Have scientists figured out the origin of life?

I just read on yahoo!news, Scientists Say They May Have Just Figured Out the Origin of Life.  Here’s a quote from the story:

How did the building blocks of life come together to spawn the first organisms? It's one of the most longstanding questions in biology — and scientists just got a major clue.

A couple of things jumped out at me as I read the article.  First, why do we have this continuous flip flop over the question of abiogenesis?  I mean, is it part of the theory or not?  One self described “theistic evolutionist,” Tyler Franke, has this to say about abiogenesis:

[You don't understand evolution if] you think it has anything to do with the origin of life, let alone the origins of the universe.... This is like the king of all straw men, and it’s extremely common. It involves something like the thoroughly debunked theory of spontaneous generation (the idea that life can come from non-life under normal circumstances) being used as evidence against the theory of evolution. Hear me on this, guys: Evolution has nothing to do with the origin of life.

Creationists usually always hear a response similar to Franke’s whenever the subject of the origin of life is raised.  I’ve written about this before (here).  The reason they want to divorce the origin of life from the rest of their theory is because they have no plausible explanation about how life began.  They want to posit a theory that all life has descended from a common ancestor, but when asked the reasonable question, “where did this first ancestor come from?,” they suddenly want to change the subject.  Their objection is nothing more than a red herring - a distraction from the embarrassing fact that they don't have an answer.

But in the yahoo!news article, we see the truth.  Evolutionists are keenly interested in knowing how life began.  They just admitted, “It's one of the most longstanding questions in biology.”  Why else are they continuing to do research into this area?  Why else would they still include the failed Miller-Urey experiment in biology text books after 75 years?  Creationists have known all along this is an important question so evolutionists need to stop with the dodges and denials.

Which brings me to my next point: If evolutionists want to hide from this subject and only ponder it secretly, amongst themselves, then why do they publish headlines like this one?  The answer is simple: when they think they’ve made a break-through on the subject, they trumpet it in hopes of squelching the criticism.  They’re hoping they will finally have an answer they can give to the Christians who keep pestering them about it.

But have scientists really made a break-though this time?  The short answer is no.  The headline, as usual, overstates the claim.  Remember, the headline says scientists, “may have just figured out the origin of life.” When you read the article, though, that’s not what’s happened at all.  Using quotes from the article, what was discovered is that, using “very simple chemistry… that could have occurred on early earth,” amino acids can link together.  “The results… show how RNA might have first come to control protein synthesis.” 

Notice the words I’ve made bold.  This so-called probiotic soup “could” have existed.  Amino acids linking randomly “might” have led to the first proteins.  It doesn’t sound to me like they’ve figured out anything for sure.

Online sites, magazines, and newspapers are trying to earn clicks.  They use hype to draw views so they can sell ads.  They’re just trying to put a little sizzle on the steak as the saying goes.  But what is happening is they’re reporting fake news.  I’m fairly confident that most of the eager readers of the sensational headlines, never went on to read and “peer-reviewed” scientific papers about what was actually found.

I’ve written before about how pop-science articles work (here).   It seems like nearly every day, there’s another sensational headline written about some major discovery that “proves” something about evolution.  Fans of the theory hoot and holler and thump their chests, doubling down on their complaints that creationists are just science deniers who don’t even understand evolution.  It’s been my experience, though, that most of these headlines age like milk.  I’m pretty sure that, in about 5 years, no one will remember this article and the scientific community will have moved on to making some other guesses about how life began.  There have been many of these pop-science stories written  just like this one - all of them being  just as sensational but also just as forgettable.

In this case, the authors of this article seem to already be hedging their bets.  Near the end of the story you can read this:

The catch is that as far as we can tell, the pantetheine crucial to making this all happen wouldn't have been found in high enough concentrations in the Earth's primordial oceans, where many scientists believe life may have originated….  Nick Lane, an origin of life chemist at UCL who wasn't involved in the study, further cautioned to Science that the amino acid chains being produced are random and chaotic, unlike the orderly arrangements produced by ribosomes.  

So the very article that suggests scientists may have figured out the origin of life, cautions readers that what was found probably couldn’t lead to life!  Why then are we even talking about it?  Well, like I’ve said, evolutionists are desperate to answer the question they claim isn’t even part of their theory.  This find is just another piece of information they can hang their hopes on until something more plausible comes along.  I love the closing line of the article:

But give these chemicals billions of years to bounce around, and anything can happen.

