Basic
Worldview:
103
Science, the Bible,
and Creation
Origins
- Section Three:
Evolution, Environment for Life 1
Origins - Section One: Introduction
and the Basics
Origins - Section Two: Premature
Dismissals
Origins - Section Two: Application
of the Basics
Origins - Section Three: Creation
Origins - Section Three: Evolution,
Origin of Life
Origins - Section Three: Evolution,
Environment for Life 1
Origins - Section Three: Evolution,
Environment for Life 2
Origins - Section Three: Evolution,
Another Planet
Origins - Section Three: Evolution,
Origin of Species
Origins - Section Three: Evolution,
Speciation Factors
Origins - Section Three: Evolution,
Speciation Rates
Origins - Section Four: Time and
Age, Redshift
Origins - Section Four: Philosophical
Preference
Origins - Section Four: Cosmological
Model 1
Origins - Section Four: Cosmological
Model 2
Origins - Section Four: Dating Methods,
Perceptions, Basics
Origins - Section Four: Global Flood
Evidence
Origins - Section Four: Relative
Dating
Origins - Section Four: Dating and
Circular Reasoning
Origins - Section Four: The Geologic
Column
Origins - Section Four: Radiometric
Dating Basics
Origins - Section Four: General
Radiometric Problems
Origins - Section Four: Carbon-14
Problems
Origins - Section Four: Remaining
Methods and Decay Rates
Origins - Section Four: Radiometric
Conclusions, Other Methods
Origins - Section Five: Overall
Conclusions, Closing Editorial
Origins - Section Five: List
of Evidences Table
Origins Debate Figures and
Illustrations
Evolution
on the Origin of Life: Energy and Safety, a Suitable Environment
The
other barrier to the origin of life, which we asserted was
recognized and included in the evolutionary theory itself,
is the geologic history of the earth. Specifically, the obstacles
present in earth’s geologic history concern 2 aspects:
energy and safety. Not only does the chicken-and-egg dilemma
of cell components remain unresolved and incomplete in evolutionary
theory, but even if that dilemma was resolved, evolutionary
theory would still have to identify a suitable environment
in which there was not only sufficient energy to fuel the
origin of life but also sufficient protection from environmental
factors that would destroy any progress toward life. Earth’s
geologic history is where such an environment must be identified.
Because identifying when such an environment existed on earth
is critical to this barrier and because events surrounding
the formation of the solar system are relevant to earth’s
geologic history and the origin of life, we will also take
time in this segment to cover the evolutionary model for the
origin of the universe. Furthermore, although the mechanisms
for the formation of the universe and the question of age
will be considered critically in our next section, in this
segment our purpose will simply be to present the position
of evolutionary theory on these points.
Concerning
the age of the universe, evolutionists believe that the universe
resulted from a “big bang” explosion anywhere
from 10 to 20 billion years ago.
"Big-bang
model – widely
held theory of the evolution of the universe. Its essential
feature is the emergence of the universe from a
state of extremely high temperature and density—the
so-called big bang that occurred at least 10,000,000,000 years
ago. Although this type of universe was proposed by Alexander
Friedmann and Abbé Georges Lemaîtrein the 1920s, the modern
version was developed by George Gamow and colleagues in the
1940s." – Encyclopaedia Britannica 2004 Deluxe
Edition
“Cosmology,
III MODERN COSMOLOGY, A The Big Bang Theory – Current calculations place the age of the universe at 10 billion to
15 billion years.” – "Cosmology,"
Microsoft® Encarta® Encyclopedia 99. © 1993-1998 Microsoft
Corporation. All rights reserved.
“Big
Bang Theory, I INTRODUCTION – Big
Bang Theory, currently accepted explanation of the beginning
of the universe. The big bang theory proposes that the
universe was once extremely compact, dense, and hot. Some
original event, a cosmic explosion called the big bang, occurred
about 10 billion to 20 billion years ago, and the universe
has since been expanding and cooling.” – "Big
Bang Theory," Microsoft® Encarta® Encyclopedia 99. ©
1993-1998 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
“Universe
– According to
the theory, the universe began with an explosion-called
the big bang-13 billion to 14 billion years ago.” – Worldbook, Contributor:
Kenneth Brecher, Ph.D., Professor of Astronomy and Physics,
Boston University.
“Big
Bang – Big bang refers to the most widely held scientific
theory of the origin of the universe. According
to this theory, the universe began with a hot, explosive
event-a "big bang"-about
10 billion to 20 billion years ago.” – Worldbook,
Contributor: Kenneth Brecher, Ph.D., Professor of Astronomy
and Physics, Boston University.
This
age of the universe is calculated based upon the distance
of stars and the speed at their light travels to the earth.
First, there is a simple, physical phenomenon that the wavelengths
of sound or light become longer if the source of the wave
and the observer of that wave are moving away from each other.
This phenomenon is known as the Doppler Effect and it is occurring
with regard to the light from stars. As observed from earth,
the light from stars is longer in wavelength, shifted toward
the red end of the spectrum. This shift toward the longer,
red wavelengths indicates that the star, the source of the
light, is moving away from the earth.
“Doppler
effect – the apparent difference between the frequency
at which sound or light waves leave a source and
that at which they reach
an observer, caused by relative
motion of the observer and the wave source…The following
is an example of the Doppler effect: as one approaches a blowing
horn, the perceived pitch is higher until the horn is reached
and then becomes lower as the horn is passed. Similarly,
the light from a star, observed from the Earth, shifts toward
the red end of the spectrum (lower frequency or longer
wavelength) if
the Earth and star are receding from each other and toward
the violet (higher frequency or shorter wavelength) if they
are approaching each other. The Doppler effect is used in studying the motion of stars and to
search for double stars and is
an integral part of modern theories of the
universe. See also
red shift.” – Encyclopaedia Britannica 2004
Deluxe Edition
As
indicated by the quote above and the quote below, this manifestation
of the Doppler Effect with regard to the light from stars
is known as “red shift.”
“Red
shift – displacement of the spectrum of an astronomical
object toward longer (red) wavelengths. It is generally attributed
to the Doppler effect, a change in wavelength that results
when a given source
of waves (e.g., light or radio waves) and an observer are in rapid motion with respect to each other.”
– Encyclopaedia Britannica 2004 Deluxe Edition
Taking
note of the red shift in starlight, an astronomer named Edwin
Hubble established that the Doppler Effect was occurring in
starlight because the stars, the source of the light waves,
were moving away from the earth, the place where the waves
were observed. Consequently, the fact that the stars are moving
away from the earth establishes that the universe is expanding.
Moreover, red shift is central to the Big Bang theory, which
is based upon the concept that the universe is expanding.
“Redshift
– In 1929, the
American astronomer Edwin Hubble discovered that the farther
a galaxy is from Earth, the larger its redshift and thus the
faster it is moving away. Hubble's discovery indicated that
the universe is expanding. The expansion of the universe is
a key part of the big bang theory, the modern theory of
the beginning of the universe. According
to this theory, all space expanded from a hot, dense,
pointlike concentration called a
singularity.” – Worldbook, Contributor: Wendy
Freedman, Ph.D., Astronomer, Observatories of the Carnegie
Institution of Washington.
Furthermore,
based upon the measurement of the redshift in the light from
distant galaxies, scientists have been able to establish a
consistent relationship between the distance of galaxies and
their speed of movement. This relationship is known as Hubble’s
constant and it is designated by the letter “H.”
“Hubble's
constant – in cosmology, constant
of proportionality in the relation between the velocities
of remote galaxies and their distances. It
expresses the rate at which the universe is expanding.
It is denoted by the symbol H and named in honour of Edwin Hubble,
the American astronomer who attempted in 1929 to measure its
value.” –
Encyclopaedia Britannica 2004 Deluxe Edition
This
constant rate of expansion, which is based upon the phenomenon
of red shift, is then used to determine the age of the universe.
“Hubble
constant – Hubble constant is a
measure of the rate of expansion of the universe. Astronomers
use this number in estimating the age of the universe.”
– World Book 2005 (Deluxe)
The
quote below from Britannica Encyclopedia mentions the “reciprocal
of Hubble’s constant.” (“Reciprocal”
simply means “inverse” or “opposite.”
It is derived from the verb “reciprocate,” which
in this sense means, “to move forward and backward alternately.”)
“Reciprocal
– 1a: inversely
related: opposite.” – Merriam-Webster’s
Collegiate Dictionary
“Reciprocate
– intransitive senses 1:
to make a return for something 2:
to move forward and backward alternately.”
– Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary
In
short, here’s how the concept works. Since Hubble’s
constant indicates how much the universe moves apart as time
moves forward, the reciprocal of Hubble’s constant indicates
how much closer together the parts of the universe were in
the past. And if we go far enough back into the past, effectively,
all the parts of the universe come together around 10 to 20
billion years ago, depending upon the exact figure that is
used for Hubble’s constant.
“Hubble's
constant – The reciprocal of Hubble's constant lies
between 10 billion and 20 billion years, and
this cosmic time scale serves as an approximate measure of
the age of the universe.” –
Encyclopaedia Britannica 2004 Deluxe Edition
Consequently,
the entire evolutionary age of the universe is calculated
based upon the phenomenon of red shift, which itself depends
upon the distance of stars and the speed at which their light
travels to the earth.
With
a universe that is somewhere between 10-20 billion years old,
evolutionary theory describes the age of the earth as about
4.6 billion years old.
“Earth,
geologic history of, The pregeologic period – The
history of the Earth spans approximately 4.6
billion years…It is widely accepted by both geologists
and astronomers that the
Earth is roughly 4.6 billion years old.” –
Encyclopaedia Britannica 2004 Deluxe Edition
“Earth
[planet] – Age
of Earth. Scientists think that Earth probably formed
at about the same time as the rest of the solar system. They
have determined that some chondrite meteorites, the unaltered
remains from the formation of the solar system, are up
to 4.6 billion years old. Scientists believe that Earth and
other planets are probably that old.” – Worldbook,
Contributor: Steven I. Dutch, Ph.D., Professor, Department
of Natural and Applied Sciences, University of Wisconsin,
Green Bay.
“Geology
– Earth probably
formed about 4 1/2 billion years ago, and it has been
changing ever since.” – Worldbook, Contributor:
Maria Luisa Crawford, Ph.D., Professor of Geology, Bryn Mawr
College.
Notice
also from the quote below that the oldest rocks on earth are
3.8 billion years old, which limits the farthest point of
the fossil record simply because, fossils cannot go back farther
than the existing rock record.
“Geologic
sciences, Study of surface features and processes, Earth history,
Historical geology and stratigraphy – Radiometric
dating also helped geochronologists discover the vast span
of geologic time. The radiometric dating of meteorites revealed
that the Earth, like
other bodies of the solar system, is about 4,600,000,000 years
old and that the oldest rocks so far discovered formed roughly
3,800,000,000 years ago. It has been established that the
Precambrian time occupies seven-eighths of geologic time,
but the era is still poorly understood in comparison with
the Phanerozoic Eon—the
span of time extending from about the beginning of the Cambrian
Period to the Holocene Epoch during which complex life
forms are known to have existed.”
– Encyclopaedia Britannica 2004 Deluxe Edition
This
timeframe of approximately 3.8 billion years ago as the front
end of the fossil record is important. It is at this point
that we begin to encounter significant obstacles to the evolutionary
origin of life in terms of the geologic history of the earth,
mentioned in our definition of evolutionary theory. The barrier
results from the acknowledged fact that the earth was “heavily
bombarded” by tens of thousands of meteorites up until
about 3.9 billion years ago.
“Exobiology,
II THE PROBABILITY OF LIFE IN THE GALAXY – The young
Earth had more volcanic activity than today's Earth, warming
the atmosphere and filling it with chemicals that trapped
the sun's heat. Debris from the young solar system impacting Earth, lightning, and
radiation from the sun provided energy necessary to break
apart molecules, allowing new compounds to form.” –
"Exobiology," Microsoft® Encarta® Encyclopedia 99.
© 1993-1998 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
“If
you go to the moon, says Chyba, or
look at the craters on Mars or Mercury, what you see is that
the whole inner solar system was being subjected to a very
intense bombardment from space at that time. You can infer
that the same was true for Earth.” – “How
Did Life Start?,” by Peter Radetsky, DISCOVER, Vol.
13 No. 11, November 1992, Biology & Medicine
“Figure
1. The young Earth
appears to have been bombarded by comets for several hundred
million years shortly after it was formed.” –
“An Argument for the Cometary Origin of the Biosphere,”
Armand H. Delsemme, American
Scientist, Volume 89, 2004
“A
World Without Water, Figure 4. Impact
craters on the Moon, most obviously visible on the lunar highlands
(left), offer evidence of an era when the inner solar system
was subject to a heavy bombardment of small bodies. The
impact rate (deduced from the density of the craters) and
their age (based on radioactive dating of lunar rocks) conform
to a theoretical model of cometary bombardment (right, black
curve), which is based on changing rates of cometary flux
to the inner solar system from the regions of the giant planets
in the outer solar system (colored lines). The observational
data (crosses) suggest that the first 600 million years of bombardment can
be explained by a large flux of comets from Jupiter’s
zone. After one billion years the excess impacts (crosses
above the black curve) indicate another source, possibly asteroids.
(Image courtesy of NASA.)” – “An Argument
for the Cometary Origin of the Biosphere,” Armand H.
Delsemme, American Scientist,
Volume 89, 2004
“Earth,
geologic history of, The pregeologic period – The
history of the Earth spans approximately 4.6
billion years.
The oldest known rocks, however, have an isotopic age of only
about 3.9 billion years. There
is, in effect, a stretch of 700
million years for which no geologic record exists, and
the evolution of this pregeologic period of time is not surprisingly
the subject of much speculation. To understand this little-known
period, the following factors have to be considered: the age
of formation at 4.6 billion years ago, the processes in operation until 3.9 billion
years ago, the
bombardment of the Earth by meteorites, and the earliest
zircon crystals…It is known from direct observation
that the surface of
the Moon is covered with a multitude of meteorite craters.
There are about 40 large basins attributable to meteorite
impact. Known as maria, these depressions were filled
in with basaltic lavas caused by the impact-induced melting
of the lunar mantle. Many of these basalts have been analyzed isotopically and found to have
crystallization ages of 3.9 to 4 billion years. It can be
safely concluded that the Earth, with a greater attractive
mass than the Moon, must have undergone more extensive meteorite
bombardment. According to the English-born geologist Joseph
V. Smith, a minimum of 500 to 1,000 impact basins were formed
on the Earth within a period of about 100 to 200 million years
prior to 3.95 billion years ago. Moreover, plausible calculations
suggest that this estimate represents merely the tail end
of an interval of declining meteorite bombardment and that
about 20 times as many basins were formed in the preceding
300 million years. Such intense bombardment would have covered
most of the Earth's surface, with the impacts causing considerable
destruction of the terrestrial crust up to 3.9 billion years
ago. There is, however, no direct evidence of this important
phase of Earth history because rocks older than 3.9 billion
years have not been preserved.” – Encyclopaedia
Britannica 2004 Deluxe Edition
The
quote above indicates that there was “extensive meteorite
bombardment” in the 100-200 million years prior to 3.95
billion years ago AND possible worse bombardment in the 300
million years before that. This 500 million years of meteorite
bombardment is also described in the quote below, which denotes
this period using scientific notation (10 raised to the eighth
power is 100,000,000 multiplied by 5 is 500,000,000 years).
The next series of quotes will further establish this period
of meteor bombardment by focusing on Mars and the earth’s
moon. Since at this point in the history of the solar system
there was still much debris, the bombardment of other nearby
celestial bodies, such as Mars and earth’s moon, are
understood to provide comparative insight into the earth’s
own bombardment by meteorites.
“Mars
[planet], Physical features of Mars, Craters and impact basins.
– Many meteoroids have struck Mars over its
history, producing impact craters. Impact
craters are rare on Earth for two reasons: (1) Those that
formed early in the planet's history have eroded away,
and (2) Earth developed a dense atmosphere, preventing meteorites
that could have formed craters from reaching the planet's
surface…Evolution
of Mars - Periods of evolution. Scientists know generally
how Mars evolved after it formed about 4.6 billion
years ago. Their knowledge comes from studies of craters
and other surface features...Researchers have ranked the relative
ages of surface regions according to the number of impact
craters observed. The greater the number of craters in a region,
the older the surface there...During the Noachian Period, a tremendous number of rocky objects of
all sizes, ranging from small meteoroids to large asteroids,
struck Mars. The impact of those objects created craters
of all sizes.” – Worldbook, Contributor: Steven
W. Squyres, Ph.D., Professor of Astronomy, Cornell University.
“Earth
[planet], History of Earth – After
the main period of planet formation, most of the remaining
debris in the solar system was swept up by the newly formed
planets. The collisions of the newly formed planets and debris material were
explosive. The impacts created the cratered surfaces of the
moon, Mars, Venus, and Mercury. Earth was also struck, but
the craters produced by the impacts have all been destroyed
by erosion and plate tectonics. Geologists believe that
large masses of continental crust had formed by 3.5 billion
years ago. There is evidence that plate tectonics has been
active for at least 2 billion years.” – Worldbook,
Contributor: Steven I. Dutch, Ph.D., Professor, Department
of Natural and Applied Sciences, University of Wisconsin,
Green Bay
The
quote below states that intense bombardment lasted for 600
million years after the moon’s formation, which is identified
as being 50 million years after earth’s formation.
