http://apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=12&article=4165
The Law of Biogenesis [Part I]
INTRODUCTION
It
is highly unlikely that a high school or college biology student will
learn about the gaping chasms that exist in evolutionary theory: chasms
over which scientists have no crossing bridges designed or constructed.
The existence of these chasms causes the entire theory of evolution to
collapse, and that is precisely the reason these chasms are not
broadcasted in school curricula: chasms such as the origin of matter as
well as the laws which govern it [see Miller, 2007 for a discussion on
the origin of matter]. At least two of these chasms exist due to the
existence of the irrefutable, highly respected Law of Biogenesis, or
Biogenic Law (Simmons, 2007). This law states that in nature, life comes
only from life and that of its own kind.
The Earth is filled with non-living matter. The Earth also abounds with
living creatures. The difference between the two is hardly
insignificant. Human beings cannot create life, though many attempts
have been made (e.g., Wong, et al., 2000; Miller and Levine, 1991, pp.
343-344; Hartgerink, et al., 2001; for refutations, see Houts, 2007;
Thompson and Harrub, 2003). There is no evidence that anyone has ever
been able to bring about life from non-life in nature (i.e., excluding
supernatural occurrences during the miraculous periods of human history
[e.g., Peter in Acts 9:32-41; Elisha in 2 Kings 4:17-37; and Elijah in 1
Kings 17:17-24]). The jump from non-life to life is no trivial matter.
So, how did life originate? Entire worldviews are built upon the answer
to that question. There are ultimately only two possibilities. Years
ago, evolutionist George Wald, professor at Harvard University and Nobel
Prize winner in physiology and medicine, recognized as much, stating
that “the reasonable view was to believe in spontaneous generation; the
only alternative, to believe in a single, primary act of supernatural
creation. There is no third position” (1954, p. 46). There are only two
options for the origin of life. It was created; or it created itself.
The late, eminent evolutionist, Robert Jastrow, founding director of
NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said, “
either life was created on the earth by the will of a being outside the grasp of scientific understanding,
or
it evolved on our planet spontaneously, through chemical reactions
occurring in nonliving matter lying on the surface of the planet” (1977,
pp. 62-63, emp. in orig.).
The biblical creationist asserts that life originally came directly
from God. Concerning human beings, Genesis 2:7 says, “And the Lord God
formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the
breath of life; and man became a living being.” [Note: This view,
incidentally, is in contradiction to the theistic evolutionist’s attempt
to harmonize the Bible’s story of origins with evolutionary theory,
which portrays God as giving life to the original cell on Earth. Then,
that cell, in accordance with evolutionary theory, evolved and passed on
life from creature to creature until humans came on the scene. God, in
this portrait, never “breathed” life into man’s “nostrils” at all, but
rather, into the “nostrils” of a noseless cell.] The atheist asserts
that life created itself, a belief known as biopoiesis. The
Encyclopaedia Britannica defines “biopoiesis,” also called spontaneous generation, abiogenesis, and autogenesis (
McGraw-Hill Dictionary…, 2003), as “a process by which living organisms are thought to develop from nonliving matter, and the
basis
of a theory on the origin of life on Earth” (2011, emp. added). In
essence, once upon a time, there was a dead rock that oozed non-living,
primeval, prebiotic, organic soup (Lahav, 1999; Miller and Levine, 1991;
Hoyle and Wickramasinghe, 1978). One day, lightning struck, and that
soup came to life.
The atheistic evolutionist must hold to a belief in abiogenesis in
order for his position to appear tenable. It is a fundamental premise of
the theory of evolution. If biopoiesis did not occur, atheistic
evolution cannot occur. This fact was recognized as far back as 1960,
when G.A. Kerkut published
The Implications of Evolution. Therein he listed seven
non-provable assumptions
upon which evolution is based. “The first assumption is that non-living
things gave rise to living material, i.e., spontaneous generation
occurred” (p. 6). In spite of the admission that evolution is based on
non-provable assumptions, many today in the evolutionary community
boldly assert that their theory is a scientific fact. However, the
unbiased observer must ask: what does the scientific evidence actually
have to say about the origin of life?
