One of the most important discoveries of the twentieth century was the discovery of the DNA molecule. It has had a powerful effect on biological research. It has also brought quandary and confusion to evolutionary scientists. If they cared to admit the full implications of DNA, if would also bring total destruction to their theory.

This chapter goes hand in hand with the previous one. In the chapter on Primitive Environment we learned that earthly surroundings—now or earlier—could never permit the formation of living creatures from non-living materials. This present chapter will primarily discuss the DNA code and the components of protein—-and will show that each are so utterly complicated as to defy any possibility that they could have been produced by chance events.

Yet random actions are the only kind of occurrences which evolutionists tell us have ever been used to accomplish the work of evolution.

The significance of all this is immense. Because of the barrier of the multi-billion DNA code, not only was it impossible for life to form by accident,—it could never thereafter evolve into new and different species either! Each successive speciation change would require a totally new and different—but highly exacting code to be in place on its very first day of its existence as a unique new species.

As with a number of other chapters in this set of books, this one chapter alone is enough to completely annihilate evolutionary theory in regard to the origin or evolution of life.

For additional information see the appendix topics "1 — Gregor Mendel's Monumental Discovery" and—The Story of DNA," at the end of this chapter.

YOUR BODY'S BLUEPRINT— Each of us starts off as a tiny sphere no larger than a dot on this page. Within that microscopic ball there is over six feet of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid), all coiled up. Inside that DNA is the entire code for what you will become: all your organs and all your features.

The DNA itself is strung out within long coiling strips. DNA is the carrier of the inheritance code in living things. It is like a microscopic computer with a built-in memory. DNA stores a fantastic number of "blueprints," and at the right time and place issues orders for distant parts of the body to build its cells and structures.

You have heard of "genes" and "chromosomes." Inside each cell in your body is a nucleus. Inside that nucleus are, among other complicated things, chromosomes. Inside the chromosomes are genes. The genes are attached to chromosomes like beads on a chain. Inside the genes is the complicated chemical structure we call DNA. Each gene has a thousand or more such DNA units within it. Inside each cell are tens of thousands of such genes, grouped into 23 pairs of chromosomes

THE DNA MOLECULE

Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) is a double-stranded helix found within the chromosomes, which are located inside the nuclei of every living cell. The molecule consists of just four nucleotide units, one containing adenine, one guanine, one cytosine, and one either thymine (in DNA) or uracil (in RNA). The sides of the helix consist of alternating deoxyribose sugars and phosphates.

Why is it helix shaped? Because the DNA contains an extreme code, it must somehow fit inside the chromosome. The illustration on the right below illustrates how the helix shape is used to squash an immense length of it into the tiny chromosome!

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Four illustrations, each of increasing magnification: 

Inside the DNA is the total of all the genetic possibilities for a given species. This is called the "gene pool" of genetic traits. It is also called the "genome." That is all the traits your species can have; in contrast, the specific subcode for YOU is the genotype, which is the code for all the possible inherited features you could have:

"Genome is the total amount of genetic information in a species population. An individual carries genes on his or her chromosomes; the total of genetic instructions for that individual is the genotype.

"A fundamental concept of modern biology is the distinction between this genotype (the individual's code) and the phenotype (the physical body or expression of the code). But the genome applies to populations [of a specific species]. It is the sum total of all genotypes in a species. This populational blueprint for an entire species, the genome, is the current focus of gene-mapping projects."—*Richard Milner, Encyclopedia of Evolution (1990), p. 190.

Because of the limits imposed by this genome or gene pool,—it is impossible for one species to change into another species. And without species change, there can be no evolution!

(For clarification, it should be mentioned here that the genotype includes all the features you could possibly have in your body, but what you will actually have is called the phenotype. This is because there are many unexpressed or recessive characters in the genotype that do not show up in the phenotype. For example, if you may have had both blue and brown eye color in your genotype from your ancestors, but your irises will normally only show one color.)

