Evolution Hopes You Don't Know Chemistry: The Problem of Control

Institute for Creation Research ^ | Aug, 2004 | Dr. Charles McCombs

[Michael_Michaelangelo]

According to modern evolutionary theory, the recipe for life is a chance accumulation of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen; add a pinch of phosphorus and sulfur, simmer for millions of years, and repeat if necessary. As a Ph.D. organic chemist, I am trained to understand the principles of chemistry, but this is not how chemicals react. Chemicals reacting with chemicals is a chemical reaction, and chemical reactions do not produce life. Life must create life. In the chemical literature, there is not a single example of life resulting from a chemical reaction. If life from chemicals were possible, it would be called spontaneous generation, an idea that scientists once thought happened in nature. Centuries ago, scientists used to believe that bread crumbs turned into mice because if you left bread crumbs on a table and returned later, the crumbs were gone and only mice were present. When true science got involved, they learned the truth that bread crumbs only attracted the mice that ate the crumbs. These scientists were quick to propose a theory that sounded reasonable until, that is, they studied the process and learned otherwise.

Proteins and DNA are complicated chemical molecules that are present within our body. Cells which make up the living body contain DNA, the blueprint for all life, and proteins regulating biochemical processes, leading scientists to conclude these components are the cause of life. While it is true that all living bodies have proteins and DNA, so do dead bodies. These chemicals are necessary for life to exist, but they do not "create" life by their presence; they only "maintain" the life that is already present. However, this is not the only problem with the "life from chemicals" theory.

Why do evolutionists vehemently proclaim the "life from chemicals" theory? Because if proteins and DNA only maintain life without creating it, then something else must have accomplished its origins. Evidence such as this points to an Omnipotent Creator, but they are not willing to make that concession.

Scientists can only look at life as it exists today, and try to determine how life originated in the past. They look at the end result and try to determine the process by which it was formed. Imagine looking at a photograph and trying to determine the brand of camera that was used to take the picture. Could you do it? Evolutionists have the same problem when they claim that life comes from chemicals. They look at the end result and propose a theory without ever observing the process. Scientists cannot study the past. Scientists can only look at the present and make theories about what happened in the past that would make the present the way it is today. When evolutionary scientists study the origins of life, they propose that all life resulted from chemical reactions by natural processes, overlooking the fact that chemical processes do not "naturally" behave in this manner. If you accepted chemical reactions as they occur, you would not believe that life came solely from chemicals. Is it legitimate to propose that evolution started in some primordial soup, when the long chain polymers that are present in proteins and DNA are so complicated that the level of chemical control needed during the chain building process is beyond the realm of natural chemistry?

Let's take a closer look at proteins and DNA, and the problems of their synthesis by evolutionary processes. Proteins are long polymers of amino acids linked in a chain. There are thousands of proteins within the human body, and they all differ by the sequence of the amino acids on the polymer chain. DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid,) is a polymer of nucleotides. Nucleotides themselves are complicated chemical molecules consisting of a deoxyribose molecule and a phosphate chemically bonded to one of the following heterocycles: guanine, cytosine, thymine, and adenine. Although there are only four different heterocycles, the DNA chain contains billions of nucleotides connected together in a long precisely ordered chain. The sequence of the human DNA chain is so complicated, that even with the sophisticated scientific equipment available today, we still do not know the complete sequence. Proteins and DNA contain a unique order of the individual components. The order of the individual components is not a repeating pattern such as ABABAB or AABBAABB, but it is not a random order either. The order in these natural polymers is very precise, and it is this highly ordered sequence that allows these polymers to perform their intended purpose in the human body. If the sequence is changed even slightly, the altered polymer is no longer capable of performing the same function as the natural protein or DNA. If these polymers were formed by evolution in some primordial soup, then we should be able to explain how natural chemical processes were responsible for forming the sequence of amino acids. Evolutionists would say that amino acids eventually combined to form proteins and the nucleotide molecules combined to form DNA, and from them, life. To someone not trained in chemistry, this might sound like a reasonable process, but this is not how chemical reactions work.