THE HISTORY OF THE LAW OF BIOGENESIS
Francesco Redi (1626-1697)
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Francesco Redi |
Understanding life at the microscopic level due to the state of
technology in this day and age might make the work of Italian scientist,
Francesco Redi, seem trivial to many. However, before achieving the
microscopic viewing capabilities we have today, some things we take for
granted were not so intuitive. Long ago, the Greeks believed that
abiogenesis was common (Balme, 1962). This belief continued to be the
dominant position for millennia. Even as late as 300 years ago, it was
standard belief in the scientific community that life commonly and
spontaneously arose from non-life. For instance, it was believed that
when a piece of meat rotted, it “spontaneously” gave rise to maggots,
which then turned into flies (Miller and Levine, 1991, p. 339). However,
some scientists began to challenge this idea.
Redi hypothesized that the maggots actually arose from eggs that were
laid by flies on the meat. The eggs, he claimed, were too small to be
seen by the human eye. In 1688, he conducted experiments to test his
hypothesis. Redi placed meat in jars, some of which were left open to
the air, and some of which were covered with netting or were tightly
sealed. Maggots were found to grow only on the meat that flies could
reach. Thus, it was determined that life did not spontaneously generate
on the rotted meat (Miller and Levine, 1991, p. 340).
Lazzaro Spallanzani (1729-1799)
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Lazzaro Spallanzani |
An 18
th-century English scientist, John Needham, attacked
the findings of Redi. He claimed that his own scientific experiments
verified that microorganisms
did in fact spontaneously
generate in some gravy, after it was allegedly thoroughly boiled in a
bottle. Thus, in 1768, Lazzaro Spallanzani conducted his own simple
scientific experimentation to test Needham’s findings. He prepared gravy
in the same manner that Needham had, divided it into two bottles, and
boiled it thoroughly, killing all microorganisms. One of the bottles was
corked, and the other was left open to the air. Spallanzani argued that
if microorganisms were spontaneously generating from the gravy, the
gravy from both bottles should be teeming with microorganisms after a
few days. However, only the gravy in the open bottle was found to have
microorganisms after the allotted time. Once again, it was determined
that life does not spontaneously generate. Life comes only from other
life (Miller and Levine, 1991, pp. 339-340).
Louis Pasteur (1822-1895)
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Louis Pasteur |
For many, the work of Spallanzani and Redi was still not enough to
drive the proverbial nail into the coffin of spontaneous generation.
Some argued that air was needed for the spontaneous generation of life
to occur, and Spallanzani’s corked bottle did not allow air to reach the
gravy. A standard, evolution-based high school biology textbook states:
“It was not until 1864, and the elegant experiment of French scientist
Louis Pasteur, that the hypothesis of spontaneous generation was finally
disproved” (Miller and Levine, 1991, p. 341, emp.
added). Pasteur placed a “nutrient broth,” similar to Needham’s gravy,
in a flask with a long, s-curved neck. The flask was unsealed—left open
to the air. However, the curvature of the flask’s neck served as an
entrapment mechanism for dust particles and airborne microorganisms,
keeping them from reaching the broth. The flask was observed over the
time span of an entire year, and microorganisms could never be found.
Next, he broke off the s-curved neck of the flask, allowing dust and
microorganisms to reach the broth. After only one day, the broth was
cloudy from dust and teeming with microorganisms. According to the
aforementioned biology textbook, “Pasteur, like Redi and Spallanzani
before him, had shown that
life comes only from life” (Miller and Levine, 1991, p. 341, emp. added).
