The Origin of Life
Science
| November 25, 2007
| Tim
As a Christian, I have the potential to be a better paleobiologist than any similar atheist: my faith allows me to accept any possible finding, whereas the atheist is much more narrowly constrained by his.
If the evidence showed, for example, that life arose naturally -- that is, as an inevitable result of the laws of nature -- I would have no theological issue with that, simply saying: "Well, of course: the creator brought the universe into being with natural laws which would allow or even cause it to produce life." On the other hand, if life appeared hopelessly improbable, I would also have no problem with that outcome -- thought the atheist surely would.
Indeed, this isn't the first time we've encountered this problem. Before the turn of the twentieth century, atheistic scientists were insisting that the universe must be infinitely old, as a beginning would be quite offensive to their "theology". This assumption was widely considered "good science" at the time by those who considered themselves good scientists.
But alas it was not to be: even those in the best position to see otherwise refused to entertain evidence which conflicted with the dominant paradigm:
[Einstein's] field equations of general relativity revealed that the universe is simultaneously expanding and decelerating. This aspect of his theory implied that the universe began this expansion at a specific, finite time in the distant past. Einstein immediately realized the theological implications: a beginning requires a Beginner, and looked for a loophole to avoid those implications. What he did was to introduce, out of thin air, his infamous cosmological constant. This constant forced his equations to predict an infinite and static universe. [1]
Einstein wasted years fiddling with the cosmological constant, and apparently later called it the "greatest blunder" of his life. Later, also apparently motivated by desire for a materialistic universe, Einstein opposed quantum mechanics, quipping "God doesn't play dice with the universe." Of course, it now appears God does "play dice" with the universe -- that is, that the universe is not the deterministic machine the atheistic positivists hoped it would be.
But ego trumps science, and, for the materialist, metaphysics is often simply an extension of the ego.
When the great Intelligent Design debate was raging in Kansas (and in the media), I remember hearing anti-IDers saying that children deserved to be taught the "best science" available at the time. Certainly, who could disagree with that?
But, in my experience, it doesn't seem to me that materialists are usually capable of honestly presenting the best science available today. Yesterday, for example, I visited the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, and noticed the following crucial display (filling in the boundary between the non-life and life-supporting parts of the story of the earth), dishonestly summarizing the Miller-Urey experiment as follows:
"In 1953, a famous experiment showed that simple chemicals could be transformed into organic molecules in a laboratory... Amino acids like those in living cells have been produced in many laboratories... The amino acids that are produced turn out to be the ones that are most abundant in the proteins of all living things."
"The proper scene for the brewing of life from nonlife was the early earth. The earth's conditions favored certain chemical conditions over others, and with the passage of time a direction was set."
This is what we're presenting to children as the current state of the art. But is it the truth? Is it the "best science" available; the most honest and accurate statement of our findings about the origin of life and the outcome of the Miller-Urey experiment?
Sadly, no. Forget the theology entirely, if you're capable of it. It's simply bad science. For example, here's what the National Academy of Sciences has to say:
The study of the origin of life is a very active research area in which important progress is being made, although the consensus among scientists is that none of the current hypotheses has thus far been confirmed. The history of science shows that seemingly intractable problems like this one may become amenable to solution later, as a result of advances in theory, instrumentation, or the discovery of new facts.
In other words, we don't yet know how life came about.
The article "Jump-Starting a Cellular World" (which appeared in Science in 2005) summarizes our current understanding in the same way:
Give biologists a cell, and they'll give you the world. But beyond assuming the first cell must have somehow come into existence, how do biologists explain its emergence from the prebiotic world four billion years ago? The short answer is that they can't, yet.
Again: we simply don't know how life came about. But to admit that to children would apparently be a loss of face in a theological battle, so the Denver Museum of Nature and Science tells them a convenient fiction: that we've determined that all you have to do is combine a few elements, as described in the recipe card above, wait a bit, and ta-da, you have life.
Again, I'm quite prepared to accept either outcome, or even a temporary time of ambiguity. My adversaries are not; and they certainly can't tolerate ambiguity. That is, to put it bluntly, very bad science.