“A
Heavy, Heavy Rain, Anyone who has looked at the
Moon through a telescope cannot help but be impressed
by its pockmarked appearance. Its
surface is covered with craters caused by the hammer-like
blows of impacting objects. Photographs from the orbiting
Apollo missions reveal that the far side of the Moon is even more heavily
cratered. The Moon is not unique: Spacecraft missions to Mars
and Mercury have shown that these planets are also heavily
cratered. Moreover, the craters on all three bodies are remarkably
similar with respect to their sizes and densities, suggesting
that all experienced the same heavy bombardment at some
point in their histories. Despite the relative absence of
impact craters on the
Earth, its proximity to these other planets leaves little
doubt that it too must have faced such a period of bombardment…By
counting the density of the craters in these regions, we can
assess the intensity of the bombardment and its age. These
types of data suggest that the lunar impact rate was most
intense during the first 600 million years of the Moon’s
history (Figure 4). Since the Moon was formed merely 50 million years
after the Earth’s formation (4.56 billion years ago),
this 600-million-year period also corresponds to the missing
era in the primordial Earth’s history.
The intensity of the bombardment during
this period is simply too large to be explained by planetesimals
from the inner solar system—most of these would have
been already incorporated into the planets themselves.”
– “An Argument for the Cometary Origin of the
Biosphere,” Armand H. Delsemme, American Scientist, Volume 89, 2004
This
places the end of the bombardment period at right around 3.85
billion years ago. (4.5 for the formation of the earth minus
50 million for the formation of the moon minus 600 million
for the end of “intense” bombardment equals 3.85
billion.) The quote below states that large cometary impacts
were not becoming rare until as late as 3.5 billion years
ago. However, it states that such impacts did occur and that
they had such consequences as to boil off oceans.
“The
Primeval Biosphere – About 3.5 billion years ago large
cometary impacts would have become increasingly rare, but
when they did occur, they produced enormous cataclysms. The
oceans would have boiled near the impact site, causing
hurricanes and gigantic waterspouts with fantastic ejections
of gas and water into space. Under these
chaotic and seemingly inhospitable conditions, a phenomenon
occurs that is going to have astonishing consequences: Bacteria
begin to multiply in the hot waters of the first oceans.”
– “An Argument for the Cometary Origin of the
Biosphere,” Armand H. Delsemme, American Scientist, Volume 89, 2004
The
ending of the “intense” bombardment is right around
the exact time that the earliest life is said must have been
present on earth. Yet, the “ocean-boiling” impacts
continue until right up until the oldest fossils, which likewise
date to approximately 3.5 billion years ago.
“Conclusion
– There is now considerable evidence to support the
idea that we owe the existence of our biosphere to a heavy
bombardment of comets in the very early history of our planet.
Indeed the delivery of water and prebiotic molecules explains why life emerged
so soon after the conditions ceased to be utterly hostile.
The oldest fossil imprints of bacteria date
to about 3.456 billion years ago (in Australian rocks),
and there is indirect
evidence that life was present 3.8 billion years ago in
the ancient sediments of Greenland (Figure 10).” –
“An Argument for the Cometary Origin of the Biosphere,”
Armand H. Delsemme, American
Scientist, Volume 89, 2004
Having
established the intensity, duration, and timeframe of cometary
impacts, which leads right up to and partially overlaps the
evolutionary timeframe for the origin of life, we can now
discuss the impact that such impacts would have had. The quotes
below describe the significant affect such impacts would have
on the possibility of life originating on earth at that time.
“Although
about 100 times as many asteroids as comets approach Earth,
comets pack a bigger
punch—they plunge toward the sun several times faster than asteroids. That means a comet could hit Earth with about 10 times
as much energy as an asteroid with the same mass…In 1994 Jupiter's gravity shredded comet
Shoemaker-Levy 9 into 21 visible chunks, which then plunged
into the gas giant piece after piece. A
typical piece detonated with the force of about 25,000 megatons
of TNT. A chain of blasts around Earth might wreak more havoc
than a single impact.” – “To Catch a
Comet,” by Robert Irion, DISCOVER, Vol. 24 No. 10, October
2003
“Chemical
Evidence – The separation of these layers dates
to the earliest period of the Earth’s formation, when
it was still accumulating mass by the accretion of planetesimals.
The energy of the accretionary
impacts was transformed into a heat so intense that Earth’s
surface was covered with a thick layer of molten lava, perhaps
to very great depths.” – “An Argument
for the Cometary Origin of the Biosphere,” Armand H.
Delsemme, American Scientist, Volume 89, 2004
“Meteorite
– Meteorites generally have a pitted surface and fused
charred crust. The larger ones strike the earth with tremendous
impact, creating huge craters…The meteorites that
formed craters as large as the ones in Vredefort, Sudbury,
and the Yucatán must have had a devastating effect on the
nearby environment, and they also probably affected global
weather patterns. The
force of collision would have spewed molten rock far around
the impact site. Dust and poisonous gases that were produced
by the crash when it vaporized minerals in the ground would
have darkened the sky over a huge area for months or even
years. Many scientists believe that the event that
caused the crater in the Yucatán Peninsula may have created
global climate changes that led to the extinction of the last
of the dinosaurs…Dust and gas circulating in the atmosphere
could cut off sunlight for months, killing crops and reducing
the food supply for the entire world. Fortunately, astronomers
calculate the average frequency of major collisions at only
about one collision every 300,000 years. ” – "Meteorite,"
Microsoft® Encarta® Encyclopedia 99. © 1993-1998 Microsoft
Corporation. All rights reserved.
“Advanced
forms of life existed on earth at least 3.55 billion years ago. In rocks
of that age, fossilized imprints have been found of bacteria
that look uncannily like cyanobacteria, the most highly evolved
photosynthetic organisms present in the world today…On the other hand, it is believed that our young planet, still in the
throes of volcanic eruptions and battered by falling comets
and asteroids, remained inhospitable to life for about half
a billion years after its birth, together with the rest of
the solar system, some 4.55 billion years ago. This leaves
a window of perhaps 200-300 million years for the appearance
of life on earth.” – “The Beginnings
of Life on Earth,” Christian de Duve, American
Scientist, September-October 1995
“Astronomers
and geologists were discovering that Earth had a violent infancy--hundreds
of millions of years after the planet had formed, giant asteroids
and comets still crashed into it, burning off its young atmosphere
and boiling away its oceans. In the process, they also destroyed
all the chemicals that researchers assumed were in liberal
supply on the early Earth, including the building blocks
of lipids.” – “First Cell,” by Carl
Zimmer, DISCOVER, Vol. 16 No. 11, November 1995, Biology &
Medicine
“The
Primeval Biosphere – A picture of the young Earth near
the end of the bombardment period would show a cloudy
atmosphere, dozens of times thicker than our own (Figure 11).
Such an atmosphere would protect the ground and prevent it
from cooling rapidly in an era when the young Sun was about
30 percent less bright than it is now. Even
so, most of the cometary water would have turned into steam.
As the ground temperature fell below the boiling point
(403 kelvins at a pressure of 30 atmospheres), the steam would
have condensed to form a hot ocean.” – “An Argument for the Cometary
Origin of the Biosphere,” Armand H. Delsemme, American Scientist, Volume 89, 2004
(It
should be noted that in the quotes below the term “volatiles”
refers to water and organic matter.)
“A
World Without Water, Figure 3. A curve (left) showing
the decrease in temperature with increasing distance from
the protosun can then be derived from a knowledge of where
the chondrites were formed in the accretionary disk. Such
a curve shows that the dust in the zone of the accretionary
disk where the Earth was formed reached temperatures between
900 and 1,400 kelvins—and so was completely devoid of
volatile materials, such as water and organic molecules.”
– An Argument for the Cometary Origin of the Biosphere,
Armand H. Delsemme, American Scientists, Volume 89, 2004
The
next 3 quotes below also denote that there may have been one
impact involving a “Mars-sized body crashing obliquely
into the primitive earth” and so large that it is responsible
for the creation of the moon. In addition, the last 2 quotes
assert that the formation of the moon destroyed any oceans
and any organic material that may have been present on the
earth at that time.
