Answers in Genesis - (PDF) - Ken Ham - Origins 5 - Could Life Have Originated in Outer Space

8/10/2019 Answers in Genesis - (PDF) - Ken Ham - Origins 5 - Could Life Have Originated in Outer Space

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Can naturalistic evolution explain the appearance of life on Earth?Are there any transitional forms? If humans descended from

monkeys (apes), why are there still monkeys (apes) around?Is the big bang a good scientic theory?

Could life have originated in outer space?

CLOSE PDF 1PROJECT 3:15 Origins

Could life have originated in oute

space?

DID LIFES BUILDING BLOCKS COME FROM OUTER SPACE?

SUGARS FROM SPACEDO THEY PROVE EVOLUTION?
http://origins1.pdf/http://origins1.pdf/http://origins2.pdf/http://origins3.pdf/http://origins3.pdf/http://origins3.pdf/http://origins4.pdf/http://origins4.pdf/http://origins4.pdf/http://quit/http://origins4.pdf/http://origins3.pdf/http://origins3.pdf/http://origins2.pdf/http://origins1.pdf/http://origins4.pdf/http://origins3.pdf/http://origins3.pdf/http://origins2.pdf/http://origins1.pdf/http://quit/


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Did lifes building blocks come from outer space?

by Jonathan Sarfati

First published inTJ 16(2):17-20

2002

Quite a few headlines enthusiastically proclaimed Seeds of life are everywhere and Scientists

create lifes building blocks. These resulted from two studies where scientists formed amino

acids, the building blocks of proteins, by zapping impure ice, supposedly matching interstel-

lar compositions, with ultraviolet radiation. This ice contained a fairly high amount of ammonia

(NH3), methanol (CH

3OH) and hydrogen cyanide (HCN). Both studies were published inNature

on 28 March 2002one from a combined NASA/SETI institute study1and another from Europe2

But do the data really support chemical evolution (the idea that life evolved from non living

chemicals)?

Whats the truth about these experiments?

Role of biases

As we have often noted, we dont deny the observations, but point out that the interpretations of

these observations depend on the biases. As shown when analysing the last enthusiastic claim, the

researchers have already made up their mind that chemical evolution is a fact, and all they need is

to nd the evidence to support their faith

Why are they looking at a space source?The European paper is very revealing:

How life originated is one of the earliest and most intriguing questions for humanity.

Early experiments on the processing of a gas mixture simulating the primitive Earth con-

ditions assumed a reducing atmosphere with CH4[methane] as the carbon-containing

molecule.3[4]Several amino acids were formed under these conditions as the products of

spark discharge, photoprocessing or heat. It is now believed, however, that the Earths

early atmosphere was rather non-reducing, with CO2as the main carbon carrier. Process-

ing of these alternative gas mixtures under experimental conditions leads to the formation

of, at most, traces of amino acids.5,6

That is, Earth is regarded as a non-starter for chemical evolution. But because they already know,

by faith, that chemical evolution is a fact, they look to outer space as a source of building

blocks. Its no accident that other evolutionists, such as Sir Francis Crick, the co-discoverer of

the structure of DNA, and the late Sir Fred Hoyle, have resorted to such ideas, even going as far

as panspermia, the idea that life itself began in outer space and seeded Earth.7In Hoyles case, he

resorted to this to overcome the probability problems, but he realized it was a vain attempt.
http://origins1.pdf/http://origins1.pdf/http://origins2.pdf/http://origins3.pdf/http://origins3.pdf/http://origins3.pdf/http://origins4.pdf/http://origins4.pdf/http://origins4.pdf/http://quit/http://origins4.pdf/http://origins3.pdf/http://origins3.pdf/http://origins2.pdf/http://origins1.pdf/http://quit/


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Its also worth noting that the myth of the methane-ammonia primitive atmosphere is an Icon

of Evolution, very hard for people to give up even though it was largely discredited in the early

1980s. But as shown, knowledgeable scientists like the European authors know better.

