The Origin of Life

DIVIDING CELLS The most fundamental rule of life is the principle that "life comes only from life." A life form can originate only from another life form. Evolutionists hold that living things spontaneously formed themselves from inanimate matter. However, this is a medieval superstition contradicting the main laws of biology. For many people, the question of "whether men descended from apes or not" springs to mind when Darwin's theory is mentioned. Before coming to that, however, there are numerous questions the evolutionary theory needs to answer. The first question is how the first living organism appeared on earth. Evolutionists answer this question by saying that the first organism was a cell that emerged from inanimate matter by chance. According to the theory, at a time when the earth consisted of inanimate rocks, soil, gases and so on, a living organism formed by chance through the effects of wind, rain, and lightning. This evolutionary claim, however, is contrary to one of the most fundamental rules of biology: Life comes only from life, which means that inanimate matter cannot generate life. The belief that inanimate matter can produce life is actually a medieval superstition. According to this theory, called "spontaneous generation", it was believed that mice sprang naturally from wheat, or maggots arose "spontaneously" from meat. At the time when Darwin put forward his theory, the belief that microbes of their own accord formed themselves from inanimate matter was also very common. "MUD THAT COMES TO LIFE" The scientific name of the picture on the side is "Bathybius Haeckelii", that is, "Haeckel Mud". Ernst Haeckel, an ardent proponent of the theory of evolution, came to observe the mud dredged up by an exploratory vessel and thought that it closely resembled some cells he had seen under a microscope. Thus, he claimed that it is an inanimate material that turns into a living organism. Haeckel and his associate Darwin believed that life was simple enough to be formed out of inanimate material. 20th century science demonstrated, however, that life can never arise from lifelessness. The findings of the French biologist Louis Pasteur put an end to this belief. As he put it: "The claim that inanimate matter can originate life is buried in history for good."2 SPONTANEOUS GENERATION: A MEDIEVAL SUPERSTITION One of the superstitious beliefs held by medieval people was that inanimate matter could spontaneously give rise to life. It was believed, for instance, that frogs and fish formed spontaneously from mud lying in riverbeds. It was later revealed that this hypothesis, known as "spontaneous generation", was simply a fallacy. However, though somewhat later and with a slightly different scenario, this belief was revived under the name of "the theory of evolution". After Pasteur, evolutionists still maintained that the first living cell formed by chance. However, all experiments and research carried out throughout the 20th century ended in failure. The "chance" formation of a living cell aside, it has not even been possible to produce a living cell by a conscious process in the most advanced laboratories of the world. THE MYTH OF "CHEMICAL EVOLUTION" Renowned evolutionist Alexander Oparin came up with the idea of "chemical evolution" at the beginning of the 20th century. This idea holds that the first living cell emerged by chance through some chemical reactions that took place in primordial earth conditions. However, no evolutionist, including Oparin, was able to submit any evidence to support the "chemical evolution" allegation. On the contrary, every new discovery in the 20th century showed that life was too complex to have originated by chance. Well-known evolutionist Leslie Orgel makes this admission: "(Examining the structures of DNA, RNA and proteins), one might have to conclude that life could never, in fact, have originated by chemical means."4 Therefore, the question of how the first living organism emerged puts the evolutionary claim into a quandary right at the first step. One of the chief defenders of the theory of evolution at the molecular level, Prof. Jeffrey Bada, makes this confession: Today as we leave the twentieth century, we still face the biggest unsolved problem that we had when we entered the twentieth century: How did life originate on Earth? 3 While invalidating the theory of evolution, the law "life comes from life" also shows that the first life on earth came again from life, which means that it was created by God. He is the only One Who can give life to inanimate matter. In the words of the Qur'an, "It is He Who brings out the living from the dead, and brings out the dead from the living." (Surat ar-Rum: 19)

The Design in the Protein

The complex design of the haemoglobin molecule

Let us now put aside the question of "how the first cell originated" and ask a much easier question: How did the first protein originate? The theory of evolution has no answer to this question either.

THE ARCHITECTURE IN PROTEINS Besides having a sophisticated design, proteins are also involved in a great design in the body. The human body is mainly composed of proteins. Proteins are the basic material of our bones, eyes, hair or muscles. Here, you see the complex interior structure of a single fibre in one of our muscles. Cells with different protein make-ups form each of the details you see in this structure. Every detail is perfectly designed and built by the use of an organic material, which is protein. The fascinating architecture of proteins is one of the striking signs of creation.

