| Creation Truth Outreach, Inc. Pamphlet |
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| Chapter 3. Sixteen Fatal Roadblocks against a Purely Natural Formation of Life. Fatal Roadblock Number 4. The Laws of Chemical Equilibrium. The laws of chemical equilibrium are the most basic laws of chemistry. Chemical reactions proceed towards equilibrium. Period. How does this affect origin of life issues? Remember, we mentioned earlier that whenever two amino acids join to form a peptide bond, a water molecule is given off. In this situation, because of the extremely high existing concentration of one of the products of the reaction, namely water, chemical dynamics will then favor the disassociation of a peptide bond instead of its formation. In other words, it is more likely that a high energy water molecule will break apart an existing peptide bond than it is for a high energy amino acid to form a new one. 4 Because of this release of a water molecule in peptide bond formation, the equilibrium state of an amino acid mixture in solution is for amino acids to stay as individual amino acids. Equilibrium does not favor the formation of chains of several hundred amino acids. In a collection of articles on thermodynamics, Dwayne Gish states that it takes a certain amount of energy to join two amino acids together with a peptide bond (about 2.75 kcal/mole).5 The same amount of energy is released when the bond breaks and they split. He then goes on to state the significance of this. In an equilibrium situation, in round numbers, every time a chain of amino acids is extended by one more link, its concentration decreases by a factor of about 100. We have all heard of the proverbial phrase, one step forward and two steps backward. This situation is sort of like that, except much worse. It is one step forward and one hundred steps backward. Gish’s calculations have been crudely confirmed by a pair of experiments. Both simulate an origin of life using hot ocean vents. In the first experiment, solutions of various amino acids were combined with other chemicals in an effort to catalyze chain-forming reactions.6 A number of tests were run at different temperatures, different catalysts, and different concentrations of catalysts. Potential terminators and spurious cross-linkers were not included as part of the solution. Most of the runs did not produce chains of 3 or more amino acids, but a few of them did. Looking more carefully at these particular runs, we find that the concentration of an amino acid pair (i.e., two amino acids joined together with a peptide bond) was about 2% - 3% of the initial amino acid concentration. This was a little better than Gish’s rough prediction. However, chains of three amino acids were less than 1/1,000th the concentration of the two-amino acid pairs. This was worse than Gish predicted. There were no chains of 4 or more amino acids detected. The second experiment also simulated a hot vent, but it took a somewhat different approach.7 The goal was to simulate a soup which rapidly recirculates between a hot region and cold region. The trick was to get the chain to be in the hot region long enough to add an amino acid to it and then get it back into a cold region before it had a chance to disassociate. This approach was somewhat effective in that the concentration of 3-amino acid chains was actually slightly greater than that of 2-amino acid chains. However, before one gets too excited about this, the reality is that there was no trace of any chains of 4 or more amino acids. This was despite an extremely complex system tweaked by intelligent scientists to get the absolute optimum performance possible from the system. The experimenters commented that they believed that chains of 4 amino acids were formed, but then broke apart so rapidly that they could not be detected. This is the problem: an amino acid chain can be relatively stable in cold water without any free energy acting on it. However, this stability works against the chain extending in length. In order to extend an amino acid chain by the addition of one more link, approximately 2.75 kcal/mole of energy needs to be supplied. However, this energy will break the peptide bonds much quicker than it forms them. Notice, neither of these experiments was able to produce measurable amounts of 4-amino acid chains. Yet, in living systems, enzymes are typically in chains ranging from 100 to over 1,000 amino acids. Forming enzymes through natural processes in a pre-life soup sounds good in theory, but in practice the roadblocks preventing it are effectively impossible to overcome. Let’s see just how impossible this roadblock is. Suppose that as a crude approximation every time an amino acid is added to a chain of a certain length, it falls apart so fast that its concentration would decrease by a factor of 100. How serious would this be? Quite serious. Going through the math, in order to find a single string of 100 amino acids joined in a chain, we would need a total of 100^100 amino acids interacting with each other. Reworded