As a sidelight, Sir John Maddox, the then editor of the very journalNature, gave a lecture tour of

New Zealand in its sesquicentennial year 1990. Among other things, he claimed that the mystery

of the naturalistic origin of life would be solved quite soon (I forget exactly when), and my then

organic chemistry professor, a theistic chemical evolutionist and world expert on carbohydrate

chemistry, repeated this in an origin of life lecture.

His prediction must be getting close to being falsied, if it hasnt been already. More recentlyMaddox has written What Remains to Be Discovered: Mapping the Secrets of the Universe, the

Origins of Life, and the Future of the Human Race, admitting that the problem is still unsolved.

Also, when I asked him about chemical evolution after his lecture in Wellington, he afrmed

belief in the methane-ammonia atmosphere, despite papers in his own journal discrediting that.

He still gives lectures on the origin of life, apparently advocating the RNA world theory despite

major chemical problems.

Tiny amountsThe amounts of these chemicals were tiny, with a quantum yield () of only 1.0 x 104, i.e. only

one amino acid formed for every ten thousand photons, and 36% of that was the simplest, gly-

cine.8Only about 0.5% of the carbon in the methanol was turned into glycine.9This is too low

to have any hope of getting the polymerization10needed for life11. This is why peptides are never

detected in either simulations or meteorites.

So this can also be interpreted as evidence againstchemical evolution, by showing that under

quite optimistic laboratory simulations, only trace amounts of these compounds are formed. And

even though they may be called building blocks in the loosest sense of the word, they are inca-

pable of actually building anything.

Contamination

The experiment produced 16 amino acids, but only 6 are protein constituents,8

and they compriseonly 36.5% of the total (tiny) amount of amino acids produced.12Also, these amino acids were

only about 1/80 of the total amount of material formedmost of the material produced in simula-

tion is typically an intractable tar.

Of course, experiments that purport to demonstrate prebiotic amino acid polymerization, the link-

ing up of many small molecules into one large one, never use anything like the dilute and grossly

contaminated gunks13produced by the typical experiments purporting to produce the amino

acids.

Getting the correct handednessLiving things require homochiral amino acids, i.e. with the same handedness. But the ones pro-

duced in these experiments are denitely not. The NASA/SETI institute paper even has the word

racemic in the title, meaning an equal mixture of left- and right-handed amino acids.

There have been claims that meteorites have produced some excess of one handedness, although

nothing like the 100% required. The evolutionary expert on amino acid racemization, Jeffrey

Bada urged caution:


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There is, indeed, a reported excess of L-alanine in the Murchison meteorite (M.H. Engel,

S.A. Macko and J.A. Silfer,Nature 348, 4749; 1990). Is this evidence of an extraterres-

trial origin of homochirality? In my view, it is dangerous to rely on enantiomeric ratios of

protein amino acids because of the omnipresent problem of terrestrial contamination. In

fact, the non-protein alpha-dialkyl amino acids in Murchison, such as isovaline, which are

not prone to contamination problems, are racemic.14

But Ref. 1 cited a claimed discovery of a small excess (29%) of amino acids.15Bada com-

mented that this type of amino acid, has not been reported to occur in terrestrial matter, sup-posedly ruling out contamination. The type is known as a -dialkyl amino acid, which has two

other carbon atoms attached to the -carbon atom, the one attached to the amino and acid groups,

whereas biological -amino acids always have at least one hydrogen atom attached instead. Bada

points out that a mechanism to generate this excess if veried is unknown.16He cautions further

about the unknowns in this discovery and any application to chemical evolution, and we should

also note the lots of may haves and somehows in this:

