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| Chapter 3. Sixteen Fatal Roadblocks against a Purely Natural Formation of Life. Fatal Roadblock Number 6. Contradictory Processes. A number of different experiments mimicking assumed origin-of-life conditions and processes have been performed. These experiments have produced sugars, nucleotide bases, and amino acids. However, the processes for producing the various products are contradictory to each other. Conditions that make any one kind of the needed molecules can’t make the others. There was a book written a few years ago by Robert Shapiro, a chemistry professor at the University of New York, called ORIGINS A Skeptic’s Guide To The Creation Of Life On Earth. 10 A number of different scenarios and processes to explain the origin of life have been proposed by various scientists over the years. In this book Shapiro looks at a number of these, first explaining a particular approach and then acting as a skeptic and showing all manner of problems from scientific observation that contradict the approach. If a person did not know better, after reading Shapiro’s book he might decide that he himself did not actually exist, or at least that he shouldn’t. Shapiro is also a prolific research scientist in his own right. He has written over 100 articles that have been published in various science journals. Shapiro discusses the issue of contradictory processes on pages 182-186 of the book. Basically, the goal was to provide a source of RNA nucleotides for use in the spontaneous formation of a self- replicating molecule. RNA molecules are built of smaller molecules including adenine, cytosine, guanine, uracil, sugar (preferably ribose, which is used in RNA), and phosphate. The processes to form these contradict each other. What is needed to form one destroys the next. So, Shapiro proposed a scheme where separate ponds of water somehow provided different environments, such that each pond would form one of the needed compounds. Streams then brought these chemicals together and in their proper ratios into another, common pond for mixing. It was in the common pond that RNA nucleotides were formed. Everything had to be “just right.” In summary, Shapiro made the following statement: “Many steps would be required which need different conditions, and therefore different geological locations. The chemicals need for one step may be ruinous to others. The yields are poor, with many undesired products constituting the bulk of the mixture. It would be necessary to invoke some imagined processes to concentrate the important substances and eliminate the contaminants. The total sequence would challenge our credibility, regardless of the time allotted for the process.” 10 I find it interesting that Shapiro, a committed evolutionist but also an informed biochemist, acknowledges that so many contradictory processes are needed to make source RNA nucleotides for use in a self-replicating molecule that their actual historical existence “would challenge our credibility.” In other words, he really does not see how it could happen. I agree with him, but would state it more bluntly: Science teaches us that the practical impact of so many contradictory processes serves to make a natural origin of life impossible. |
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