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Abiogenesis

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Abiogenesis (Greek a without, bios life, and genesis beginning, origin) is a theory which contends that organisms originated from nonliving, inanimate material at some point in the very distant past. Evolutionists typically believe that this life came from a single self-replicating protocell which in turn originally came into existence through spontaneous chemical reactions.

In contrast to this atheistic perspective, creationists believe that a supernatural act by God created the first human, a man from the dust of the Earth and the first woman from Adam, and that God also endowed this non-living matter with life through a deliberate creative act. Creationists further believe that God created (separately) all other life forms in this same supernatural manner.

Scientists have never observed abiogenesis (i.e. the creation of life from non-life) happening in nature (i.e. in the wild), nor have they been able to create any life forms through controlled (i.e. manmade) experiments. In fact, controlled experimentation has not even come close to creating any sort of self-replicating lifeform; however, scientists are hoping to eventually be able to do so by using their intelligence. In addition, because nature cannot even produce the most basic homochiralic protein molecule it appears that the model for an Intelligence behind living organisms is more reasonable than the evolutionary model. However, each model still requires some reliance on faith since neither can be observed by science and neither have been proven by experimentation.

If indeed a self-replicating lifeform is, at some future date, created in the lab, its plausibility and actual manifestation of a mechanism for the origin of life was made possible through deliberate design of intelligent minds. There will still be no known process acting in the wild to produce life from non-life, therefore, abiogenesis seems out of the realm of empirical science. Furthermore, the extreme complexity of all lifeforms seems to point in the direction of an Intelligence outside of nature. This is perhaps why Francis Crick (one of the Discoverers of DNA) and Leslie Orgel (a microbiologist) proposed the theory of directed panspermia: the belief that life came to earth from outer space. Creationists believe that God did it, while Crick and Orgel once believed it was the Aliens.

Contents

Critiques

A common synonym is chemical evolution. Despite some insisting that it has nothing to do with the theory of evolution, without it there would be no life and without life there is no way any natural mechanisms of evolution could work. Critiques of naturalistic abiogenesis fall into several categories:

  • Arguments from impossibility: purporting to show that the nature of life itself precludes naturalistic abiogenesis
  • Arguments from improbability: purporting to show that the coincidences necessary to provide for spontaneous abiogenesis are so improbable as to be unreasonable and unscientific;
  • Arguments from inexplicability: purporting to show that there is currently no explanation or demonstration of naturalistic abiogenesis, and that belief in it is a matter of faith and speculation, rather than science.

Abiogenesis and ozone

Main article: Abiogenesis and ozone

Ozone poses a major problem for naturalistic models of abiogenesis. Ozone (O3) forms when molecular oxygen (O2) is struck by cosmic radiation. Thus, without oxygen in the atmosphere, there can be no ozone. Without ozone, ultraviolet radiation would destroy any life exposed to the sun. All known life that produces oxygen requires exposure to the sun. Without life able to survive in the sun, no oxygen can be produced. Without oxygen produced, there can be no ozone, and therefore no life.

In order to solve this problem, naturalistic evolutionists must provide one of the following:

  • A way that ozone can form without atmospheric oxygen;
  • A way that oxygen can be produced without life that requires sunlight;
  • A way that oxygen-producing lifeforms can survive without ozone.

Thus far, the first two have been utter failures. There is no known way for ozone to form without atmospheric oxygen, or for oxygen to form without life that requires sunlight. Several attempts have been made to show that oxygen-producing life can survive without the protection of the ozone layer, but none have succeeded.

Inexplicability

Despite repeated attempts under every reproducible circumstance, atheistic scientists have been unable to reproduce a reasonable method for the origin of life without a creator, nor do they have a clear understanding of the chemistry involved. Many evolutionists have now chosen to remain agnostic on the actual origin of life, and will frequently try to dodge the issue by claiming that abiogenesis is not part of the theory of evolution.

Lee Strobel in his book, A Case for Faith quotes William Bradley,

“ The optimism of the 1950's is gone. The mood at the 1999 International Conference on Origin of Life was described as grim-full of frustration, pessimism and desperation. ”

Improbability

In contrast, creationists have issued several probabilistic studies indicating the difficulty of any such phenomenon. Although some contend that these studies do not accurately portray the modelling involved, it is clear that no credible explanation for abiogenesis has been demonstrated by evolutionary biologists.

The Nobel laureate Dr. Francis H. Crick, in his 1981 book, Life Itself insists that the probability of life's chance at origin simply defies calculation. Crick, an atheist, had this to say:

“ What is so frustrating for our present purpose is that it seems almost impossible to give any numerical value to the probability of what seems a rather unlikely sequence of events... An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle. ”

On this point creationists would find themselves in complete agreement.

