At 03:18 AM 8/6/2012, Jojo Jaro wrote:
From The Myth of Natural Origins; How Science Points to Divine Creation
Ashby Camp, Ktisis Publishing, Tempe, Arizona, 1994, pp. 53-57,
used by permission.
Summarizing his and Hoyle's analysis of the mechanism of evolution,
Wickramasinghe states:
We found that there's just no way it could happen. If you start with
a simple micro-organism, no matter how it arose on the earth,
primordial soup or otherwise, then if you just have that single
organizational, informational unit and you said that you copied this
sequentially time and time again, the question is does that
accumulate enough copying errors, enough mistakes in copying, and do
these accumulations of copying errors lead to the diversity of
living forms that one sees on the earth. That's the general, usual
formulation of the theory of evolution.... We looked at this quite
systematically, quite carefully, in numerical terms. Checking all
the numbers, rates of mutation and so on, we decided that there is
no way in which that could even marginally approach the truth. Varghese, 28.
First of all, evolution would not start with a "simple
micro-organism," that's way too complex. We do know that the building
blocks of life, amino acids, can be created without life, thus the
"primordial soup." An "organism" is already a complex structure that
not only reproduces itself, but protects itself and metabolizes
materials. Closer would be a virus, which is already, as well, too
complex, as far as any viruses observed.
So some molecule arises by chance in the soup that is capable of
catalyzing the assembly of itself. It's an enzyme. DNA does this, but
this enzyme is much simpler. It is not carrying any message other
than its own structure.
When it is created, the soup will rapidly reach an equilibrium with
copies being made of the molecule and being destroyed by various
chemical processes. Variations in the structure will arise, and some
of these variations will favor survival of the variation, so the
*soup composition* will evolve. It will probably never become uniform.
This is quite predictable.
Sometimes these molecules will, through normal chemistry, attach to
each other, becoming longer sequences, and some of these will be
"viable," i.e, will also be capable of reproduction.
Increasingly complex structures will arise, and the soup will become
full of these, the ones more successful and faster in catalyzing
their own copying, and of pieces of them (broken and perhaps not viable).
The really big step is when an enzyme arises that can organize its
environment in a more complex way than simply making a copy of
itself. When it also organizes metabolic and protective structures,
or the enzymes that create them. This would be the point where it
begins to code life.
Further, a variation may arise that efficiently cannibalizes existing
undefended enzymes, using them to make copies of itself, but possibly
also incorporating some of their code into its own. This variation
might become the foundation for all further evolution. But it will
never come to pass that a single enzyme will exist, totally
dominating the soup, because this enzyme itself, as it spreads
through the soup, will vary through copying error.
The quoted analysis above *assumes* that such a process cannot create
a code for life of present complexity. It assumes a certain number of
mutations are necessary, and very likely assumes that these mutations
must take place serially, i.e., one after the other.
It also attempts too much. The early processes and later ones could
be quite different. Before sexual reproduction, there was genetic
interchange; and both create combinations that are far more complex
than single-mutation changes.
Basically, random change (possibly accelerated at certain times and
places by local conditions that cause increased copying error) is a
proposal for the *basic* process allowing the evolution of forms
*that is observed.* As with any scientific theory, one judges it
compared to alternatives. The alternative of Goddidit is a cop-out,
simply avoiding looking at *how* God does things. What is the
alternative mechanism to random change?
I haven't seen any. If you want to believe that God did it, fine, but *how*?
The sun shines, and God made it that way. But how? Pretending that
"Let there be light" is the full story is refusal to appreciate what
God has actually done. Don't imagine that he will be grateful that
you disrespect his creation in favor of your shallow imaginations.
Indeed anything that blinds you to his wondrous depth is a failure to
realize the potential of the human.
To my atheist friends, I'll explain that "God" is another name for
"Nature" or "Reality," for what actually exists, which is beyond our
descriptions and imaginations. There is a whole conversation on the
"meaning" of existence, but this is a conversation for another day.
For today, I'll simply assert, without attempting proof, that God
prefers the "atheist" who loves truth over the "believer" whose
belief is pretense and arrogance. I'll even claim that this is obvious.
I once spoke about Islam to a class at a college in North Carolina. A
student there quite strongly asserted, "I don't believe in God!"
"Great! I said, "In what God do you not believe?" Apparently nobody
had asked him this question before, he was speechless.
So I followed up with, "The God that you don't believe in, I probably
don't believe in either."
