Evolution Is Biologically Impossible

www.irc.org ^ | Joseph Mastropaolo, Ph.D

[Texaggie79]

IMPACT No. 317

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Evolution Is Biologically Impossible

by Joseph Mastropaolo, Ph.D.^*

Institute for Creation Research, PO Box 2667, El Cajon, CA 92021
Voice: (619) 448-0900 Fax: (619) 448-3469

"Vital Articles on Science/Creation" November 1999
Copyright © 1999 All Rights Reserved.

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Charles Darwin was daydreaming when he wrote that he could visualize "in some warm little pond," with all sorts of salts and electricity, the spontaneous generation of the first living cell.¹ Darwin's dream of the magical powers of salts and electricity may have come from his grandfather. Mary Shelley wrote of him in 1831 in her introduction to Frankenstein. "They talked of the experiments of Dr. Darwin . . . who preserved a piece of vermicelli in a glass case, till by some extraordinary means it began to move with voluntary motion." She goes on to speculate that galvanism (electricity) was the extraordinary means.²All theories need testing, so I bought some vermicelli pasta, kept it in salt water in a test tube for a month, and never saw any motion, voluntary or otherwise. I also used a tesla coil to conduct "galvanism" through it to a fluorescent bulb. The bulb lit and the vermicelli eventually began to cook, but never came to life.

"Darwin's bulldog," Thomas Huxley, had a vision of himself on the early earth as "a witness of the evolution of living protoplasm from non-living matter."³ In Huxley's day, the cell was blissfully considered simply a blob of protoplasm. Huxley also may have read Mary Shelley's subtitle to Frankenstein, "The Modern Prometheus."² Prometheus was the Greek mythical Titan, who formed a man of clay, then animated it. This myth may be the earliest reference to abiogenesis, the animation of inorganic materials. In order not to leave that possibility untried, I fashioned a clay man and directed the tesla-coil spark over it to light the bulb. The clay man was not animated.

Evolutionists currently invoke the "primeval soup" to expand the "warm little pond" into a larger venue, the oceans. They aim to spontaneously generate the first cell so they must thicken the salt water with (take a breath) polysaccharides, lipids, amino acids, alpha helixes, polypeptide chains, assembled quaternary protein subunits, and nucleotides, all poised to self-combine into functional cellular structures, energy systems, long-chain proteins and nucleic acids.⁴Then during an electrical storm, just the right mix of DNA, mRNA, ribosomes, cell membranes and enzymes are envisioned in the right place at the right time and the first cell is thunderbolted together and springs to life.⁵ That marvelous first cell, the story goes, filled the oceans with progeny competing in incredible polysaccharide, lipid, amino acid, nucleotide, and cannibalistic feasts. The predators thereby thinned the soup to the watery oceans we have today while the prey escaped by mystically transmuting themselves into the current complex animals and plants, or perhaps vice versa because no one was there to record it. We are assured by the disciples of Darwin and Huxley that the "once upon a pond" story to obtain a blob of protoplasm is still sufficient for the spontaneous generation of the cell as we know it today. All demur when asked for evidence. All balk when asked to reverse-engineer a cell in the laboratory in spite of the fact that laboratories rival nature and reverse engineering is orders of magnitude easier than engineering an original design. One wonders why they balk if cell stuff is so easily self-generated and carbon molecules seem to have such an innate tendency to self-combine.

To test simply the alleged self-combining tendency of carbon, I placed one microliter of India (lampblack) ink in 27 ml. of distilled water. The ink streaked for the bottom of the test tube where it formed a dark haze which completely diffused to an even shade of gray in 14 hours. The carbon stayed diffused, not aggregated as when dropped on paper. At this simple level, there is no evidence that the "primeval soup" is anything but fanciful imagination.

In science, the burden of evidence is on the proposer of the theory. So although the evolutionists have the burden of providing evidence for their fanciful tales, they take no responsibility for a detailed account or for any evidence demonstrating feasibility. Contrarily, they go so far as to imply that anyone holding them to the normal requirements of science is feebleminded, deranged, or evil. For example, Professor Richard Dawkins has been quoted as saying, "It is absolutely safe to say that, if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid, or insane (or wicked, but I'd rather not consider that)."⁶ Instead of taking proper responsibility for the burden of evidence, the evolutionist propagandizes by the intimidation of name calling.