Rudolf Virchow (1821-1902)
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Rudolf Virchow |
German scientist, Rudolf Virchow, further expanded scientific
understanding of the Law of Biogenesis. Virchow is the scientist who
“recognized that all cells come from cells by binary fusion”
(“Definition: Rudolf Virchow,” 2006). In 1858, he made the discovery for
which he is well-known—“
omnis cellula e cellula”—“every cell originates from another existing cell like it” (“Definition: Rudolf Virchow”). The
Encyclopaedia Britannica says, concerning Virchow, “His aphorism ‘
omnis cellula e cellula’…ranks with Pasteur’s ‘
omne vivum e vivo’ (every living thing arises from a preexisting living thing)
among the most revolutionary generalizations of biology” (Ackerknect, 1973, 23:35, emp. added). So, in nature, life comes from life of its own kind.
The Result: The Law of Biogenesis
Sadly, many simply refuse to accept the evidence. This refusal to
accept the impossibility of abiogenesis has resulted in many scientists
scrambling to conduct research that could be used as scientific support
for abiogenesis. And subsequently, media personnel, along with many in
the scientific community, are quick to jump to rash conclusions about
the finds of research. When a researcher’s work can conceivably be
twisted to support the idea of spontaneous generation, it seems that the
evolutionist will strive to do so—against all reason to the contrary. A
stream of research has surfaced over the years to try to prove that
abiogenesis could have happened (cf. Haeckel, 1876; Miller, 1953; Wong,
et al., 2000; Hartgerink, et al., 2001; Sommer, et al., 2008; Gibson, et
al., 2010), all to no avail. [NOTE: See the Apologetics Press Web site
for a discussion and refutation of these references.] In their
desperation, some evolutionists have begun to acknowledge the
unlikelihood of abiogenesis and have even begun to theorize the baseless
idea that aliens seeded life on Earth billions of years ago (cf. Hoyle
and Wickramasinghe, 1981; Gribbin, 1981; Stein and Miller, 2008).
Regardless of such speculation and conjecture, the
evidence
that science has found is clear. In nature, life comes only from life
of its own kind. Period. All scientific evidence confirms this
well-established principle of science. There are no known exceptions.
Thus, biogenesis is a
law. Abiogenesis is impossible.
Prominent marine biologist and evolutionist, Martin Moe, admitted: “A
century of sensational discoveries in the biological sciences has taught
us that life arises
only from life” (1981, p. 36, emp. added). Evolutionist George G. Simpson, perhaps the most influential paleontologist of the 20
th century, stated, “[T]here is no serious doubt that biogenesis is
the rule, that life comes only from other life, that a cell, the unit of life, is
always and
exclusively the product or offspring of another cell” (Simpson and Beck, 1965, p. 144, emp. added). In their textbook,
Biology: A Search for Order in Complexity, Moore and Slusher wrote: “Historically the point of view that
life comes only from life has been so well established through the facts revealed by experiment that it is called the
Law of Biogenesis” (1974, p. 74, emp. in orig., ital. added).
What does the scientific evidence indicate about the origin of life?
Life creates life. The evolutionists themselves begrudgingly admit this,
and yet refuse to accept its implications. If atheistic evolution is
true, abiogenesis
must be true. Belief in abiogenesis
is a stubborn refusal to accept the scientific evidence, choosing in
turn to give credence to evolutionary superstition, myths, and fables.
EVOLUTIONISTS' CANDID ADMISSIONS CONCERNING ABIOGENESIS
“It’s impossible”
In light of the extensive amount of scientific evidence against
abiogenesis, many scientists have made candid admissions about it.
Evolutionist John Horgan conceded that if he was a creationist, he would
focus on the origin of life to prove his position, because it
is by far the weakest strut of the chassis of modern biology. The
origin of life is a science writer’s dream. It abounds with exotic
scientists and exotic theories, which are never entirely abandoned or
accepted, but merely go in and out of fashion (1996, p. 138).
Hosts of high school, evolution-based biology textbooks commonly make
comments concerning Pasteur’s experiments like, “the hypothesis of
spontaneous generation was finally
disproved” (Miller
and Levine, 1991, p. 341, emp. added), although they continue to
propagate evolutionary dogma and the spontaneous generation of life,
sometimes on the very next page of the book (Miller and Levine, 1991, p.
