Evolution Encyclopedia Vol. 2
Chapter 10
SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL
GREGOR MENDEL'S MONUMENTAL DISCOVERY
Gregor Mendel was a school teacher at a local high school. But on the side, he was an amateur botanist, who decided to plant some garden peas and experiment with them. He cross-bred pea plants of varying characteristics. His great stroke of intuition was to study one clearly defined characteristic at a time. Within less than eight years, he had written up a scientific paper that laid the foundation for the destruction of *Charles Darwin's theory. Yet he was carrying on his experiments at the very time that Darwin was writing his book, Origin of the Species.
Mendel's work is of such monumental importance, that we will briefly consider his scientific contribution.
Genetics began with the work of Gregor Mendel, and the study of genetics would be a basic factor in overthrowing evolutionary theory. Yet for a half-century after his research was completed, it was ignored by the scientific world.
"After seven year's work on the genetics of peas, he [Mendel] read his report to the Natural History Society of Brunn [Austria], his home town, in 1865. Modern scientists agree that his report gave definite results in an orderly manner, but the minutes of the meeting report that there were no comments. The minutes also report that a member of the Society mentioned a book written by a certain Englishman named Darwin six years before, and that is what they talked about. And that is what all Europe talked about for 35 years while Mendel's paper lay on a shelf. Now that paper has become the foundation of genetics."—William J. Tinkle, "Genetics Favors Creation," in Creation Research Society Quarterly, December 1977, p. 155.
"The most keenly interested [scientists of the latter 19th century failed to realize that the answers to many of the unexplained problems which Darwin had raised were found in his [Mendel's] work on garden peas."—*A.M. Winchester, Genetics: A Survey of the Principles of Heredity (1966), p. 33.
Mendel's experiment was simple enough. He went out into the garden behind his house and planted two varieties of garden peas. He cross-pollinated the peas that were smooth and round with those that were shriveled and wrinkled.
When the crop came, he discovered that they did not produce a blending of the parent characters, as was generally believed, but that all the new peas were smooth and round. This was indeed strange!
He then used these seeds to produce another crop, cross-pollinated them, and discovered that three-quarters of the new generation were smooth and round, and one-quarter was wrinkled.
Mendel recognized that two types of hereditary characteristics were present, but that one was masked and—although present—did not appear until a later generation. The characters that could be masked in one generation and appear in another (such as wrinkled peas), he called recessive. Those that overshadow them (such as the smooth, round pea shape), he called dominant.
"Even while the Darwinian controversy was at its height, the Austrian, Mendel, published in an obscure journal his two short papers concerning inheritance. He showed, after eight years' work, that in peas, at least, characteristics were segregated. In his main experimental series, he obtained 8,023 peas from 258 plats. Of these 6,022 were yellow, 2,001 were green, a ratio of three to one. The same ratio appeared in the seven other factors he studied. From this he made the acute deduction that the yellow character dominated the green. Yellow-yielding plants had either received a factor for yellow from each parent, or a factor for yellow from one and green from the other. Only plants receiving factors for green from both parents would appear green. Such factors are called dominant and recessive, respectively."—*G.R. Taylor, Great Evolution Mystery (1983), p. 22.
Mendel concluded that this DELAYED appearance of recessive characters must imply that each character must be governed by some kind of independent, DISTINCT hereditary factor within the species itself. What he called factors, we now know to be separate heredity units—and call them genes. These must be paired in the parent but not in the gametes.
Mendel made three major discoveries: (1) Inherited characteristics are governed by paired but individual factors. (2) These factors may be dominant or recessive. (3) These factors combine, without blending, to produce characteristic ratios in later generations.
"Mendel's Theory of Discrete Units of Heredity (later called by W. Johannssen ‘genes’ states that such units, as adamantine as the Newtonian corpuscle, combined into a great variety of mosaic patterns but did not relate or integrate in such a way as to lose their distinct, independent entity. Although they could be reshuffled, these 'atoms of heredity' were transmitted unchanged from generation to generation. Each simple factor determining a hereditary trait was contained in a Mendelian gene and each gene had its place, like different permutations of beads on a string, on the chromosomes of the cell nucleus.