To set a better example, let us take up the evolutionist's burden of evidence to see where it leads. Our first observation is that apparently all functions in a living organism are based largely upon the structures of its proteins. The trail of the first cell therefore leads us to the microbiological geometry of amino acids and a search for the probability of creating a protein by mindless chance as specified by evolution. Hubert Yockey published a monograph on the microbiology, information theory, and mathematics necessary to accomplish that feat. Accordingly, the probability of evolving one molecule of iso-1-cytochrome c, a small protein common in plants and animals, is an astounding one chance in 2.3 times ten billion vigintillion. The magnitude of this impossibility may be appreciated by realizing that ten billion vigintillion is one followed by 75 zeros. Or to put it in evolutionary terms, if a random mutation is provided every second from the alleged birth of the universe, then to date that protein molecule would be only 43% of the way to completion. Yockey concluded, "The origin of life by chance in a primeval soup is impossible in probability in the same way that a perpetual motion machine is impossible in probability."⁷

Richard Dawkins implicitly agreed with Yockey by stating, "Suppose we want to suggest, for instance, that life began when both DNA and its protein-based replication machinery spontaneously chanced to come into existence. We can allow ourselves the luxury of such an extravagant theory, provided that the odds against this coincidence occurring on a planet do not exceed 100 billion billion to one."⁸The 100 billion billion is 10²⁰. So Dawkins' own criterion for impossible in probability, one chance in more than 10²⁰, has been exceeded by 50 orders of magnitude for only one molecule of one small protein. Now that Professor Dawkins has joined the ranks of non-believers in evolution, politesse forbids inquiring whether he considers himself "ignorant, stupid, insane, or wicked."

Let us proceed to criteria more stringent. For example, Borel stated that phenomena with very small probabilities do not occur. He settled arbitrarily on the probability of one chance in 10⁵⁰ as that small probability. Again according to this more stringent criterion, we see that evolving one molecule of one protein would not occur by a wide margin, this time 25 orders of magnitude.⁹

Let us go further. According to Dembski, Borel did not adequately distinguish those highly improbable events properly attributed to chance from those properly attributed to something else and Borel did not clarify what concrete numerical values correspond to small probabilities. So Dembski repaired those deficiencies and formulated a criterion so stringent that it jolts the mind. He estimated 10⁸⁰ elementary particles in the universe and asked how many times per second an event could occur. He found 10⁴⁵. He then calculated the number of seconds from the beginning of the universe to the present and for good measure multiplied by one billion for 10²⁵ seconds in all. He thereby obtained 10⁸⁰ x 10⁴⁵ x 10²⁵ = 10¹⁵⁰ for his Law of Small Probability.⁹

I have not been able to find a criterion more stringent than Dembski's one chance in 10¹⁵⁰. Anything as rare as that probability had absolutely no possibility of happening by chance at any time by any conceivable specifying agent by any conceivable process throughout all of cosmic history. And if the specified event is not a regularity, as the origin of life is not, and if it is not chance, as Dembski's criterion and Yockey's probability may prove it is not, then it must have happened by design, the only remaining possibility.

Now to return to the probability of evolving one molecule of one protein as one chance in 10⁷⁵, we see that it does not satisfy Dembski's criterion of one chance in 10¹⁵⁰. The simultaneous availability of two molecules of one protein may satisfy the criterion, but they would be far from the necessary complement to create a living cell. For a minimal cell, 60,000 proteins of 100 different configurations would be needed.^5,10 If these raw materials could be evolved at the same time, and if they were not more complex on average to evolve than the iso-1-cytochrome c molecule, and if these proteins were stacked at the cell's construction site, then we may make a gross underestimation of what the chances would be to evolve that first cell. That probability is one chance in more than 10^4,478,296, a number that numbs the mind because it has 4,478,296 zeros. If we consider one chance in 10¹⁵⁰ as the standard for impossible, then the evolution of the first cell is more than 10^4,478,146 times more impossible in probability than that standard.

Reproduction may be called a regularity because billions of people have witnessed billions of new individuals arising that way, and in no other way, for thousands of years. The origin of life was a unique event and certainly not a regularity. Therefore, according to mathematical logicians, the only possibilities left are that life either was generated by chance or by deliberate design. The standard for impossible events eliminated evolution so the only remaining possibility is that life was designed into existence. The probability of the correctness of this conclusion is the inverse of the probability that eliminated evolution, that is, 10^4,478,296 chances to one.