342). Evolutionist and Nobel Laureate, George Wald, of Harvard
University wrote: “As for spontaneous generation, it continued to find
acceptance until finally
disposed of by the work of
Louis Pasteur” (1962, p. 187, emp. added). He further stated: “One has
only to contemplate the magnitude of this task to concede that the
spontaneous generation of a living organism is
impossible.
Yet here we are, as a result, I believe, of spontaneous generation”
(1954, p. 47, emp. added). So, “spontaneous generation is impossible,
but I’m going to believe it anyway”?
Hoyle and Wickramasinghe discussed the origin of life, saying:
Once we see, however, that the probability of life originating at
random is so utterly minuscule as to make the random concept absurd,
it becomes sensible to think that the favourable properties of physics
on which life depends, are in every respect deliberate…. It is therefore
almost inevitable that our own measure of intelligence must reflect in a
valid way the higher intelligences…even to the extreme idealized limit
of God (1981, pp. 141,144, emp. added).
Evolutionist J.D. Bernal, one of the leading scientists among x-ray
crystallographers and the man who coined the term, “biopoesis” (Bernal,
1951), stated: “It is possible to demonstrate effectively…how life
could not have arisen; the improbabilities are too great, the chances of the emergence of life too small.
Regrettably from this point of view, life is here on earth…and
the arguments have to be bent around
to support its existence” (Bernal, 1967, p. 120, emp. added). In other
words, “Life could not have spontaneously generated, but I refuse to
accept the only alternative. The arguments must be bent to explain
everything without the need of that alternative.” Such a rationale (if
it can be deemed
rationale at all) is hardly scientific.
Not only do evolutionists recognize that arriving at life from non-life
is impossible, but many even concede that the problem is far worse than
that. They conjecture (rather wildly) about what the conditions on
Earth must have been like to produce life. However, they realize that
arriving at those conditions would have been equally as impossible as
the actual jump from non-life to life. John Keosian, biology professor
at Rutgers University, said, “Even conceptually, it is difficult to see
how a system satisfying the minimum criteria for a living thing can
arise by chance and,
simultaneously, include a mechanism containing the suitable information for its own replication” (Keosian, 1964, pp. 69-70, emp. added). Writing in
New Scientist, Hoyle and Wickramasinghe lamented concerning the “prebiotic” soup allegedly necessary before abiogenesis could occur:
Precious little in the way of biochemical evolution could have happened on the Earth. It is easy to show that the two thousand or so enzymes that span the whole of life could not have evolved
on Earth. If one counts the number of trial assemblies of amino acids
that are needed to give rise to the enzymes, the probability of their
discovery by random shufflings turns out to be less than 1 in 1040,000 (1991, 91:415, emp. added).
John Horgan wrote in
Scientific American:
DNA cannot do its work, including forming more DNA, without the help
of catalytic proteins, or enzymes. In short, proteins cannot form
without DNA, but neither can DNA form without proteins. But as
researchers continue to examine the RNA-world concept closely, more problems
emerge. How did RNA arise initially? RNA and its components are
difficult to synthesize in a laboratory under the best of conditions, much less under plausible prebiotic ones (1991, 264:119, emp. added).
A decade later, Horgan was still at a loss concerning the origin of DNA, RNA, and enzymes. Again writing for
Scientific American,he
wrote, “DNA can make neither proteins nor copies of itself without the
help of catalytic proteins called enzymes. This fact turned the origin
of life into a classic chicken-or-egg puzzle: Which came first, proteins
or DNA?” (2011). That’s quite a problem. How likely is it that DNA and
its necessary proteins happened to evolve at exactly the same moment?
Again, Horgan pressed the fact that the RNA-world hypothesis is not the
answer. “The RNA world is so dissatisfying that some frustrated
scientists are resorting to much more far out—literally—
speculation”
(2011, emp. added). In concluding his article, he stated: “Creationists
are no doubt thrilled that origin-of-life research has reached such an
impasse…” (2011). He is right about one thing. Creationists are thrilled
at such findings. However, the thrill is not from origin-of-life
research reaching an “impasse.” Rather, it is from the removal of an
impasse in front of
true origin-of-life research!
