The Case for a Creator - Lee Strobel [122]
In 1871, Charles Darwin wrote a letter in which he speculated that life might have originated when “a protein compound was chemically formed . . . in some warm little pond, with all sorts of ammonia and phosphoric salts, light, heat, electricity, etc. present.” 13 A few years ago a scientist summarized the basic theory this way:
The first stage on the road to life is presumed to have been the build-up, by pure chemical synthetic processes occurring on the surface of the early Earth, of all the basic organic compounds necessary for the formation of a living cell. These are supposed to have accumulated in the primeval oceans, creating a nutrient broth, the so-called “prebiotic soup.” In certain specialized environments these organic compounds were assembled into large macromolecules, proteins and nucleic acids. Eventually, over millions of years, combinations of these macromolecules occurred which were then endowed with the property of self-reproduction. Then driven by natural selection ever more efficient and complex self-reproducing molecular systems evolved until finally the first simple cell system emerged. 14
“I hear scientists talk a lot about this prebiotic soup,” I said. “How much evidence is there that it actually existed?”
“That’s a very interesting issue,” he replied. “The answer is there isn’t any evidence.”
That’s highly significant, because most origin-of-life theories presuppose the existence of this ancient chemical ocean. “What do you mean, ‘there isn’t any’?”
“If this prebiotic soup had really existed,” Meyer explained, “it would have been rich in amino acids. Therefore, there would have been a lot of nitrogen, because amino acids are nitrogenous. So when we examine the earliest sediments of the Earth, we should find large deposits of nitrogen-rich minerals.”
That seemed logical to me. “What have scientists found?”
“Those deposits have never been located. In fact, Jim Brooks wrote in 1985 that ‘the nitrogen content of early organic matter is relatively low—just .015 percent.’ He said in Origins of Life: ‘From this we can be reasonably certain that there never was any substantial amount of ‘primitive soup’ on Earth when pre-Cambrian sediments were formed; if such a soup ever existed it was only for a brief period of time.’ ” 15
This was an astounding conclusion! “Don’t you find that surprising, since scientists routinely talk about the prebiotic soup as if it were a given?” I asked.
“Yes, certainly it’s surprising,” he replied. “Denton commented on this in Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, when he said: ‘Considering the way the prebiotic soup is referred to in so many discussions of the origin of life as an already established reality, it comes as something of a shock to realize that there is absolutely no positive evidence for its existence.’ 16 And even if we were to assume that the prebiotic soup did exist, there would have been significant problems with cross-reactions.”
“What do you mean?”
“Take Stanley Miller’s origin-of-life experiment fifty years ago, when he tried to recreate the early Earth’s atmosphere and spark it with electricity. He managed to create two or three of the protein-forming amino acids out of the twenty-two that exist.”
I interrupted to let Meyer know that biologist Jonathan Wells had already told me how Miller’s experiment used an atmosphere that scientists now recognize was unrealistic, and that using the correct environment doesn’t yield any biologically relevant amino acids.
“That’s right,” Meyer continued. “What’s also interesting, however, is that Miller’s amino acids reacted very quickly with the other chemicals in the chamber, resulting in a brown sludge that’s not life-friendly at all. That’s what I mean by cross-reactions—even if amino acids existed in the theoretical prebiotic soup, they would have readily reacted with other chemicals. This would have been another tremendous barrier to the formation of life. The way that origin-of-life scientists have dealt with this in their experiments has been to remove these other chemicals in the hope that further reactions