Proteins are the building blocks of the cell. If we compare the cell to a huge skyscraper, proteins are the bricks of the skyscraper. However, they do not have a standard form and structure as the bricks do. Even the simplest cells have roughly 2,000 different types of proteins. If cells can survive, it is thanks to the extraordinarily harmonious functioning of these distinct proteins.

Proteins are made up of smaller structures, or molecules, called "amino acids", which are formed by the different combinations made by carbon, nitrogen and hydrogen atoms. There are 500-1,000 amino acids in an average protein. Some proteins are much bigger.

Cytochrome-C protein

The important point is that amino acids have to line up in a certain sequence to form a protein. There are 20 different amino acid types used in living organisms. These amino acids do not combine at random to form proteins. Every protein has a certain amino acid sequence and this sequence must be precisely matched. Even the deficiency or the replacement of a single amino acid renders that protein a useless lump of molecules. For thi s reason, every amino acid must be just at the right place in the right sequence. The instructions for this sequence are stored in the DNA of the cell and, according to them, the proteins are produced.

The theory of evolution claims that the first proteins formed "by chance". Probabilistic calculations, however, show that this is by no means possible. For instance, the probability of the amino acid sequence of a protein made up of 500 amino acids being in the correct order is 1 in 10950.5 10950 is an incomprehensible figure formed by placing 950 zeros after 1. In mathematics, a probability smaller than 1 over 1050 is considered to be almost impossible.

CAN MONKEYS WRITE A BOOK? Cytochrome-C is one of the most important proteins that make oxygen respiration possible. It is vital for survival. It is impossible for this protein, which has an extremely complex design, to form by chance. One of the foremost defenders of evolution in Turkey, Professor Ali Demirsoy states in his book Inheritance and Evolution that the probability of the coincidental formation of Cytochrome-C is "as unlikely as the possibility of a monkey writing the history of humanity on a typewriter without making any mistakes."8

Briefly, even a single protein cannot form by chance. Evolutionists also admit this fact from time to time. For instance, Harold Blum, a famous evolutionist scientist, states that "the spontaneous formation of a polypeptide of the size of the smallest known proteins seems beyond all probability."6

So, what does all this mean? Perry Reeves, a professor of chemistry, gives the answer:

When one examines the vast number of possible structures that could result from a simple random combination of amino acids in an evaporating primordial pond, it is mind-boggling to believe that life could have originated in this way. It is more plausible that a Great Builder with a master plan would be required for such a task.7

The Design in the Cell

THE COMPLEXITY OF THE BRAIN CELL A brain cell is in constant interaction with others numbering up to 10,000. This communication network is far more complex than all the switchboards in the world.

All living things are made up of cells. Even a single cell is self-sufficient; it can produce its own food, move, and communicate with other cells. With its extraordinary technology, the cell is concrete evidence that life cannot originate by chance.

The cell, even a single protein of which cannot form by chance, is a wonder of design that renders the "chance" hypothesis of evolution completely meaningless. In the cell, there are power stations, complex factories, a huge data bank, storage systems, and advanced refineries.

PLANT CELL In addition to human and animal cells, the plant cell, too, is a miracle of creation. The plant cell carries out a process that no laboratory is able to perform today: "photosynthesis." An organelle called "chloroplast" in the plant cell enables plants to produce starch by using water, carbon dioxide, and sunlight. This substance is the first link of the food chain on the Earth and the food source of all living things. The details of this highly complex process are still unknown today.

In Darwin's time, nothing was known about the extraordinary structure of the cell. Under the primitive microscopes of the day, the cell seemed to be a murky lump. For this reason, both Darwin and other evolutionists of his time believed that a cell was a simple driblet of water that could easily originate by chance. The idea that life could be attributed to chance gained acceptance because of this primitive scientific view.

An immunity cell capturing the germs that have entered the body.

