Chicken or Egg

Since the structure of DNA was deciphered in 1953, biologists have discovered that the process of duplicating DNA requires as many as twenty specific protein enzymes. These enzymes function to unwind, un-zip, copy, and rewind the DNA molecule. There are even enzymes that screen and correct for copying errors!

The instructions for the production of all proteins, including these enzymes, are in turn stored on the DNA molecule. So which came first: The DNA molecule or the proteins necessary to make DNA? You can’t make DNA without highly specific proteins. But you can’t make proteins unless you have a system in place to code for and build those proteins in the first place. And that means DNA.

"…The riddle seems to be: How, when no life existed, did substances come into being which, today, are absolutely essential to living systems, yet which can only be formed by those systems? …A number of major properties are essential to living systems as we see them today, the origin of any of which from a ‘random’ system is difficult enough to conceive, let alone the simultaneous origin of all."

"Genes and enzymes are linked together in a living cell — two interlocked systems, each supporting the other. It is difficult to see how either could manage alone. Yet if we are to avoid invoking either a Creator or a very large improbability, we must accept that one occurred before the other in the origin of life. But which one was it? We are left with the ancient riddle: Which came first, the chicken or the egg?"

During the last several decades a number of prestigious scientists have attempted to calculate the mathematical probability of the random-chance origin of life. The results of their calculations reveal the enormity of the dilemma faced by materialists.

"The spontaneous formation of a polypeptide of the size of the smallest known proteins seems beyond all probability. This calculation alone presents serious objection to the idea that all living matter and systems are descended from a single protein molecule which was formed as a ‘chance’ act."

In the 1970’s British astronomer Sir Frederick Hoyle set out to calculate the mathematical probability of the spontaneous origin of life from a primordial soup environment. Applying the laws of chemistry, mathematical probability and thermodynamics, he calculated the odds of the spontaneous generation of the simplest known free-living life form on earth – a bacterium.

Hoyle and his associates knew that the smallest conceivable free-living life form needed at least 2,000 independent functional proteins in order to accomplish cellular metabolism and reproduction. Starting with the hypothetical primordial soup he calculated the probability of the spontaneous generation of just the proteins of a single amoebae. He determined that the probability of such an event is one chance in ten to the 40 thousandth power, i.e., 1 in 1040,000. Prior to this project, Hoyle was a believer in the spontaneous generation of life. This project, however, apparently changed his opinion 180 degrees.

Consider this. To win a state lottery you have about 1 chance in ten million (107). The odds of winning the state lottery every single week of your life from age 18 to age 99 is 1 chance in 4.6 x10 29,120. Therefore, the odds of winning the state lottery every week consecutively for eighty years is more likely than the spontaneous generation of just the proteins of an amoebae!

In his calculations Hoyle assumed that the primordial soup consisted only of left-handed amino acids. As we noted before, spark and soup-type experiments always yield a 50/50 mix of left and right-handed building blocks. Hoyle knew that if the soup consisted of equal portions of right and left-handed amino acids then mathematical probability of the origin of pure left-handed proteins would be exactly zero!

After completing his research, Hoyle stated that the probability of the spontaneous generation of a single bacteria, "is about the same as the probability that a tornado sweeping through a junk yard could assemble a 747 from the contents therein."

"The likelihood of the formation of life from inanimate matter is one to a number with 40 thousand naughts [zeros] after it. It is enough to bury Darwin and the whole theory of evolution. There was no primeval soup, neither on this planet nor on any other, and if the beginnings of life were not random they must therefore have been the product of purposeful intelligence." (Emphasis added)

Hoyle’s calculations may seem impressive, but they don’t even begin to approximate the difficulty of the task. He only calculated the probability of the spontaneous generation of the proteins in the cell. He did not calculate the chance formation of the DNA, RNA, nor the cell wall that holds the contents of the cell together.

A more realistic estimate for spontaneous generation has been made by Harold Morowitz, a Yale University physicist. Morowitz imagined a broth of living bacteria that were super-heated so that all the complex chemicals were broken down into their basic building blocks. After cooling the mixture, he concluded that the odds of a single bacterium re-assembling by chance is one in 10100,000,000,000. This number is so large that it would require several thousand blank books just to write it out. To put this number into perspective, it is more likely that you and your entire extended family would win the state lottery every week for a million years than for a bacterium to form by chance!