"Why was Mendel's paper, published in 1866, 'neglected' until 1900? R.A. Fisher, a founding father of modern biochemistry, wrote:
" 'The journal in which it was published was not a very obscure one and seems to have been widely distributed. In London, according to Bateson, it was received by the Royal Society and the Linnaean Society. The paper itself is not obscure or difficult to understand; on the contrary, the new ideas are explained most simply and amply illustrated by the experimental results.' [R.A. Fisher, ‘Has Mendel's Work Been Rediscovered?’ in Annals of Science, Vol. 1, No. 2, 1936.)
"In proposing a theory of inheritance through discrete, non-blending genetic particles, . . Mendelian theory raised a new spectre; if the particles were unchanging, from whence could information for new forms (and species) arise? . .
"Mendel's work now seemed to rule out decisively the possibility of unlimited gradual change, such as Darwin's theory required. Nowhere on the voyage of the Beagle (after which he formulated his theory) did Darwin observe anything which forced him to the conclusion that change was unlimited. Had he known of Mendel's theory, it is likely he would never have published The Origin of the Species."—Michael Pitman, Adam and Evolution (1984), pp. 63-64.
The later discovery of the gene, the chromosome, and DNA provided clear-cut evidence of Mendel's "discrete atoms" of heredity. Those genetic discoveries, along with the discovery of the consistently harmful nature of mutations—the only thing which could change the gene factors totally eradicated the scientific basis of biological evolution.
After completing his experiments in the early 1860s, Mendel wrote up the entire project in a research paper in which he carefully summarized it all, and stated his conclusions in regard to this unchangeable particle within the body which kept turning out copies of itself, yet which shuffled them around a little bit.
Mendel then sent a copy of the paper to Karl Wilhelm von Nageli, a Swiss botanist of great reputation. Von Nageli's reaction was very negative, and he told this backwoods upstart so in no uncertain terms. As a result, Mendel became discouraged, dropped his research project entirely, and accepted an administrative position which took most of his time thereafter. But he did publish his paper in 1866 in an Austrian scientific journal.
"In what is perhaps the most startling coincidence in the history of science, no fewer than three men, independently and in the very same year, came to precisely the same conclusions that Mendel had reached a generation earlier. They were Hugo De Vries of Holland, Karl Erich Correns of Germany, and Erich von Tschermak of Austria. None of them knew of each other's or Mendel's work. All three were ready to publish in 1900. All three, in a final check of previous publications in the field, came across Mendel's paper, to their own vast surprise. All three did publish in 1900, each citing Mendel's paper, giving Mendel full credit for the discovery, and advancing his own work only as confirmation."—*Isaac Asimov, New Guide To Science (1984), p. 607.
It was providential that the discovery of Mendel's work occurred in this way. If only one man had published on it, his work might have been quashed as had been that of Mendel's. But three men in three separate nations discovered the same facts; all three published their findings almost simultaneously; all three referred to the earlier research of Gregor Mendel. As a result, the truth could no longer be hidden.
Interestingly enough, after "discovering Mendel," there were many scientists who wish they could bury him again. They realized his findings fixed the species, so that it could not evolve!
"Many textbooks still tell the story of how, when Mendelian genetics was independently rediscovered by three botanists around 1900, it was rapidly embraced as the key to evolution. In fact, those most involved in investigating heredity and evolution—the mathematical biologists called biometricians—swore eternal hostility to the new ideas. Mendelism and Darwinism, they insisted, were conflicting, incompatible theories; one or the other must triumph, but science could not contain them both."—*Richard Milner, Encyclopedia of Evolution (1990), pp. 45-46.
It took the evolutionists years to figure out a theoretical excuse for accepting Mendelian genetics. What is the excuse? The idea that somehow the species does jump across the species barrier in spite of the genetic barrier (later discovered to be the DNA code). No one has ever seen the jump occur. There is no indication in the fossil record that it has ever happened, but there is that tantalizing hope that somehow, it occurs every so often.
"Mendelian genetics" became the basis for all future studies into the processes of heredity. It ultimately resulted in the discovery of the startlingly complicated DNA code, which, for each species, results in a species barrier which precludes one species ever changing into another. Sub-species? yes indeed, thousands are possible; but species crossover? Impossible.
*Alfred Wallace, the co-developer (with *Charles Darwin) of the evolutionary theory, survived Darwin by several decades and was alive when Mendelian genetics was rediscovered and began to be investigated. Wallace, clearly recognized that Mendelian principles were at total variance with evolutionary theory.