Although the certainty of design has been demonstrated beyond doubt, science cannot identify the designer. Given a designer with the intelligence to construct a cell and all life forms, it is not logical that he would construct only one cell and leave the rest to chance. The only logical possibility is that the designer would design and build the entire structure, the entire biosphere, to specified perfection. That seems to be as far as science can go.

Life was designed. It did not evolve. The certainty of these conclusions is 10^4,478,296 (1 followed by 4,478,296 zeros) to one. This evidence suggests a Designer who designed and built the entire biosphere and, for it to function, the entire universe. Primary and secondary sources from history properly provide additional information on the Designer because the biological sciences are not equal to that task.

References

¹ Darwin, F., ed (1888) The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, London: John Murray, vol. 3, p. 18.
² Shelley, Mary W. (1831) Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus, London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, Introduction, p. 9.
³ Huxley, Thomas H. (1870) "Biogenesis and Abiogenesis" in (1968) Collected Essays of Thomas H. Huxley, vol. 8, Discourses Biological and Gelogical, New York: Greenwood Press, p. 256.
⁴ Behe, Michael J. (1996) Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution, New York: Touchstone, pp. 262-268.
⁵ Denton, Michael (1986) Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, Bethesda, Maryland: Adler & Adler, p. 263.
⁶ Johnson, Phillip E. (1993) Darwin On Trial, Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, p. 9.
⁷ Yockey, Hubert P. (1992) Information Theory and Molecular Biology, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 255, 257.
⁸ Dawkins, Richard (1996) The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design, New York: W.W. Norton & Co., p. 146.
⁹ Dembski, William A. (1998) The Design Inference: Eliminating Chance Through Small Probabilities, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 5,209,210.
¹⁰ Morowitz, H. J. (1966) "The Minimum Size of Cells" in Principles of Biomolecular Organization, eds. G.E.W. Wostenholme and M. O'Connor, London: J.A. Churchill, pp. 446-459.

* Dr. Mastropaolo is an adjunct professor of physiology for the ICR Graduate School.

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[RonF]

"Maybe you can enlighten me. What do the evolutionists say came first, the cell, or the DNA/RNA code to CREATE that first cell?

If the cell came first, don't you need DNA to blueprint that cell? If the DNA coding came first, who wrote it?"

Evolution is about the origin of species, not the origin of life.

If I recall correctly, those who do study the origins of life believe that simple versions of DNA and proteins co-developed, and the mechanisms to protect and reproduce them were simple at first, and then became more complex. Remnants of such development, and the different directions it took, show up in the present 2 forms of cellular organization, (eukaryotes, prokaryotes).

[tortoise]

You should read my book.

I read part of it, but there were a number of glaring errors that made it obvious that it would be a waste of my time to read any further.

For example, you do not understand Occam's razor. Occam's razor isn't just a nice story, it is a proven theorem of mathematics that started out as a very smart observation. Mathematical proof of Occam's Razor as a correct method for hypothesis selection came centuries after it was originally posited. Since it is a rigorous mathematic construct, your use of it must also be rigorous to be meaningful.

In a nutshell, you egregiously misused the theorem to "prove" your point, but if you understood what the theorem actually says, you would find that it actually shows the opposite of what you were trying to assert. Hint: Occam's Razor has strict criteria for measuring degrees of freedom, which you took liberty to blithely ignore. This kind of weak scholarship is what discredits people in serious debate.

You can start by addressing this point, after which I might point out some other equally bad flaws.

[RonF]

Answers must be 3500 words or less and cannot contain any of the phrases "could have," "might have," or "is believed to have."

Oh, so only Creationists get to use those?

[RightFighter]

Once you do, you'll see how stupid these questions are. If you have a preacher who's spouting this stupidity, find another church! He's a damned moron.

Actually, my source is Michael Behe, a molecular biochemist at Lehigh University, and the author of Darwin's Black Box, a fascinating look at the concept of irreducible complexity. Hardly a moron...

[general_re]

How about a little peroxide, scarecrow? ;)

[tortoise]

��5{�������� my source is Michael Behe, a molecular biochemist at Lehigh University, and the author of Darwin's Black Box, a fascinating look at the concept of irreducible complexity. Hardly a moron...