In his book, Origins–A Skeptics Guide to the Creation of Life on Earth, Robert Shapiro gives a very realistic illustration of how one might estimate the odds of the spontaneous generation of life. Shapiro begins by allowing one billion years (5 x 1014 minutes) for spontaneous biogenesis. Next he notes that a simple bacterium can make a copy of itself in twenty minutes, but he assumes that the first life was much simpler. So he allows each trial assembly to last one minute, thus providing 5 x 1014 trial assemblies in 1 billion years to make a living bacterium. Next he allows the entire ocean to be used as the reaction chamber. If the entire ocean volume on planet earth were divided into reaction flasks the size of a bacterium we would have 1036 separate reaction flasks. He allows each reaction flask to be filled with all the necessary building blocks of life. Finally, each reaction chamber is allowed to proceed through one-minute trial assemblies for one billion years. The result is that there would be 1051 tries available in 1 billion years. According to Morowitz we need 10100,000,000,000 trial assemblies!

"The improbability involved in generating even one bacterium is so large that it reduces all considerations of time and space to nothingness. Given such odds, the time until the black holes evaporate and the space to the ends of the universe would make no difference at all. If we were to wait, we would truly be waiting for a miracle."

"An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it going."

In this incredible statement by Wald we see that his adherence to the materialist’s paradigm is independent of the evidence. Wald’s belief in the "impossible" can only be explained by faith: "…the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."

Despite these incredible odds, and the seemingly insurmountable problems we have discussed, spontaneous generation is taught as a fact from grammar school to university. In fact, NASA scientists reported to the press in 1991 their opinion that life arose spontaneously not once, but multiple times, because previous attempts were wiped out by cosmic catastrophes!

"When it comes to the origin of life there are only two possibilities: Creation or spontaneous generation. There is no third way. Spontaneous generation was disproved one hundred years ago, but that leads us to only one other conclusion, that of supernatural creation. We cannot accept that on philosophical grounds; therefore, we choose to believe the impossible: That life arose spontaneously by chance!" (Emphasis added)

According to Wald, it’s not a matter of the evidence, it’s a matter of philosophy! Like George Wald, many people do not like, and cannot accept the alternative: that all life on earth was created by a transcendent Creator. So, as Wald said, they are willing to "believe the impossible," in order to cling to their belief that the universe is a closed system. A system that has no room for such a Creator.

When William Paley put forth his watchmaker argument in 1818, the force of his argument was weakened by David Hume’s assertion that the "machine" analogy was only superficial. Hume argued that the analogy between machines and living systems could not be shown to extend to the "deepest" (molecular) level. Therefore, according to Hume, the analogy was invalid and there was no need for a designer for biological systems.

During the time of Darwin and Hume, the living cell was viewed as a mere blob of amorphous unorganized protoplasm. Consequently, Hume’s assertion that the cell was not "machine-like" seemed reasonable. For nearly 150 years Paley’s watchmaker argument was felt to be fatally weakened by the reasoning of Hume.

However, the astonishing discoveries in molecular biology during the last 40 years have finally and unequivocally demonstrated that living systems are, in fact, machines – even to the deepest, molecular level! From the tiniest enzyme to the most complex organ systems found in man, Paley’s machine analogy is confirmed.

At the enzymatic level we see an eerie resemblance to the design and operation of chemical factories. At the organ level we find "hardware" of an unimaginable complexity and ingenuity. In our five senses we find sensory receivers made of multiple components, each machine-like, the operation of which is absolutely necessary for each sense (taste, sight, smell, hearing, touch) to function properly. In the function of the human heart we see an incredibly efficient and durable hydraulic pump, the likes of which no engineer has imagined. Finally, in the structure of the human brain we find a computer 1000 times faster than a Cray supercomputer with more connections than all the computers, phone systems and electronic appliances on planet earth!