Ah, yes, it’s the “billions of years” solution.  Time is the hero of the evolutionary fairy tale.  It doesn’t matter that what we can observe happening right now doesn’t amount to anything - just give it “billions of years” and the frog becomes a prince!  

Another shoe that doesn’t fit

In my last post, I wrote about the curious tactic of evolutionists assigning modern human footprints to supposed human ancestors.  The old saying is, "If the shoe fits, wear it!" Sometimes, though, human footprints are found in rocks that just don't quite fit with evolutionary understanding. In the cases I cited before, human footprints were forced to fit the shoes of Homo erectus and Australopithecus afarensis. I had another example that I could have used in that post but I had already written long enough and I felt it might be too long if I included another example.  Yet this example is so much more outrageous, I couldn’t just let it go without talking about it.  I'm going to do that now. Prepare to be amused.

Back in 2005, in a NBC News article, British scientists claimed to have discovered 40,000 year old human footprints in Mexico.  This was a problem with popular theories at the time that said humans arrived in the Americas only about 13,500 years ago.  Of course, since every evolutionist views evidence with the lens of “millions of years,” a 30,000 year error certainly isn’t enough to cause any of them to question the theory itself.

The footprints had been made by someone walking in volcanic ash.  When water levels rose, the ash hardened like concrete and preserved the trail.  There were some 269 footprints total, made by humans and animals.  But the real controversy started when someone had the bright idea to date the volcanic ash.  From a Live Science article, we read this:

Using palaeomagnetic analysis—a technique that looks at the Earth's magnetic field during past geologic time—and a radioactive dating technique called argon-argon, the team concludes the ash is actually 1.3 million years old. [italics in original]

Uh oh!  Evolutionists could deal with a 30,000 mistake in their deep-time story telling.  Now we’re talking about 1.3 million years!  Like Desi Arnaz used to say to Lucille Ball, “You got some ‘splainin to do.”  

In this post, I’ve included 2 photos from the two articles.  The Live Science article has a photo that resembles a footprint left in sand.  Visible are the heel, toes, and arch of the foot.  I’m not sure how long the stick is, that was placed next to the print for scale but I’m going to assume the print is the same size of a typical human’s foot.  It looks just like any footprint you might find on a sandy beach or a muddy field.

The NBC photo has someone with a bare foot standing next to one of the fossil prints.  You can see for yourself that the footprint is about the same size as the model, with the heel and toes clearly visible.  But you don’t have to believe me - look at the photos for yourself.  Am I lying?  Am I exaggerating the resemblance of the fossil prints to human feet?  I think not.

The problems this finding causes for evolution are myriad.  Nevermind the 40,000 years ago estimate anymore because you can’t have people who lived 40,000 ago leave footprints in rocks that are 1.3 million years old.  I see two ways to resolve this:

1. People were walking around in Central America 1.3 million years ago.  Now, this isn’t really an option because modern humans weren’t even supposed to exist that long ago.  It would have had to have been some human ancestor - but even these were still supposed to be in Africa.  There’s really no way to make human (or even hominid ancestor) prints in 1.3 million year old rock fit the evolutionary model.

2. The dating method is wrong and the rocks aren’t really 1.3 million years old.  This is the option I would go with, seeing that I’m a young earth creationist.  I believe the rocks can’t be more than ~6,000 years old.  But evolutionists can’t really agree to this option either.  They are vested in their dating methods and you can’t really disregard this finding without calling their other dates into question.

What a pickle for evolutionists.  What could they possibly do to resolve this?  Do you remember when I said you’d be amused?  Well get ready because here it comes.  I’m being serious.  You’re not going to believe it.  Are you ready?  OK, here goes:

These are really cow prints!!

I told you that you wouldn’t believe it.  Let me quote from the Live Science article:

After visiting the site, Renne believes the markings are not really human footprints at all, but rather impressions left by machines or animals that have passed through the quarry in recent times. ¶"You have to remember this is a public area," Renne said in a telephone interview. "Vehicles drive across it, you can see tire tracks on the surface. There are cows and other animals grazing nearby." [bold added]

I kid you not, folks, I cannot make this stuff up. This is what passes for “science” when it comes to building evolutionary theories.  Sometimes, evolutionists brag, claiming that their theory is supported by several different scientific disciplines. In this case, though, the dates they assign to the evolution of modern humans, the dates they assign to human ancestors, the “Out of Africa” dates, the dates assigned to the Ice Ages, the methods they use to assign dates to rocks, just don’t quite jibe, do they?  In fact, they don’t agree at all.  