The scientific developments in the 20th century, however, revealed that the cell has an unimaginably complex system. Today, it is established that the cell, which has such a complex design, could not possibly originate by chance as the theory of evolution claims. It is certain that a structure too complex to be imitated even by man cannot be the work of "chance". Renowned British mathematician and astronomer Professor Fred Hoyle puts this impossibility like this:

The chance that higher life forms might have emerged in this way is comparable with the chance that a tornado sweeping through a junk-yard might assemble a Boeing 747 from the materials therein.9

And in another commentary, Hoyle says: "Indeed, such a theory (that life was assembled by an intelligence) is so obvious that one wonders why it is not widely accepted as being self-evident. The reasons are psychological rather than scientific."10

CAN AN AEROPLANE FORM BY CHANCE? The cell has such an intricate design that renowned scientist Fred Hoyle (right) compares it to a Boeing 747. According to Hoyle, just as a plane cannot form by chance, neither can a cell ever form by chance. Actually, this example points to an equally important truth: although man is able to construct huge aircrafts by the use of his knowledge and technology, he has not yet been able to produce even a single cell.

Genetic Information

The structure of DNA was discovered by two scientists named Francis Crick and James Watson. Despite being an evolutionist, Crick said that DNA could never have emerged by coincidence.

Did you know that the nucleus of each of the trillions of cells making up the human body includes a data bank big enough to fill a 900-volume encyclopaedia?

DNA is a huge molecule hidden in the nucleus of every living cell. All physical traits of a creature are coded in this helical molecule. All the information about our bodies, from the colour of our eyes to the structure of our internal organs and the form and functions of our cells, are encoded in sections called genes in DNA.

REPLICATION MIRACLE If you leave a bacterium in a suitable environment, in a few hours you will see that it has produced hundreds of copies of similar bacteria. Every living cell has the ability to "copy itself". Until the discovery of DNA, how this miraculous process took place was unknown. With the discovery of DNA, it was revealed that every living cell has a "data bank" that stores all the information about itself. This discovery displayed the wonder of creation.

The DNA code is made up of the sequence of four different bases. If we think of each of these bases as a letter, DNA can be likened to a databank made up of an alphabet of four letters. All the information about a living thing is stored in this databank.

DNA includes not only the plan of cells, but also the complete body plan of living things. The structure of our internal organs, or the shape of a bird's wings, in short, everything is encoded in DNA down to its smallest details.

If we attempted to write down the information in DNA, this would take up approximately a million pages. This is equal to an encyclopaedia forty times bigger than The Encyclopaedia Britannica, which is one of mankind's greatest accumulations of information. This incredible information is stored in the tiny nucleus of our cells measuring about a thousandth of a millimeter in size.

Every piece of information is derived from an intelligent source that brings it into being. The fascinating information in DNA is evidence of the supreme wisdom and creative power of God.

It is calculated that a DNA chain small enough to fill a teaspoon has the capacity to store all the information contained in all the books ever written.

DNA has an alphabet with four "letters".

Of course, such an amazing structure could never have been formed by chance and this proves that life is created by God. Not surprisingly, evolutionists are unable to bring any explanation to the origin of DNA. However, they still embrace the "chance" hypothesis simply for the sake of keeping the theory alive. A well-known molecular biologist from Australia, Michael Denton, explains this in h is book Evolution: A Theory in Crisis:

To the skeptic, the proposition that the genetic programmes of higher organisms, consisting of something close to a thousand million bits of information, equivalent to the sequence of letters in a small library of one thousand volumes, containing in encoded form countless thousands of intricate algorithms controlling, specifying, and ordering the growth and development of billions and billions of cells into the form of a complex organism, were composed by a purely random process is simply an affront to reason. But to the Darwinist, the idea is accepted without a ripple of doubt - the paradigm takes precedence!11

THE INFORMATION IN THE HELIX The DNA molecule comprises millions of base pairs organized in a helical shape. If a DNA molecule in only one of our cells were unfolded, it would make a one-metre long chain. This chain, squeezed into the cell nucleus, is only as big as a hundred thousandth of a millimeter with an amazing "packaging" system.

The Design in the Nature

This is not the head of a snake but the tail of a caterpillar! In a moment of danger, the caterpillar puffs up its tail which is designed to look exactly like a snake's head and intimidates its enemies.

The fact that living things have perfectly designed forms proves that they could never have originated by chance. The design in nature is a clear sign of creation.

A PERFECT HUNTER: THE VENUS' FLYTRAP A carnivorous plant, the Venus' Flytrap, is a perfect hunter that swiftly catches the flies landing on it. It is impossible for this trap system working with electric signals to be the work of coincidence or a gradual developmental process. The perfect design of the Venus' flytrap is one of the numerous signs of creation.