"It has only been over the past twenty years with the molecular biological revolution and with the advances in cybernetic and computer technology that Hume’s criticism has been finally invalidated and the analogy between organisms and machines has at last become convincing…In every direction the biochemist gazes, as he journeys through this weird molecular labyrinth, he sees devices and appliances reminiscent of our own twentieth-century world of advanced technology. In the atomic fabric of life we have found a reflection of our own technology. We have seen a world as artificial as our own and as familiar as if we had held up a mirror to our own machines…Paley was not only right in asserting the existence of an analogy between life and machines, but was also remarkably prophetic in guessing that the technological ingenuity realized in living systems is vastly in excess of anything yet accomplished by man." (Emphasis added)

"If we are to assume that living things are machines for the purposes of description, research and analysis, and for the purposes of rational and objective debate, as argued by Michael Polyani and Monod among many others, there can be nothing logically inconsistent, as Paley would have argued, in extending the usefulness of the analogy to include an explanation for their origin."

Since machines need a designer and since living systems possess "appliances reminiscent of our own twentieth-century world of advanced technology" it is "logically" consistent to assert that such appliances (the mechanisms in living systems) must, according to Denton, require a designer as well!

"The speculations of The Origin of Species turned out to be wrong…It is ironic that the scientific facts throw Darwin out, but leave William Paley, a figure of fun to the scientific world for more than a century, still in the tournament with a chance of being the ultimate winner."

If the most knowledgeable chemists using the most up to date equipment cannot create machines as complex as a single amoebae, is it credible to assert that chance, which is the antithesis of intelligence or know-how could do so? I think not.

When George Wald and Francis Crick stated that the spontaneous origin of life was "impossible," they were speaking primarily about the origin of the cellular "hardware." Indeed, when we consider the effect of equilibrium, the reversibility of biochemical reactions in water and the fact that the building blocks of life are not safe in the air or on the land, spontaneous biogenesis stands shoulder to shoulder with raising the dead and walking on water – events which also defy the Second Law of Thermodynamics; and the Law of Chemical Equilibrium– something which cannot be explained by natural law. However, for the purpose of this chapter we will allow that sometime on the early earth the oceans became filled with spontaneously derived DNA.

The question we must now answer is this: Would a DNA molecule that arose by chance possess any information, codes, programs, or instructions? To put it another way – can information, codes, or programs arise by chance? In the last half of the twentieth century, evidence has accumulated which has decisively answered this question. The answer profoundly impacts the debate on the existence of God.

At the moment of conception, a fertilized human egg is about the size of a pin head. Yet, it contains information equivalent to about six billion "chemical letters." This is enough information to fill 1000 books, 500 pages thick with print so small you would need a microscope to read it! If all the DNA chemical "letters" in the human body were printed in books, it is estimated they would fill the Grand Canyon fifty times! The source of this information (the "software") is at the very core of the debate on the origin of life.

When Carl Sagan said, "The cosmos is all that is, or ever was, or ever will be," he was expressing the materialists’ position that the universe is a closed system. That is, they believe that no information or matter can be inserted into our universe from outside our space-time domain. Consequently, with no intelligent source, materialists are forced to conclude that the sum total of the information on the DNA molecule arose by chance.

On the other hand, creationists believe that a transcendent Creator pierced the veil of our universe and infused information and order onto the chains of the DNA molecule. Again we see that the debate boils down to chance or design. To settle this debate we must look at the nature of information as defined in the field of information science.

The modern field of information science has revolutionized our daily lives in the last four decades. Computers, fax machines, cellular phones and many other daily conveniences would not have been possible without the rapid advances in the field of information theory.

In recent years information engineers have examined the nature of the genetic code and concluded that it is an error correcting digital coding system. While digital coding systems can be very complex, error correcting digital codes are much less common and much more complex. Furthermore, the DNA molecule has built-in redundancy. That is, the same packet of information (called a gene) is often located in more than one place in the organism’s DNA. Consequently, if one gene becomes corrupted with informational errors, the backup gene will take over the function of that gene! This level of complexity is found in only the most sophisticated computer systems.

The DNA coding system can be compared to that of a compact disc. The music on a compact disc is stored in a digital fashion and can only be appreciated if you have a knowledge of the language convention used to create the information on the disc. Appropriate machinery, which functions to translate that code into music, is also required for the music to be played. In a compact disc player this decoding process involves dozens of electronic and moving parts.

It isn’t much different in the living cell. The information carried by the DNA molecule contains the instructions for all the structures and functions of the human body. Within each cell resides all the necessary hardware to decode and utilize that information.

When we look at a compact disc, we see no evidence of the musical information stored on the disc’s surface. We see only the rainbow effect on the surface of the disc. Without the knowledge of the language convention used to create the disc and the machinery to translate it, we must simply be content with the colorful surface. This is exactly the same dilemma we face with spontaneously derived DNA or any information storage system.

