Probability:
Life is built
from proteins. When astronomer Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe
calculated the odds of the functional proteins required for life
forming by chance, the mathematical probability was 1 chance in
10 to the 40,000th power. (For more information visit: http://biblephysics.com/index2.cfm?page=exponents)
That's a 1 followed
by 40,000 zeros.
Mathematically
anything with a probability of 1 chance in 10 to the 51st power
can never happen. (That's a 1 followed by just 51 zeros).
There has been
much discussion about numbers such as these, with those who want
to believe there is no God saying that some factors are not being
taken into consideration. For example, there being a tendency for
certain chemical combinations to form naturally; and throughout
the earth there were billions of opportunities for the formation
of proteins occurring simultaneously. The result is a claim that
there was a much greater probability of the proteins needed for
life forming spontaneously*. However, for us nonscientists we can
simplify our understanding of this by looking at what one scientist,
who is an atheist, concluded.
Dr. Francis
Crick was the co-discoverer of DNA. A biography of Dr. Crick is
available on the Nobel
e-Museum web site. He has won many scientific awards, including
the Nobel Prize. Dr. Crick knows what he is doing, and understands
biology and probabilities. After studying the probabilities of life
arising from non-life, Dr. Crick came to the conclusion that life
CAN NOT spontaneously come from non-life. Life can only come from
life. The theory Dr. Crick now supports is that life on earth was
seeded by aliens from another planet.
Of course, that
raises the question of, where did those aliens come from?
Amino Acids:
But let's assume
that the proteins needed for life, although this is mathematically
impossible, were able to form spontaneously. Those proteins then
need to combine correctly to form amino acids--which are then used
to build DNA which is required for all life.
Each amino acid
comes in two shapes, known as left-hand and right-hand. When amino
acids are created outside of a living organism they are created
50% left-handed and 50% right-handed. However, life is composed
of just left-hand amino acids. For example, when something dies,
over time half of the left-hand amino acids will convert to right-hand
versions until there is a 50-50 division.
Since left-hand
and right-hand amino acids are chemically identical, there is no
known natural way to separate left-hand amino acids from right-hand
amino acids. Since this was discovered 150 years ago, no natural
process has been observed that separates left-hand from right-hand
amino acids.
Since a living
cell must be made from 100% left-hand amino acids, but there is
no way to separate the left-hand from the right-hand amino acids,
living cells can not come from non-living materials--unless some
outside intelligence (God for example) properly separates the two
types of amino acids and leaves only left-hand amino acids in the
first life-form. Without an outside intelligence (God), life only
comes from life.
Conclusion:
Life only comes from life.
|