“Cosmos,
Components of the universe, Planetary systems, Origin of the
solar system – A
long duration for the formation of the terrestrial planets
(supported by crater counts that indicate a
prolonged period of bombardment extending over some 5 × 108
years) suggests that Jupiter may have finished forming
before the terrestrial planets did...The giant planets may
also have sent fairly large bodies careening through the early
solar system. In one version of the event, by the American
astrophysicist Alastair G.W. Cameron and coworkers, a Mars-sized body crashed obliquely into the primitive Earth. The molten
core of the intruder sank to the centre of the molten proto-Earth,
but mantle material from both bodies went into orbit and eventually
reaccreted into the Moon. The formation of the Moon from
rocky substances would then explain why the lunar landings
found the Moon to be much poorer in iron than the Earth...Giant
impacts would also add a chaotic element to the acquisition
of planetary spins.” – Encyclopaedia Britannica
2004 Deluxe Edition
“A
World Without Water, Figure 2. Evolutionary highlights
of the Earth’s biosphere can be described by a few crucial
events in its 4.6 billion-year history. The process begins
with the settling of dust in the accretionary disk of the
protosolar system (a). The dust accretes into ever larger
pieces, eventually forming a hot, but dry, rock—the
protoearth—after 40 million years (b). When
the system is merely 50 million years old, a grazing collision
between the protoearth and a Mars-sized body results in the
Moon’s formation and the loss of all volatiles and water brought by an early cometary
bombardment (c). The heavy bombardment continues for at least
the next 600 million years, with comets bringing water, atmospheric
gases and prebiotic organic molecules to our planet (d).”
– “An Argument for the Cometary Origin of the
Biosphere,” Armand H. Delsemme, American
Scientist, Volume 89, 2004
“A
World Without Water, Could such objects have brought the
Earth its water? The composition of the upper mantle can help
us answer this question. In 1983, Heinrich Wänke, of the Max Planck
Institut für Chemie in Mainz, and his colleagues analyzed
the composition of the mantle based on the material spewed
up in a volcanic eruption. They found that volcanic ejecta
are typically enriched in heat-resistant elements by a factor
of 1.3, but depleted of moderately volatile elements by factors of 0.1 to 0.2, and
depleted of very volatile elements by factors of 0.01 to 0.0001!
This is effectively the opposite of what one would expect
if a large, carbonaceous chondritic asteroid had hit the protoearth
gently enough not to produce any ejecta. Such
a depletion of volatiles can only be explained by the intense
heating produced by the collision that formed the Moon…All
of these studies suggest that the oceans and the atmosphere
must have come after the primordial Earth had acquired most
of its mass.” – “An Argument for the
Cometary Origin of the Biosphere,” Armand H. Delsemme,
American Scientist,
Volume 89, 2004
The
quote above states that the impact, which caused the formation
of the moon, would have resulted in the loss of all organic
molecules present on earth at that time.
Concerning
this fact, the first quote below indicates that this impact
must have caused enough heat that “the earth melted
throughout,” which is necessary in order to explain
the lack of any crater from the impact. The second quote below
states that the celestial body that struck the earth was about
the size of Mars. However, the first quote below more accurately
states that a “Mars-sized” body was an early estimate
and that computer models now show the object must have been
2.5 to 3 times the size of Mars. For the record, Earth at
its equator is 7,926 miles (12,756 km) in diameter. At its
equator, Mars is 4,222 miles (6,794 km) in diameter. This
would mean the moon was formed by a collision of the earth
with an object almost the size of earth itself (10,555 to
12,666 miles in diameter).
"Moon,
IV ORIGIN OF THE MOON – Before the modern age of
space exploration, scientists had three major theories for
the origin of the moon: fission from the earth; formation
in earth orbit; and formation far from earth. Then, in 1975,
having studied moon rocks and close-up pictures of the moon,
scientists proposed what has come to be regarded as the most
probable of the theories of formation, planetesimal impact...D
Planetesimal Impact – First published in 1975, this
theory proposes that early
in the earth's history, well over 4 billion years ago, the
earth was struck by a large body called a planetesimal.
Early estimates
for the size of the planetesimal were comparable to the size of Mars, but a computer
simulation by American scientists in 1997 showed that the
body would have had to have been at least two-and-a-half to
three times the size of Mars. The catastrophic impact
blasted portions of the earth and the planetesimal into earth
orbit, where debris from the impact eventually coalesced to
form the moon. This theory, after years of research on
moon rocks in the 1970s and 1980s, has become the
most widely accepted one for the moon's origin. The major
problem with the theory is that it would seem to require that the earth
melted throughout after the impact. This
seems to be the only way that the huge crater caused by the
crash could have been erased, but the earth's geochemistry
does not indicate such a radical melting." – "Moon,"
Microsoft® Encarta® Encyclopedia 99. © 1993-1998 Microsoft
Corporation. All rights reserved.
The
quote above and the quote below assign the time of this impact
to over 4 billion years ago. (“50 million years after
the Earth’s formation” according to “An
Argument for the Cometary Origin of the Biosphere,”
by Armand H. Delsemme, American Scientists, Volume 89, 2004.)
This would put the moon’s formation at somewhere around
4.4-4.5 billion years ago. With the size of that impact along
with its repercussions at that time combined with the 600
million years of intense bombardment that followed and with
the need for the earliest life forms to arise at 3.8 billion
years ago contribute strongly to the statements (which we
will see later on) about the early history of the earth being
too violent and the window for life being too small on earth.
This, in turn, leads to the idea that life originated elsewhere
where it had more time and a more favorable environment and
then traveled to earth.
“Moon,
Origin and evolution – With the rise of scientific
inquiry in the Renaissance, investigators
began to try to fit theories on the origin of the Moon to
available data, and the question of the Moon's origin
became a part of the attempt to explain the observed properties
of the solar system...Throughout the 17th, 18th, and19th centuries, different theories on
lunar origin were examined in an attempt to find one that
would agree with the observations. They can be divided
into three main categories: coaccretion, fission, and capture...Although
the question remained unresolved even after the Apollo missions,
the amount of information about the Moon was vastly increased
by the Apollo samples and other observations. Finally,
in the early 1980s, a model emerged that now has the support
of most lunar scientists—namely, the giant-impact hypothesis.
In this scenario, set more than four billion years ago, the
early Earth is struck a glancing blow by a body the size of
Mars. Prior to the impact, both bodies have undergone
thermal evolution so that they are differentiated. As a result
of the titanic collision, a cloud of fragments is ejected
and aggregates into a full or partial ring around the Earth
and then coalesces into a proto-Moon.” –
Encyclopaedia Britannica 2004 Deluxe Edition
Having
established the evolutionary description of the early history
of the solar system and the obstacles that history poses to
the formation of life on earth, the stage is set to discuss
the evolutionary view for the origin of life on earth, starting
with the timeframe for this event.
According
to evolutionary theory, the earliest fossilized life forms
date to around 3.4 or 3.5 billion years ago.
“Evolution,
I INTRODUCTION – The
earliest known fossil organisms are single-celled forms resembling
modern bacteria; they date
from about 3.4 billion years ago.” – "Evolution,"
Microsoft® Encarta® Encyclopedia 99. © 1993-1998 Microsoft
Corporation. All rights reserved.
However,
the earliest life forms in the fossil record are themselves
still “highly evolved” and “complicated.”
“Life,
The origin of life, The antiquity of life – Among the oldest known fossils are those found in the Fig Tree chert
from the Transvaal, dated
at 3,100,000,000 years old…Even procaryotes, however,
are exceedingly complicated organisms and
very highly evolved.” – Encyclopaedia Britannica
2004 Deluxe Edition
“The
fossil record and modern genetic analysis suggest that humans
and all other living species are descended from bacteria-like
microbes that first appeared about 4 billion years ago. But bacteria, appearances notwithstanding,
are very complex. They can be packed with thousands of genes, along with proteins and other molecules,
working together in an intricate struggle to stay alive.”
– “What Came Before DNA?,” by Carl Zimmer,
DISCOVER Vol. 25 No. 06, June 2004, Biology & Medicine
As
a side note, the term “prokaryotes” in the first
quote above refers to bacteria and blue green algae.
“Blue-green
algae – also called Cyanobacteria, any of a large,
heterogeneous group of prokaryotic,
principally photosynthetic organisms…the
prokaryotic nature of the blue-green algae has caused them
to be classified with bacteria in the prokaryotic kingdom
Monera. Like all other prokaryotes, cyanobacteria lack a membrane-bound nucleus,
mitochondria, Golgi apparatus, chloroplasts, and endoplasmic
reticulum. All of the functions carried out in eukaryotes
by these membrane-bound organelles are carried out in prokaryotes
by various parts of the cell, such as the cell membrane.”