History

Abiogenesis at first, biogenesis ever since

Spontaneous generation was the original theory that proposed life could originate from nonliving matter. It is now well known that the spontaneous generation of life in our present ecosystem is impossible. Louis Pasteur abolished the theory of spontaneous generation in 1859 because he believed that life was far too complex to have originated instantaneously from nonliving matter. He simultaneously established the theory of biogenesis (the origin of life from preexisting life). Within ten years of Pasteur's experiments Thomas Huxley had coined the term abiogenesis.

“ I shall call the... doctrine that living matter may be produced by not living matter, the hypothesis of abiogenesis. (Huxley, 1870) ”

Observations and experiments have proven conclusively that all recognized life forms are produced by preexisting organisms or life forms, called the law of biogenesis. Despite the absence of substantiation for the theory, abiogenesis has become accepted by nearly all practicing scientists. The hypothesis of abiogenesis remains virtually unchanged since its inception in the 1920s, and assumes that life originated at some point in earth's past under conditions no longer present. This particular tenet of evolution can be summed-up by the phrase "abiogenesis at first, biogenesis ever since". It is taught today as a certainty, although the exact mechanisms remain theoretical. Discussions in evolutionary biology textbooks go to great lengths to demonstrate how abiogenesis could have occurred under multiple primordial scenarios.

Miller Experiment

Replication of the Urey-Miller experiment. By passing electrical sparks through mixtures of hydrogen, methane, ammonia, and water vapor, scientists produced several amino acids, the building blocks of organic life.
Replication of the Urey-Miller experiment. By passing electrical sparks through mixtures of hydrogen, methane, ammonia, and water vapor, scientists produced several amino acids, the building blocks of organic life.

Theories concerning molecular evolution generally assume molecules naturally coalesce in to macromolecules during times when both their concentration, and their atmospheric conditions favor such contact. In 1924, Alexander I. Oparin determined which chemicals must be in the earth's atmosphere for amino acids to form (e.g. methane, hydrogen, ammonia) and which chemicals would prohibit the formation of amino acids (e.g. Oxygen).

In the 1950s, Stanley L. Miller performed the first experiment attempting to reproduce these conditions. Methane, ammonia, hydrogen and water were placed in a flask that was subject to an electrical discharge. After several days, the experiment yielded several organic compounds including amino acids. Other researchers repeated these experiments using different energy sources such as UV, and other presumed primitive atmospheres. When hydrogen cyanide was used, even nitrogenous bases were obtained, which are a component of the building blocks for DNA.

Diagram that depicts the experimental set-up of Urey-Miller.
Diagram that depicts the experimental set-up of Urey-Miller.

However, in all of these experiments that attempted to produce life's building blocks, molecular oxygen was absent. The earth possesses an oxygen rich atmosphere, and even the oldest rocks (according to radiometric dating) contain oxides, which is evidence that they were formed in the presence of oxygen. In fact, oxides have been found in rocks supposedly 300 million years older than the first living cells. Oxygen is produced by all photosynthetic organisms, and is required for metabolism by all life forms except a few microorganisms. A hydrogen-rich reducing atmosphere was used in these experiments only because amino acids and nitrogenous bases simply will not form spontaneously in an oxidizing environment.

Interestingly, in his experiment of passing an electric spark through his simulated atmosphere, Miller saved the amino acids he produced only because he removed them from the area of the spark. Had he left them there, the spark would have decomposed them. Moreover, assuming the amino acids survived the destructive ultraviolet atmosphere of primitive earth and reached the ocean to form a theoretical "organic soup," further chemical reactions would not have been possible as bodies of water are not conducive to the necessary chemistry.

Another problem arises in relation to the amino acids that were theorized to have generated by chance. Even the correct sequence of the right amino acids is still not enough for the formation of a functional protein molecule. Each of the 20 different types of amino acids present in the composition of proteins must be "left-handed." Yet, while some amino acids are "left-handed," others are "right-handed." Should they be formed at random in a "organic soup," it is most likely that they would occur in roughly equal proportions. The question of how a specifically required combination of "left-handed" amino acids could unite by chance, while excluding "right-handed" amino acids, constitutes an impasse for abiogenesis.

Nevertheless, many evolutionists still believe that experiments like Miller's have shown that life could have begun by fortunate interactions in the early Earth.

Searching for Life Elsewhere

Main Article: Panspermia

This conundrum has scientists now theorizing that life might have begun on some other planet. The theory is currently experiencing a revival and much of the research currently underway by NASA is an attempt to discover signs of life on other planets, such as Mars.

However, even if life were to be found on another planet (which is very unlikely), the same questions would have to be answered about that life (i.e. where did it come from, how was it made, etc.).

Related References

Creationist References

Secular References

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