"But on the general relation of Mendelism to Evolution, I have come to a very definite conclusion. This is, that it has no relation whatever to the evolution of species or higher groups, but is really antagonistic to such evolution! The essential basis of evolution, involving as it does the most minute and all-pervading adaptation to the whole environment, is extreme and ever-present plasticity, as a condition of survival and adaptation. But the essence of Mendelian characters is their rigidity. They are transmitted without variation, and therefore, except by the rarest of accidents, can never become adapted to ever varying conditions."—*Alfred Russel Wallace, Letters and Reminiscences by James Marchant (1916), P. 340.
THE STORY OF DNA
The species simply does not change! And without species change, there can be no evolution. But why is it that one species does not, over a period of time, change into another species? The answer lies in the DNA within all the species. Here is the story of the discoveries that led up to DNA:
For nearly a hundred years, scientists have recognized that there are reproductive factors within plants and animals which accurately reproduce copies of each species, generation after generation.
A typical plant or animal cell is extremely tiny, yet within it is to be found a small globule of denser material that is, in volume, about one-tenth that of the cell. This is the cell nucleus. If a cell is divided into two, the part with the nucleus will be able to reproduce itself; the other part will die.
Using special dyes with which he stained the cells, Walther Flemming in 1879 discovered the process of cell division. He found there were tiny threads in the nucleus that duplicated themselves. In 1881, the German anatomist Willhelm von Waldeyer named this substance within the nucleus that did the dividing, "chromosomes." (At first, it was thought that there were 24 chromosomes in each human cell, but in 1956 a more careful count revealed it to be only 23.)
Gregor Mendel's 1860s discovery of the principles of inheritance were rediscovered in 1900 by three scientists. It was recognized that Mendel's work actually dealt with these strange chromosome threads. At about that same time, the existence of genes, small units on the chromosomes, were discovered. In 1902, *William Bateson coined the term, genetics.
In 1906, *Thomas Hunt Morgan began researching into genes, using a new type of laboratory animal: the fruit fly. Soon Morgan and his associates discovered the basic facts about chromosome pairs, X and Y chromosomes, etc. It is estimated that the chromosomes in a human may contain 20,000 to 90,000 genes per chromosome pair, or up to 2,000,000 altogether.
But why was it that the chromosomes always reproduced themselves in just the right way, generation after generation? Scientists decided the answer must lie within the genes, which were strung out like beads on the chromosome strings.
In 1869, a Swiss biologist, *Friedrich Miescher, discovered that the cell nucleus contained a substance which he named "nuclein." Twenty years later it was renamed "nucleic acid" when it was found to be strongly acid. Miescher later discovered that sperm cells were full of nucleic acid.
The German biochemist *Albrecht Kossel, and the Russian-born American biochemist *Phoebus Levene later discovered the chemical make-up of nucleic acid. Levene discovered there were two varieties of nucleic acid: (1) "ribonucleic acid" (RNA), and (2) "deoxyribonucleic acid" (DNA). Levene continued his experiments with RNA and DNA on down into the 1930s.
The British biochemist *Alexander Todd, discovered that these nucleotides were structured something like protein. But just how did all this accomplish heredity—the passing on of traits from one generation to another?
A breakthrough came when the German chemist *Robert Feulgen discovered a red dye that would stain DNA, but not RNA. With the aid of this technique, he found DNA in the cell nucleus, and specifically in the chromosomes! RNA was outside the nucleus. He also discovered that both DNA and RNA were universally in all living plant and animal cells.
The Swedish biochemist *Torbjorn Caspersson discovered that the DNA was primarily in little bands in the chromosomes! Was it possible that DNA was none other than the genes? The excitement of the researchers increased as, all through the 1940s, they continued their work.
The next discovery was that the amount of RNA and protein in the cell could vary greatly, but the amount of DNA in the cell was always an exact amount.
In 1944, three American biochemists—*Oswald Avery, *Colin Macleod, and *Maclyn McCarty identified what it was in mice that was changing one form of pneumonia in mice into another one. The DNA was acting like a gene! Additional research with viruses confirmed this fact. It was the DNA which accomplished the hereditary work, not the protein part of the chromosome and genes.