Chemists are trained to understand the mechanisms of how molecules react and how to activate molecules so they will react predictably and in a controlled fashion. If a chemist wanted to synthesize the polymer chain of proteins or DNA in the laboratory, the starting compounds must be first activated so that they will begin to react. The chemist must then control the reactivity and the selectivity of the reactants so that the desired product is formed.

The problem with life arising from chemicals is a three-fold problem: chemical stability, chemical reactivity, and chemical selectivity during the chain building process. But evolutionists propose that these complex polymer chains built themselves in a precise, unlikely pattern, without an intelligent chemist controlling the reactions.

[AQGeiger]

ping

[combat_boots]

"random order"

Physics also tend to move the universe toward order. I have read a couple papers on the liklihood of evolution as being anti-order.

[Michael_Michaelangelo]

Here's a recent discovery that suggests an intelligently designed process/function:

========================

Gymnastic Enzyme Acts Like Logic Gate

An enzyme named vinculin undergoes “drastic” conformational changes, reports William A. Weis in the July 29 issue of Nature.(1) Vinculin, with over a thousand amino acid links, is important at membrane junctions for transporting materials in and out of the cell. It helps cellular “glue” exit the membrane so that neighboring cells can adhere to one another, such as in epithelial tissues.

Weis reports on recent studies that show vinculin undergoes radical conformational changes during its action. It will only build the adhesive junction when the necessary components are in place. Nothing happens unless the participants are ready; “the binding energy of several partners is needed to overcome the thermodynamic and perhaps kinetic barriers to activation,” he says. “Viewed in this way, vinculin functions as a logical AND gate, in which binding of two partners is required to generate an output, in this case a stable multi-protein complex”(emphasis added). What’s more, this automatic regulation is essential for its function; it prevents inappropriate assembly if the amount of product is unstable.

(1)William A. Weis, “Cell biology: How to build a cell junction,” Nature 430, 513 - 515 (29 July 2004) doi:10.1038/430513a.

Logic, logic gates, regulation: this is the language of intelligent design. Each of the contacts formed during the “radical” conformational changes of this complicated enzyme is finely tuned to its substrates, and finely tuned to the concentration of ingredients in the cell. And these finely tuned contacts are determined by the specificity of the sequence of amino acids in this protein, each coded in another language—the language of DNA. At every step, this system only makes sense in the context of intelligent design.

There is no suggestion in this paper how vinculin’s specificity in adhesive junctions might have evolved. But in the latest ICR Impact article #374 (August 2004), organic chemist Dr. Charles McCombs provides very good reasons why unguided chemistry will never produce such functional complexity and specificity. Unguided chemicals will always follow the laws of (1) chemical stability; i.e., whether the components will react at all, (2) chemical reactivity, or how fast reactants will react, and (3) chemical selectivity, or where the components react. Working through these principles, he shows that amino acids will not join together without help, and even if they did, far more random, useless, nonfunctional polymers with damaging cross-reactions would result. The resulting chain would always form blindly according to the relative binding energies of the amino acids.

It takes an organic chemist careful guidance at each step to produce a functional enzyme. “Evolutionists say that nature is blind, has no goal, and no purpose, and yet precise selection at each step is necessary,” McCombs says. Chemicals cannot think, plan or organize themselves, he reminds us, yet Darwinians invoke a false logic that unguided processes yielded logical living systems, like this example with vinculin. The chemist remarks, “Evolutionists just hope you don’t know chemistry!”

Commentary and information compliments of Creation-Evolution Headlines

[Michael_Michaelangelo]

Ping

[Dan Evans]

bump

[eno_]

Physics also tend to move the universe toward order.

That's not the conventional view, but some, like Wolfram believe order can arise from random inputs. Creationists might not like the implications of that, however.