Whether or not he is a moron is up for grabs, but his ideas on "irreducible complexity" and related mathematics are utterly devoid of competence or intelligence. He may make a good sale to the layman, but to a professional mathematician who specializes in fields relevant to what he is talking about it is third-rate garbage. He is neither a credible source nor a competent practitioner of the mathematics he is trying to dabble in.

[RonF]

"Also, why fruit's and vegetables? I mean, I know non-creationists say that plants somehow figured out that animals would eat the fruit and spread the seeds, but wouldn't that require rational thought?"

You know this? How interesting. I don't. But since you know this, you should have no problem quoting the source of this fascinating belief that plants have sentient powers to understand animal life and genetically redesign themselves. No one I know of has ever proposed that view.

On the other hand, I am familiar with these concepts. Say a given group of animals eat 100's of 1000's of seeds from a given plant, and 95% get digested, but 5% of them have thicker coats and pass though the animal's digestive tract and retain viability, they'll get scattered, and tend to themselves breed plants with thick-walled seeds. And if the animals eat plants with larger, sweeter, etc. fruits preferentially, and spread their seeds around (providing fertilizer at the point that they were spread, as well), then seeds from plants with more delicious fruits will tend to be propogated more.

There's no thought processes involved. Now that you've made a couple of statements like this, I'd like to know where you've seen anyone arguing the case for evolution use the argument that there's any conscious thought on the part of any of the entities involved. It's frankly a stupid thing to say, so if you're going to keep on doing so I'd at least like to see your source.

[tortoise]

Bloody hell those quotes got chewed. The first paragraph isn't mine...

[RonF]

Try studying comparative anatomy. Eye structures run the gamut from the mamallian eye (many of which are better than ours), down to simple single light-sensing cells. Follow the path for clues to the evolutionary trail. There's lots of light-sensitive structures that have nowhere near the features of human eyes, but still can sense light and give an evolutionary advantage to their owner.

[Doctor Stochastic]

I've attended a Behe lecture. He may not be a moron, but his examples were poor. Charlatan was a closer description. He spent most of the time attacking others for supposed claims the others didn't make.

[Doctor Stochastic]

I'll give the AgBr guy credit for even simpler stuff. Heavier but simpler.

[RightFighter]

Whether or not he is a moron is up for grabs, but his ideas on "irreducible complexity" and related mathematics are utterly devoid of competence or intelligence. He may make a good sale to the layman, but to a professional mathematician who specializes in fields relevant to what he is talking about it is third-rate garbage. He is neither a credible source nor a competent practitioner of the mathematics he is trying to dabble in.

I've read the entire book. There's not a lot of mathematics in it. He pretty much sticks to his field, which is molecular biochemistry. If you're arguing that your knowledge of mathematics makes you more qualified to talk about evolution than his knowledge of molecular biochemistry, then we can debate that issue separately.

Behe makes compelling arguments (I personally find the blood clotting argument MUCH more interesting than that of the eye, but they're both very powerful).

[ZDaphne]

"Note however, that strictly speaking, "Evolution" itself is not about how reproducing life was first created but about the methods by which genetic characteristics change over time."

Thank you for pointing out that distinction. I see this discrepancy overlooked time and again on this subject. There is no question about evolution. Creation is the issue.

[cinFLA]

My Bible says "two of every sort" and every animal after "his kind".

Actually, if you were to read more carefully:

"Take with you seven of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate, and two of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate, 3. and also seven of every kind of bird, male and female, to keep their various kinds alive throughout the earth."

[DaGman]

More junk science from the anti-evolution crowd. Just keep this crap away from my kids. I'll be damned if this pseudo-science pseudo-"christian" b.s. gets shoved down my kids throats as an "alternative" theory to evolution.

Its BS.

[Doctor Stochastic]

So, how many herring gulls were on the ark?

[doryfunk]

The debate is moot. What we call science (nor the mathematics on which it is founded) is meant to explain the ultimate source of life. To place ultimate trust in science or even mathematics, is to make the mistake of the Pythagoreans, the last great cult of the Western World.