Surely, if DNA is the key to heredity, it must have a very complex structure. Only an elaborate genetic code could accomplish the needed task. Yet DNA was composed of only four types of nucleotide chemical combinations. Then the American biochemist * Erwin Chargaff found evidence that the amount of each of the four was different in different DNA portions. This indicated a code factor.
MITOSIS AND MEIOSIS
If you could look at the cell division process through a microscope, you would see what is inside the circles below. It is really astounding to behold!
Mitosis, on the left, below, is the process of cell division in which the nucleus of a cell normally divides into two identical nuclei, at which time the cell itself usually divides equally, separating into two new cells, each with the same number of chromosomes as the parent cell.
Meiosis, on the right, below, occurs only in reproductive cells. This is also cell division, but in the process the number of chromosomes in each sex cell are halved.
For purposes of clarity, only one set of homologous chromosomes is shown. In actuality, the process is much more complicated.
Consider for a moment the extreme complexity of the illustration below, and keep in mind that the millions of cells that divide within your body every minute go through such an exact formula. Yes, it is indeed amazing, and requires careful, intelligent planning and operation of the highest order. Randomness is not producing this!
But how could this code be strung out? A simple 1-2-3-4-1-2-3-4 arrangement could never carry the complicated code that was needed.
Then *Rosalind Franklin, a British researcher, took some special photographs, and in 1953 the English physicist *Francis Crick and the American biochemist *James Watson used the photographs to develop an astounding model of the DNA molecule!
The design was remarkable: First, it was shaped like a ladder, with the four chemicals, adenine (A), guanine (G), thymine (T), and cytosine (C) strung out on the rungs of the ladder in code format. This four-base code structure provided all that was needed for an extremely complex code, that is, if the ladder would be long enough. And it was. In order to pack the code into the smallest possible space, the ladder was tightly bound up in a coil. A coiled ladder is called a double helix. Two sugar-phosphate backbones winding like a double-railed spiral staircase up the same vertical axis. From each sugar-phosphate chain, purines and peptides extended inward toward each other, meeting as though to form the steps of this double-railed spiral staircase. *Watson and *Crick received the 1962 Nobel Prize in medicine and physiology for their work in developing this model.
When it is time for cell division, each helix breaks loose from the other at a weak hydrogen bond; then each half replicates itself, and there are now two double helices (plural of helix) where before there was only one. Each rung on the ladder produces the missing part of the rung—even though the missing part contains different chemicals on its half of the rung! Since the rungs break in the middle, each half will have different combinations of the 4 chemicals than the other half has. How does each half know to reproduce the missing chemicals, and not its own chemicals?
Each half-molecule guides in the formation of the other half, links them together with hydrogen bonds, and two complete, double-helix DNA molecules now exist. Each one will have the exact code that the previous one had. All down the length of the chromosome, each DNA molecule will reproduce itself. The thread is the chromosome; each double-helix DNA molecule is a single gene on that molecule. All these "genes" are strung out on the chromosome like pearls on a necklace.
Small "gene-shuffling" will regularly occur in the reproductive organs, which results in slight differences in offspring. If it were not for this, every creature in each species would be monotonously like all the others. But as it is, there are varieties of plants, breeds of animals, races of people. Lots of differences, yet the species barrier is never breached. Each type of plant and animal remains distinct; the people remain people.
And now we know why: that barrier is the DNA code, and it is within every living thing.
Not only is the total DNA gene pool for each species totally unique and separate from all other species, but the DNA code arrangement for each individual in that species is also different enough to be as identifiable as fingerprints.
"Despite the shared genetic chemistry of species, each individual has a uniqueness extending right down to the DNA. In fact, the structure of the DNA has proven so identifiably distinct in each individual that it may soon replace fingerprints in criminal identification . . With analysis of the DNA from protein molecules within the blood, hair or semen, biochemists claim 'absolute identification' (identical twins. . would be a possible exception). . Among the first to be convicted with the DNA test was Timothy Spencerfor a double murder in Virginia (1988). His attorney tried to discredit the new DNA test, but could not find one biochemist who would challenge its validity."—*Richard Milner, Encyclopedia of Evolution (1990), p. 142-143.