[headsonpikes]

AFAIAC, you creationist johnnies have not moved beyond the bogus 'The watch must have a watch-maker' argument.

Nothing new has been added in centuries - just bloviation and a squid-like ejection of ink 'designed' to obscure rather than inform.

Bloody waste of time.

[AQGeiger]

Yes, and that argument has always had logical problems. IIRC, the general line was that nothing arises out of nowhere, that it must have an origin. So clearly there must be a maker for all of life and non-life that clearly must have always existed without its own origin or that maker couldn't be the Almighty. The only problem is, the second sentence of the argument contradicts the first sentence.

Creationists have never let that sort of little problem get in their way from telling everyone else that they'll burn in eternal fire if they have the audacity to question the argument, though.

[PatrickHenry]

Not going to deploy the ping list for a purely creationist thread. Archival ping only. (Crevolist added to keywords.)

[RobFromGa]

bump for later

[Michael_Michaelangelo]

All that aside, this man needs to stick calculating the efficiency and viscosity of shampoo, and leave the high minded thinking to people with vision. Doctor's and Engineer's are nothing but highly paid technicians, and nothing more.

High minded, like yourself?

***Dr. Charles McCombs is a Ph.D. organic chemist trained in the methods of scientific investigation, and a scientist who has 20 chemical patents

[Southack]

To get "life" you have to first arrange acids and bases into one of millions of specific non-random sequences. This is akin to having a computer program comprised of 1's and 0's stored on disk.

Then you have to animate one of those above-mentioned non-random DNA sequences of acids and bases. This is like running your stored computer program through your CPU.

Math alone precludes the random sequencing of so much programming data/commands in the former, and no one knows to this day how to animate such DNA commands from scratch in the latter.

Thus, we have two intractable problems that are *not* explained by either random processes or evolutionary theory.

That doesn't necessarily mean that some as-yet-described version of Creationism is responsible for life, but what it does mean is that Evolution as it stands today is insufficient and that some new theory or variant on a theory will be required to advance our scientific progress to the next level.

5 Legislative Days Left Until The AWB Expires

[D Rider]

but some, like Wolfram believe order can arise from random inputs

Busted 2nd law Bump!

Basic laws of Thermodynamics:

• 1st Law : You can't win.
• 2nd Law: You can't even break even.
• 3rd Law: You can't get out of the game.

[ahayes]

Well, I hope the "high-minded" thinkers know how to punctuate and capitalize correctly.

[Michael_Michaelangelo]

If you're interested, there's a very technical but interesting debate going on at ARN regarding the 2nd law.

Debate

Enjoy!

[eno_]

Well, at least on the information side of things, Wolfram says you might be able to beat the house.

I could not finish his book, not because the math is too hard, which it isn't (one nice thing about going back to a clockwork universe), but the use of the personal pronouns was a little too thick.

[stremba]

These are not necessarily intractable problems for a random process arguement. The problem of the specific "program" for life can be explained by the hypothesis that many different arrangements of biomolecules existed at one time. These would have been randomly formed from the "chemical soup" present on the earth. One of these randomly formed arrangements would have eventually developed into the precursors of modern life. (Note that the theory of evolution has nothing to say about pre-biotic chemistry. It is only concerned with what happened after the first cell was created, formed from random processes, came to earth from space, etc.) I am not trying to say that this is what happened, just that this is a reasonable way that random processes could have resulted in life. As for how this sequence, once formed, was animated, I frankly have no clue. But neither do researchers in modern biology. Maybe it's just the pattern of hydrogen bonds that form when the correct sequence of amino acids and DNA nucleotides come together. (I am a chemist, so I am admittedly biased toward a chemical explanation). The point is that you can't claim that the animation of the DNA and amino acid sequence is incompatible with ANY reasonable theory, since this is a phenomenon that is not currently understood or well-defined.