Whether exogenous delivery could have provided sufcient amounts of organic com-

pounds necessary for the origin of life, or to sustain life once it started, is largely

unknown, although extraterrestrial organic compounds, including racemic (within the

precision of the measurements) isovaline, have been detected in deposits associated with

impact events [ref.]. The reported L amino acid excesses are very small and would needto be amplied by some process in order to generate homochirality. Even if this did take

place, the L amino acid homochirality would be associated with -dialkyl amino acids,

which are not major players in protein biochemistry. If -dialkyl amino acids had an

important role during the origin of biochemistry, then initially life may have been based

on a different protein architecture because peptides made primarily of these amino acids

tend to form 310

-helical structures rather than the a-helical conformation associated with

proteins made of -hydrogen amino acids [refs.]. Finally, the homochirality of -dialkyl

amino acids would need to be somehow transferred to the -hydrogen protein amino acids

either during the origin or early biochemical evolution of life on Earth.16

Getting the right arrangementsEven if the amino acids could form and polymerize, this is a long way from getting a useful pro-

tein. A protein must have a certain number of amino acids combined in an exact way, and this is

beyond the reach of chance. Yet even the simplest self-reproducing cell,Mycoplasma genitalium,

has 482 genes so presumably as many enzymes.17

Some researchers have proposed that the simplest life form could exist with only 256 genes. This

is most doubtful.Mycoplasmais an obligate parasite because it needs more complex organisms

to make chemicals it cant make itself. Pathogenicity may be an indirect consequence of loss of

genetic information, e.g. for amino acid synthesis. SoMycoplasmamay have descended from a

more complex form by loss of information, meaning that the hypothetical rst living cell would

need more than 482 genes.

Note that the idea that a single protein could function as a true replicator, promoted on some

evolutionary websites, should thus be seen as the absurdity it is. I actually addressed the spe-

cic case they mention a few years ago in Self-replicating Peptides? [available online at

www.answersingenesis.org/docs/3974.asp#peptides], showing that this highly designed peptide

has no relevance to the origin of life for a number of reasons.


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ConclusionOnce again, the pro-evolution newspaper headlines promote extravagant extrapolations arising

from interpreting the actual data (even if reported accurately) in a materialistic framework. In

interpreting the data in a Biblical creationist framework we stick to well-attested chemical prin-

ciples. Then we see that the data provide yet more evidence against chemical evolution, since the

naturalistic production stops at tiny amounts of impure and racemic amino acids.

References

1. Bernstein. M.P., Dworkin, J.P., Sandford, S.A., Cooper, G.W. & Allamandola, L.J., Racemicamino acids from the ultraviolet photolysis of interstellar ice analogues,Nature 416(6879):

401403, 28 March 2002.

2. Muoz Caro, G.M., Meierhenrich, U.J., Schutte, W.A., Barbier, B., Arcones Segovia, A.,

Rosenbauer, H., Thiemann, W.H.-P., Brack, A. & Greenberg, J.M., Amino acids from ultra-

violet irradiation of interstellar ice analogues,Nature 416(6879):403406, 28 March 2002.

3. Miller, S.L., A production of amino acids under primitive Earth conditions, Science 117:

528529, 1953 [this made Stanley Miller world famous as a pioneer of chemical evolutionary

research].

4. In a previous issue ofNature (415(6874):833, 21 February 2002), information theorist and

non-creationist skeptic of chemical evolution Hubert Yockey pointed out that Stanley Millerwasnt the rst. There were earlier experiments of Walther Lb (1913), Oskar Baudisch

(1913), Edward Bailey (1922) and Harold Urey (1928,29). Yockey suggested that Miller

merely augmented these previous experiments with modern separation and detection tech-

niques such as two-dimensional paper chromatography. Coincidentally the signicance of

these techniques was emphasized by my organic chemistry professor. A reply by Jeffrey Bada

and Antonia Lazcano (Nature 416(6880):475, 6 April 2002) defended the signicance of

Millers experiments for chemical evolution, while Lb showed no interest in this.