COILED STRIPS—YOU have your own DNA scattered all through your body in about 60 thousand billion specks, which is the average number of living cells in a human adult. What does this DNA look like? It has the appearance of two intertwined strips of vertical tape that are loosely coiled about each other. From bottom to top, horizontal rungs or stairs reach across from one tape strip to the other. Altogether, each DNA molecule is something like a spiral staircase.

The spiraling sides in the DNA ladder are made of complicated sugar and phosphate compounds, and the crosspieces are nitrogen compounds. It is the arrangement of the chemical sequence in the DNA that contains the needed information.

The code within each DNA cell is complicated in the extreme! If you were to put all the coded DNA instructions from just ONE single human cell into English, it would fill many large volumes, each volume the size of an unabridged dictionary!

Now I believe you are beginning to grasp the immensity of the problem. In order for evolution to occur, the mammoth hurdle of the DNA code barrier would have to be somehow surmounted. Quite obviously, accidental changes and random events could never accomplish the needed task.

"These DNA specks have a similar chemical composition, are about the same size, and look very much like those [the DNA molecules] in your dog, or in a housefly, a bread mold or blade of grass. yet somehow the specks are coded to make every living thing different from every other living thing. They make dogs different from fish or birds, bread mold from apple trees, elephants from mosquitoes. "—*Reader's Digest, October 1962, p. 144.

For additional information on this, see the supplementary quotations, "3 - The Origin of DNA," at the end of this chapter.

DIVIDING DNA—DNA has a very special way of dividing and combining. The ladder literally "unhooks" and "rehooks." When cells divide, the DNA ladder splits down the middle. There are then two single vertical strands, each with half of the rungs. Both now duplicate themselves instantly—and there are now two complete ladders, where a moment before there was but one! Each new strip has exactly the same sequence that the original strip of DNA had.

This process of division can occur at the amazing rate of 1,000 base pairs per second! If DNA did not divide this quickly, it could take 10,000 years for you to grow from that first cell to a new-born infant.

Human cells can divide more than 50 times before dying. When they do die, they are immediately replaced. Every minute 3 billion cells die in your body and are immediately replaced.

THE BASE CODE—The human body has about 100 trillion cells. In the nucleus of each cell are 46 chromosomes. In the chromosomes of each cell are about 10 billion of those DNA ladders. Scientists call each spiral ladder a DNA molecule; they also call them base pairs. It is the sequence of chemicals within these base pairs that provides the instructional code for your body. That instructional code oversees all your heredity and many of your metabolic processes.

Without your DNA, you could not live. Without its own DNA, nothing else on earth could live. Within each DNA base pair is a most fantastic information file. A-T-G-T-G-G-G-T-G-T-A-A-T-A, and on and on, is the code for one creature. T-G-G-T-G-A-A-G-A-G-T-G-C-C, and on and on, will begin the code for another. Each code continues on for millions of "letter" units. Each unit is made of a special chemical.

By now, I believe you are beginning to grasp how complicated are the DNA molecules—those little strung out ladders, which the scientists describe as being in the shape of a "double-stranded helix."

In the early 1950s, the Nobel prize winners, *Watson and `Crick, discovered the structure of DNA. Since that time much, much more has been learned about it. But the main thing scientists have learned is how very complicated it is! Consider this:

In order to form a protein, the DNA molecule has to direct the placement of amino acids in a certain specific order in a molecule made up of hundreds of thousands of units. For each position, it must choose the correct amino acid from some twenty different amino acids. DNA itself is made up of only four different building blocks (A, G, C, and T). These are arranged in basic code units of three factors per unit (A-C-C, G-T-A, etc.). This provides 64 basic code units. With them, millions of separate codes can be sequentially constructed. Each code determines one of the many millions of factors in your body, organs, brain, and all their functions. If just one code were omitted, you would be in serious trouble.

