Intelligent design and life's origins

Sunday, March 19, 2000

By GREGORY J. RUMMO

LAST WEEK, THE JOURNAL of Science issued a report (Review & Outlook, March 12, 2000) that supposedly adds new evidence in support of a theory that life on Earth sprouted from "seeds," rich in organic molecules, deposited during unusually high concentrations of comets and meteorites that impacted the earth about 500 million years ago. Some have referred to it as "extraterrestrial seeding."

The theory -- an old one actually -- is called panspermia. The motivation for its resurgence may be less about "new evidence" and more about discontent among some Darwinian evolutionists who have thrown in the towel on their original hopes that life arose from the Earth's primordial oceans.

These were supposedly a witch's brew, rich in methane, ammonia, and saltwater. Somehow these simple molecules were energized by bolts of lightning and, in purely random fashion and solely by natural processes, came together to form the first simple amino acids, the building blocks for life on earth.

Peptides -- amino acid polymers -- followed shortly thereafter. These then joined to form complex proteins, then enzymes, and finally -- poof! -- life itself. Of course no mechanism has ever been postulated for any of this. This is great science fiction, and one is left to wonder if the report from The Journal of Science wasn't timed to coincide with the release of the movie "Mission to Mars."

I will yield the Darwinists their point that amino acids can be synthesized in a reducing atmosphere of methane and ammonia in the presence of water through which an electric spark is passed. This has been demonstrated in the laboratory, but only under strictly controlled conditions and only when an "intelligent designer," otherwise known as a scientist, is present to assemble the apparatus and mix together the required chemicals.

But the leap of faith required to believe that these simple organic molecules, the amino acids and the small peptides, could spontaneously rearrange themselves into the larger proteins and enzymes necessary for complex biochemical systems to function is a huge one, over an unbridgeable chasm that no scientific sleight of hand can ever hope to pull off.

And the jump from these complex proteins and enzymes to life itself is larger still.

The silence for a mechanism for molecular evolution -- how simple organic molecules could spontaneously rearrange themselves by random and natural processes into the complex proteins, enzymes, and cellular structures necessary for life -- from even the highest ivory towers of academia is deafening.

In Darwin's day, very little was known about biochemical processes. Two contemporaries of Darwin, Schwann and Schleiden, had discovered that plants and animals consisted of small bodies called cells. But even they concluded, "The primary question is, what is the origin of this peculiar little organism, the cell?"

Since the discovery of the electron by J.J. Thompson in the late 19th century, and the invention of the electron microscope decades later, a window to a "Lilliputian world" has been opened and our knowledge of biochemistry has grown in complexity. We have been able to take a detailed look into the cell itself, and what we discovered was deeper and deeper levels of complexity.

Things that were once thought to be simple organelles -- the flagellum of a bacteria or the cilium of a paramecium -- are now known to be extraordinarily complex biochemical processes.

We take many biochemical processes for granted. The clotting of blood, the way our immune system protects us from diseases, and our eyesight all involve a cascade of enzymes and proteins interwoven into complex, interdependent systems. If one protein in the biochemical cascade is missing or defective, the whole process fails. In the case of blood clotting and our immune system, defects result in death.

The biochemistry of vision, for example, starts when a photon of light falls on a molecule of a compound found in the retina called 11-cis-retinal. This initiates an avalanche of complex biochemical reactions involving almost a dozen enzymes and proteins, all interacting with each other with miraculous precision. The absence of one of these molecules in the sequence results in blindness.

Never has there been a naturalistic, random process observed or postulated by any scientist in his right mind to account for all of the necessary biochemical components coming together in the same place at precisely the right time to form even the most simple biochemical machine. The biochemical complexity observed, starting from the simplest protozoa to the human species demands the obvious conclusion -- Intelligent Design. The scientists who authored the Journal of Science article may have unknowingly stumbled into a greater truth.

Indeed, life may have come from "something extraterrestrial."

E-Mail the author at GregoryJRummo@aol.com