5. Bar-Nun, A. & Chang, S., Photochemical reactions of water and carbon monoxide in Earths

primitive atmosphere,Journal of Geophysical Research88:66626672, 1983.

6. Muoz Caro et al., Ref. 2, p. 405.7. The word Panspermia comes from Greek words indicating everywhere is seeded with life.

8. Muoz Caro et al., Ref. 2, p. 404.

9. Bernstein et al., Ref. 1, p. 402.

10. The joining together of multiple amino acids to form peptides.

11. Hull, D.E., Thermodynamics and Kinetics of Spontaneous Generation,Nature186:693694,

1960.

12. Muoz Caro et al., Ref. 2, (calculated from Table 1, p 405).

13. Cairns-Smith, A.G. has raised this and other objections against the typical origin of lifesimulation experiments in his book Genetic Takeover and the Mineral Origins of Life, Cam-

bridge University Press, New York, 1982. Instead, he proposes that life began as clay miner-

als, an idea completely lacking in experimental support but an example of the desperation of

those who want to keep the faith but realise that the traditional scenarios are awed.

14. Bada, J.L., Origins of homochirality,Nature 374(6523):594595, 13 April 1995.

15. Cronin, J.R. & Pizzarello, S., Enantiomeric excesses in meteoritic amino acids, Science
http://origins1.pdf/http://origins1.pdf/http://origins2.pdf/http://origins3.pdf/http://origins3.pdf/http://origins3.pdf/http://origins4.pdf/http://origins4.pdf/http://origins4.pdf/http://quit/http://origins4.pdf/http://origins3.pdf/http://origins3.pdf/http://origins2.pdf/http://origins1.pdf/http://origins5.pdf/http://quit/


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275(5302):951955, 14 February 1997.

16. Bada, J.L., Extraterrestrial handedness, [comment on Cronin & Pizzarello, Ref. 15] Science

275(5302):9423, 14 February 1997.

17. Fraser, C.M. et al., The minimal gene complement ofMycoplasma genitalium, Science,

270(5235):397403, 20 October 1995; perspective by Goffeau, A., Life with 482 Genes,

same issue, pp.4456.


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Sugars from space? Do they prove evolution?

by Jonathan Sarfati

First published inTJ16(1):9-11

2002

To a chemist, a sugar is not just that sweet crystal added to coffee and tea. Rather, sugars are one

family of chemicals containing lots of hydroxyl groups (OH) attached to a carbon skeleton (poly-

ols). Sugars are vital components of life, e.g. the 5-carbon (5C) sugars ribose and deoxyribose are

part of the skeletons of our information storage molecules, RNA and DNA respectively. Ribose

is also an essential component of the energy currency of life, adenosine triphosphate (ATP). The

6C sugar glucose is a basic energy source for plants and animals, and they are joined in chains to

form the cellulose of plant cell walls, as well as the energy storage molecules starch (plants) and

glycogen (animals). Common sugar, sucrose, found in sugar cane and to a lesser extent in sugar

beet, is actually a combination of two 6C sugars, glucose and fructose.

The ultimate origin of sugars is a huge problem for those who believe abiogenesis, the idea that

non-living chemicals evolved into living cells without any intelligent input. Abiogenesis has been

such a difcult problem for the materialistic world view that various antitheists, such as Eugenie

Scott of the so-called National Center for Science Education; and Richard Hutton, the producer of

the Evolution series shown on PBS(USA) and SBS(Australia); try not to answer tough questions

about abiogenesis. Instead, they claim it is not part of evolution, which is simply not true, given

its common name chemical evolution. It has also been included as a part of the General Theory

of Evolution, dened by the evolutionist Kerkut as the theory that all the living forms in the

world have arisen from a single source which itself came from an inorganic form.1

But according to some recent headlines, abiogenesis has virtually been solved by the discovery of

sugars in meteorites. Supposedly this shows that sugars could be produced in space, then rained

down on Earth to be incorporated into the rst organisms. But what is the correct story?