If we examine the sequence of nucleotides on the DNA molecule, they simply have the appearance of a long chain of chemicals and not the appearance of a message system or a code. It is only when one possesses a knowledge of the language convention (the genetic code) and the appropriate machinery to translate the coded information on the DNA molecule, that the nucleotide sequence becomes understandable. Without such knowledge and machinery, the sequences on a spontaneously derived DNA molecule are meaningless.

Consequently, the enormous challenge facing the scientific materialist is to explain how a language convention (the genetic code) and the necessary cellular machinery to translate the information stored on the DNA molecule arose independently without intelligent guidance.

"The origin of the genetic code presents formidable unsolved problems. The coded information in the nucleotide sequence is meaningless without the translation machinery, but the specification for this machinery is itself coded in the DNA. Thus without the machinery the information is meaningless, but without the coded information the machinery cannot be produced. This presents a paradox of the ‘chicken and egg’ variety, and attempts to solve it have so far been sterile."

By allowing the spontaneous generation of long chains of DNA, what would you have? Do those chains of nucleotides possess a code or a program? Of course not. What you have is an admittedly complex chemical which has the potential of carrying a code or information. However, there is no inherent information on such spontaneously generated DNA unless a system of interpreting those sequences exists first. A couple of simple examples will help us to understand the nature of this dilemma.

If I were to show you a sign which had painted on it the sequence, dot, dot, dot, dash, dash, dash, dot, dot, dot, and if you were knowledgeable in Morse Code you would know that this means S-O-S, and that I am in trouble. However, if I take that same sign to an isolated tribe of South American Indians, they will see the unlikely arrangement of dots and dashes, but there will be no information content transmitted to them without the knowledge of the language convention we call Morse Code.

Similarly, if I take a book written in English and hand it to an Australian Bushman, it will make absolutely no sense without a prior knowledge of the English language convention. Just like the dots and dashes, the 26 letters of the English language have no inherent information in them. Their shapes have the appearance of order (reduced entropy) but by themselves they are meaningless. It is when you "shepherd" or gather the letters into specific sequences, as determined by the rules of the previously existent language convention, that their arrangement begins to have meaning. Unless the language convention and the hardware (the human brain) to interpret it exists first, the arrangement of the letters can transmit no meaning.

The magnetic disks used to store and retrieve information in computers provides another fascinating analogy to the DNA molecule. When I purchase a blank computer disk, have I purchased a code or program? No. I have only purchased a chemical medium which has the potential to carry a code or a program. However, to possess real information the blank disk must be formatted and programmed by a computer which was in turn built for this purpose.

While the disk is being formatted a "program" is placed on it from an intelligent source (the computer) that exists outside and separate from the disk. This is accomplished by arranging the iron atoms on the disk in a predetermined fashion according to the rules of the computer’s language convention. Once the disk is formatted and imputed with information, it weighs no more than it did before this procedure was done. This is because information has no mass or weight.

As in the case of the 26 letters of the English alphabet, the structure or shape of the iron atoms on the disk does not convey or possess any information in and of itself. Rather, information (a code or program) is conveyed by the orderly arrangement of the iron atoms. This arrangement of atoms is then interpreted by the computer’s hardware according to the predetermined rules of the its language convention. Without the hardware and the pre-existent language convention, the arrangement of the iron atoms is meaningless.

By allowing an ocean of spontaneously derived DNA, I have given you the equivalent of an ocean full of blank floppy disks! In order for the DNA molecule to carry information, its molecules need to be arranged in a specific sequence as predetermined by the chemical code or language convention. But the language convention must exist first. According to the principles of modern information theory, language conventions come only from an intelligent source – a mind!

Miller and Urey were able to produce the unlikely, ordered building blocks of proteins. In the future someone may even produce nucleotides by chance chemical processes. However, without a pre-existent language convention, these chemical letters will be no more effective in transmitting information than a random sequence of beads on a string, iron atoms in a disc, or letters on a page.

In the twentieth century, theories on the origin of the chemical hardware in living systems have come and gone with each generation. However, theories on the origin of codes and programs are few and far between. The claim by creationists that codes, programs and languages conventions, such as the genetic code, arise only from intelligent sources is often protested by scientific materialists (although most information engineers have no problem with this statement). Yet no one has come up with a rational theory on how true information, which is the antithesis of chance, can arise by random chance processes. As we will see, however, this problem has led to some irrational solutions.