Evolutionists themselves realize that abiogenesis is impossible. The
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific and Technical Terms defines “abiogenesis” as, “
the obsolete concept that
plant and animal life arise from nonliving organic matter,” although
the contributors would hardly be deemed creationists (2003, p. 3, emp.
added). It bears repeating: the notion of spontaneous generation is an
obsolete concept!
“We Don’t Have a Clue”
Given the impossibility of abiogenesis, one might logically ask the
evolutionist, “How, then, did life arise?” Over seven decades ago,
J.W.N. Sullivan admitted what remains true to this day:
The beginning of the evolutionary process raises a question which is yet unanswerable.
What was the origin of life on this planet? Until fairly recent times
there was a pretty general belief in the occurrence of “spontaneous
generation”…. But careful experiments, notably those of Pasteur, showed
that this conclusion was due to imperfect observation, and it became an accepted doctrine that life never arises except from life. So far as the actual evidence goes, this is still the only possible conclusion (1933, p. 94, emp. added).
The student of evolution might very well reply, “Well, that was over
seventy years ago. We know how it all happened now.” Moving into the
sixties, the question was still unanswered. Chemists D.E. Green and R.F.
Goldberger asked:
How, then did the precursor cell arise? The only unequivocal rejoinder to this question is that we do not know….
There is one step [in evolution—JM] that far outweighs the others in
enormity: the step from macromolecules to cells. All the other steps can
be accounted for on theoretical grounds—if not correctly, at least elegantly. The macromolecule-to-cell transition is a jump of fantastic dimensions, which lies beyond the range of testable hypothesis. In this area all is conjecture.
The available facts do not provide a basis for postulating that cells
arose on this planet. This is not to say that some para-physical forces
were not at work. We simply wish to point out that there is no scientific evidence (1967, p. 403, 406-407, emp. added).
In the late 1970s, Jastrow said, regarding the evolution of life:
According to this story, every tree, every blade of grass, and every
creature in the sea and on the land evolved out of one parent strand of
molecular matter drifting lazily in a warm pool. What concrete evidence supports that remarkable theory of the origin of life? There is none.... At present, science has no satisfactory answer to the question of the origin of life on the earth (1977, p. 60, 62-63, emp. added).
One might suppose, “Surely, by the 1980s an answer had been reached!”
Evolutionist Douglas Hofstadter said, “There are various theories on the
origin of life. They all run aground on this most central of all
central questions: ‘How did the Genetic Code, along with the mechanisms
for its translation (ribosomes and RNA molecules) originate?’ For the
moment, we will have to content ourselves with a sense of
wonder and awe rather than with an answer” (1980, p. 548, emp. added). Evolutionist Andrew Scott, writing in
New Scientist, observed:
Take some matter, heat while stirring, and wait. That is the modern
version of Genesis. The “fundamental” forces of gravity,
electromagnetism and the strong and weak nuclear forces are presumed to
have done the rest…. But how much of this neat tale is firmly
established, and how much remains hopeful speculation? In truth, the
mechanism of almost every major step, from chemical precursors up to the
first recognizable cells, is the subject of either controversy or complete bewilderment.
We are grappling with a classic “chicken and egg” dilemma. Nucleic
acids are required to make proteins, whereas proteins are needed to make
nucleic acids and also to allow them to direct the process of protein
manufacture itself.
The emergence of the gene-protein link, an absolutely vital stage on
the way up from lifeless atoms to ourselves, is still shrouded in almost
complete mystery…. We still know very little about how our genesis came about, and to provide a more satisfactory account than we have at present remains one of science’s great challenges (1985, 106:30-33, emp. added).
In the late 1980s, Klaus Dose pointed out:
More than 30 years of experimentation on the origin of life in the
fields of chemical and molecular evolution have led to a better
perception of theimmensity of the problem of the origin
of life on Earth rather than to its solution. At present all
discussions on principal theories and experiments in the field either
end in stalemate or in a confession of ignorance (1988, 13[4]:348, emp. added).