What was found?Researchers led by Dr George Cooper of the NASA Ames Research Center in California analysed

the much-studied Murchison meteorite and the less-well-known Murray meteorite.2,3Both are

a type of meteorite called carbonaceous chondrites, because they contain small nodules called

chondrules. They are claimed to be the most primitive objects in the solar system, and the most

likely to have organic (carbon-containing) molecules. They used a reliable technique called gas

chromatographymass spectrometry (GCMS) to detect the different molecules, in the form ofcompounds with large silicon/carbon groups. They also studied the ratios of carbon and hydro-

gen isotopes, i.e. different forms of the same element. They found that they were enriched in the

heavier isotopes 13C and 2H, which is consistent with an extraterrestrial origin for most of the

molecules, rather than contamination from Earth.

They found evidence of lots of different chemicals with names unfamiliar to non-chemists, but in

extremely tiny amounts. In fact, there was only one proper sugar found, and this contained only


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three carbon atoms. They also found a number of related compounds, the most abundant being the

sugar alcohols, ethylene glycol (2C, better known as antifreeze), and glycerol (3C), but even glyc-

erol made up only about 0.001% of the mass, and the other compounds were far less abundant.

There were none of the sugars familiar to most people.4 The fact that these sugars are not common

in living organisms is good evidence against biological contamination from Earth.

The researchers have proposed several possible ways these compounds could have been produced

including the formose reaction starting from formaldehyde, which itself might have been formed

from carbon monoxide and hydrogen.

The real science stops here with the last section, and as always, creationists dispute no observa-tionsmade by evolutionists; i.e., we agree that the meteorite does contain organic compounds,

probably of extraterrestrial origin. The difference is how we interpret the observations.

What should we think?

The big picture

The most important point to remember, more important than the chemistry, is that both creation-

ists and evolutionists have biases. For the people who performed the research, theNature editors,

and the journalists who reported the results, the question was not Did life evolve from non-life?

Neither were they trying to nd evidence to support either yes or no. Rather, before even

adducing the evidence, they have already made up their minds that the answer is yessome-

what along these lines:

Well, of course life evolved from non-life, because were here! Whats that you sug-

gest that life may have been designed? You just dont understand the rules of science.

A designer is not part of science, even if the evidence supports that, as Dr Scott Todd

pointed out. As Dr Richard Lewontin said, we must only allow materialistic explanations,

because we cant allow a divine foot in the door.

This faith commitment has been noticed even by non-creationists such as the information theorist

Dr Hubert Yockey.

This bias produces much wishful thinking, where every trace of organic molecules found is

taken as evidence for chemical evolution. As will be shown below, this is contradicted by science.

The wishful thinking occurs not only in the popular media, but also in theNature Science Update

commentary:

The ndings therefore support a growing realization that, even in the frozen depths of

space, lifeless chemistry can arrange the elements into molecular forms well along the

road to primitive life.5

Even the acting director of astrobiology and space research at Ames, Kenneth Souza claimed:

This discovery shows that its highly likely organic synthesis critical to life has gone on

throughout the universe. Then, on Earth, since the other critical elements were in place,life could blossom.6

But while Cooper himself was enthusiastic overall, he did sound a note of caution about the

research:

What we found could just be interesting space chemistry, and polyols could be just rela-

tives of the compounds that actually gave rise to early life.6


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I agree that it was interesting space chemistry, and actually have no problem with the research-

ers suggested production mechanisms such as the formose reaction, but this doesnt mean that

it was relevant to chemical evolution. Cooper concluded that more research was needed to learn

whether this research was signicant.6

Scientic problems

One of the key evidences against contamination, the presence of non-biological sugars and their

relatives, also seems like good evidence against chemical evolution. That is, that natural processes

tend to produce gunk with little relevance to life.

