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Word Gems exploring self-realization, sacred personhood, and full humanity
Dr. Amit Goswami's
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Editor's note: The following is from Dr. Goswami's book, "Creative Evolution: A Physicist's Resolution Between Darwinism And Intelligent Design."
"Reductionist Models For The Origin Of Life: So Close And Yet So Far" “Many biologists today have convinced themselves that life is defined as the molecular biology of the living cell and no more – or possibly even less. I want to give you a feel for how difficult it is to make a plausible materialist model of a functioning living cell. “To appreciate these models, you have to appreciate some of the complexities of the living cell. Single-celled creatures are of two kinds: prokaryote (without a nucleus) and eukaryote (with a nucleus)… “[The] two most important components of a cell [are] DNA and proteins. “A third component is the [RNA] molecules, which mediate information exchange between DNA and proteins. “A fourth component is the cell membrane, which gives the cell a defined structure: an inside and an outside. The cell membrane is made of fatty acid molecules, such as lipids. “A fifth component is the cytoplasm, which fills the cell body, facilitates transport of proteins, and acts as a solvent. “In addition to all of the preceding, eukaryote cells also have a nucleus. That is, the DNA and the machinery that conveys DNA information to RNA are sequestered by a distinct membrane: a cell within a cell, so to speak. “Let’s discuss the complexities of some of these cellular molecules. A protein is a large polymer chain of amino acid molecules, so complex that no one can conceive of ever succeeding in manufacturing it in the laboratory starting from the amino acids. In the cell, of course, DNA has the code (the genetic code) that directs the assembly of the amino acid sequences to make proteins. “DNA is famous for its double-helix structure. The two strands of the double helix are joined chemically through the electrical bonding of the nucleotide molecules adenine (A), thymine (T), guanine (G), and cytosine (C). The genetic code is contained in the sequences of the letters along one strand, divided in groups of three letters. “Just as DNA has the code for the production of proteins, the proteins are instrumental for producing DNA. This circularity [like the 'chicken and egg'] – in which DNA makes proteins (with the aid of RNA) and proteins make DNA – prompts origin-of-life researchers to reject DNA as a candidate for primitive life. It’s just too complex. “The most popular models assume that life began with the self-replicating, single-strand nucleic acid chain, the RNA. Could an RNA molecule come about by chance in a primordial soup of the basic elements of life? “In the fifties, Stanley Miller and Harold Urey conducted a famous experiment in which amino acid was synthesized from a ‘primordial soup’ of the basic elements carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and hydrogen by passing energy through the soup. “However, no experiment of the Miller-Urey type was immediately successful for the synthesis of RNA. "But in the sixties, the biochemist Sol Spiegelman made history with a successful experiment suggesting that if a protein enzyme were present, the catalytic effect of the enzyme would be of enormous help in synthesizing RNA. (Catalysis occurs when a chemical substance, the catalyst, enhances the rate of a chemical reaction but is itself regenerated at the end of the reaction.) … “Unfortunately, to manufacture a protein enzyme by blind chance is not easy either. An argument based on probability calculation shows that the manufacture of even a relatively small protein enzyme would take a time much longer than the age of the universe. “To see why, we will make a little digression for the mathematics-minded skeptic. Take a look at … the DNA molecule. It takes three of the base molecules [A, C, G, T] in a given sequence (called a codon) to make an amino acid molecule. Consider, following the astrophysicist Arne Wyller, the probability of a protein enzyme consisting of a chain of 34 amino acids being put together by chance. This sequence would have 3 times 34 or 102 base molecules or letters. “To get the first letter of the sequence right, the probability is 1/4, because there are four letters to choose from. To get the second one right, the probability is again 1/4. And to get the two of them right together, the probability is 1/4 times 1/4 or 1/16 (probabilities multiply). “You get the picture. To get 102 letters right, we need to multiply 1/4 by itself 102 times, of 1/4102. If you want to do this protein right by trial and error, chance, we have to try 4102 – or 1061 – times! “How long does each trial take? Wyller makes the point that even if we take a miniscule 1 second for each trial, even then the time taken is 1061 seconds. Given that the life of the universe is about 1018 seconds, the time to make a simple enzyme by trial and error exceeds by many times the entire life of the universe… “This mathematical digression has solidified our conclusion: We cannot expect enzymes to help the manufacture of the primitive life forms of RNA…" Editor’s note: Materialists cavalierly speak of “simple life forms” as if single-celled creatures were just blobs of protoplasm with a touch of animation. In fact, an individual cell represents an incredibly sophisticated entity, the complexity of which, in its many synergistically-operating components, could not be constructed by chance, even with a duration of time equal to the entire lifespan of the universe, or many thereof. Let’s see clearly what’s really going on with these famous textbook examples of so-called “creating life in a test-tube." Under controlled conditions, certain basic building-blocks of the cell, such as amino acids or RNA, have been created in the laboratory. But these organic building blocks, of and by themselves, do not create a fully functioning cell, not by a very long shot, any more than a pile of lumber and a stack of drywall will magically be transformed into a new house. The issue is this: under controlled conditions, orchestrated and supervised by human intelligence, certain building blocks have been created. But could these elemental “legos,” the amino acids and the RNA, have been produced without human guidance? This reminds me of a little story of when my children were young. As a registered investment advisor at the time, I would occasionally talk with them about good investment practice. Later, as they happened to be in conversation with a third party, and as the topic turned to money and the stock market, the children suddenly, to the amazement of the listener, began speaking of wise investment strategy. Was this hard evidence of a financial prodigy? - “life created in a test-tube”? if you will; or was it an unremarkable example of supervision and orchestration? without which the kids would have had nothing to say. Editor’s note: Modern biology is in crisis. It's not a real science, not like physics and chemistry. It needs new organizing principles, displacing its unproven metaphysical assumptions. Dr. Goswami in his book continues with his tour of Darwinistic theories for the origin of life. You can read them for yourself. All of them are constructed upon the flimsy balsa-wood platform of “Give us one free miracle and we’ll explain the rest.” Notice what we’ve seen in the above discussion: “We can make RNA in a test-tube, if we’re allowed to inject a protein enzyme into the process.” Never mind that, not just RNA but the protein enzyme, too - each, individually, as a product of randomness and chance - would require a duration of time equal to many lifetimes of the universe. But this hurdle of belief (see "the Joker is wild" principle) is not too high for those with “faith in the holy church of materialism.” The Miller-Urey experiments are famous. It's frequently trotted out as "proof" of Darwinism. Even if you’re not a biology-freak you might recall this item from high-school science; even I remember this, glassy-eyed as I was then. The hoopla at the time, and today, as well, issues, with a wink and nervous smile, as “We came so very close to creating life in a test-tube. We're almost there. Allow us to issue a promissory note on the sure success that’s coming with our molecular-biology experiments.” But this is fable. It’s not going to happen. The math won’t allow it. For the moment, however, let's forget the math; impossible odds are routinely swallowed by true-believers because it's what they want to believe. The real reason why life cannot be conjured in a test-tube is not rooted in probability statistics (as some will always insist that winning the lottery is possible). The real reason why the Miller-Urey experiment, and its successors, take us in the wrong direction is that life, fundamentally, will not, and cannot, emerge from a correctly-proportioned synthesis of primordial-soup elements. Life derives not from any expression of "upward causation" but from Universal Consciousness, and without this detail in play, no mixture of primordial cocktail will avail a farthing’s worth.
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