AN ASTOUNDING CLAIM—Then the evolutionists applied their theory to the amazing discoveries about DNA. The result is a totally astonishing claim. It reads like a fairy tale. We will summarize it for you:

All the complicated DNA in each life form, and all the DNA in every other life form—all made itself out of nothing way back in the beginning! There was some gravel around, along with some dirt. Nearby was some water, and overhead a lightning storm. The lightning hit the dirt and made living creatures complete with DNA. They not only had their complete genetic code, but they were also immediately able to eat, digest food, move about, perform enzymatic and glandular functions, and all the rest.

Instantly, they automatically knew how to produce additional cells, and their DNA began dividing (cells must continually replenish themselves or the creature quickly dies), their cells began making new ones, and every new cell could immediately do the myriad of functions that cells can and must do (see the chapter The Cell for a glimpse into those many functions).

That same stroke of lightning made both a male and a female pair, and their complete digestive, respiratory, and circulatory organs. It provided them with complete ability to produce offspring and they in turn more offspring. That same stroke of lightning also made their food, with all its own DNA, male and female pairs, etc., etc.

And that, according to this children's story, is where we all came from! But it is a story that only little children should be able to find believable.

"Laboratory experiments show that the basic building blocks of life, the proteins and organic molecules, form pretty easily in environments that have both carbon and water."—*Star Date Radio Broadcast, January 24, 1990.

In this chapter we will not consider most of the above points. Instead we will primarily focus on the DNA and protein in each cell within each living creature.

TRANSLATION PACKAGE NEEDED AT BEGINNING—The amount of information in the genetic code is so vast that it would be impossible to put together by chance. In addition, there had to be a means of translating it so that the tissues could use that code.

"Did the code and the means of translating it appear simultaneously in evolution? It seems almost incredible that any such coincidences could have occurred, given the extraordinary complexities of both sides and the requirement that they be coordinated accurately for survival. By a pre-Darwinian (or a skeptic of evolution after Darwin) this puzzle surely would have been interpreted as the most powerful sort of evidence for special creation."—*C. Haskins, "Advances and Challenges in Science" in American Scientist 59 (1971), pp. 298.

Not only did the DNA have to originate itself by random accident, but the translation machinery already had to be produced by accident and also immediately! Without it, the information in the DNA could not be applied to the tissues. Instant death would be the result.

"The code is meaningless unless translated. The modern cell's translation machinery consists of at least fifty macromolecular components which are themselves encoded in DNA (!); the code cannot be translated otherwise than by products of translation. It is the modern expression of omne vivum ex ovo ["every living thing comes from an egg"]. When and how did this circle become closed? It is exceedingly difficult to imagine."—*J. Monod, Chance and Necessity (1971), P. 143.

This translation package has also been termed an "adapter function." Without a translator, the highly complex coding contained within the DNA molecule would be useless to the organism.

"The information content of amino acid sequences cannot increase until a genetic code with an adapter function has appeared. Nothing which even vaguely resembles a code exists in the physio-chemical world. One must conclude that no valid scientific explanation of the origin of life exists at present."—*H. Yockey, "Self Organization Origin of Life Scenarios and Information Theory," in Journal of Theoretical Biology 91 (1981), p. 13.

"Cells and organisms are also informed [intelligently designed and operated] life-support systems. The basic component of any informed system is its plan. Here, argues the creationist, an impenetrable circle excludes the evolutionist. Any attempt to form a model or theory of the evolution of the genetic code is futile because that code is without function unless, and until, it is translated, i.e., unless it leads to the synthesis of proteins. But the machinery by which the cell translates the code consists of about seventy components which are themselves the product of the code."—Michael Pitman, Adam and Evolution (1984), p. 147 [emphasis his].

