Answers in Genesis: Evolution and Chemistry

Okay, sorry. This isn’t an article from Answers in Genesis, but it is from the Institute for Creation Research website, and it was linked to in an index of creation articles on the AiG site, so it’s basically the same thing. Don’t get angry.

This article is looking at abiogenesis and how chemistry supposedly offers a dead end for inquiry into the scientific origin of life.

Proteins and DNA are complicated chemical molecules that are present within our body. Cells which make up the living body contain DNA, the blueprint for all life, and proteins regulating biochemical processes, leading scientists to conclude these components are the cause of life. While it is true that all living bodies have proteins and DNA, so do dead bodies. These chemicals are necessary for life to exist, but they do not “create” life by their presence; they only “maintain” the life that is already present.

Wow. Such… ignorance. Yes, dead bodies contain all the necessary ingredients for life to form. Of course they do. However, abiogenesis is not “Proteins and DNA come together… Whoops, we’ve got life!” Life is a series of biochemical processes: self-sustaining and interdependent chemical reactions that work together to maintain the metabolic processes in an organism. If you get proteins and DNA and throw them in a pot, of course nothing is going to happen that resembles life. Think about it for a second. When cells divide, there are always chemical processes going on. Since the first self-replicating molecule to modern day organisms, the chemical reactions have never stopped.

When evolutionary scientists study the origins of life, they propose that all life resulted from chemical reactions by natural processes, overlooking the fact that chemical processes do not “naturally” behave in this manner. If you accepted chemical reactions as they occur, you would not believe that life came solely from chemicals. Is it legitimate to propose that evolution started in some primordial soup, when the long chain polymers that are present in proteins and DNA are so complicated that the level of chemical control needed during the chain building process is beyond the realm of natural chemistry?

More ignorance. Basically, he’s looking at the reactions of organic chemicals in the lab, under lab conditions, and saying “What? These molecules aren’t spontaneously forming life! Abiogenesis must be wrong!” He’s creating a straw man of abiogenesis (that DNA and proteins sprung into existence fully-formed without cellular machinery) and then knocking it down just as quickly. No biochemist studying the origin of life is assuming that the natural processes involved in simple organic reactions suddenly formed these very complex molecules. The main hypothesis about the origin of life is to do with self-replicating RNA (which didn’t need these other molecules), not modern cells.

Chemical stability is a question of whether the components can even react at all. By definition, all components in a hypothetical primordial soup would be stable, because if they were not, they would have already reacted.

Not necessarily. Taking a snapshot picture of a primordial soup would reveal reactions going on all the time, some molecules breaking down to form simpler ones, some being built up by some energy input or catalytic process. Stability is also not a necessity. Chemical hypercycles are a possible candidate for the first biochemical self-sustaining reactions, and they rely on their component molecules being inherently unstable.

Amino acids are relatively stable in water and do not react to form proteins in water, and nucleotides do not react to form DNA. In order to make amino acids and nucleotides react to form a polymer, they must be chemically activated to react with other chemicals. But this chemical activation must be done in the absence of water because the activated compounds will react with water and break down. How could proteins and DNA be formed in a hypothetical primordial watery soup if the activated compounds required to form them cannot exist in water? This is the problem of Chemical Stability.

He’s talking about hydrolysis: the process of splitting polymers into monomers by adding water to the bonds to form complete monomers at the end of the reaction. Yes, hydrolysis reactions happen in the presence of water, they have to. But to say that complex polymers will breakdown when immersed in water because water is needed to split them… That’s going too far. I guess he doesn’t realize that our cells are 70% water, and that all biochemical processes must happen in water for them to work. If water was the only thing needed to split proteins into amino acids, we would all be dead. Some intelligent design that would be…

Article link: Evolution Hopes You Don’t Know Chemistry: The Problem of Control