and simplifying the caculation, out of a pool of 10^1000 amino acids interacting with each other, we would expect to find only a single chain 100 amino acids in length. Yet, there are only 10^80 atoms in the universe and amino acids average about 100 atoms each. Therefore, if the entire known universe were not separated into stars and galaxies, but instead were a single solution of amino acids, the odds would be greater than one in 10^920 against finding a single string of only 100 amino acids anywhere in the universe. Of course, getting a single, 100-amino acid long enzyme is not even close to the formation of life. Some people, such as those involved in the SETI project, have postulated that life originated in some other part of the universe. However, in the face of the odds we have been looking at, the universe isn’t big enough to be of much help in overcoming the roadblock imposed by the laws of chemical equilibrium against a natural form of life. Hence, a person who believes that life started through purely natural processes has to reject the validity of the laws of chemical equilibrium. We have theory confirmed by experiment showing the impossibility of getting long chains of amino acids to form spontaneously. This is a heavy burden for any one to carry who understands anything about chemistry. The laws of chemical equilibrium work against a pool of amino acids spontaneously organizing themselves into long strings connected by peptide bonds. However, some origin-of-life experiments have succeeded in getting strings of 30 to 40 amino acids joined to each other. This sounds promising until one looks at the details. Cross-linking was still a major problem. Potential terminators were removed from the solution, so the results were meaningless—the experiment did not represent a realistic true-to-life scenario. However, these long strings of amino acids did seem to refute the numbers we presented. How did they do it? The amino acid chains in the experiment were brought together and joined with each other in the crevices of certain clay crystals. Their locations within the cracks helped the various amino acids that were joined together stay together. The amino acids were not floating freely in a water solution, but were attached fairly strongly to the clay. This helped them stay together even when they might be hit with a high-energy molecule from the solution. However, these bonds can become so strong that frequently the bonds become permanent. The strings become permanently bonded to the clay. Unfortunately, though, for the evolutionists, linear chains of amino acids do not function as enzymes. Enzymes are made of sheets and coils, not linear chains. So, these chains stuck in the crevices of a clay crystal do not function as enzymes. They have nothing to do with a natural origin of life. Furthermore, while they are attached to the clay they cannot relocate to be used with cooperating enzymes. For instance, in order to burn fuel such as sugars and fats and convert them into controlled forms of energy, a living cell makes use of a number of enzymes cooperating with each other in what is called the citric acid cycle (Kreb’s cycle.) In real life, the enzymes used in this cycle process the fuel in a certain sequence. The enzymes are located next to each other in their proper order according to their sequence in the cycle. So, even if an enzyme sequence useful for accomplishing a specific task in the citric acid cycle were to form on a clay crystal, it is highly unlikely that it would be located near enough other, cooperating enzymes—if they even existed— for it to be of use. The details of the experiment also revealed another problem. Although there were a large number of amino acids joined together, many were connected as side chains, not as peptide bonds, which are required to link together an enzyme. So, it was actually a chaotic jumble of amino acids connected randomly and not in an organized manner. Bonds to the clay helped overcome some of the disassociation problems faced by free amino acids in a water solution. But, this approach also introduced another whole set of problems, problems that in real life would prove fatal towards forming a legitimate, useful enzyme. There is another problem that these strings of amino acids will face. The amino acid string cannot function as an enzyme when it is stretched out on the clay. However, if it does break loose from the clay, hydrolysis will immediately begin ripping it apart until it approaches equilibrium. If there is enough energy in the molecules surrounding the amino acid/clay hybrid to cause new amino acids join the bonded amino acid groups, then there is also enough energy to fairly rapidly begin ripping things apart when help from the clay is no longer available. To repeat an earlier statement that was made, a person who believes that life started through purely natural processes has to reject the validity of the laws of chemical equilibrium. This is a heavy burden to carry for anyone who understands anything about chemistry. |