The amounts of these chemicals were tinyfar too low to contribute to biological processes. So

this can also be interpreted as evidence against chemical evolution, by showing that under truly

natural conditions (as opposed to unrealistic laboratory simulations), only trace amounts of these

compounds are formed.

The wide variety of compounds in itself counts as evidence against chemical evolution. Most of

the alleged prebiotic simulations use pure compounds, and even then, the results are meagre, so

how much worse would they be with the contaminated gunk produced in the real world?

Sugars are very unstable, and easily decompose or react with other chemicals. This counts

against any proposed mechanism to concentrate them to useable proportions.

Living things require homochiral sugars, i.e. with the same handedness, but these ones would

not have been.

Even under highly articial conditions, the result of intelligent investigator interference, there

is no plausible method of making the sugar ribose join to some of the essential building blocks

needed to make DNA or RNA, let alone into RNA or DNA themselves. Instead, the tendency is

for long molecules to break down into their building blocks.

Even DNA or RNA by themselves would not be life, since its not enough to just join the bases

(letters) together, but the sequence of the letters must consitute meaningful information. The

information depends on the letter sequence and this sequence is not a function of the chemistry of

the letters.

Even this letter sequence would be meaningless without elaborate decoding machinery to trans-

late this into amino acid sequences. I.e. the DNA stores the instruction code to form the enzymes

and structural proteins needed for life. Unless the decoding machinery already existed, those

instructions can never be read. Similarly, this article would be useless to a non-Englishspeaker,

who lacks knowledge of the code of the English language to convert alphabetical letter sequences

into concepts in the mind (information).

ConclusionOnce again, this teaches us that we shouldnt rely on pro-evolution newspaper headlines. As

always, even if they have reported the scientic observations correctly, the observations must beinterpreted. As shown, it is more plausible to interpret them in a Biblical creationist framework

and apply well-attested chemical principles. The result is that not only do the observations provide

no support for chemical evolution, they are actually further evidence that chemical evolution is

based on blind faith rather than fact.


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References1. Kerkut, G.A.,Implications of Evolution, Pergamon, Oxford, UK, p. 157, 1960. He continued:

the evidence which supports this is not sufciently strong to allow us to consider it as any-

thing more than a working hypothesis.

2. Cooper, G. et al., Carbonaceous meteorites as a source of sugar-related organic compounds for

the early Earth,Nature 414(6866):879883, 2001.

3. Sephton, M.A., Lifes sweet beginnings [perspective on Ref. 2],Nature 414(6866):857859,

2001.

4. For those trained in chemistry, they found a number of sugars and other types of polyols, e.g.

sugar acids and sugar alcohols. The difference is that sugars proper are polyhydroxy alde-

hydes or ketones, while alcohols have all hydroxyl groups, and acids have a carboxyl group.

In fact there was only one sugar proper, dihydroxyacetone (3C). The most common com-

pounds were the sugar alcohols ethylene glycol, and glycerol (3C). The amounts were minus-

cule, with only 160 nmol/g of glycerol. But even this tiny amount is more than twice that

of the most abundant amino acid found in the Murchison meteorite. The 4C sugar alcohols

erythritol and threitol were only 1% as abundant as glycerol. The 5C sugar alcohols such as

ribitol and its isomers were even less abundant, while the 6Cs werent actually seen but the

researchers claim they might have been present in bound form. Sugar acids were also found,

with the 3C glyceric acid about half as abundant as glycerol, and again the higher-C acids far

less abundant, but more so than their corresponding alcohols. Some deoxy sugar acids werefound, where a hydroxyl group is replaced by a hydrogen. Deoxyribose is the most signicant

deoxy sugar proper, since its a component of DNA.

5. Ball, P., Shooting stars sugar coated: Meteorites could have sweetened the earliest life [com-

mentary on Ref. 2],Nature Science Update,

20 December 2001.

6. NASA Scientist Finds Some Meteorites not Sugar-free, 19 December 2001.

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