One of the most celebrated theories on the origin of information by chance comes from materialist Manfried Eigen. In his book Das Spiel, Eigen attempts to show how a code or program might develop by chance. Eigen argues that if the letters of the genetic code can arise by chance, then why not the words, the sentences, the paragraphs and the entire book.

Eigen envisions a machine that possesses the remarkable ability to generate, by chance, the letters of the English language and then randomly shuffle and combine those letters for millions of years. After examining the volumes of randomly generated letters we find some rather amazing combinations. The machine has generated "AND," "MAN," "DOG," "CAT," "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want…" We stand back and see that, indeed, this machine has generated meaningful sentences. Eigen argues that this is proof of the random chance production of information. Is this true?

In his book, The Natural Sciences Know Nothing of Evolution, A.E. Wilder-Smith demonstrates the fallacy of Eigen’s argument. Wilder-Smith invites a non-English speaking friend from Switzerland to examine the output of the machine. Again the machine puts out the random sequences such as "HAT," "FISH," "BOY," etc. His Swiss friend stares at the machine with a blank look, quite unlike the smile an Englishman might carry. While the Englishman stands amazed at the randomly generated information, our Swiss friend points out that the sequences have no meaning to him at all because he has no knowledge of the English language convention.

Eigen’s argument that "true information" has been generated by chance, is erroneous because he interprets his sequences by the rules of a previously existing language convention we call the English language. But where did the rules of English come from?

Wilder-Smith points out that the sequence of letters has meaning only when we "hang" the rules and the conventions of the English language on the sequences themselves. Just as dots and dashes are meaningless without a knowledge of the Morse Code, so too are the random arrangements of any letters, chemicals, beads, or magnetic medium meaningless without rules and conventions by which we interpret the sequences. But the rules of any language system are themselves arbitrary (i.e. man-made), abstract agreements between at least two intelligences which declare that a specific sequence of letters has a certain meaning. Put another way, the rules of any language system are neither a part of nor conveyed by any natural laws of nature. Therefore, a language convention, with its rules and regulations, must be devised first.

Information engineers know that language conventions will not, cannot, and do not arise by chance. Every information engineer or computer programmer knows that chance must be eliminated if one is to successfully write a code or program. In fact, chance is the very antithesis of information.

If Bill Gates of Microsoft Corporation commissioned you to write a new software program and you simply began to type randomly on your computer with the hope that a new language or program might result, you would likely be assisted to a psychiatric facility for an extended medical leave of absence. We know intuitively that this method will never result in the generation of new information.

Yet, according to evolutionary dogma, the random shuffling of nucleotides for millions of years supposedly produced not only the DNA molecule but the code which governs the storage and retrieval of the information it carries as well. If we make such a claim, are we not, in effect, asserting that formatted computer floppy disks, which are filled with millions of bits of information, can arise by the random combining of iron oxide and plastic rather than the being the product of an intelligent source which is outside and separate from the floppy disk?

For centuries scientists have suspected that living systems contain a mechanism for the storage and retrieval of information used for cellular metabolism and reproduction. With the elucidation of the structure of DNA in 1953 and the subsequent deciphering of the genetic code in the 1960’s this was finally confirmed. However, the debate on the origin of this cellular information predates the actual discovery of the DNA molecule by at least 100 years.

As in the case of the cellular "hardware," evolutionists have also appealed to the magic ingredient of time to explain the origin of the information, the "software," stored by living systems. Since the 1700’s scientific materialists have argued that, given enough time, anything was possible, even the origin of the complex programs necessary for the production of life. Creationists, on the other hand, have argued that where there is design there must be a designer and where there are codes or language conventions there must be an architect for such information.

Bishop Wilberforce, a Professor of Theology and Mathematics at Oxford University, applied the logic of the teleological argument for God. He argued, as did William Paley, that the design we see in nature required a Designer. Therefore, the information (an evidence for design) found in living systems could not arise by chance.