But where did the code come from? It reproduces itself faithfully, but who put the code there to begin with? It all had to be there from the very beginning. Every plant and animal has the same DNA chemical constituents, except in different code arrangements. So a single Source produced every plant and animal. Who is that Originator? The maker must always be far more intelligent than the thing made. A complex object requires a far more complex manufacturer. Definite plans and exacting purposes require a highly-intelligent Planner. The very chemicals of which DNA is composed are quite complicated and not found at random in nature. Complicated materials require a high-level Craftsman.
The DNA and its code did not make itself. Even carefully-trained scientists are not able to make it in the first place, or replicate a living sample of it. It was God that made the DNA and its code. Keep in mind that the entire code is purposive. Every part of your body is made in accordance with some part of that code. That which man could never do, that which no animal could ever do, your Creator did.
Before concluding this historical survey of the discovery of DNA, the question comes to mind, how does the DNA communicate its code to the rest of the cell, so the cell can use that code to build what it is supposed to build? The Rumanian-American biochemist *George Palade, working with an electron microscope, discovered in 1956 that it is the RNA that does this task. A special RNA, mRNA (messenger RNA), carries the "knowledge" of the code from the DNA to the rest of the cell. Well, that is another story; one we may figure out someday. But we can know that if we ever do so, it will only lead us to a still more puzzling mystery, and that one to still another. Yes, there is more to the story; more discoveries have been made in an attempt to understand the DNA molecule and how it does its work: sRNA, tRNA, repressors, enzymes, amino acid colons, colon dictionaries, exons, Introns, eukaryotes, prokaryotes, restriction enzymes, DNA ligase, and on and on. That puzzle palace known as a living species is incredibly complicated.
The more we study the works of God, the more we are convinced that random accidents ("natural selection") working with harmful accidents ("mutations") could never do the task together or alone. Nothing on earth could do it. Only God can make a plant or animal. Only God can keep it alive, moment by moment.
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THE ORIGIN OF DNA
How could the utter complexity of coding contained within the DNA molecule possibly have originated by chance? Scientists tell us that it would be impossible:
Evolution never could come up with adequate evidence in its favor,—but now it had evidence confronting it that was powerful enough to destroy the theory forever. Evolution required chance, but DNA required thinking, planning, and purpose.
"It was therefore a bombshell when Oswald Avery and colleagues at the Rockefeller Institute demonstrated in 1944 that it was the DNA which carried the genetic message.. In short there was a code, the details of which took some time to unravel."—*G.R. Taylor, Great Evolution Mystery (1983), p 166.
Knowing that there is no possible way that genetic equipment and its coding could have evolved, the mind is free to dream how it might have happened:
"The evolution of the genetic machinery is the step for which there are no laboratory models; hence one can speculate endlessly, unfettered by inconvenient facts."—*RichardDickerson, in Scientific American, September 1978, p. 85.
Since reality could never solve the problem, evolutionists maintain that time accomplished the task unaided by anything other than randomness (Or to say it another way: evolution has two gods—Time and Randomness).
"The mechanists were not discouraged by the enormous span of time required for this chance event. They point out that, given enough time, the most improbable event becomes a statistical certainty."—*J. Keosian, The Origin of Life (1968), p. 10.
Actually, neither time nor randomness could ever produce genes. Neither one has a brain to figure out the coding, and neither has hands to produce them.
"The usual answer to this question is that there was plenty of time to try everything. I could never accept this answer. Random shuttling of bricks will never build a castle or a Greek temple, however long the available time. A random process can build meaningful structures only if there is some kind of selection between meaningful and nonsense mutations."—*A. Szent-Gyorgyi, "The Evolutionary Paradox and Biological Stability, "in Molecular Evolution, p. 111.
How could a completed code make itself? Can a lock make the key that fits it? Can a jigsaw puzzle fashion its pieces? Can an automotive carburetor (one of the most complicated mechanical hardware items in a car) design its parts? How much more difficult it would be for the million-fold coding in DNA to figure itself out, make itself out of chemicals not easily found, and then make copies of itself?
"We do not yet understand even the general features of the origin of the genetic code. . The origin of the genetic code is the most baffling aspect of the problem of the origins of life, and a major conceptual or experimental breakthrough may be needed before we can make any substantial progress."—*L. Orgel "Darwinism at the Very Beginning of Life," New Scientist, Vol. 94 (1982), pp. 149, 151.