– Encyclopaedia Britannica 2004 Deluxe Edition
“Bacteria
– singular bacterium
any of a group of microscopic organisms that are prokaryotic,
i.e., that lack a membrane-bound nucleus and organelles.
They are unicellular (one-celled) and may have spherical (coccus),
rodlike (bacillus), or curved (vibrio, spirillum, or spirochete)
bodies.” – Encyclopaedia Britannica 2004 Deluxe
Edition
Because
the first fossilized life forms are themselves “highly
evolved,” evolutionists believe that there must have
been even more primitive life forms from which these earliest
fossils evolved.
“Evolutionary
biologists have traced our family tree to bacteria, one-celled organisms that have been found in rock formations 3.5 billion years old. But even these primitive
creatures were already quite sophisticated. They had genes of DNA and RNA and were made
of protein, lipids, and other ingredients. Something simpler must have preceded them.” – “How
Did Life Start?,” by Peter Radetsky, DISCOVER, Vol.
13 No. 11, November 1992, Biology & Medicine
Consequently,
since the oldest fossilized life forms are stated to be 3.4-3.5
billion years old and those life forms themselves are too
complex to have been the first form of life, evolutionists
state that the very earliest, most primitive cells came into
existence even earlier beforehand, about 3.8 billion years
ago.
“Evolution
– all plants and animals are derived from bacteria-like microorganisms that originated more than 3,000,000,000
years ago.” – Encyclopaedia Britannica 2004
Deluxe Edition
“Evolution,
Main ideas of evolutionary theory – Current evolutionary
theory holds that all species evolved from a
single form of life which lived more than 3 1/2 billion years
ago.” – Worldbook Encyclopedia, Contributor:
Alan R. Templeton, Ph.D., Rebstock Professor of Biology, Washington
University.
Britannica
cites the existence of oxygen-producing life forms at 3.8
billion years ago, further citing the existence of iron formations
whose chemical composition contains oxygen.
“Exobiology,
V PROSPECTS FOR DISCOVERY – Scientists
now believe that life on Earth dates back to at least 3.85
billion years before present, so living organisms have
populated Earth for more than 80 percent of its history.”
– "Exobiology," Microsoft® Encarta® Encyclopedia
99. © 1993-1998 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
“Earth,
geologic history of, Development of the atmosphere and oceans,
Formation of the secondary atmosphere – The
earliest primitive organisms produced free oxygen as a by-product,
and in the absence of oxygen-mediating enzymes it was
harmful to their living cells and had to be removed. Fortunately
for the development of life on the early Earth there was extensive
volcanic activity, which resulted in the deposition of much
lava, the erosion of which released enormous quantities of
iron into the oceans. This ferrous iron is water-soluble and
therefore could be easily transported, but it had to be converted
to ferric iron, which is highly insoluble, before it could
be precipitated as iron formations. In short, the organisms produced the oxygen
and the iron formations accepted it. Iron formations can be
found in the earliest sediments (those deposited 3.8 billion
years ago) at Isua in West Greenland, and
thus this process must have been operative by this time.”
– Encyclopaedia Britannica 2004 Deluxe Edition
Worldbook
similarly refers to the presence of “chemicals created
by living things in rocks” dating from 3.8 billion years
ago, necessitating the existence of life forms by that point
in time.
“Earth
[planet], History of Earth, Life on Earth – Fossils
help scientists learn which kinds of plants and animals lived
at different times in Earth's history. Scientists who study
prehistoric life are called paleontologists. Many scientists believe that life appeared
on Earth almost as soon as conditions allowed. There is
evidence for chemicals
created by living things in rocks from the Archean age, 3.8
billion years old. Fossil remains of microscopic living things
about 3.5 billion years old have also been found at sites
in Australia and Canada.” – Worldbook, Contributor:
Steven I. Dutch, Ph.D., Professor, Department of Natural and
Applied Sciences, University of Wisconsin, Green Bay.
And
these conclusions, that the oldest life forms must predate
the fossil record by about 300 million years, placing the
origin of life around 3.8 billion years ago is also asserted
in the following 2 quotes from American
Scientist and Discover magazines.
“Conclusion
– There is now considerable evidence to support
the idea that we owe the existence of our biosphere to a heavy
bombardment of comets in the very early history of our planet.
Indeed the delivery of water and prebiotic molecules explains why life emerged
so soon after the conditions ceased to be utterly hostile.
The oldest fossil imprints of bacteria date
to about 3.456 billion years ago (in Australian rocks),
and there is indirect
evidence that life was present 3.8 billion years ago in
the ancient sediments of Greenland (Figure 10).” –
“An Argument for the Cometary Origin of the Biosphere,”
Armand H. Delsemme, American
Scientist, Volume 89, 2004
“‘Bugs
are very clever,’ Kasthuri Venkateswaran says with
affection. ‘They
started out on Earth 3.8 billion years ago, when nothing else
was here!’…Venkateswaran quietly examines
the machinery itself, searching for any clever microbes—‘bugs,’ he
calls them—that might try to tag along.” –
“Seeding the Universe,” by Alan Burdick, DISCOVER,
Vol. 25 No. 10, October 2004, Astronomy & Physics
This
places the timeframe for the origin of life just as occurring
within the first 100 million years after the end of meteorite
bombardment of the earth at 3.9 billion years ago. This is
why the previous quote from Worldbook expresses that “life
appeared on Earth almost as soon as conditions allowed.”
“Earth
[planet], History of Earth, Life on Earth – Many scientists
believe that life appeared on Earth almost as soon as conditions
allowed.” – Worldbook, Contributor: Steven
I. Dutch, Ph.D., Professor, Department of Natural and Applied
Sciences, University of Wisconsin, Green Bay.
And
the Britannica quote from earlier reached a similar conclusion,
placing the origin of life even earlier and stating that life
must have arisen within just “a few hundred million
years” after the Earth’s formation 4.5 billion
years ago.
“Life,
The origin of life, The antiquity of life – Among the oldest known fossils are those found in the Fig Tree chert
from the Transvaal, dated
at 3,100,000,000 years old…Even procaryotes, however,
are exceedingly complicated organisms and
very highly evolved. Since
the Earth is about 4,500,000,000 years old, this suggests
that the origin of life must have occurred within a few hundred
million years of that time.” – Encyclopaedia
Britannica 2004 Deluxe Edition
Thus,
evolutionary science places the origin of life on earth, if
it did occur on earth, somewhere either at the beginning,
middle, or tail end of intense, cataclysmic meteorite bombardment
of the earth that would have destroyed earth’s supply
of pre-organic materials.
Furthermore,
this 100 million year timeframe, while seemingly long in terms
of human life spans, is regarded as a relatively short time
in geological terms. This is why evolutionists refer to the
origin of life as occurring “quickly” or “easily”
or “as soon as conditions permitted.” This perception
of the “quickness” or “ease” with
which life originated on earth leads to the estimation of
“high probability,” “normalcy,” and
even “chemical necessity” for life to occur universally
(throughout the universe), wherever and whenever “conditions
allow.”
“Life,
Likelihood of life – Because
of the apparent rapidity of the origin of life on Earth, as
implied by the fossil record, and
because of the ease with which relevant organic molecules
are produced in primitive-Earth simulation experiments, the
likelihood of the origin of life over a period of billions of years seems high…”
– Encyclopaedia Britannica 2004 Deluxe Edition
“Earth
[planet], History of Earth, Life on Earth – Many scientists
believe that life appeared on Earth almost as soon as conditions
allowed.” – Worldbook, Contributor: Steven
I. Dutch, Ph.D., Professor, Department of Natural and Applied
Sciences, University of Wisconsin, Green Bay.
“Conclusion
– There is now considerable evidence to support
the idea that we owe the existence of our biosphere to a heavy
bombardment of comets in the very early history of our planet.
Indeed the delivery of water and prebiotic molecules explains why life emerged
so soon after the conditions ceased to be utterly hostile.
The oldest fossil imprints of bacteria date to about 3.456
billion years ago (in Australian rocks), and there is indirect
evidence that life was present 3.8 billion years ago in the
ancient sediments of Greenland (Figure 10).” –
“An Argument for the Cometary Origin of the Biosphere,”
Armand H. Delsemme, American
Scientist, Volume 89, 2004
Consequently,
as we can see from the quotes above, supporting the theory
that automatic, routine processes produced the origin of life
requires identifying exactly what processes those were. Identifying
those processes involves identifying the environment in which
they were occurring. And identifying such an environment on
the early earth brings the additional improbabilities of avoiding
the life-destroying meteor and cometary impacts and yet arriving
early enough to have enough time to evolve into the highly
complex organisms that populate the earliest parts of the
fossil record. As we can see from these quotes above, this
narrow window of opportunity brings additional difficulty
and improbability. And while the question of exactly when
such an environment existed on earth remains incomplete in
evolutionary theory, additional problems arise at each attempt
to even model a hypothetical environment that is favorable
to life, whenever it might have occurred. This will be the
subject of our next portion.