Are evolutionists never embarrassed to have to resort to explanations like this? I thought it was funny when they claimed human footprints were left by Australopithicenes.  To say that human footprints were made by cows… well that’s downright hysterical!

The evolutionary shoe doesn’t fit

The old saying goes, “If the shoe fits, wear it!”  In some cases, though, people are determined to squeeze their feet into shoes that just don’t fit.  In the original story by Brothers Grimm, one of Cinderella’s step sisters cut off her toes to try to fit her foot into the glass slipper.  The other sister cut off her heel.  Yikes!!  Yet as extreme as that sounds, evolutionary scientists seem to go to similar lengths to force human footprints into evolutionary shoes.

Some years back, The Guardian reported, “Earliest human footprints found in Kenya.”  I’ve included a photo of the subject print below.  The prints are surprisingly like modern humans’ with a large toe parallel to the other toes and an upright stride matching someone who would have been about 5’ 9”.  An archeologist on site describes them this way:

It was kind of creepy excavating these things to see all of a sudden [a footprint] that looks so dramatically like something that you yourself could have made 20 minutes earlier in some kind of wet sediment just next to the site…. These could quite easily have been made on the beach today.

A Reuters story covering the same find said this about the footprints:

The size, spacing and depth of the footprint impressions allowed the scientists to estimate weight, stride and gait, which all were found to be within the range of modern humans. [bold added]

However, in spite of their very human-like characteristics, the prints are in sediment believed by evolutionists to be ~1.5 million years old.  Uh oh!  Modern humans are only supposed to have evolved only about 200,000 years ago, but here are human footprints in rocks that are supposed to be 1.5 million years old. Do you see the problem?

Richard Dawkins once spoke a great lie saying, “Evolution could so easily be disproved if just a single fossil turned up in the wrong date order. Evolution has passed this test with flying colours.”  Well, Mr. Dawkins, here you go.  Here are footprints of a species supposedly 200,000 years old found in rocks supposedly 1,500,000 years old.  Consider your theory disproved!  Alas, no.  It doesn’t work like that.  They’re going to force these feet into evolutionary shoes!

The Reuters’ story reports that the footprints were assigned to Homo erectus (subspecies, Home ergaster) which they believed could be in that area about that time.  It’s kind of weird, though, that they would have evidence of a creature with the height, weight, stride, and footprint within the range of modern humans but refuse to consider if it’s a modern human.

This phenomenon of assigning human footprints to non-human (at least non-Homo sapien) species isn’t unique to the Kenya find.  An even more famous example would be the Laetoli Footprints. In Tanzania, a trail of human-like footprints were found in volcanic ash they claim was 3.7 million years old.  Like the Kenya footprints, the prints in Laetoli match human patterns very closely.  Here’s a description from the Wiki article:

Analysis of the Laetoli footprints indicated the characteristics of obligate bipedalism: pronounced heel strike from deep impressions, lateral transmission of force from the heel to the base of the lateral metatarsal, a well-developed medial longitudinal arch, adducted big toe, and a deep impression for the big toe commensurate with toe-off….  The feet do not have the mobile big toe of apes; instead, they have an arch typical of modern humans. The hominins seem to have moved in a leisurely stroll.

In other words, these are prints very similar to a person walking heel-to-toe, where his heel strikes first, he transfers his weight forward, then pushes off on his big toe.  That’s how I walk.  That’s how everyone walks.  The only thing that makes these prints interesting is they’re found in rocks that are supposed to be millions of years older than modern humans.

Since there aren’t supposed to be modern humans walking around 4 million years ago, the Laetoli prints have been tentatively assigned to Australopithecus afarensis - as in the famous “Lucy” skeleton on display in nearly every museum around the world.  

This brings me to another point.  The Wiki article discussing Laetoli mentions that other prints found in the area show the presence of other animals like hyenas, baboons, boars, giraffes, and rhinos.  I’m not a hunter, but in Kentucky, I see footprints from a lot of different critters: racoons, deer, rabbits, etc.  It’s very easy to identify an animal from its tracks.  Are you ready for this - how do they know these other prints belonged to giraffes or rhinos?  Think about it:

They find giraffe tracks and assign them to giraffes.

They find boar tracks and assign them to boars.

They find hyena prints and assign them to hyenas.

They find human prints and assign them to Australopithicenes?