Huxley, on the other hand, declared that given enough time all the possible combinations of matter, including those necessary to produce a man, will eventually occur by chance molecular movement. To prove his point Huxley asked Wilberforce to allow him the service of six monkeys that would live forever, six typewriters that would never wear out and an unlimited supply of paper and ink. He then argued that given an infinite amount of time these monkeys would eventually type all of the books in the British Library including the Bible and the works of Shakespeare!

Applying the mathematical laws of probability, Huxley showed that if time (t) is infinite, then the probability (P) of an event happening is equal to one, i.e., one hundred percent. Consequently, he argued that with an infinite amount of time any and all combinations of letters, including the necessary chemical combinations to produce life, will eventually be typed out purely by chance, without the necessity of a Creator.

Bishop Wilberforce, a skilled mathematician, was forced to concede the truth of Huxley’s point. To this very day the Monkey-Typewriter argument is frequently applied by evolutionists when confronted with the question of the origin of life.

Bishop Wilberforce lost the debate because he was unable to see the flaw in Huxley’s argument. At the time of this debate the nature of biochemical reactions and the genetic code was not understood. Consequently, Huxley’s argument seemed reasonable. When time is infinite the probability formula does indeed predict that all possible combinations of letters will occur. However, with the revolutionary discoveries in molecular biology and information science in the last four decades, Huxley’s use of a typewriter to simulate the chemical reactions in living systems has, in fact, been shown to be erroneous.

In the last chapter we saw that the chemical reactions in living systems, such as the combining of amino acids and nucleotides, are reversible. The reversibility of these chemical reactions is quite unlike those simulated by Huxley’s typewriter.

A century after the "Great Debate," Professor A. E. Wilder-Smith, who also studied at Oxford University, demonstrated the fallacy of Huxley’s argument. Wilder-Smith points out that because the chemical reactions upon which our bodies run are reversible, for Huxley’s argument to be valid, his monkeys would need to use typewriters which also type reversibly! With each key stroke such a typewriter places the ink on the paper, and when the key is released the ink jumps back onto the hammer of the typewriter leaving the paper reversibly without a trace!

This is, in fact, a more accurate demonstration of what happens in biological reactions. The building blocks of life continually combine ("type in") and come apart ("type out") as the solution approaches a state of equilibrium. With a typewriter that types reversibly–typing in (bonding) and typing out (uncombining)–we will have typed as much in one minute as we would have in 5 billion years!

Huxley’s argument is invalidated by the fact that the building blocks in biological reactions do not stay combined. The building blocks of DNA and proteins are driven (by the Second Law and chemical equilibrium) to break down (come apart) in the watery environment in which they supposedly arose.

On the other hand, the hypothetical books typed by Huxley’s monkeys are stable end products. They do not decompose (come apart) into their individual letters as do the building blocks of life. Therefore, Huxley’s illustration is an erroneous and inaccurate representation of biological systems.

Finally, we saw that Stanley Miller’s spark and soup experiment generated 50% right-handed and 50% left-handed amino acids. We saw that right-handed amino acids are, in many cases, poisonous to enzymes and living cells. Consequently, if the keys in Huxley’s typewriter represent a true primordial soup, every other key stroke would be potentially lethal! How far do you think the monkeys would get toward typing the genetic code with such odds?

"No matter how large the environment one considers, life cannot have had a random beginning. Troops of monkeys thundering away at random on typewriters could not produce the works of Shakespeare, for the practical reason that the whole observable universe is not large enough to contain the necessary monkey hordes, the necessary typewriters, and certainly the waste paper baskets required for the deposition of wrong attempts. The same is true for living material."

When confronted with the many evidences against the spontaneous origin of life, the scientific materialist will inevitably and repeatedly appeal to the magic ingredient of prolonged time periods to accomplish biochemical impossibilities. However, as in the case of the chemical "hardware," the addition of prolonged time periods does not increase the likelihood of spontaneously-derived information.

In the previous chapter on the origin of the cellular "hardware," we saw that the laws of thermodynamics and chemical equilibrium demand that all systems tend toward disorder with the advance of time. In the field of information science, these laws have enormous implications as well.

When applied to the field of information science, the Second Law demands that the total amount of information in a closed system decreases as time advances. Put another way, as time advances the sum total of the information stored on magnetic tape, the pages of a book, or the sequences of a DNA molecule always degrades. This is, in fact, exactly what we observe with these media. As time advances, DNA molecules collect informational errors (mutations) and the organism eventually dies. Ancient scrolls lose their ink. Old recordings become filled with informational noise. In each case the result is always the same–loss of information.