Things get worse when we consider the outcome of the Miller-Urey experiment. From the same article quoted above:
Some 50 years ago, Stanley Miller, then a graduate student at the University of Chicago and now in the Department of Chemistry at University of California at San Diego, got the field of origins research started with a bang—literally. He passed high-voltage electric sparks—a stand-in for lightning—through a gaseous mixture of water, methane, hydrogen, and ammonia, thought to be the major constituents of the ancient atmosphere. The liquid in the reaction flask eventually became a bouillon-like mix of amino acids and other small organic molecules. Miller's results predicted that, over time, the early oceans would have become a rich prebiotic soup, replete with amino acids, nucleic acids, and sugars. His results implied it was only a matter of time before these building blocks combined to form complex polymers and ultimately a replicating cell.
“The initial Miller experiment was earth-shaking,” says Harold Morowitz, Professor of Biology at George Mason University, and a long-time theorist and researcher in this area. The suggestion that random chemistry could produce the molecules of life “held the field for a long time.” But later calculations appeared to show that the early atmosphere contained much more carbon dioxide and much less hydrogen than Miller's model required, and correcting these concentrations cast doubt on the likelihood that complex molecules would form in abundance... Finally, there is no geologic evidence, in either sediments or metamorphic rocks, that such a soup ever existed.
Gee, the museum exhibit seems to have overlooked those little details.
Beyond that, there were many other problems with the Miller-Urey experiment and it's presentation, including that Miller and Urey apparently inadvertently started with biological materials (whoops). The museum display assures visitors that the "amino acids produced turn out to be the same ones that are most abundant in the proteins of all living things." Yes, but it's a bit like noting that water is also abundant in living things, and implying its production is close to the production of life.
The Denver museum exhibit presents this experiment as "Replicating life in the lab?" and uses an misleading explanation and the content of the next panel to strongly imply the answer is yes. But the best contemporary understanding of the science involved is that all credible scientists now admit they did no such thing, nor even approached it, with no question marks or implications to the contrary. And, contrary to the sure-sounding quote in the second frame, things look so poor for life developing on earth that the current hot idea is that it perhaps came from Mars or elsewhere.
I probably need to say this again because some won't believe it, or won't want to see it: I would have no problem with the idea that we'd shown that all it takes to produce life is simple chemicals + time. In fact, misled by Carl Sagan, I once believed the Miller-Urey experiment showed just that, and was a bit disappointed to find out it didn't.
But I think we owe the public an honest presentation of what we know about the origins of life. Certainly, there are many who hope that we'll someday be able to show that life would naturally arise. And some believe in the future, that view will be vindicated. But, boys and girls, the everyday word for "my evidence in the future" is "faith", and we have no business using our public museums to teach the unsupported religious beliefs of materialists, especially when they conflict with and misrepresent the best available science.
While I agree the origins of life are still debated and Miller-Urey is probably overemphasized to the exclusion of things like the RNA world hypothesis, but I'm surprised you omitted this passage from the text that you cite;
New calculations appear to show that there was considerably more hydrogen in the early atmosphere than once thought. “This could resurrect Miller's chemistry,” says Orgel. Nonetheless, “there is still an enormous way to go” to get the full set of RNA precursor molecules.
Personally, while I haven't delved too deeply into the early earth climatology, I'm surprised that I've never heard one specific thing mentioned;
Since the earth doesn't have a sufficient gravitational pull to hold onto hydrogen or helium gas, these gasses are not present in the earth's atmosphere in significant quantities. Any commercial helium comes from oil wells and is the product of radioactive decay. We have a lot of hydrogen in various compounds since it reacts so easily to form heavier compounds like water, sugar, and a million other things. But any free hydrogen, such as that created from atmospheric vapor exposed to lightning, would offgas. I wonder if anyone here is aware of a model of the hydrogen cycle which takes this constant offgassing of hydrogen into account when considering the elemental composition of the early earth and issues like how much of which elements must be deposited on earth from space and at what time.