DESIGNING CODES—*Sir Arthur Keith, a prominent anatomist of the 1930s, said: "We do not believe in the theory of special creation because it is incredible." But life itself and all its functions and designs are incredible. And all of it is unique to life forms. One word used to describe it is "organic." *Schoepenhauer, a 19th century German writer, said this: "Every organism is organic through and through in all its parts, and nowhere are these, not even in their smallest particles, mere aggregates of inorganic matter." We today know far more than Schoepenhauer knew about such matters. A single living cell may contain one hundred thousand million atoms, but each atom will be arranged in a specific order.

Yet all this is based on design, and design requires intelligence—in this case an extremely high intelligence. Man's most advanced thinking and planning has produced airplanes, rockets, personal computers, and flight paths around the moon. But none of this was done by accident. Careful thought and structuring was required. Design blueprints were carefully crafted into products.

The biological world is packed with intricate, cooperative mechanisms that depend on encoded and detailed instructions for their development and interacting function. But complexity, and the coding it is based on, does not evolve. Left to themselves, all things become less random and disorganized. The more complex the system, the more elaborate the design needed to keep it operating, and resist the ever-pressing tendency to decay and deterioration.

DNA and other substances like it are virtually unknown outside living cells. Astoundingly, they both produce cells and are products of cells, yet they are not found outside of cells. DNA is exclusively a product of the cell; we cannot manufacture it. The closest we can come to this is to synthesize simple, short chains of mononucleotide RNA—and that is as far as we can go, in spite of all our boasted intelligence and million-dollar well-supplied, well-equipped laboratories.

"The code in the gene (which is DNA, of course) is used to construct a messenger RNA molecule in which is encoded the message necessary to determine the specific amino acid sequence of the protein.

"The cell must synthesize the sub-units (nucleotides) for the RNA (after first synthesizing the sub-units for each nucleotide, which include the individual bases and the ribose). The cell must synthesize the sub-units, or amino acids, which are eventually polymerized to form the protein. Each amino acid must be activated by an enzyme specific for that amino acid. Each amino acid is then combined with another type of RNA, known as soluble RNA or s-RNA.

"There is a specific s-RNA for each individual amino acid. There is yet another type of RNA known as ribosomal RNA. Under the influence of the messenger RNA, the ribosomes are assembled into units known as polyribosomes. Under the direction of the message contained in the messenger RNA while it is in contact with polyribosomes, the amino acid-s-RNA complexes are used to form a protein. Other enzymes and key molecules are required for this.

"During all of this, the complex energy-producing apparatus of the cell is used to furnish the energy required for the many syntheses. "—Duane T. Gish, "DNA: Its History and Potential," in W.E. Lammerts (ed.), Scientific Studies in Special Creation (1971), p. 312.

Much more information on the astounding things inside the living cell will be found in chapter 11, Cellular Evolution.

"All this is strikingly similar to the situation in the living cell. For discs or tapes substitute DNA, for 'words' substitute genes, and for 'bits' (a bit is an electronic representation of 'yes' or 'no') substitute the bases adenine, thymine, guanine and cytosine."—*Fred Hoyle and *C. Wickramasinghe, Evolution from Space (1981), p. 106.

Everywhere we turn in the cell we find the most highly technical computerization. Electrical polarity is a key in the DNA. This is positive and negative electrical impulses, found both in the DNA and about the cell membrane, cytoplasm, and nucleus. The result is a binary system, similar to what we find in the most advanced computers in the world, but far more sophisticated and miniaturized. In computer science, a "byte" is composed of eight bits and can hold 256 different binary patterns, enough to equal most letters or symbols. A byte therefore stands for a letter or character. In biology the equivalent is three nucleotides called a codon. The biological code (within DNA) is based on these triplet patterns, as *Crick and *Brenner first discovered. This triad is used to decide which amino acid will be used for what.

THE BIOLOGICAL COMPILER—The code in both plants and animals is DNA, but DNA is chemically different than the amino acids, which it gives orders to make. This code also decides which of the 20 proteins the amino acids will then form themselves into.

