Origin of Life Theories Lost in Space

Scenarios for life’s origin contradict one another and compete for implausibility.

Cosmic Barbecue

Quick! Think of the most unlikely place for the origin of life! How about right next to a hot star? Well, Lawrence Livermore evolutionists speculate that hot stars created conditions for DNA to form. Their press release accompanied by a photo of a blazing star, “A hot start for the origin of life?” says,

DNA is synonymous with life, but where did it originate? One way to answer this question is to try to recreate the conditions that formed DNA’s molecular precursors. These precursors are carbon ring structures with embedded nitrogen atoms, key components of nucleobases, which themselves are building blocks of the double helix.

Now, researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (Berkeley Lab) and the University of Hawaii at Manoa have shown for the first time that cosmic hot spots, such as those near stars, could be excellent environments for the creation of these nitrogen-containing molecular rings.

What this implies is that they cannot imagine these rings forming on earth. They had to use a lab setup at 700 Kelvins to get them to join up.  “It’s not easy for carbon atoms to form rings that contain nitrogen,” one of them said as he dreamed of the building blocks of DNA cooking on the “cosmic barbecue.”

In the Beginning

The secular Genesis: “In the beginning, there were simple chemicals. And they produced amino acids that eventually became the proteins necessary to create single cells. And the single cells became plants and animals.” That, in all seriousness, is how a press release from Univ. of North Carolina Medical School starts, accompanied by two smiling evolutionists. While the origin of life is still being studied, readers are assured that “there is widespread scientific consensus on the evolution from the first cell into plants and animals” including the human animals in the photos. “But it’s still a mystery how the building blocks were first assembled into the proteins that formed the machinery of all cells,” so the smiling human animals have “shed new light on the transition from building blocks into life some 4 billion years ago.” First, though, we find they had to switch off another light: “Their findings … fly in the face of the problematic “RNA world” theory.” Readers may be shocked to hear that the leading theory is problematic. Indeed: “Wolfenden and Carter argue that RNA did not work alone; in fact, it was no more likely that RNA catalyzed peptide formation than it was for peptides to catalyze RNA formation.” So what’s the solution? Imagine three improbable things before breakfast:

“Our work shows that the close linkage between the physical properties of amino acids, the genetic code, and protein folding was likely essential from the beginning, long before large, sophisticated molecules arrived on the scene,” said Carter, professor of biochemistry and biophysics at the UNC School of Medicine. “This close interaction was likely the key factor in the evolution from building blocks to organisms.”

The two evolutionists are fully aware of the complexity of tRNA synthetases in living cells that translate the DNA code into the protein language. But that’s today. How did such a complex system emerge? The press release descends into mysticism, with a heroine named LUCA emerging from a “boiling caldron of chemicals” with a golden key in her hand, an “earlier genetic code” that unlocked the genetic code we have today. From there, natural selection did the magic, producing “complexity from simplicity.” How this improves on Genesis is not apparent.

Another Shrimp on the Barbie

Some evolutionists from Spain and their partners are starstruck with hope for a cure for their depression. According to Science Daily, they were worried about “One of science’s greatest challenges” which is “learning about the origin of life and its precursor molecules.” This implies that all the work since Miller’s spark-discharge experiments in 1953, indeed back to Oparin in the 1920s, was for naught. So they went about “Shedding light on the formation of the pre-biotic molecule formamide” in hopes this molecule, found in stellar dust, will be the key to unlocking the mystery of life. “Protosuns are teeming with prebiotic molecules,” the headline reads. What self-respecting prebiotic molecule wouldn’t have the ambition to become biotic? One thing they do know: using their minds, they can use formamide to synthesize “sugars, amino acids and even nucleic acids essential for life,” provided they apply their intelligent design.

Cyanide on the Rocks

Nature speaks of “Prebiotic chemistry on the rocks,” but without intending to alarm evolutionists about possible dashed hopes. What they mean is that stars can gen up some lively cocktails. Nitriles can be formed around stars, then rain down on earthrocks via icy comets, a new theory says in the same issue of Nature. Spectral lines “trace the surface of a vast reservoir of icy bodies that can deliver volatile organics to the surfaces of young rocky planets or to moons circling gas-giant planets at distances from the central star at which liquid water is stable.” But will anyone want to taste-test a cocktail laced with cyanide? Go ahead, drink it. “The potentially prebiotic chemistry traced by asteroids and comets in the Solar System is therefore replicated, at least in part, in other young planetary systems — suggesting that planets are supplied with these life-bearing elements as they are born.” Since you came from cyanide, it should be just fine. It even comes with NASA’s endorsement.

It’s Amino World Facing Bullets

If you can’t get the peptides down to the ground any other way, shoot them at the Earth with comet bullets. Icarus discusses shocking experiments promising “Peptide synthesis triggered by comet impacts: A possible method for peptide delivery to the early Earth and icy satellites.” They got three racemic alanine molecules to join up in shock tests. It’s a start. If they could get 410 amino acids of one hand, it would be far more impressive.

As noted, secular materialists have been working on “scenarios” to get molecules to living cells since Darwin speculated about his imaginary “warm little pond,” yet the origin of life remains “one of science’s greatest challenges” to them—right now in 2015. It’s not one of science‘s greatest challenges; science shows profound evidence of design. The great challenge is to atheists who invaded the science lab under the spell of a quaint Victorian cult that began after 1859. The disciples of the X-Club wizards promise to shed light but deliver darkness. They promise keys but never unlock the door. They promise complexity from simplicity but never get past simplistic magic tricks. The Miller Myth came and went. The RNA World Myth is dying a painful death. They’ve offered coacervates, proteinoid microspheres, hydrothermal vent cookeries, cosmic barbecues and other tricks that never work. How much longer do we give the charlatans? It’s long past time to kick them out of the lab and send them back to witches’ covens where they would feel much more comfortable, and welcome. There, nobody would dispute their “widespread … consensus” that exists only when the majority of people who believe in intelligent design are disenfranchised.