Chemistry Refutes Chance Origin of Life: Part III

By Jon Covey, B.A., MT(ASCP)
Edited by Anita Millen, M.D., M.P.H., M.A.

In Part II of this series, we saw that Stanley Miller, A.I. Oparin and other origin-of-life investigators have unrealistic ideas about the composition of the atmosphere on their imaginary early earth. These ideas stem from the false assumption that life arose by purely accidental, mechanistic, naturalistic means over a long time. Their premise is false, therefore their conclusions are false. Ken Ham asks, "Was anyone there to see it happen?" After all, science is based on observation, not speculation! "Yes, Dr. Ham, there was one eyewitness. God." Why do men chose to believe the speculations of men who were not there rather than the testimony of God who was there?

They believe that polymerization of amino acids into proteins must have been one of the first steps leading to the origin of life. This aging belief is being tentatively discarded in favor of the new RNA World concept, which states that RNA, not a protein,that was first synthesized in the prebiotic soup (a soup which left no record in the rocks and should have). RNA can act as both a template for its own replication and as an enzyme. The "discovery"{1} that ribosomal RNA (rRNA) and certain other RNAs can act as enzymes for the synthesis of proteins in the cell has seemingly supplied a partial solution to the question asked by Richard E. Dickerson: "Which came first, a functioning metabolism, protected by some kind of membrane against dilution and destruction by its surroundings, or a large molecule that survived by making copies of itself from materials in its surroundings?"{2} Thomas Cech won a noble prize in 1989 for his contribution to the development of the RNA World concept. (I will offer a critique of the RNA world hypothesis another time, but RNA is less stable than proteins.)

Dickerson further said, "The step from aldehydes and amino acids nonbiologically formed to a living cell is a giant one. It is one thing to propose scenarios for the origin of life; it is another thing entirely to demonstrate that such scenarios are either possible or probable."{3} Dickerson admits that it is a major step from amino acids to a living cell. What an understatement! This giant step is comparable to the difference between the alphabet and the contents of the UCLA libraries.

According to Sidney Fox, Stanley Miller, A.I. Oparin, Leslie Orgel, Dean Kenyon{4} and many other scientists involved in this interesting field, the key to protein development on the abiotic earth was the serendipitous synthesis of amino acids from huge quantities of atmospheric ammonia reacting with large amounts of methane, hydrogen and water vapor (producing hydrogen cyanide—an excellent subject for further discussion—serious, serious trouble for chemical evolution. It would get permanently tied up in many cross reactions, unavailable for forming amino acids). The amino acids would have fallen into the ocean and maybe washed into a pool in a cave separated from the ocean, shielded from harmful ultraviolet radiation, and concentrated by evaporation, because the postulated concentrations of amino acids in the prebiotic soup wouldn’t have been sufficient to polymerize into proteins.

In order for us to understand why amino acids will not spontaneously form functional proteins if given enough time, we need to know something about the laws of mass action, equilibrium, stereochemistry, and entropy.

The Great Debate: Huxley vs. Wilburforce

Thomas Huxley, Darwin’s bulldog, debated with Bishop Samuel Wilburforce at the Oxford meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1860 and won the debate for evolution using the time and chance argument. There were some serious flaws in Huxley’s argument and neither he nor Wilburforce seemed to know much about chemistry. Huxley postulated that six immortal monkeys tapping on typewriters with a limitless supply of time, paper, and ribbons must eventually type the Twenty-third Psalm, the Bible, the works of Shakespeare, or even the entire Library of Congress.

The first error in this logic is that we don’t have infinite time or chance operating. Secondly, when something is typed on paper, the letter stays where it was typed. It does not move away or exchange places with other letters, but chemicals do not act like letters on a page. For instance, solutions of amino acids do not spontaneously join hands (polymerize) to form proteins. Polymerization of amino acids into proteins is governed by equilibrium, the law of mass action, thermodynamics and good old chance. A proper source of controlled and directed energy is also needed to drive the reactions. The simple addition of heat, uv light or electrical sparks will not do, for they are often too destructive, especially to some intermediate reactions.

Law of Mass Action

The law of mass action is easy to understand.{5} Chemicals in low concentration act something like very shy dance partners. The concentration of amino acids in the primeval ocean would have been dilute unless they were concentrated in some evaporation pool, isolated from the ocean. We couldn’t expect the total number of amino acids which fell into the ocean to become concentrated in an evaporating pool. The number of amino acids in a greatly concentrated pool would be far less than the total number of amino acids in the ocean. This means far fewer amino acids would be involved in the synthesis of the first protein, which then means there would be a decrease in the chances per unit of time by several orders of magnitude. The time needed for the synthesis increases by the same amount.

You might remember how it was at those stark junior high dances in the gym. Fifty kids stood on each side of the gym. The music was playing and the dance host was telling everyone to get out there and dance, but almost no one did. Kids might overcome their shyness and begin shuffling across the floor, but chemicals just bounce around in solution. One way to get kids dancing or chemicals reacting is to somehow increase the concentration. If you put ten kids in a closet (which increases the number of kids per square foot), with eyes bulging because they’re so close, they have no choice but to—gulp!--touch.

Mass action is something like that, but it comes down to this: if you want two chemicals (the reactants) to interact with each other, you must have enough of the two reactants in solution for them to "find" each other. If their orientation and energy is right when they find each other, they’ll react and form the product you want. If your solution of reactants is too dilute, you won’t get much of the product you want. The reactants won’t bump into each other very often, and even fewer times in the proper orientation. The concentration of the reactants has to be increased to make more product.