Just so you don't think I've missed your point entirely, yes, the display was presumptive. Though I don't think this presumtiveness is isolated to theologically charged issues. I can't easily recall any class before college where science was presented as a debate in progress rather than a conclusion to be memorized.
Hi Ryan!
Sorry for my long absence. I've been changing residences, working on an unnecessarily hurried project, and entertaining out-of-town relatives visiting for Thanksgiving.
Miller-Urey is probably overemphasized...
I'm not simply saying it's overemphasized. I'm saying every time I encounter it, it's presented in an entirely misleading fashion. Even if there were no other issues, amino acids aren't "life" any more than piles of silicon and wire-shaped bits of metal are Microsoft Flight Simulator.
And there are other issues -- serious and huge ones which should have disqualified it from being presented this way decades ago. But it's just too useful, as a materialist fairy tale, to give up. Look again: The scientist you just quoted hopes, maybe someday, perhaps, something might "resurrect" Miller-Urey; yet go to a museum and are told it seems to have shown life can be created (easily!) from non-living matter.
How does that jive with it being currently scientifically "dead", such that it might be someday "resurrected"?
New calculations appear to show that there was considerably more hydrogen in the early atmosphere than once thought. “This could resurrect Miller's chemistry,” says Orgel. Nonetheless, “there is still an enormous way to go” to get the full set of RNA precursor molecules.
First, let's not be silly. Insufficient hydrogen wasn't the only or even biggest problem. Lack of evidence for the "soup" is a problem. Low yields are a problem. The wrong balance between left- and right-handed amino acids is a problem. Insufficient information and complexity being produced is a huge problem. Etc, etc, etc.
Second: There are LOTS of theories and conjectures which could possibly pan out and explain the origins of life. (None of them have, so far, but it's possible one might, someday.) Conversely, the future could also continue to look like the present, where life appears to have been improbable enough not to have happened, if we didn't know otherwise. (And seems to be getting less likely each year, as we discover more complexity.)
I don't include or especially focus on the speculation you cite for the same reason I don't focus on any other speculation -- as stated, I'm looking at our current state of understanding, and/or well-accepted results, not hopeful conjectures which might, some day, be proven. Perhaps. You expect to find the former in a museum, not the later.
To make an analogy, I could theorize that God's existence will be proved by finding the Encyclopedia Britannica (1972 edition) encoded in Pi at the 12 billionth digit. But without the evidence, that's a hope, an assertion of faith and fond wishes (someone else's anyway -- not mine), not an established fact.
The same applies speculation that we'll eventually discover that life arose by natural laws. Currently, such theories fly into the face of improbabilities on the order of 1 in 10^100 or lower, which is a nice way of saying they don't and won't happen. We've got cells, but nobody is REMOTELY near figuring out how to get to cells from nonliving matter. The problem appears, currently, to be "intractable", which is an understated way of saying "miracle" IS the explanation which most closely fits the data.
Now I'm not certainly saying everyone should throw in the towel and give up research. Maybe that will change in the future, and life will appear less improbable. But I AM saying people should learn to distinguish between their fond wishes and the current evidence.
Simply saying: "We're not entirely sure yet how life arose" would have been short, sweet, and accurate. It's not merely "presumptive" to imply the evidence says otherwise, it's actually dishonest.
Imagine that I tell a court that we've gotten a DNA sample from the accused, run it and compared it to that in the crime scene, and it was a match. Only the truth turns out that we don't have any DNA from the crime scene (we're still out looking), and we only took a blood sample, from the accused. And we're pretty sure the lab in question switched his sample with a horse.
Was my statement merely "presumptive" -- or "deceptive"? After all, it's POSSIBLE you could eventually prove the accused guilty in the future, right? What's wrong with telling the jury it's a fait accompli?
Try switching the sides around and imagine they'd put up a panel suggesting that it had been proven that cells have "irreducible complexity", as suggested by some IDers. Would that merely have been admitted to be a bit "presumptive" or premature? Suddenly, the parties in question would have a very clear understanding of the difference between speculation and well-established fact.