What would you think if you went out trekking in the depths of a thick forest and ran across a latest-model car among the trees? Would you think that various elements in the forest had come together by chance over millions of years and produced such a vehicle? All the raw materials making up the car are obtained from iron, plastic, rubber, earth or its by-products, but would this fact lead you to think that these materials had come together "by chance" and had, by themselves, manufactured such a car?

Without doubt, anyone with a sound mind would know that the car was the product of an intelligent design, that is, it was factory-made, and would wonder what it was doing there in the middle of a jungle. The sudden origination of a complex structure in a complete form out of the blue shows that it is made by an intelligent agent.

This fish is created with a very interesting hunting system. It keeps this system undisclosed under normal conditions.	When it sees its prey, it opens its upper fin. This fin is designed just like a small fish down to its smallest details.	The prey, lured by the fake fish, draws near and suddenly falls a victim to it.

The example of the car also holds true for living things. In fact, the design in life is too striking to be compared to that in a car. The cell, the basic unit of life, is far more complex than any man-made technological product. Moreover, this irreducibly complex organism must have emerged suddenly and fully formed.

BONE AND THE EIFFEL TOWER Examples of design in nature often become a source of inspiration for technological designs. An example is the spongy structure of the human bone furnished with small tendons, which inspired the famous Eiffel Tower in Paris. This structure is responsible for the strength, elasticity, and lightness of bones. The same properties also exist in the Eiffel Tower, though not as effectively as in bones.

Therefore, it is crystal clear that all living things are the work of a superior "design". To put it more clearly, there is no doubt that all creatures are created by God.

THE DESIGN IN OUR HANDS The human hand has a perfect design that gives us ideal movement ability. Each one of the 27 small bones making up the hand is positioned properly with a certain engineering calculation. The muscles that help us to move our fingers are located in our lower arms so as not to make our hands clumsy. These muscles are connected by strong tendons to three small bones in our fingers. Moreover, there is a special bracelet-like tissue in our wrists that fastens all these tendons. The hand has such a perfect design that no "robot hand" produced by modern technology has been able to imitate the abilities of the hand.

In the face of this explicit truth, evolutionists resort to a single concept: "chance". By believing that pure chance can produce perfect designs, evolutionists cross the bounds of reason and science. The famous zoologist Pierre Grassé, the former president of the French Academy of Sciences, makes his point about the logic of "chance", which is the backbone of Darwinism:

The opportune appearance of mutations permitting animals and plants to meet their needs seems hard to believe. Yet the Darwinian theory is even more demanding: A single plant, a single animal would require thousands and thousands of lucky, appropriate events. Thus, miracles would become the rule: events with an infinitesimal probability could not fail to occur… There is no law against daydreaming, but science must not indulge in it.12

Grassé summarises what the concept of "coincidence" means for evolutionists: "...Chance becomes a sort of providence, which, under the cover of atheism, is not named but which is secretly worshipped."13