Did the evolutionary gods, aided by sand and seawater, produce this?
"[The instructions within the DNA of the cell] if written out, would fill a thousand 600-page books. Each cell is a world brimming with as many as two hundred trillion tiny groups of atoms called molecules . . Our 46 chromosome 'threes' [in one DNA molecule] linked together would measure more than six feet. Yet the nucleus that contains them is less than four ten-thousandths of an inch in diameter."—*Rick Gore, "The Awesome Worlds Within a Cell," National Geographic, September 1978, pp. 35758, 360.
The punch line is that all the complicated structures within the chromosomes had to come into existence at the same time!
"Such calculations illustrate the immense amount of organization that went into the production of the first living system . . Purely random chemical combinations cannot account for the origin of life.
"The underlying similarity and unity of biochemical processes imply that life originated only once. The universality of the genetic code . . point[s] to the same conclusion . . The paradox of the origin of the code is removed if the nucleotide sequences were designed and fabricated to couple with the translation machinery and built at the same time . .
"Special creation violates none of the basic physical laws. It generates none of the contradictions . . encountered with the molecular evolution hypothesis."—John C. Walton, Origins, Vol. 4, No. 1, 1977.
But, more, not only the mountain of data in the DNA had to suddenly appear, but also the complex hoard of enzymes needed for the DNA to fulfill its tasks:
"But the most sweeping evolutionary questions at the level of biochemical genetics are still unanswered . . The fact that in all organisms living today the processes both of replication of the DNA and of the effective translation of its code require highly precise enzymes and that, at the same time, the molecular structures of those same enzymes are precisely specified by the DNA itself, poses a remarkable evolutionary mystery.
"Did the code and the means of translating it appear simultaneously in evolution? It seems almost incredible that any such coincidence could have occurred, given the extraordinary complexities of both sides and the requirement that they be coordinated accurately for survival. By a preDarwinian (or a skeptic of evolution after Darwin) this puzzle surely would have been interpreted as the most powerful sort of evidence for special creation. "—*Caryl P. Haskings, "Advances and Challenges in Science in 1970," in American Scientist, May—June 1971, p. 305.
Only miracles far beyond science or physical or human possibilities could have produced life and DNA:
"After having chided the theologian for his reliance on myth and miracle, science found itself in the unenviable position of having to create a mythology of its own: namely, the assumption that what, after long effort, could not be proved to take place today had, in truth, taken place in the primeval past."—*Loran Eiseley, The Immense Journey, p. 200 (1957).
Some evolutionists hedge by saying that perhaps the first DNA was in "simple" and "uncomplicated" forms of life. But not so:
"There is enough storage capacity in the DNA of a single lily seed or a single salamander sperm to store the Encyclopedia Britannica 60 times over. Some species of the unjustly called 'primitive' amoebas have as much information in their DNA as 1,000 Encyclopedia Britannicas."—*R. Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker, pp. 115-116.
Every type of theoretical mathematical computation declares DNA and the living cell to be impossible to originate by chance:
"The presence of a living unit is exactly opposite to what we would expect on the basis of pure statistical and probability considerations." —*Peter Mora, "Urge and Molecular Biology, " in Nature (1963), p. 215.
Such words as "design," "plan," and "purpose," are anathema to the dedicated evolutionist. But that is what we see all about us in nature, and in the skies above our heads.
"It is very hard to avoid using words that suggest purpose when describing the wonderfully adapted structures that occur in the living world."—*L.E. Orgel, The Origins of Life: Molecules and Natural Selection (1973), p. 182.
"The methods of science are not sufficient, and they lead to contradiction when we try to explain the peculiar essence of living systems and when we consider a living system as a whole."—*Peter T. Mora, "Urge and Molecular Biology, " in Nature, 199 (1963), p. 217.
In spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, dogmatic evolutionists maintain that their theory has been proven and there are no alternatives.
"Many scientists succumb to the temptation to be dogmatic, . . over and over again the question of the origin of the species has been presented as if it were finally settled. Nothing could be further from the truth . . But the tendency to be dogmatic persists, and it does no service to the cause of science."— *John Durant, "Beginning to Have Doubts " The Guardian, London, December 4, 1980, p. 15.