I can't easily recall any class before college where science was presented as a debate in progress rather than a conclusion to be memorized.
My high school biology class was: I heard both sides of the debate on evolution. (It was also quite rigorous.)
The approach you describe is understandable in most cases. You have to learn the obvious, non-controversial stuff before moving onto the esoteric stuff. (Also, the non-controversial stuff is generally a lot more useful.) So we learn Newtonian gravity (which isn't being debated), not quantum theories of gravity.
But the origin of life is not such an area, sadly. There are no easy or certain answers, and there have been no "conclusions to memorize" as there have in most other areas of science.
Hi,
My name is Michael Hichborn, and I'm the media director for American Life League. I am currently contacting pro-life and Catholic bloggers all across the internet in a concerted effort to more effectively spread the word through what is being termed “the new media.” As such, I was hoping we could send our video releases to you for posting on your blog. I have recently established a regular webcast for American Life League, and I would be most honored if you would share it with your readers as they come out (approximately, every 2 weeks. If you are interested in this, please e-mail me at mhichborn@all.org and let me know. If not, just e-mail me and ask me not to bother you anymore.
Thanks, and God bless!
--Michael
Interesting comments. It reminds me of the book "Faith of a Scientist" by Henry Eyring. Good work, both of you.
Also, scientists often fail to understand that their work is also faith-based. They just believe in different things, like empirical evidence and the scientific method. There's more to life (both living it and studying it) than even those two can handle.
Tesh! I generally agree. Minor objection:
Also, scientists often fail to understand that their work is also faith-based. They just believe in different things, like empirical evidence and the scientific method.
There's nothing "different" about those things: I believe in them also, as do many Christians -- if not the vast majority. And some of my confidence in the scientific method is based on past evidence: For certain kinds of problems, it seems to work better than other approaches.
But I also recognize that the "scientific method", however well it may help us in forming and testing conjectures about how matter behaves, can never yield moral/religious answers nor insight. (Undoubtedly, a number of Nazi doctors were quite rigorous in some of their scientific experiments. What they were missing was a set of decent morals!)
The mistake some materialistic scientists frequently seem to make is thinking that "the scientific method" can answer these higher questions, and that their own (often atheistic) values somehow derived from it.
It can't, and they didn't.
*shrug*
To clarify what I was getting at (whilst agreeing with your clarification), the scientific method, as good as it is for a lot of things, is only as good as the assumptions made while collecting evidence, forming hypotheses and interpreting results. It's not as ironclad as something like pure math.
Don't get me wrong, it's excellent, and I'm a fan. I just know that there's a lot of faith, if only in one's self and one's measurements, involved in employing the scientific method.
Even empirical evidence is only as good as the assumptions made during observation, and the assumption that one's observation is sufficiently near-omniscient.
Put another way, logic is intertwined with faith, and neither scientists nor religionists can ignore either and get a complete picture. The quest to understand God and the quest to understand reality are essentially both the quest to understand truth.
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While I agree the origins of life are still debated and Miller-Urey is probably overemphasized to the exclusion of things like the RNA world hypothesis, but I'm surprised you omitted this passage from the text that you cite;
Personally, while I haven't delved too deeply into the early earth climatology, I'm surprised that I've never heard one specific thing mentioned;
Since the earth doesn't have a sufficient gravitational pull to hold onto hydrogen or helium gas, these gasses are not present in the earth's atmosphere in significant quantities. Any commercial helium comes from oil wells and is the product of radioactive decay. We have a lot of hydrogen in various compounds since it reacts so easily to form heavier compounds like water, sugar, and a million other things. But any free hydrogen, such as that created from atmospheric vapor exposed to lightning, would offgas. I wonder if anyone here is aware of a model of the hydrogen cycle which takes this constant offgassing of hydrogen into account when considering the elemental composition of the early earth and issues like how much of which elements must be deposited on earth from space and at what time.
Posted by: Ryan W. on November 25, 2007 09:05 PM