In the Beginning, Hydrogen: Was It Miller Time?

A press release from University of Colorado says that the spark-discharge experiments of Stanley Miller in the 1950s (see 05/02/2003 entry) might be relevant again.  Why?  Researchers used new models to estimate the amount of hydrogen in the early earth’s atmosphere, and came up with numbers 100 times higher than before.  If hydrogen did not escape as fast as scientists have thought, it might have composed 30 to 40% of the earth’s atmosphere.
    After the initial enthusiasm of the Miller experiment, scientists began to realize that the early earth’s atmosphere was not “reducing” (hydrogen rich) and contained more carbon dioxide.  Nitrogen and carbon dioxide do not produce the amino acids and other building blocks of life in Miller-type experiments.  But if the model of these scientists is correct, hydrogen might have stayed around long enough to contribute organic molecules to the early oceans.  This would mean the old primordial soup icon may be back in business.  In Science Express, their abstract states, “The organic soup in the oceans and ponds on the early Earth would have been a more favorable place for the origin of life than previously thought.”  (Emphasis added.)

Give them a universe filled with organic soup.  Concentrate it and stir it and feed it lots of energy.  It won’t help.  Life will not crawl out.  To convince yourself once and for all, read our online book that climaxes in chapter 7 with the calculation for getting just one simple, usable protein molecule by chance under ideal conditions, even with incredibly generous concessions to make it easier for chance to succeed.  This is not just one contrived calculation by one individual: the same conclusion has been reached repeatedly, independently, by numerous scientists, including Fred Hoyle and even Carl Sagan.  Those who continue to believe it realize that it is hopeless to expect a primitive cell by chance alone, so they jump to the next fallacy by inserting natural selection where it doesn’t belong: i.e., before a complex, self-replicating system existed (see ch. 5).
    Everyone in the field knows how improbable it is to get a protein, RNA or DNA molecule by chance, yet they continue to hope against hope that simple molecules might have gotten organized into self-replicating machines if just the ingredients were present.  Phillip Johnson once pointed out how the believers in chemical evolution always focus on getting the right chemicals, but have no idea about where the information came from.  Without recognizing the vital necessity of information in the origin of life, this meager attempt to breathe hydrogen gas into the Miller myth is too little, too late.  Materialists need to get off their chemical soup diet and learn to handle the meat of information theory.