As
indicated earlier, formulating a working theory for the origin
of life by automatic, routine processes includes the need
to identify an energy source capable of fueling the origin
of life. In the following quote describing one series of attempts
to replicate even a portion of the steps leading to the formation
of life, Discover
magazine affirms that identifying the energy supply is essential
to the formulation of a complete evolutionary theory.
“Even
if they succeed, many questions will remain before
anyone will be able to build a functioning cell. How does
it manage growth and division--a process that demands
mind-boggling choreography even in a microbe? How
exactly is this dance powered with energy?” –
By Carl Zimmer, DISCOVER Vol. 16 No. 11, November 1995, Biology
& Medicine
In
fact, Microsoft Encarta and Britannica Encyclopedia are even
more explicit, stating that energy is necessary not only to
fuel any chemical reactions involved in the origin of life
by hypothetical automatic, routine processes but also to prevent
pre-biotic elements from breaking down through existing, normal
thermodynamic processes.
“Life
– One of the central questions about life is how it
originated. The generally accepted theory is that early
in the history of the earth some system of replication powered
by external sources of energy must have been formed. –
"Life," Microsoft® Encarta® Encyclopedia 99. © 1993-1998
Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
“Life,
Life on earth, Metabolism – The
chemical bonds that make up living organisms have a certain
probability of spontaneous breakage. Accordingly, mechanisms
must exist to repair this damage, or to replace the broken
molecules. In addition, the meticulous control that cells
exercise over their internal activities requires the continued
synthesis of new molecules. These processes of synthesis and
breakdown of the organic molecules of the cell are collectively
termed metabolism, and for
synthesis to keep ahead of the thermodynamic tendencies toward
breakdown, energy must be supplied to the living system.”
– Encyclopaedia Britannica 2004 Deluxe Edition
Consequently,
given the need to identify the energy sources required for
the origin of life, it is no surprise that the various suggestions
for the evolutionary origin of life center around potential
energy sources. Several options have been suggested and utilized
in experiments as the potential source of energy for the origination
of life, including lightning, ultraviolet light, or heat.
“Some
4 billion years ago, lightning (or another energy source, like ultraviolet light or heat)
stimulated a hydrogen-rich atmosphere to produce organic compounds,
which then rained down into the primitive ocean or other suitable
bodies of water such as lakes, rivers, or even a warm little
pond, as Charles Darwin once suggested.” – How
Did Life Start?, by Peter Radetsky, DISCOVER, Vol. 13 No.
11, November 1992, Biology & Medicine
As
we consider the possibility any of these candidates, 5 questions
must be kept in mind. First, did that source of energy occur
in sufficient amounts to facilitate the origin of life? Second,
were the pre-biotic chemical compounds located in a place
where they would have had access to that energy? Third, have
experiments utilizing a particular source actually produced
life or merely, non-living compounds? Fourth, concerning the
“safety” issue, does the environment in which
this energy source is available also contain damaging elements
that prevent the origin of life? And fifth, is that source
of energy regarded as adequate by evolutionary scientists
themselves?
With
regard to lightning, although early experiments, most notably
the Miller and Urey experiment replicated this potential energy
source, more recent scientists and experiments including those
of Carl Sagan have discarded lightning in favor of other sources
of energy on the grounds that lightning would not have been
sufficiently available.
“Britannica,
Life, The origin of life, Production of simple organic molecules
– The first deliberate experimental simulation of these
primitive conditions was carried out in
1953 by a U.S. graduate student, S.L. Miller, under the guidance
of the eminent chemist H.C. Urey. A mixture of methane,
ammonia, water vapour, and hydrogen was circulated through
a liquid water solution and continuously
sparked by a corona discharge elsewhere in the apparatus.
The discharge may be thought to represent
lightning flashes on the early Earth. After several days
of exposure to sparking, the solution changed colour. Subsequent
analysis indicated that several amino and hydroxy acids, intimately
involved in contemporary life, had been produced by this simple
procedure…Subsequent experiments have substituted ultraviolet light or heat as
the energy source or have altered the initial abundances
of gases. In all such experiments amino acids have been formed
in large yield. On the early Earth there was much more energy
available in ultraviolet light than in lightning discharges...Following
such reasoning, a U.S. astrophysicist, Carl Sagan, and his
colleagues made amino acids by long wavelength ultraviolet
irradiation of a mixture of methane, ammonia, water, and
H2S.” – Encyclopaedia Britannica 2004 Deluxe Edition
Furthermore,
as stated earlier, Miller and Urey’s experiment is also
now believed to have involved inaccurate simulations of the
early earth’s atmosphere.
“The
first hints that this might be so came from the laboratory,
before evidence for it was found in space, through the historic experiments of Stanley Miller,
now recalled in science textbooks…Although the primitive atmosphere is no longer believed to be as rich
in hydrogen as once thought by Urey…” –
“The Beginnings of Life on Earth,” Christian de
Duve, American Scientist, September-October 1995
“For
example, what if the
primordial atmosphere wasn’t anything like the one Miller
and Urey imagined? Would it be so easy to produce organics
then? The Miller-Urey experiment was a strong foundation
because it was consistent with theories at the time, says geochemist Everett
Shock of Washington University in St. Louis. The problem is that subsequent research has swept away a lot of those
ideas. The Miller-Urey atmosphere contained a lot of hydrogen.
But now the atmosphere of the early Earth
is thought to have been more oxidized. That makes Miller’s scenario less probable, because it’s a lot harder to make organic
molecules in the presence of oxygen. A hydrogen-rich atmosphere
is relatively unstable. When
zapped by lightning or other sources of energy, molecules
in that environment readily tumble together into organic compounds.
Not so in a heavily oxidized atmosphere. While
an infusion of energy may cause a few simple organics to form,
for the most part the results are inorganic gases like carbon
monoxide and nitrogen oxide. These are the constituents
of smog, says Shock. So basically
what you’re getting is a lot of air pollution.”
– “How Did Life Start?,” by Peter Radetsky,
DISCOVER, Vol. 13 No. 11, November 1992, Biology & Medicine
And,
concerning the results of his own lightning simulating experiments,
Stanley Miller regards the resulting chemicals that were produced
as a far cry from even the basic molecules needed for the
production of life.
“Perhaps
the most influential first surfaced four decades ago, when
in a dramatic experiment a University of Chicago graduate student named Stanley Miller simulated
the creation of life in a laboratory…And the simple experiment (It’s so easy to do--high school
students now use it to win their science fairs, Miller says)
stimulated a rush of studies, with the result
that a number of other organic compounds, including adenine
and guanine, two of the ingredients of RNA and DNA, were produced
by similar procedures…Thus
emerged the picture that has dominated origin-of-life scenarios.
Some 4 billion years ago, lightning
(or another energy source, like ultraviolet light or heat)
stimulated a hydrogen-rich atmosphere to produce organic compounds,
which then rained down into the primitive ocean or other
suitable bodies of water such as lakes, rivers, or even a
warm little pond, as Charles Darwin once suggested. Once there, these simple compounds, or monomers, combined with one another
to produce more complicated organics, or polymers, which gradually
grew even more complex until they coalesced into the beginnings
of self-replicating RNA. With that came the RNA world
and ultimately the evolution into cells and
the early bacterial ancestors of life. The picture is
powerful and appealing, but not
all origin-of-life researchers are convinced. Even Miller
throws up his hands at certain aspects of it. The
first step, making the monomers, that’s easy. We
understand it pretty well. But then you have to make the first self-replicating
polymers. That’s very easy, he says, the sarcasm fairly
dripping. Just like it’s easy to make money in the
stock market--all you have to do is buy low and sell high.
He laughs. Nobody knows how it’s done. Some would say the statement applies as
well to the first easy step, the creation of simple organic
compounds.” – “How Did Life Start?,”
by Peter Radetsky, DISCOVER, Vol. 13 No. 11, November 1992,
Biology & Medicine
So,
concerning our 4 questions, lightning fails to qualify as
a working energy source for the origin of life. Evolutionary
scientists do not consider lightning to have occurred in sufficient
supply, the chemical byproducts resulting from lightning simulations
are too far removed from the basic chemical elements necessary
for life, and as such, lightning is no longer regarded by
evolutionary scientists. Consequently,
other energy sources have been the subject of much more speculation
in evolutionary theorization, particularly heat and ultraviolet
light.