The arrival of the 1990s did little to help evolutionists find an
answer for the origin of life. Evolutionist John Maddox, writing in
Nature, said, “[I]t is disappointing that the origin of the genetic code is
still as obscure as the origin of life itself” (1994, 367:111, emp. added).
And today, scientists are
still at a loss as to how life could have arisen spontaneously. In the lecture series,
Origins of Life, Robert Hazen made several notable admissions:
-
“This course is unusual because at this point in time, there is so much that we don’t know about life on Earth.”
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“The origin of life is a subject of immense complexity, and I have to tell you right up front, we don’t know how life began.”
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“It’s as if we are trying to assemble a huge jigsaw puzzle. We have a few pieces clumped together here and there, but most of the puzzle pieces are missing.”
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“How can I tell you about the origin of life when we are so woefully ignorant of that history?”
Incredibly, he further conceded:
This course focuses exclusively on the scientific approach to the
question of life’s origins. In this lecture series, I make an assumption
that life emerged from basic raw materials through a sequence of events
that was completely consistent with the natural laws of chemistry and
physics. Even with this scientific approach, there is a possibility that
we’ll never know—in fact, that we can’t ever know. It is possible that
life emerged by an almost infinitely improbable sequence of difficult
chemical reactions. If life is the result of an infinitely improbable
succession of chemical steps, then any scientific attempt to understand life’s origin is doomed to failure; such a succession could not be duplicated in a program of lab experiments. If the origin of life was an infinitely improbable accident, then there’s absolutely nothing
you or I or anyone else could do to figure out how it happened. I must
tell you, that’s a depressing thought to someone like me who has devoted
a decade to understanding the origin of life (2005, emp. added).
Evolutionist Paul Davies, theoretical physicist, cosmologist,
astrobiologist, and professor at Arizona State University, writing in
New Scientist, said, “One of the great outstanding scientific mysteries is the origin of life. How did it happen?...The truth is,
nobody has a clue” (2006, 192[2578]:35, emp. added). Richard Dawkins stated in an interview with Ben Stein regarding the origin of life, “
Nobody knows
how it got started. We know the kind of event that it must have been.
We know the sort of event that must have happened for the origin of
life. It was the origin of the first self-replicating molecule.” Stein
asked, “Right. And how did that happen?” Dawkins replied, “I’ve told
you. We don’t know.” Stein then said, “So, you have no idea how it
started?” Dawkins replied, “No.
Nor has anybody” (Stein
and Miller, 2008, emp. added). John Horgan did not even try to veil his
admission within an article. He titled one of his articles, “Pssst!
Don’t Tell the Creationists, but Scientists
Don’t Have a Clue How Life Began” (2011, emp. added). Such admissions are quite telling, albeit incorrect. What Davies, Horgan, and Dawkins mean is, no
naturalist “has a clue.” Biblical
supernaturalists, on the other hand, know
exactly how life originated, and the answer harmonizes perfectly with the Law of Biogenesis—unlike evolution’s life-origins fairytale.
“It’s a miracle!”
So, according to atheistic evolutionists, the origin of life through
spontaneous generation—a fundamental plank of evolutionary theory—is
impossible. “Nobody has a clue” how life could have started. What conclusion is left?
It must have been a miracle.
No wonder many evolutionists have ironically started cautiously using
religious terminology to describe the origin of life, in spite of the
attacks they have made against the religiously minded community for
doing so. Jastrow stated:
At present, science has no satisfactory answer to the question of the
origin of life on the earth. Perhaps the appearance of life on the earth
is a miracle. Scientists are reluctant to accept that
view, but their choices are limited; either life was created on the
earth by the will of a being outside the grasp of scientific
understanding, or it evolved on our planet spontaneously, through
chemical reactions occurring in nonliving matter lying on the surface of
the planet. The first theory places the question of the origin of life
beyond the reach of scientific inquiry. It is a statement of faith in the power of a Supreme Being not subject to the laws of science. The second theory is also an act of faith. The act of faith consists in assuming that the scientific view of the origin of life is correct, without having concrete evidence to support that belief (1977, pp. 62-63, emp. added).