How could all these codes, translation packages, and—biological compilers originate by the sheer randomness of evolution? The only way a new particle can be inserted into the code or translators is through mutations. But when they occur, they damage the packages and equipment, so that weakness and death result. This is because everything is so interlocked that one change always produces negative consequences.

(Do not confuse these damaging mutations with the totally different process of normal gene reshuffling. Non-mutant recombinations and reshufflings are built into the genes within the reproductive cells—but that is not mutation. Because of these normal reshufflings, your children do not look exactly like you. But they are still human beings, not turtles or moss. They have not stepped out of their species into another. For much more information on this, see chapter 14, Mutations.)

DNA INDEXING—Information that is inaccessible is useless, even though it may be very complete. Every computer requires a data bank. Without it, needed information cannot be retrieved and used. Large computer data banks have libraries of disc storage, but they require an index to use them. Without the index, the computer will not know where to look to find the needed information.

DNA is a data bank of massive proportions, but indexes are also needed. These are different than the translators. There are non-DNA chemicals which work as indexes to specifically locate needed information. The DNA and the indexes reciprocate; information is cycled round a feedback loop. The index triggers the production of materials by DNA. The presence of these materials, in turn, triggers indexing to additional productions. On a higher level of systems (nervous, muscular, hormonal, circulatory, etc.), additional indexes are to be found. The utter complication of all this is astounding. The next time you cut your finger, think of all the complex operations required for the body to patch it up.

CELL SWITCHING—Computers function by following a sequential set of instructions. "First do this, and then do that," they are told, and in response they then switch from one subroutine to another. But how does the cell switch its DNA from one process to another? No one can figure this out.

"In bacteria, for example, Jacob and Monod demonstrated a control system that operates by switching off `repressor' molecules, i.e., unmasking DNA at the correct `line number' to read off the correct (polypeptide) subroutines. With eukaryotes [a common type of bacteria], Britten and Davidson have tentatively suggested that 'sensor genes' react to an incoming stimulus and cause the production of RNA. This, in turn, activates a 'producer gene,' m-RNA is synthesized and the required protein eventually assembled as a ribosome. Many DNA base sequences may thus be involved, not in protein or RNA production, but in control over that production—in switching the right sequences on or off at the right time."—Michael Pitman, Adam and Evolution (1984), p. 124.

WHERE DID IT COME FROM?—DNA is an extremely complex chemical molecule. Where did it come from? How did it form itself back in the beginning? How can it keep making copies of itself? There are two kinds of bases in the DNA code: purines (adenine and guanine) and pyrimidines (thymine or, in RNA, uracil; and cytosine). Where did these five chemicals come from?

Scientists have finally figured out complicated ways in expensive laboratories to synthesize dead compounds of four of these five, using rare materials such as hydrogen cyanide or cyanoacetylene. (Thymine remains unsynthesizable.) Sugar can be made in the laboratory, but the phosphate group is extremely difficult. In the presence of calcium ions, found in abundance in oceans and rivers, the phosphate ion is precipitated out. In life forms enzymes catalyze the task, but how could enzyme action occur outside of plants or animals? It would not happen.

"The difficulties in the way of prebiotic polynucleotide synthesis, however, are far, far greater than those which relate to the origin of polypeptides. Our own laboratory experience in the synthesis of phosphorous polyelectrolytes, which are comparatively simple analogues of the DNA main chain, leads to a vivid awareness of the need for rigorous control of monomer purity and reaction conditions."—`D. Watts, "Chemistry and the Origin of Life," in Life on Earth, Vol. 4, 1980, p. 21.

NON-RANDOM: ONLY FROM INTELLIGENCE—Non-random information is what is found in the genetic code. But such information is a proof that the code came from an intelligent Mind. Those searching for evidence of life in outer space have been instructed to watch for nonrandom signals as the best evidence that intelligent people live out there somewhere. *Ponnamperuma says that such a "non-random pattern" would demonstrate intelligent extraterrestrial origin (*C. Ponnamperuma, The Origins of Life (1972), p. 195). *Carl Sagan adds that a message with high information content would be "an unambiguously artificial [intelligently- produced] interstellar message" (*Carl Sagan, Cosmos (1980), p. 314.