We
now turn our attention to the models centering on ultraviolet
light as a potential energy source for the origin of life.
Evolutionists suggest that the early earth (even prior to
600 million years ago as the next quote states) did not have
much oxygen in its atmosphere. Due to the absence of oxygen,
ultraviolet light would have reached the surface of the earth
in large amounts, providing a great deal of energy.
“Life, The origin of life, The antiquity
of life – The fossil record, in any complete sense,
goes back only about 600,000,000 years.
In the layers of sedimentary rock known by geological methods
and by radioactive dating to be that old, most of the major
groups of invertebrates appear for the first time. All these
organisms appear adapted to life in the water, and there is
no sign yet of organisms adapted to the land. For this reason,
and because of a rough similarity between the salt contents
of blood and of seawater, it is believed that early forms
of life developed in oceans or pools. With
no evidence for widespread oxygen-producing photosynthesis
before this time, and for cosmic abundance reasons described
above, the oxygen content of the Earth's atmosphere
in Precambrian times was very likely less than today. Accordingly,
in Precambrian times, solar ultraviolet radiation, especially
near the wavelength of 2,600 Å, which is particularly destructive
to nucleic acids, may have penetrated to the surface of the
Earth, rather than being totally absorbed in the upper atmosphere
by ozone as it is today. In the absence of ozone, the ultraviolet
solar flux is so high that a lethal dose for most organisms
would be delivered in less than an hour. Unless
extraordinary defense mechanisms existed in Precambrian times,
life near the Earth's surface would have been impossible.
Sagan suggested that life at this time was generally restricted
to some tens of metres and deeper in the oceans, at which
depths all the ultraviolet light would have been absorbed,
although visible light would still filter through…It
has been suggested that the colonization of the land, about
425,000,000 years ago, was possible only because enough ozone
was then produced to shield the surface from ultraviolet light
for the first time.” – Encyclopaedia
Britannica 2004 Deluxe Edition
The
first obstacle facing the ultraviolet light source suggestion
pertains to the question of sufficiency of its quantity. As
indicated by the quote above, it is the hypothetical lower
oxygen content of the atmosphere and the resulting hypothetical
absence of ozone that allow the sufficient quantity of ultraviolet
light necessary to fuel the origin of life. On this point,
the quote above states simply that there is “no evidence
for widespread oxygen-producing photosynthesis before this
time.” The designation “this time” refers
to “6,000,000 years ago” as stated at the start
of the quote. The problem is that there is evidence not only
of abundant oxygen in the earth’s atmosphere before
that time, but also of photosynthesizing organisms that “produced
free oxygen as a by-product,” which is the point specifically
denied in the quote. In fact, this evidence is cited by Britannica
itself in its article on the geologic history of the earth.
“Earth,
geologic history of, Development of the atmosphere and oceans,
Formation of the secondary atmosphere – The
earliest primitive organisms produced free oxygen as a by-product,
and in the absence of oxygen-mediating enzymes it was
harmful to their living cells and had to be removed. Fortunately
for the development of life on the early Earth there was extensive
volcanic activity, which resulted in the deposition of much
lava, the erosion of which released enormous quantities of
iron into the oceans. This ferrous iron is water-soluble and
therefore could be easily transported, but it had to be converted
to ferric iron, which is highly insoluble, before it could
be precipitated as iron formations. In short, the organisms produced the oxygen
and the iron formations accepted it. Iron formations can be
found in the earliest sediments (those deposited 3.8 billion
years ago) at Isua in West Greenland, and
thus this process must have been operative by this time.”
– Encyclopaedia Britannica 2004 Deluxe Edition
As
we can see from the quote, not only are 3.8 billion-year-old
rocks rich in oxygen, which would indicate the presence of
an oxygen-rich atmosphere, but Britannica attributes the presence
of such quantities of oxygen to none other than primitive
organisms that “produced free oxygen as a by-product”
of metabolism. Consequently, there is evidence “for widespread oxygen-producing photosynthesis before
this time,” which would in turn cause “the oxygen content of the Earth's atmosphere
in Precambrian times” to be relatively high and, therefore,
comprised partially of ozone, which would prevent a sufficient
amount of ultraviolet light from reach earth’s surface
or oceans to fuel an evolutionary origin of life.
The
second obstacle facing the ultraviolet light source suggestion
pertains to the question of whether or not the pre-biotic
chemical compounds located in a place where they would have
had access to that energy. It also pertains to the issue of
safety. As stated in the quote above, ultraviolet light also
would be “lethal” to “most organisms”
within “less than an hour” and would even destroy
cyanobacteria present in the water. Consequently, the last
portion of the quote above demonstrates why the origination
of life on the land or surface of the ocean simply was not
possible due to the destructively prohibitive presence of
ultraviolet light. This is attested to by the quotes below
as well.
“Bacteria,
VII BACTERIA IN OUR DAILY LIVES – During photosynthesis,
cyanobacteria also release oxygen, which dissolves in the
water. A great variety of aquatic organisms rely entirely
on this oxygen for their survival. Many
scientists are concerned that breakdown of the ozone layer
may damage cyanobacteria and other phytoplankton, threatening
the survival of the organisms that depend on them for food
and oxygen.” – "Bacteria," Microsoft®
Encarta® Encyclopedia 99. © 1993-1998 Microsoft Corporation.
All rights reserved.
“Life,
Extraterrestrial life, The chemistry of
extraterrestrial life – Life on Earth is structurally
based on carbon and utilizes water as an interaction medium…The
planet, therefore, should have an atmosphere and some near-surface
liquid, although not necessarily an ocean. If
the intensity of ultraviolet light or charged particles from
the sun is intense at the planetary surface, there must be
some place, perhaps below the surface, that is shielded from
this radiation but that nevertheless permits useful chemical
reactions to occur…Organisms that live slightly subsurface, however, may avoid ultraviolet
and charged particle radiation and at the same time acquire
sufficient amounts of visible light for photosynthesis.”
– Encyclopaedia Britannica 2004
Deluxe Edition
“Life,
Extraterrestrial life, Molecular factors
– But life does
require an interaction medium, an atmosphere, and some
protection from ultraviolet light and from charged particles
of solar origin.” –
Encyclopaedia Britannica 2004 Deluxe Edition
“On
July 20, 1976, the Viking 1 spacecraft had touched down on Mars, and the Friedmanns,
along with millions of other Americans, had listened to Cronkite
describe the historic landing…But mission
biologists eventually concluded that the soil on Mars was
sterile: no life, they said, could survive the combination
of ultraviolet solar radiation, extreme dryness, and lethally
oxidizing compounds found on the planet’s surface.”
– Looking for Life in All the Wrong Places, by Will
Hively, DISCOVER, Vol. 18 No. 05, May 1997, Astronomy &
Physics
“Even
if frozen, Friedmann says, microorganisms cannot survive forever. Radiation--either
from radioactivity in rock or from cosmic rays falling from
the sky--will damage bacterial DNA and over millions of years will almost certainly kill a microbe.”
– Looking for Life in All the Wrong Places, by Will
Hively, DISCOVER, Vol. 18 No. 05, May 1997, Astronomy &
Physics
As
the last quote states, millions of years without protection
by ozone from ultraviolet radiation would destroy primitive
life forms. This “millions of years” timeframe
will become significant later as we discover that the amount
of time scientists believe was available for life to originate
on earth was only millions of years and at a time without
oxygen in the atmosphere.
Furthermore,
the quote below indicates that even with the protective ozone
present in the earth today, strong sunlight kills microorganisms
in the desert.
“Porous
rock, Friedmann soon realized, is a better habitat
for a microbe than parched desert soil. A rock can store
water in its pores, and because it is often
translucent, it can admit sunlight, allowing photosynthesis,
yet filtering the extremes of strong light that kill microorganisms
in the desert.” – Looking for Life in All
the Wrong Places, by Will Hively, DISCOVER, Vol. 18 No. 05,
May 1997, Astronomy & Physics
Consequently,
the quote above also notes that water acts as a buffer zone
allowing sunlight in for photosynthesis but keeping out the
lethal extremes of sunlight that are even present with ozone
protection.
This
prohibitive destruction of life and pre-biotic compounds by
ultraviolet light is why even the tail end of Britannica’s
section on “Life” relocates the origin of life
to depths of at least tens of meters below the ocean surface
in order to identify a safe environment where the origin of
life is theoretically feasible. As Britannica notes, this
suggestion was made by Carl Sagan, the very scientist who
performed the experiments utilizing ultraviolet light as an
energy source for the origin of life.