The Theory of Evolution demands that just the opposite occurs. To change an amoebae into a human being requires a million-fold increase in the information stored in the DNA of each cell. According to evolutionary theory, this increase in information must also occur without any intelligent guidance. Such an occurrence would not only breach a foundational truth of information theory–that true information comes only from a mind– it would also defy the Second Law of Thermodynamics which demands that the information stored on the DNA molecule must degrade and not increase.

"From the beginning of this book we have emphasized the enormous information content of even the simplest living systems. The information cannot in our view be generated by what are often called ‘natural’ processes, as for instance through meteorological and chemical processes occurring at the surface of a lifeless planet. As well as a suitable physical and chemical environment, a large initial store of information was also needed [for the origin of life]. We have argued that the requisite information came from an ‘intelligence’…" (Emphasis added)

In this remarkable statement, Hoyle and Wickramasinghe admit that living systems require "enormous" amounts of information for their construction. This information, they conclude, cannot be generated by "natural" or random chemical processes. Consequently, they assert that the source of the information is from an "intelligence."

The implications of this admission by Hoyle and Wickramasinghe are mind boggling. Since, in their opinion, chance "chemical processes occurring at the surface of a lifeless planet [earth]" cannot create new information, then the source of information found in living systems must have been of extraterrestrial origin!

By the end of the 1960’s the evidence from thermodynamics, mathematical probability and information theory were taking their toll on the Oparin-Haldane-Miller paradigm. With each new discovery in molecular biology the concept of spontaneous generation gradually took on the appearance of a miracle, rather than an unlikely accident of chemistry.

In the 1970’s speculation on the origin of life took an unexpected and bizarre turn. Because the laws of chemistry, physics and mathematical probability so mitigate against the possibility of spontaneous generation, scientists began to look for an extraterrestrial source for the origin of life!

Francis Crick, co-discoverer of DNA, and one of the most respected molecular biologists in the world, has conceded that the spontaneous origin of life on earth is "almost a miracle." Consequently, since life could not have arisen by chance, he proposed that the first life forms on earth were single-celled "spores" delivered here from interstellar space!, This theory, called "Directed Panspermia" then asserts that these "interstellar spores" subsequently evolved into all the life forms on earth. Similar conclusions were drawn by Hoyle in his book Evolution From Space.

Scientists recognize that there are only two options for the origin of life: intelligent design or spontaneous biogenesis. Faced with the apparent impossibility of spontaneous biogenesis on earth, one might have suspected that these men would invoke a supernatural, extra-dimensional, intelligent Creator for the origin of life. However, this was not the case. Crick, and others, have concluded that since life could not have arisen by chance on planet earth, the laws of chemistry and physics must, therefore, be more favorable elsewhere in the cosmos and that life arose there first and was later delivered to earth.

The dramatic shift from a theistic, Judeo-Christian world view to a secularized, neo-Darwinian "age of reason" was accomplished, in part, by those who desired to explain away the biblical miracle of creation. It is ironic, therefore, that as we approach the end of the twentieth century some of the world’s most prominent scientists are forced to conclude that life on earth had an extraterrestrial origin. This is, in theory, exactly what the Bible has said all along. However, the "Extraterrestrial" the Bible speaks of is not just from beyond earth, but from beyond time and space as well!

The assertion that elsewhere in the universe the laws of physics and chemistry are more favorable for the origin of life is not supported by even a shred of scientific evidence. To invoke such an explanation is, in effect, an appeal to something outside the bounds of natural laws, i.e., a metaphysical, supernatural cause.

"I don’t know how long it is going to be before astronomers generally recognize that the combinatorial arrangement of not even one among the many thousands of biopolymers [DNA, RNA, proteins] on which life depends could have been arrived at by natural processes here on the Earth. Astronomers will have a little difficulty at understanding this because they will be assured by biologists that this is not so, the biologists having been assured in their turn by others that it is not so. The ‘others’ are a group of persons who believe, quite openly, in mathematical miracles. They advocate the belief that tucked away in nature, outside of normal physics, there is a law which performs miracles (provided the miracles are in the aid of biology). This curious situation sits oddly on a profession that for long has been dedicated to coming up with logical explanations of biblical miracles." (Emphasis added)