To be blunt, life is an astounding miracle. And yet in nature we find it in thousands of forms that could not possibly have evolved from one another.
"That life is, . . is a miracle from the point of view of the physical scientist."—*E. P. Wigner, "The Probability of a Self-Reproducing Unit," in the Logic of Personal Knowledge (1961), p. 231.
The DNA molecule stands as a great wall that evolutionary theory cannot overthrow.
"And at this point, strangely enough, the discovery of DNA, which is so widely thought to prove that life is mere chemistry, provides the missing link for proving the contrary.
"That the formation of a DNA molecule is embodied in the morphology of the corresponding offspring, assures us of the fact that this morphology is not the product of a chemical equilibration, but is designed by other than chemical forces."—*M. Polanyi, "Life Transcending Physics and Chemistry, " in Chemical and Engineering News (1967), p. 66.
Adding to the problem, not only did DNA have to be an all-at-once completeness when it first began,—it had to begin in the very beginning)
"It was clear that the genetic code itself had long remained unchanged since the beginning of the story, for DNA from advanced species, inserted into cells from primitive forms, continued to work normally. . The internal instability of the genome represents a major unsolved problem for evolutionists as well as geneticists. What a long way we have gone from the earlier notion of the gene as a bead on a string!"—*G.R. Taylor, Great Evolution Mystery (1983), p. 173.
How can you have evolution, when the code is fixed? It is not subject to mutation because mutations would only damage the code or slay the organism containing it.
"If the code is indeed universal, as these and other results suggest, it implies that it has been fixed throughout most of organic evolution, in other words, that it is not subject to mutation." —*Scientific American, October 1963, p. 51.
*Hitching summarizes part of the problem:
"To put it at its mildest, one may question an evolutionary theory so beset by doubts among even those who teach it. If Darwinism is truly the great unifying principle of biology, it encompasses extraordinarily large areas of ignorance. It fails to explain some of the most basic questions of all: how lifeless chemicals came alive, what rules of grammar lie behind the genetic code, how genes shape the form of living things. "—*Francis Hitching, The Neck of the Giraffe (1982), P. 108, 117.
There is no way in inner space or outer space for DNA and related molecular systems in living organisms to have formed.
"Biochemical systems are exceedingly complex, so much so that the chance of their being formed through random shuffling of simple organic molecules is exceedingly minute, to a point indeed where it is insensibly different from zero.
"The obvious escape route is to look outside the earth, although we should be warned that even this route may not be easy to follow. There is no way in which we can expect to avoid the need for information, no way in which we can simply get by with a bigger and better organic soup, as we ourselves hoped might be possible a year a two ago. The numbers we calculated above are essentially just as unfaceable for a universal soup as a terrestrial one."—*Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe, Evolution From Space (1981), pp. 3431.
Something other than chance had to have produced living creatures. And if random actions of inorganic materials did not do it, than a Person did it.
"The answer would seem to me, combined with the knowledge that life is actually there, to lead to the conclusion that some sequences other than chance occurrences must have led to the appearance of life as we know it."—*J. D. Bernal, The Origins of Prebiological Systems and Their Molecular Matrices (1965), p. 53.
The puzzle facing the evolutionist is awesome, overwhelming:
"To the skeptic, the proposition that the genetic programs of higher organisms, consisting of something close to a thousand million bits of information, equivalent to the sequences 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! . . there is a growing likelihood that the genome may contain even more than one hundred thousand million bits of information."—*Michael Denton, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis (1985), p. 351.
With his inimitable wording, *Hoyle describes the problem:
"Anyone with even a nodding acquaintance with the Rubik cube will concede the near impossibility of a solution being obtained by a blind person moving the cube faces at random. Now imagine 1050 blind persons (standing shoulder to shoulder, these would more than fill our entire planetary system) each with a scrambled Rubik cube and try to conceive of the chance of them all simultaneously arriving at the solved form. You then have the chance of arriving by random shuffling (random variation) of just one of the many biopolymers on which life depends. The notion that not only the biopolymers but the operating program of a living cell could be arrived at by chance in a primordial soup here on Earth is evidently nonsense of a high order."—*Fred Hoyle, The Big Bang in Astronomy, in New Scientist, November 19, 1981.
Chance and the movement of sand and water are not equal to the task which evolutionists are seeking to solve: the creation of complicated living creatures.