"To involve purpose is in the eyes of biologists the ultimate scientific sin . . The revulsion which biologists feel to the thought that purpose might have a place in the structure of biology is therefore revulsion to the concept that biology might have a connection to an intelligence higher than our own."—"Sir Fred Hoyle and *Chandra Wickramasinghe, Evolution from Space (1981), p. 32.

EACH CHARACTERISTIC CONTROLLED BY MANY GENES—The more the scientists have studied genetics, the worse the situation becomes. Instead of each gene controlling many different factors in the body, geneticists have discovered that each factor is controlled by many different genes! Because of this, it would thus be impossible, either for the DNA code to gradually "evolve," or to change. The DNA code had to be there "all at once," and once in place, that code could never change!

"However it gradually emerged that most characters, even simple ones, are regulated by many genes: for instance, fourteen genes affect eye colour in Drosophila. (Not only that. The mutation which suppresses ‘purple eye' enhances ‘hairy wing', for instance. The mechanism is not understood.) Worse still, a single gene may influence several different characters. This was particularly bad news for the selectionists, of course.

"However these complexities were as nothing to what was to come. One of the lesser puzzles which must have irked those evolutionists who knew about it was the fact that some characters exist in more than one form: the best-known example being the four human blood groups. (This is known as polymorphism.) Why has natural selection not eliminated all but the most efficient of these blood types or why have genes for malaria resistance not become general in the population? Until recently it was assumed that such polymorphisms were so rare that they could be neglected, and the matter was brushed under the carpet. But in 1966 Henry Harris of London University demonstrated, to everyone's surprise, that as much as 30 per cent of all characters are polymorphic [that is, each character controlled several different factors, instead of merely one]. It seemed unbelievable, but his work was soon confirmed by Richard Lewontin and others."— *G.R. Taylor, Great Evolution Mystery (1983), pp. 165166.

In order to make the theory succeed, the total organic complexity of an entire species somehow had to be invented long ago by chance,—and it had to do it fast, too fast: within seconds!

"At the end of it all, we seem to be no nearer finding an answer to the demands the evolutionists put upon the geneticists. That is, to account for the appearance of integrated groups of modifications at the crucial moment without disturbing the existing body functions.

"Because they thought of the genome as 'a bundle of unit characters' rather than as an integrated whole, the difficulties of regulation were overlooked. This heedlessness was intensified by selecting trivial instances, such as beak shape, and ignoring the complexities of body chemistry or organised form. To bring about even such a simple change as green colour in an insect demands many genes. (Eye colour in Drosophila depends on fourteen genes.) How many more are needed for the thirty or more reactions which are involved in making blood!"—*G.R. Taylor, Great Evolution Mystery (1983), p. 183.

2 - MATHEMATICAL POSSIBILITIES OF DNA

This is no little matter, for, according to evolution, everything living began when rock, dirt, water, and lightning changed itself into living creatures. If THAT act did not happen, then evolution falls DEAD as a theory. The theory requires that living creatures created themselves out of non-living materials. But without that initial beginning, evolution could not progress any farther. If accidents could not get us started, accidents could not evolve us.

In the world of living organisms, there can be no life or growth without DNA. What are the mathematical possibilities (in mathematics, they are called "probabilities") of JUST ONE DNA molecule having formed itself by the kind of chance that evolutionists claim formed all the other DNA molecules in that same organism back in the beginning?

The first two paragraphs of the next quotation contain important information about the complexity involved in just ONE DNA molecule forming itself by chance:

"Now we know that the cell itself is far more complex than we had imagined. It includes thousands of functioning enzymes, each one of them a complex machine itself. Furthermore, each enzyme comes into being in response to a gene, a strand of DNA. The information content of the gene in its complexity must be as great as that of the enzyme it controls.