Chemical Equilibrium

Even when everything is just right and your reactants form product, another nasty fact of life affects these reluctantly crowded chemicals. It’s called equilibrium. Almost all biochemical reactions, including the polymerization of amino acids into protein chains, are governed by equilibrium. What this means is that every reaction is reversible. When the fickle reactants are forced to "dance" together in their crowded social hall, they are still reluctant partners. They are very stupid, so they don’t know what to talk about and are embarrassed about being so close—bonding with someone else they don’t even know—gee willikers! Given the opportunity to slip away from their partner and into the anonymity of the dancing crowd, they will do it gladly, and with great relief. Whew!

In the primitive environment in which amino acids were supposed to have formed protein chains, there would have been nothing to prevent the protein chains from dissociating back into their component amino acids. The protein chains would simply break up under the influence of chemical equilibrium and the law of mass action. This is why the formation of functional proteins from amino acids (the characters of the biological alphabet) is unlike the random typing of letters onto a page. The letters stay where they are put, the amino acids do not, and this fact refutes the idea that the chance formation of a functional protein is inevitable given enough time. It has not been observed to happen experimentally, but to the evolutionist’s mind time and chance become as precise and creative as a knowledgeable Creator. An analogous situation might be, "A man cannot jump over the moon, for none ever has and human strength is insufficient to escape earth’s gravitational field," to which someone would reply, "If you give us enough time, one of us will."

No Protein Formation in Prebiotic Soup

It is also misleading to say that protein chains would form spontaneously in a solution of amino acids. They won’t. This fact is one reason chemists are assured their jobs. Consider what Roberts and Caserio say in their organic chemistry textbook. "How did these small prebiotic organic molecules grow into large polymeric substances such as peptides, RNA, and so on? It is important to recognize that by whatever reactions polymerization occurred, they had to be reactions that would occur in an essentially aqueous environment. This presents difficulties because condensation of amino acids to form peptides, or of nucleotides to form RNA or DNA, is not thermodynamically favorable in aqueous solution."{6}

The explanation for this is partly that the concentration of amino acids decreases as amino acids form pairs (called dipeptides) in a solution. This decreased concentration causes the velocity of the peptide synthesis reaction to slow down, and some dipeptides begin breaking up, again becoming single amino acids. The solution reaches equilibrium when just as many dipeptides dissociate as associate. A very tiny fraction of the dipeptides add another amino acid to form a tripeptide. How many tripeptides and dipeptides form depends upon the equilibrium constant for each set of reactions. Oligopeptides (Oligo=few) and polypeptides (poly=many) will form only very rarely. Tripeptides dissociate faster than dipeptides in the same solution.

If more amino acids are added to the solution or if water evaporates from the solution, the equilibrium will be shifted in the direction favoring the formation of more dipeptides, according to the law of mass action. This is another reason chemists keep their jobs. They know how to manipulate aspects of reactions—energy sources, concentrations of reactants, removal of products as they form, etc., to push the reactions in the desired direction and minimize dissociation of the product.

Stereochemistry

All biological amino acids have a left-handed spatial configuration. The amino acids created in the origin-of-life experiments had left- and right-handed configuration. In Miller’s experiment,{7} only two biological amino acids were formed in any significant quantity: glycine and alanine, and these were in a left- and right-handed racemic (50/50) mixture. I am not aware of any naturally occurring means by which left-handed amino acids can be separated from right-handed amino acids, therefore this exclusive left-handed preference could not have been arisen spontaneously. (My Christian evolutionist friend says there is, but he has not given me any references to observations.) If that first protein had some right-handed amino acids in it, its biological activity would have been seriously impaired or made non-functional.

Entropy Causes Deterioration

Time is the enemy of chance formation, allowing equilibrium to reverse any polymerization that might have taken place, and allowing entropy to destroy any order that might have occurred randomly (what an oxymoron—order/random). The longer a polymer survives the likelier it is that entropy will break it down. It is postulated that the random building process of the first living cell took many millions of years. Proteins simply are not stable enough to survive for millions of years in water. They will fall apart or become denatured. My favorite physician asks, "Think about our bodies. With time we all age, sicken and die. Why?"

Entropy Bibliography and Footnotes

1. Pace, Norman R., "New Horizons for RNA Catalysis," Science 256:1402, 1992

2. Dickerson, Richard E., "Chemical Evolution and the Origin of Life," Scientific American, p. 73, September 1978

3. ibid.

4. Dean Kenyon, professor of biology and evolution at San Francisco State University, coauthored Biochemical Predestination (1969), rejected evolution after careful analysis and accepted creation as true. He recent book Of Pandas and People is an excellent supplementary text for biology textbooks. His book is available at our meetings or by calling the Foundation for Thought and Ethics (214) 669-3400 or write them at P.O. Box 830721, Richardson, TX 75083.

5. Lehninger, Albert L., Principles of Biochemistry, Worth Publishers, Inc., p. 73, 1982 gives the following definition:

A + B == C + D

"The law of mass action states that a chemical reaction will proceed to the right if we increase the concentration of either A or B or both. Conversely, the reaction proceeds to the left to a new equilibrium point on an increase in the concentration of C and/or D."

6. Roberts, John D., Marjorie C. Caserio, Basic Principles of Organic Chemistry, 2^nd ed., W.A. Benjamin, Inc., Menlo Park, p. 1284, 1977.

7. Miller, Stanley, Origins of Life, 5:139, 1974.