“Life, The origin of life, The antiquity
of life – In
the absence of ozone, the ultraviolet solar flux is so high
that a lethal dose for most organisms would be delivered in
less than an hour. Unless extraordinary defense mechanisms
existed in Precambrian times, life near the Earth's surface would have been impossible. Sagan suggested
that life at this time was generally restricted to some tens
of metres and deeper in the oceans, at which depths all the
ultraviolet light would have been absorbed, although visible
light would still filter through…It
has been suggested that the colonization of the land, about
425,000,000 years ago, was possible only because enough ozone
was then produced to shield the surface from ultraviolet light
for the first time.” – Encyclopaedia
Britannica 2004 Deluxe Edition
However,
relocating the origin of life fueled by ultraviolet light
to a watery setting raised additional obstacles, particularly
concerning the “safe” or feasible environment
needed for the origination of life to occur. Water is even
more counteractive to the assembly of pre-biotic compounds
than ultraviolet light because water has the tendency to break
down any pre-biotic compounds of significance.
“Life,
The origin of life, Production of simple organic molecules
– Despite the breakdown by water of molecular
intermediates, condensing agents are often quite effective
in inducing polymerization, and polymers of amino acids, sugars,
and nucleotides have all been made this way. A famous British
scientist, J.D. Bernal, suggested that adsorption of molecular
intermediates on clays or other minerals may have concentrated
these intermediates. Such concentration could offset the tendency for water to break down
polymers of biological significance.”– Encyclopaedia
Britannica 2004 Deluxe Edition
In
fact, the obstacle posed by water is so well recognized that
a suggested solution has been proposed for this dilemma. As
stated in a longer version of the quote above, in order to
avoid the breakdown of essential pre-biotic compounds by water
it would be necessary for those molecules to be collected
together by adhering in thin layers to the surfaces of clays
or other minerals whose chemical composition would prevent
such a breakdown
“Life,
The origin of life, Production of simple organic molecules
– Despite the breakdown by water of molecular
intermediates, condensing agents are often quite effective
in inducing polymerization, and polymers of amino acids, sugars,
and nucleotides have all been made this way. A
famous British scientist, J.D. Bernal, suggested that adsorption
of molecular intermediates on clays or other minerals may
have concentrated these intermediates. Such concentration
could offset the tendency for water to break down polymers
of biological significance. Of special interest is the
possibility that such concentration matrices included phosphates,
for this would help explain how phosphorus could have been
incorporated preferentially into prebiological organic molecules
at a time when biological concentration mechanisms did not
yet exist. Mineral catalysis implies that organic synthesis could also occur in
deep water where ultraviolet light had been filtered out.”
– Encyclopaedia Britannica 2004 Deluxe Edition
In
the quote above, the term “adsorption” means that
the “molecular intermediates” such as polymers
of amino acids, sugars, and nucleotides may have been concentrated
by adhering in extremely thin layers to the surface of solid
clays or minerals. This definition of “absorption”
is also articulated by the quotes below.
“Adsorption
– Function: noun: the
adhesion in an extremely thin layer of molecules (as of gases,
solutes,or liquids) to the surfaces of solid bodies or
liquids with which they are in contact — compare absorption”
– Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary
“Life,
The origin of life, Modern theories – Scientists have developed three major theories to explain the transition
from early organic molecules to living cells. All three
theories are based on the idea that the simple organic compounds
formed more complex ones, which then gave rise to the structures
that make up cells. The oldest of these theories states that
chemical reactions in the ocean or in lakes led to the formation
of large molecules. These molecules then acted as catalysts
(substances that speed up chemical reactions) to cause the
formation of complex organic compounds. A
second view holds that chemical reactions producing the first
complex organic compound took place on the surfaces of clays
or of minerals called pyrites. In this view, the clays or
pyrites acted as catalysts…Scientists are experimenting
to determine which, if any, of these theories corresponds
most closely to the known facts.” Worldbook, Contributor:
Harold J. Morowitz, Ph.D., Robinson Professor of Biology and
Director of Krasnow Institute, George Mason University.
Consequently,
there is a limit to how deep in the water life could have
originated utilizing ultraviolet light. It has to be deep
enough to avoid damage from ultraviolet light, yet shallow
enough that there are clays surfaces available for pre-biotic
compounds to adhere to. Similarly, if the process is occurring
too far beneath the surface, then sunlight is no longer available
as an energy source.
“Extraterrestrial
life, The chemistry of extraterrestrial life – If the intensity of ultraviolet light or charged particles from the
sun is intense at the planetary surface, there must be some
place, perhaps below the surface, that is shielded from this
radiation but that nevertheless permits useful chemical
reactions to occur…Organisms that live very far subsurface
will be in the dark, making photoautotrophy impossible.”
– Encyclopaedia Britannica 2004 Deluxe Edition
The
last line of the quote above states that too great of a depth
below the surface makes “photoautotrophy impossible.”
The term “photoautotrophy” refers to organisms
that produce energy from sunlight using photosynthesis.
“Community
Ecology, Biotic elements of communities, Trophic pyramids
and the flow of energy, Autotrophs and heterotrophs –
All biological communities have a basic structure of interaction
that forms a trophic pyramid…The base of the pyramid is composed of species
called autotrophs, the primary producers of the ecosystem.
They do not obtain energy and nutrients by eating other organisms.
Instead, they harness solar energy by photosynthesis
(photoautotrophs) or, more rarely, chemical energy by
oxidation (chemoautotrophs) to make organic substances from
inorganic ones.” – Encyclopaedia Britannica 2004
Deluxe Edition
Consequently,
the probability for the origination of life using ultraviolet
light as an energy source exists in a very narrow band and
walks a very thin line of improbability. It requires just
the right amount of ultraviolet light. Too much or too little
and the origination won’t occur. Thus, it cannot be
less than a “some tens of meters” deep but not
so deep as to prevent sunlight from reaching the essential
chemical compounds. And, even if these conditions are met,
there has to be clays of the right chemical composition to
prevent the water itself from breaking down the pre-biotic
chemical compounds and prevent the origination of life. As
we will see, the barriers and improbabilities for the ultraviolet
light scenario don’t end here. Below we will address
how even under ideal conditions the presence of oxygen produced
by photoautotrophy, (photosynthesis) itself, would destroy
and prohibit any origination for life in water.
And
as indicated earlier, it should be noted that no experiment,
including those of Carl Sagan, has ever produced more than
the most basic components, nowhere near the types of complex
molecules necessary for life to occur.
“Britannica,
Life, The origin of life, Production of simple organic molecules
–Subsequent experiments have substituted
ultraviolet light or heat as the energy source or have
altered the initial abundances of gases. In
all such experiments amino acids have been formed in large
yield…Following such reasoning, a U.S. astrophysicist,
Carl Sagan, and his
colleagues made amino acids by long wavelength ultraviolet
irradiation of a mixture of methane, ammonia, water, and
H2S.” – Encyclopaedia Britannica 2004 Deluxe Edition
“Sagan,
Carl Edward – Later
in the 1960s Sagan built on the work of American chemists
Stanley Miller and Harold Urey…Sagan
followed a similar method, but refined the primordial
soup mixture to include methane, ammonia, water, and hydrogen
sulfide. He also exposed
the mixture to ultraviolet light to simulate the effect of
sunlight on the chemicals. His mixture produced amino acids
as well as several kinds of sugars and nucleic acids.”
– "Sagan, Carl Edward," Microsoft® Encarta®
Encyclopedia 99. © 1993-1998 Microsoft Corporation. All rights
reserved.
However,
it is also important to note that the insufficiency of ultraviolet
scenario and the barriers to it described above are so well
recognized by evolutionists themselves that an alternate scenarios
have been proposed substituting either a different location
or another energy source in the place of problematic ultraviolet
light. In the Discover article below, evolutionary
scientist David Deamer indicates that he prefers to “tide
pools” over the hydrothermal vent theory.
“There
are many exotic new ideas these days about where life originated.
Some researchers say the grand event took place around the
furnaces of underwater hydrothermal vents; others look
in the spray of ocean bubbles; and still others prefer clay. But Deamer’s choice is tide pools,
an idea that harks back at least as far as Darwin’s
warm, still ponds.” – “First Cell,”
By Carl Zimmer, DISCOVER Vol. 16 No. 11, November 1995, Biology
& Medicine
Consequently,
not only does the ultraviolet light suggestion suffer from
quantity, safety, and availability obstacles, but it does
not produce sufficient chemical products and ultimately even
evolutionary scientists question and fail to accept its adequacy.
Later on when we arrive at the subject of membranes, we will
describe the tide pool suggestion and the obstacles facing
it. For now we will move on to another solution that has been
suggestion by evolutionists.
(Continued...)