Science and mathematics require you to assume that certain things are true. Their are different varieties of mathematics that assume different truths. Take for example Euclidean geometry vs. spherical geometry or some other noneuclidean system. You get different results for what is mathematically true based on the assumptions that you make. The same is true of science. Einstein made one of his assumptions(postulates) that the speed of light is constant in any reference frame. This radically changed the accepted scientific view of the universe. Now, certainly Einstein didn not make this assumption arbitrarily and experiment has tended to confirm this assumption within our relatively small sphere of measurement. That does not mean its true everywhere or at all time. That Einstein conveniently takes care of by making another assumption(postulate) that the laws of nature are the same in all uniformly moving reference frames. It may or may not be true.

More importantly, both science and mathematics assume that once they have 'correct' assumption[that is to assume that they could find such a thing] that logic will lead to other correct conclusion based on those original assumptions. In the field of logic, their is what is called the paradox. That is to say, that logic can lead to contradictory conclusions. A classical example has to do with the doctrine of sets, on which mathematics is based. Say you let a set be composed of all dogs. This set is not itself a dog, so it is not a member of its own set. Now say you take a set that is composed of all sets. It is itself a set, therefore, it is a member of itself. The contradiction arises when you look at a third set. The set of all sets that are not self members. If this set is a self member, it would not be a member of itself. If this set were a self member, it would not be a member of itself. That is a contradiction, and a logical one. A paradox. Now, many of you will say, that this is just a clever semantic argument, and it is. Then again, all science and mathematics are just clever semantic arguments and not a source of ultimate truth. Philosophers over the years since this paradox was first put forth have put forth explanations as to why it is not valid, all of which are long tedious, explanations of nonsense in my opinion.

I find Darwins theory of evolution of species by natural selection to be infinitely more speculative than Einstein's theory of relativity. However, we should keep what we call science in the proper frame of reference as a useful tool. I dont deny that a population can and does change over time whether it be from selective breeding of dogs or natural selection. The question is that will this selective breeding lead to a new species over time? Darwin and many maninstream scientists say yes. However, the term species itself is arbitrary. Why are things classified as species? Wolves are completely able to interbreed with domestic dogs and produce viable offspring. Why are they classified as different species. Buffalo(American bison) can do the same with domestic cattle. Why are they classified as different species. Certainly the two examples above the animals cited have dramatic physical differences in appearance, but so do Irish Wolfhounds and pugs, but they are classified as the same species.

In short, dont look to 'science' falsely so called to find truth. Their is no truth in 'science.' Truth comes from God. 'Science' comes from man.

[Texaggie79]

yup, it all just perfectly works out to a symbiotic relationship, just out of chance....

[pariah]

You should read my book.

I have read your book (just the firsts couple of chapters, actually), and I am highly impressed! I got into a debate with some atheist/materialists on another thread recently ("Atheists Improve Society"), and I wish I had been as articulate as you are in defending the rationality of belief in God.

One main defense atheists and agnostics fall back on is that no matter how deficient, improbable or convoluted their theories become, any attempt to add simplicity and elegance to their world view by talking about Mind (aka 'God') is vehemently rejected by them as 'irrational'. Thus, it is not the viability of their self-constructed theories nor the potency of any set of facts which serves as the chief 'refutation' for them, it is the presumptive arrogance that anything beyond their self-imposed limitations in thinking (again, 'God') is an affront to reason itself, and hence merely the foolish idol of lazy and uncritical minds. Yet, by what presumption is it 'logical' for man, a creature (of God or evolution, take your choice) to assume that he can contain all the mysteries of the universe within the boundaries of his own thoughts? Does DNA contain, in addition to its other subleties, the code to create a human brain capable of comprehending not only the biological processes of life, but the origins of that life, the origins of the universe and the ability to judge with finality that we are indeed Alone in the universe? Could a more intelligent creature than Man ever evolve someday? Obviously so, and it should be self-evident that Man does not represent the ultimate in possible Higher Intelligence. Yet the dogmatic materialists will more readily believe in a super-intelligent race of aliens, for which there is no evidence, than in a supremely intelligent Designer, for which there is plenty of evidence. That evidence being the incredible complexity of life, the sublime nature of human consciousness, and the inability of materialistic science to give a satisfactory account of the origin and purpose of same. But scientists always demand 'positive' proof, and jealously guard their right to remain skeptical, nay to be downright derisive and abusive, when anyone suggests the possibility of Intelligence (of the Divine sort, at least) which just might lie outside the apprehensive grasp of their purely logical cause-and-effect reasoning abilities.