CREATION: ORIGIN OF LIFE

Institution for Creation Research

Which came first, the chicken or the egg? The question about the origin of life is more complicated than that. Non-living chemicals can't create life. So, how did life begin? 

Investigate this question further: http://www.icr.org/creation-origin-of-life/

HENRY PATINO:

Who Came First the Chicken or the Egg?

The cell uses a chemical known as adenosine triphosphate (ATP) or a similar one called guanosine triphosphate (GTP) by breaking off one of the phosphate groups. This release of one or more phosphates can then be used for the energy to carry out various tasks. It is the portable battery that pushes forward chemical reactions.

Normally, inside the living cell, there is this extremely complicated, well-organized chemical powerhouse, known, as the mitochondria made of specialized proteins. For a cell to function it must be able to create a mechanism for producing usable energy to accomplish the many varied tasks that it must perform to stay alive. But the chemical process involved in the mitochondria is so complex that it is impossible for it to have come first; and yet without it the cell could not exist. The cell needs energy to create proteins, but it needs proteins to create the mitochondria that creates energy.

This "organic power plant" or powerhouse allows the cell to do its many metabolic functions. The ingenious way in which the molecules of Adenosine Tri Phosphate (ATP) carries energy by giving off one of the phosphates and becoming Adenosine Diphosphate allows the cell the raw energy to accomplish many of its functions.

The ATP is manufactured from glucose through a process known as glycolosis. But this process of glycolosis is accomplished through ten discreet steps, each catalyzed by a specific protein. And these specific proteins are in turn created from the genetic information of the DNA. 

Evolution has a problem here. You cannot have the process of translation and transcription without energy from the ATP through glycolosis, but you cannot have glycolosis without the DNA. How did the DNA develop its complicated double helix structure containing the master genetic code without ATP? Or how did ATP develop through glycolosis without the proteins created by the DNA? Which came first, the chicken or the egg? But, this is not the only place where evolution meets such an impossible conundrum:

“Besides transcribing and translating, the cell’s information-processing system also replicates DNA. This happens whenever cells divide and copy themselves. As with the process of transcription and translation, the process of DNA replication depends on many separate protein catalysts to unwind, stabilize, copy, edit, and rewind the original DNA message. In prokaryote cells, DNA replication involves more than thirty specialized proteins to perform tasks necessary for building and accurately copying the genetic molecule. These specialized proteins include DNA polymerase, primases, helicases, topoisomerases, DNA-building proteins, DNA ligases, and editing enzymes. DNA needs these proteins to copy the genetic information contained in DNA. But the proteins that copy the genetic information in DNA are themselves built from that information. This again poses what is at the very least, a curiosity; the production of proteins requires DNA, but the production of DNA requires proteins.” (Signature in the Cell by Stephen C. Meyer, Harper Collins Publishers, New York, 2009, pg. 131) (Emphasis mine)

It poses more than a curiosity. It means that the DNA language and the double helix metastructure, as well as the protein language and the ribosomal metastructure which manufactures them, must have all evolved simultaneously. There are no small gradual and incremental evolutionary steps that can account for the gene expression system.

This DNA is suspended in a salt solution, the cellular fluid, so that it may be accessed in order to replicate itself. Without the ability of DNA to replicate, cells could not divide and life could not endure beyond the age of a single cell. Life could not replicate without DNA. The DNA also provides for the cell the ability to assemble amino acids into precise types of proteins. Without it the metabolism of the cell could not exist. The code (software) and the hardware that it uses to function are both highly elaborate and incredibly sophisticated. Through this code, proteins are fabricated to tailor made designs that serve an enormous number of specific tasks. But the DNA itself needs some of these specific proteins to replicate. Without these many specified proteins DNA could not replicate. Which came first?

“The integrated complexity of the cell’s information-processing system has prompted some profound reflection. As Lewontin asks, ‘What makes the proteins that are necessary to make the protein?’ As David Goodsell puts it, this ‘is one of the unanswered riddles of biochemistry: which came first, proteins or protein synthesis? If proteins are needed to make proteins, how did the whole thing get started?’ The end result of protein synthesis is required before it can begin.

The interdependence of proteins and nucleic acids raises many obvious ‘chicken and egg’ dilemmas- dilemmas that origin-of-life theorists before the 1960’s neither anticipated nor addressed. The cell needs proteins to process and express the information in DNA in order to build proteins. But the construction of DNA molecules (during the process of DNA replication) also requires proteins. So which came first the chicken (nucleic acids) or the egg (protein)? If proteins must have arisen first, then how did they do so, since all extant cells construct proteins from the assembly instructions in DNA? How did either arise without the other?” (Signature in the Cell by Stephen C. Meyer, Harper Collins Publishers, New York, 2009, pg. 134)

It has taken us the concerted effort of thousands of brilliant minds continuously working for the span of several decades, just to decipher the meaning of the human genetic code. The sheer brainpower and countless man-hours involved in the Genome Project are quite impressive. And, it has been stated that its completion is perhaps one of science’s most incredible accomplishments in our entire human history.

Cracking the human genetic code is in fact one of the most impressive milestones in our scientific accomplishments. Surely the efforts of the best minds in our generation need to be applauded. But, if interpreting the language is that complicated, am I to believe that the creation of this magnificently designed language was merely accidental?

The assertion that this wonderfully complex biological language, contained within our DNA, which uses two codes and integrates them in a circular closed loop system, developed by random chemical processes is nothing more than a statement of blind faith based on no scientific empirical data.