“Faith”? “Miracle”? Evolutionist John Sullivan admitted, “The
hypothesis that life has developed from inorganic matter is, at present,
still an
article of faith” (1933, p. 95, emp. added). Sir Francis Crick conceded, “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, so many are the conditions which
would have had to have been satisfied to get it going” (1981, p. 88,
emp. added). Noted physiologist and zoologist G.A. Kerkut said that
spontaneous generation is “
a matter of faith on the part of the biologist…. The evidence for what did happen is
not available” (1960, p. 150, emp. added).
The very people who claim that Bible believers are beholden to ancient
mythology and fables without evidence are beginning to admit that
they, in fact, are the ones guilty as charged. In his classic text,
The Immense Journey, the late evolutionary anthropologist, Loren Eiseley, said the following regarding the idea of spontaneous generation:
With the failure of these many efforts, science was left in the
somewhat embarrassing position of having to postulate theories of living
origins which it could not demonstrate. After having chided the
theologian for his reliance on myth and miracle, science found itself in the unenviable position of having to create a mythology of its own: namely, the assumption
that what, after long effort, could not be proved to take place today,
had, in truth, taken place in the primeval past (1957, pp. 201-202, emp.
added).
Hoyle and Wickramasinghe concluded:
It is doubtful that anything like the conditions which were simulated
in the laboratory existed at all on a primitive Earth, or occurred for
long enough times and over sufficiently extended regions of the Earth’s
surface to produce large enough local concentrations of the biochemicals
required for the start of life. In accepting the “primeval soup theory”
of the origin of life, scientists have replaced religious mysteries which shrouded this question with equally mysterious scientific dogmas. The implied scientific dogmas are just as inaccessible to the empirical approach (1978, p. 26, emp. added).
If the origin of life is “a matter of faith” in the sense that no human
being was physically present to observe it, then how can we determine
which view—spontaneous generation or special creation—is the truth? The
atheistic evolutionist insists: “I don’t know how it happened, but I
won’t accept God.” However, the Bible asserts that the evidence is
available for us to arrive at truth, and it is the truth that will set
us free (John 8:32). It is not a “leap into the dark” without evidence.
God “did not leave Himself without witness” (Acts 14:17). Knowledge of
God’s existence, and thus special creation, is not only attainable, but
those who reject the evidence are “without excuse” (Romans 1:20). The
created order “declares” the truth of the matter (Psalm 19:1).
Is it not true that the
reasonable view on the origin of life will be the view that is in keeping with the evidence we
do
have? Why would science lie? It has no agenda or bias. Science should
support the correct view—not contradict it. What does the evidence say?
In nature, life comes only from life and that of its kind. Therefore, abiogenesis does not happen. Science
has proven this truth time and time again. To continue to champion
abiogenesis is to hold to a view that flies in the face of the evidence,
taking a leap into the dark without evidence. The only plausible
option—an option that does not contradict the scientific evidence—is
supernatural creation.
REFERENCES
Ackerknect, E.H. (1973), “Rudolph Virchow,”
Encyclopaedia Britannica, 23:35.
Balme, D.M. (1962), “Development of Biology in Aristotle and Theophrastus: Theory of Spontaneous Generation,”
Phronesis: A Journal for Ancient Philosophy, 7[1-2]:91-104.
Bernal, J.D. (1951),
The Physical Basis of Life (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul).
Bernal, J.D. (1967),
The Origin of Life (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson), third impression.
“Biopoiesis” (2011),
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“Well, I know it’s impossible, but maybe…”
e remarked that when speculating about Earth’s pre-biotic conditions we have “no laboratory models: hence one can speculate endlessly unfettered by inconvenient facts” (1978, p. 85, emp. added). He went on to concede: “We can only imagine what probably existed, and our imagination so far has not been very helpful” (p. 86, emp. added). So, basing theories upon imagination is now considered scientific!