This is the type of superstition that underlies Darwinism

Miller's Experiment

Miller with his experiment apparatus Evolutionists often quote Miller's Experiment as evidence of the correctness of their claim that life formed by chance in primordial earth conditions. However, the experiment, which was carried out some 50 years ago, has lost its scientific implication due to the discoveries that followed. PRIMORDIAL ATMOSPHERE MISCONCEPTION Miller claimed that he strictly reproduced the primordial atmosphere conditions in his experiment. However, the gases Miller used in his experiment were not even remotely comparable to the real primordial earth conditions. Moreover, Miller had interfered in the experiment with purposeful mechanisms. In fact, with this experiment, he himself refuted the evolutionist claims that amino acids could have formed spontaneously in natural conditions. American chemist Stanley Miller conducted an experiment in 1953 to support the scenario of molecular evolution. Miller assumed that the primordial earth atmosphere was composed of methane, ammonia, and hydrogen gases. He combined these gases in an experiment set-up and gave electricity to the mixture. Almost a week later, he observed that some amino acids formed in this mixture. This discovery aroused great excitement among evolutionists. In the next twenty years, some evolutionists, such as Sydney Fox and Cyril Ponnamperuma, attempted to develop Miller's scenario. FOX'S UNSUCCESSFUL EXPERIMENT Inspired by Miller's scenario, evolutionists conducted different experiments in the years that followed. Sydney Fox produced the molecules seen in the picture, "proteinoids" as he called them, by combining some amino acids. These useless amino acid chains had nothing to do with real proteins that constitute the bodies of living things. Actually, all these efforts not only showed that life did not come about by coincidence, but also that it could not be reproduced in laboratory conditions. The discoveries made in the 1970's repudiated these evolutionist attempts known as "primordial atmosphere experiments". It was revealed that the "methane-ammonia based primordial atmosphere model" Miller proposed and other evolutionists accepted was absolutely fallacious. Miller chose these gases on purpose, because they were very convenient for the formation of amino acids. Scientific discoveries, on the other hand, showed that the primordial atmosphere was composed of nitrogen, carbon dioxide and water vapour.14 This atmosphere model was by no means suitable for the formation of amino acids. Moreover, it was understood that a great amount of oxygen naturally occurred in the primordial atmosphere.15 This, too, invalidated the scenario of the evolutionists, because free oxygen would obviously decompose amino acids. MILLER'S CONFESSION Today, Miller too accepts that his 1953 experiment was very far from explaining the origin of life As a result of these discoveries, the scientific community acknowledged in the 1980's that Miller's Experiment and other "primordial atmosphere experiments" that followed it have no meaning at all. After a long silence, Miller also confessed that the atmosphere medium he used was unrealistic.16 What's more, this whole fuss was simply about "amino acid formation". Even if amino acids had formed, it is impossible for these simple organic molecules to give rise to extremely complex structures such as proteins by chance and produce a living cell which even mankind is unable to reproduce in laboratories today. The fifty years that have passed since Miller's time have only served to further display the despair the theory of evolution faces at the molecular level. MILLER'S ASSUMPTIONS REAL CONDITIONS WHY IS THE EXPERIMENT INVALID? He used methane, ammonia, and water vapour in the experiment. Primitive earth contained carbon dioxide and nitrogen instead of methane and ammonia. Ferris and Chen from the USA repeated the experiment with the gases that existed at that time. Not even one amino acid was obtained. He assumed oxygen to be non-existent in the primitive atmosphere. Findings show that there was a huge amount of free oxygen in the primitive atmosphere. With such an amount of free oxygen available, the amino acids would have broken down, even if they could have been formed. There was a special mechanism set up to synthesize the amino acids in the experiment. This mechanism, called the "Cold Trap", isolated the amino acids from the environment as soon as they were formed and preserved them. It was impossible for these kinds of mechanisms to have existed in nature. Under natural conditions, amino acids are exposed to all kinds of external destructive factors. If the mechanism known as the "Cold Trap" had not existed, the spark source and other chemicals released during the experiment would have destroyed the amino acids.

The Natural Selection Misconception

Darwin's book: The Origin of Species, By Means of Natural Selection… Natural selection, which Darwin proposed as an evolutionary mechanism, has in fact no evolutionary power. Natural selection cannot form new species. SELECTION CANNOT FORM A NEW SPECIES In nature, weak individuals are eliminated and replaced by stronger ones. This phenomenon, however, does not cause new species to emerge. Even if wild animals hunt weak and slow-moving deer for billions of years, deer will never turn into a different species. Just as it is impossible for life to arise on earth by chance, so is it for species to transform themselves into other species. For no such power exists in nature. What we call nature is the sum of unconscious atoms that make up the soil, rocks, air, water, and everything else. This lifeless heap of matter has no power to transform an invertebrate creature into a fish, then make it climb on land and turn into a reptile, and then turn it into a bird and make it fly, and finally make it a human. Claiming just the opposite, Darwin put forward a single concept as an "evolutionary mechanism": Natural Selection. Natural selection centres around the idea that the strongest creatures that are best fitted to their habitat will survive. For instance, in a deer herd threatened by wild animals, those that can run faster will survive. Yet certainly, this mechanism would not cause deer to evolve – it would not transform them into another living species, for instance, elephants. before the revolution after the revolution Dark and light coloured moths already existed both before and after the industrial revolution. A new moth species did not emerge. SACRIFICE IN ANIMALS Darwin's theory of evolution by means of natural selection rested on the supposition that all living things fight a fierce struggle for survival. Observations however showed that animal communities display great examples of self-sacrifice and cooperation. The wild oxen that line up in a circle to protect their young are only one of the numerous instances of self-sacrifice in nature. There is not a single shred of observational evidence showing that natural selection has ever caused any living thing to evolve. A noted evolutionist, British paleontologist Colin Patterson confesses this fact: No one has ever produced a species by mechanisms of natural selection. No one has ever got near it and most of the current argument in neo-Darwinism is about this question.17