"One must conclude that, contrary to the established and current wisdom, a scenario describing the genesis of life on earth by chance and natural causes which can be accepted on the basis of fact and not faith has not yet been written."—*Hubert P. Yockey, "A Calculation of the Probability of Spontaneous Biogenesis by Information Theory," Journal of Theoretical Biology, V. 67, 1977, p. 398.
It is futile to say there is mathematical probability in the impossible.
"I believed we developed this practice (i.e., of postulating prebiological natural selection) to avoid facing the conclusion that the probability of a self-replicating state is zero. . When for practical purposes the concept of infinite time and matter has to be invoked, that concept of probability is annulled."—*Peter T. Mora, "The Folly of Probability," in The Origins of Prebiological Systems (1965), p. 45.
"It is sometimes argued in speculative papers on the origin of life that highly improbable events (such as the spontaneous formation of a molecule of DNA and a molecule of DNA-polymerase in the same region of space and at the same time) become virtually inevitable over the vast stretches of geological time. No serious quantitative arguments, however, are given in support of such conclusions."— *A.I. Oparin, Life: Its Nature, Origin and Development (1961), p. 31.
The coding within those DNA spirals is genuine, factual information:
"Information theory can be applied to any situation involving messages. It follows therefore that the language of life, the genetic code written along the lengths of DNA molecules, in groups of three coding for the various twenty-two amino acids of proteins, can also be expressed in terms of a given amount of information. "—*E. Ambrose, The Nature and Origin of the Biological World (1982), p. 125.
There is no known single writing of man as long as one DNA code:
"DNA is a most complex molecule and is really a genetic code, similar to a master computer or file. Its genetic recipe is so complex that F.H.C. Crick, a Nobel Prize winner, says that if this language of life were translated into English, it would occupy 1,000 books of 500 pages each. There is, however, no known single writing of man as long as this. The code is about 300 times as long as the Works of William Shakespeare and nearly 20 times as long as Encyclopaedia Britannica. Even in the face of all this complexity, evolutionists want us to believe that the genetic code arose by chance." —Aaldert Mennega, "Reflections on the Scientific Method," in Creation Research Society Quarterly, June 1972, p. 36.
Producing a DNA code by random action is like tossing a lot of lettered blocks together and coming up with a thousand books filled with critically important data:
"If randomness is taken to mean that a uniform probability is assigned to each possible independent substitution or addition, the chance of emergence of man is like the probability of typing at random a meaningful library of one thousand volumes using the following procedure: begin with a meaningful phrase, retype it with a few mistakes, make it longer by adding letters, and rearrange sub-sequences in the string of letters; then examine the result to see of the new phrase is meaningful. Repeat this process until the library is complete."—*M. Eden, "Inadequacies of Neo-Darwinian Theory of Evolution, as a Scientific Theory, in Mathematical Challenges to the Neo-Darwinian Interpretation of Evolution, (1967), p. 109.
All this came about by chance?
"There is a growing likelihood that the genome may contain even more than one hundred thousand million bits of information."—*Michael Denton, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis (1985), p. 351.
DNA required purpose, and purpose requires a person:
[Speaking about the complexity of genes and DNA, and the origin of life:] "To involve purpose is in the eyes of biologists the ultimate sin. . The revulsion which biologists feel to the thought that purpose might have a place in the structure of biology is therefore revulsion to the concept that biology might have a connection to an intelligence higher than our own."—*Fred Hoyle and *Chandra Wickramasinghe, Evolution from Space (1981), p. 32.
*Hoyle says that not something, but someone, did it!
"Rather than accept that fantastically small probability of life having arisen through the blind forces of nature, it seemed better to suppose that the origin of life was a deliberate intellectual act. By 'better' I mean less likely to be wrong."—*Fred Hoyle "The Universe: Past and Present Reflections, in Engineering and Science, November 1981, pp. 8, 12.
It is an intriguing fact that one super Intelligence made every living organism:
"Perhaps the moat impressive demonstration of the unity of life is that in all organisms the genetic information is coded in two related groups of substances—the deoxyribonucleic (DNA) and ribonucleic (RNA) acids."—*Theodosius Dobzhansky, Genetics of the Evolutionary Process (1970), p. 8.
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APPENDIX 10
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