Unfortunately,
by now, the authors have likely “lost” the typical student. At this
point, these students, probably not catching the authors’ disclaimers,
will tend to “zone out” and just take the evolutionist’s word for
it—“So, we came from goo. Please move on.” However, now the authors
actually start to make candid, significant admissions. Under the heading
“From Proto-life to Cells,” the authors concede:
In
the next section, under the heading, “The Puzzle of Life’s Origins,”
the authors admit, “A stew of organic molecules is a long way from a
living cell, and the leap from nonlife to life is the greatest gap in scientific hypotheses of Earth’s early history”
(p. 425, emp. added). And that’s it. Proof for abiogenesis is not
presented. A scientific refutation of the Law of Biogenesis is not
conducted. Once again, the authors fearlessly launch into pages of
speculation concerning the origin of the building blocks of life,
liberally using qualifying language to subtly admit that nothing the
authors are saying has been proven. Concerning proteinoid microspheres,
which have some cell-like characteristics but which are not considered
living entities, the authors note: “Microspheres are not cells, but they have some characteristics of living systems…. Several hypotheses suggest that structures similar to proteinoid microspheres might have
acquired more and more characteristics of living cells” (p. 425, emp.
added). Such unending speculation, not backed by any proof whatsoever,
is being allowed to fill the minds of unsuspecting youth, causing them
to lose faith in the biblical model of life origins—which, in reality,
is the origin model actually in keeping with the scientific evidence.
The authors proceed to admit once again, “Another unanswered question
in the evolution of cells is the origin of DNA and RNA” (p. 425, emp.
added). So, in their pointless trek to prove evolutionary theory,
evolutionists cannot even reach the abiogenesis chasm
of impossibility that they must cross in order to prove their theory.
They are still hampered by the chasms that exist much earlier in their
mythical journey.
Consequently,
some scientists have become increasingly uncomfortable with calling
biogenesis a “law,” since a scientific law, by definition, is “a
regularity which applies to all members of a broad class of phenomena,” and abiogenesis would constitute an exception, thus removing it from “law” status (McGraw-Hill…,
2003, p. 1182, emp. added). What once was commonly taught in textbooks
due to its universal support by the scientific evidence is being
systematically stripped from biology courses in spite of its continued
universal support. In the commonly used middle school/junior high
textbook, Life Science, the text’s authors do not even mention
the word “biogenesis,” much less, “The Law of Biogenesis.” Instead,
under the heading, “Life Comes From Life,” the authors explain the work
of Redi and Pasteur and proudly proclaim:
Again,
in spite of “hundreds of years of experiments,” in an attempt to
lighten the certainty and implication of biogenesis, others are now
calling it a “principle,” instead of a law. Has experimentation proven
there are exceptions to its validity? No. Quite the contrary is true.
However, if it is considered to be a law, then atheistic evolution cannot be true, and one must then concede the existence of God. In their textbook, Biology: A Search for Order in Complexity, Moore and Slusher discuss the Law of Biogenesis. In a footnote, they say:
further
that atheistic evolutionist Robert Hazen admitted that in his
assumption of abiogenesis, he is “like most other scientists” (2005).
After all, without abiogenesis in place, there is no starting point for
atheistic evolution. One would have to concede, at the very least, some
form of theistic evolution. However, proposed theistic evolutionary
models have been found to be untenable as well (cf. Thompson, 2000).
Further, evolutionists themselves often use the term “evolution” as a
generalized catchall word encompassing all materialistic origin models,
including those dealing with the origin of the cosmos, not just the
origin of species. Creationists are merely using the evolutionists’
terms in the same way they use them. The truth is, one cannot logically
commence a study of Life Science or Biology—studies which are intimately
linked with the theory of evolution by scientists today—without first
studying the origin of that life which allegedly evolved from a
single-celled organism into the various forms of life on Earth today.
The two are linked and logically cannot be separated. The reality is
that since macroevolution cannot harmonize with true theism (cf.
Thompson, 2000), that theory is left alongside abiogenesis as a
fundamental plank of atheism. The two are intimately linked and stand or
fall together.