So again, as the old saying goes, “If the shoe fits, wear it!”  When I see a human footprint, I know it was made by a human.  Just like I know deer tracks were made by a deer.  Duh!  That doesn’t work for evolution, though.  A 4 million year old human footprint can’t be a modern human.  A 1.5 million year old human footprint can’t be a modern human.  Just like Cinderella’s wicked step-sisters, they’ll do anything to fit human footprints into the shoes of our supposed non-human ancestors.  It’s too bad for them that the shoe doesn’t fit!

What I know about Ptolemy I learned in school

For years there has been a controversy around teaching special creation in schools.  There are some people who believe creation should be taught along with evolution in public schools.  Another school of thought is that at least criticism of evolution should be allowed (sometimes called, “teaching the controversy”).  

Currently, to even suggest there may be problems in the theory is viewed as the equivalent of teaching special creation.  Some years back, the Cobb County Board of Education placed a sticker in public school science books that read, “This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully, and critically considered.”  Note that the stickers didn't mention creation or even religion. Instead, they said that evolution should be examined carefully, critically, and with an open mind. Critical thinking should be a staple in educating our kids and questioning everything is supposed to be a fundamental principle of science – except when it comes to evolution. No one is allowed to question evolution! In the matter of Cobb County, the case ended up in court where a judge ordered the stickers be removed.

I have a different idea, one which I’ve discussed before (here).  Consider this: can anyone name a single invention or technological advance in the last century that hinged upon an understanding of evolution? Maybe somebody could name one but that is dwarfed by the virtual explosion of technology we've seen in the last 100 years that didn't depend on evolution at all!  If evolution is so ancillary to science, if there is no study linking understanding evolution to improved test scores, if evolution is something that kids learn in school but never use again, then why is there this grim determination that students still must learn evolution? We're facing an education crisis where kids lack proficiency in critical skills like reading, math, and history. Why are we wasting time and resources teaching them a theory that is so useless yet still so controversial? Why force public schools into court to defend a sticker in a text book or to remove a teacher who mentions creation? It's obvious that this is less about education and more about indoctrination. Let's just stop the controversies altogether. I'm not saying, “give equal time to creation.” I'm not saying, “teach the difficulties.” I'm saying stop teaching evolution!

According to a recent Gallup Poll, 37% of the US adults believe God created humans in their present form about 10,000 years ago (young earth creationism).  Another 34% believe God created humans over millions of years (theistic evolution/old age creationism).  Only 24% believe in evolution without any sort of divine intervention.  

Having said all that, let me raise another point that might shed more light on the subject of teaching creation in public schools.  Claudius Ptolemy was a Greek philosopher, astronomer, and mathematician that lived in the 2nd century. He was extremely influential and created a geocentric model of the universe that endured for centuries. This is the belief that the earth is at the center of the solar system and the sun, moon, planets, and stars orbit the earth. This model was named for him – the Ptolemaic model. It was not until the time of Galileo that scientific consensus finally turned away from his earth-centered model of the universe and replaced it with a heliocentric model. How do I know this? I learned about Ptolemy in school.

With this in mind, a question came to me that, if the Ptolemaic model is still being discussed in public classrooms (as something people once believed), what is really the harm of discussing the possibility that God played a role in human origins? If the publishers of the textbooks believe there is value in including a debunked, geocentric cosmology in their texts, then why can’t there be any discussion at all about design in cosmology?

I’m asking in earnest: what is the difference? The Ptolemaic model has been discarded centuries ago yet it is still included in science books. The only reason it’s given any press is because it was such a popular model and it endured for 1,000 years. Well, creation is still believed by approximately ⅔ of the US population and it has endured far longer than Ptolemy. Doesn’t it deserve at least as much attention as Ptolemy?

There is one obvious difference between teaching about Ptolemy and teaching about creation: it’s not likely that anyone will ever take an earth-centered model of the universe seriously. However, in one study, it was learned that when students are taught about creation AND evolution, they tend to choose creation. From the article:

“University students whose high school biology class covered creationism – in some cases alongside evolution – were more likely to accept creationist views upon entering college, the study found. Those whose high school biology teachers taught evolution but not creationism were more likely to accept evolution in college.”

Isn't that interesting? When students are presented with both views in high school, they tend to believe in creation. When students are presented with only evolution in high school, they tend to believe in evolution.

I see what's going on: teach kids evolution - don't let them hear anything to the contrary - and they're more likely to believe evolution. There's a word for this phenomenon - it's called "brainwashing."

