more complex than all of our man-
made technological products. Today, even in the most developed lab-
oratories of the world, a living cell cannot 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 probability of
proteins, the building blocks of a cell, being synthesized coinciden-
tally, is 1 in 10950 for an average protein made up of 500 amino acids.
In mathematics, a probability smaller than 1 over 1050 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 in-

formation coded in DNA were written down, it would make a giant
library consisting of an estimated 900 volumes of encyclopedias con-
sisting of 500 pages each.
A very interesting dilemma emerges at this point: DNA can repli-
cate 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 itself to a deadlock. Prof. Leslie Orgel, an evo-

lutionist of repute from the University of San Diego, California, con-
fesses 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 same

place at the same time. Yet it also seems impossible to have one
without the other. And so, at first glance, one might have to con-
clude that life could never, in fact, have originated by chemical

108