This is hypocrisy at its worst.  It’s OK to talk about Ptolemy – it’s not OK to talk about God.

Evolutionists are missing a step

I was listening to a debate on Modern-Day Debate between Kent Hovind and Professor Dave.  I don’t necessarily agree with everything Ken Ham espouses but I do agree with most of it.  I certainly appreciate that he fearlessly defends divine creation and will agree to debate pretty much anyone anytime.  I also believe that he’s been treated unfairly by our justice system and now his critics leverage his misfortunes to dismiss his points - that is, “Why should anyone believe a convicted felon?” (see ad homenim).  I don’t mean to be talking about Hovind, though.  I mean to address a point that was brought up in his debate.

Sometimes creationists will use man made objects as an analogy to describe evidence of design in living things.  Often, when we do this, evolutionists will cry foul, saying that man made things don’t reproduce so they aren’t analogous to living things and, so, aren’t an argument against evolution.  I’ve written about this before: it’s because they’re created that makes it a good analogy! Created things can be similar to other created things for a variety of reasons. They might be built using similar materials. They might be built for similar purposes. They might be built by the same person who added his own particular style. But any similarity between created things is certainly not the result of evolution! In like manner, then, the similarities between a dinosaur and a bird could just as easily be explained by design.  Get it?

Hovind brought up this same point in his debate with Professor Dave.  In his example, he used a coffee cup.  He pointed out that natural materials can be dug out of the earth but it was by design that they are formed into a cup.  Professor Dave had continuously been denying that evolutionists think humans are descended from rocks.  Nevermind that he acknowledged believing that the earth was initially molten rock, that rains fell on the rocks and made the ocean, that minerals from the rocks dissolved into the oceans, amino acids formed in this “prebiotic soup,” and eventually the amino acids organized into the first living thing - he still insisted that he doesn’t believe we evolved from rocks!!  Excuse me for a moment while I laugh my head off!!

When Hovind brought up the coffee cup, Professor Dave immediately shot back with the usual, “that’s not a living thing” response.  But instead of expounding on how the cup not being alive was relevant, he tried to turn the tables and said the only people that believed humans evolved from rocks are Christians!  He was obviously referring to the account in Genesis where God formed man from the dust of the earth and made him a living soul.  

The irony of the situation was stark.  I believe that the first man was made from the dust of the earth; Professor Dave also believes that people are ultimately made from non-living matter.  The difference is, he’s missing a step. He’s going from the dirt to the person without a Creator in between!

It’s not difficult to understand how a person can take raw materials and turn them into something that is useful.  To illustrate this, I’ve used the example of a log cabin.  Pretend, for a moment, that you're walking through a forest and you happen upon a log cabin. It's crude and has only a dirt floor. It has no electricity, plumbing, or glass windows. It's just basically logs, notched and stacked, with openings cut out for the door and windows. There's not a stick of furniture inside nor any other sign of anyone having lived in it recently. What questions might you ask yourself? I would think your first thoughts would be, I wonder who built this? Does someone live here? Where is he now?  I'm fairly certain no one would ask, “That's incredible! I wonder how these logs fell into the shape of a cabin?”

You see, logs organized into the shape of a cabin show design. Sections having been cut out to allow light and access show purpose. Design and purpose are the characteristics of created things and created things are the proof of a creator. The cabin obviously had a creator. Withholding judgment about the existence of a builder of the cabin is not the sign of a rational, thinking person. It's the stubborn refusal of a fool to acknowledge the obvious!

Life is not about the material - it’s about organization.  Understanding that trees can be cut down, shaped, and stacked to make a cabin is reasonable.  There’s nothing “miraculous” about it.  A true miracle would be if the trees fell, broke into the exact required lengths, and accidentally piled on top of each other in the shape of a cabin.

For me to believe a cabin had no creator, someone would have to first convince me that nothing could create something.  He next would have to convince me that nothing creating the cabin was more reasonable than believing someone built the cabin.  Atheists expect us to believe that nothing created everything!  You’ll have to pardon me if my incredulity is showing.

A potter can take a lump of clay and make a cup.  God, the Master Creator, took the dust of the earth and made Adam.  It’s reasonable.  The contempt Professor Dave had for Christians believing in the creation of Adam is laughable.  You need a creator to turn clay into a cup, yet people like Professor Dave want us to believe it’s somehow “scientific” to say rocks became people without any creator at all!