"A medium protein might include about 300 amino acids. the DNA gene controlling this would have about 1,000 nucleotides in its chain. Since there are four kinds of nucleotides in a DNA chain, one consisting of 1,000 links could exist in 4¹⁰⁰⁰ different forms.

"Using a little algebra (logarithms) we can see that 4¹⁰⁰⁰ is equivalent to 10⁶⁰⁰. Ten multiplied by itself 600 times gives the figure 1 followed by 600 zeros! This number is completely beyond our comprehension."—*Frank Salisbury, "Doubts about the Modern Synthetic Theory of Evolution," in American Biology Teacher, September 1971, p. 336-338.

You will notice in the first paragraph in the above quotation, the enzymes are formed because of the DNA, and are just as complicated as the DNA!

Among other things, the second paragraph, above, tells us that the number of possible code combinations for an average DNA molecule is the numeral 4 followed by 1000 zeros! that is not 4,000—which would be 4 followed by 3 zeros,—but 4 followed by 1000 zeros!

If that ONE code out of 4x10¹⁰⁰⁰ possibilities was not instantly produced by that initial lightning bolt that supposedly produced the first living creature, —then that first creature could not live! It could not make its enzymes and fulfill all its body functions! It could not perform cell division! It could not produce offspring! Everything had to be in place all at once—instantly!

For additional information see the quotation supplement, "4 - More Mathematical Impossibilities, " at the end of this chapter.

INSTANTANEOUS SUCCESS REQUIRED—In addition to DNA, much more would have to be included as well. Many other protein and carbohydrate materials would have to be instantly made at the same time. They would need to be arranged in the complicated structure of a living organism, and then they all would have to be endued with LIFE! Even though DNA molecules would have to be present, their chance manufacture would not impart life to the DNA nor to the creature having them. Without LIFE there is only dead inactivity, and a rotting of the collected chemicals and tissues.

One does not extract life from pebbles, dirt, water, or from a lightning bolt. Lightning destroys life; it does not make it. The energy needed for life sustenance is a continuous small amount; one immense high-amperage bolt would not, could not provide the right type of low, sustaining energy.

(At this point you may wonder why evolutionists always include lightning in their "origin of life" theories. It is due to the fact that initial chemical bonds could not be made without an energy source, and living organisms could not thereafter live without energy. Not knowing where else to obtain that initial energy, the theorists suggest that the initial lightning bolt pushed the dirt and water into a living creature without—hopefully—burning it all to a crisp! They wishfully imagine that perhaps the one bolt charged the organism with enough body energy to keep it going until, several million years later, its food source could evolve).

In order to move on upward, each successive evolutionary step would have to be successful or death would quickly result. There could be no failures.

GOLEY'S MACHINE—A communications engineer tried to figure out the odds for bringing a non-living organism with few parts (only 1500) up to the point of being able to reproduce itself.

"Suppose we wanted to build a machine capable of reaching into bins for all of its parts, and capable of assembling from those parts a second machine just like itself."—*Marcel J.E. Goley, "Reflections of a Communications Engineer," in Analytical Chemistry, June 1961, p. 23.

Likening a living organism to a machine that merely reached out and selected parts needed to make a duplicate of itself, Goley tried to figure the odds for 1500 needed items—requiring 1500 right choices in a row. Many different parts would be needed, and Goley assumed they would all be laying around near that manufacturing machine! Because many different parts would be needed, the machine would have to select from among dozens of different pieces near it. But Goley assumes that its mechanical arm will have only a 50-50 chance of error in reaching out and grabbing the right piece! Such a ratio (1500 50-50 choices) is preposterous (it ought to be one chance in a hundred million for EACH of the correct 1500 selections from among 1500 items), but Goley then figures the odds based on such a one-in-two success rate of reaches. But even with such a high success rate, Goley discovered that there was only one chance in 10⁴⁵⁰ that the machine could succeed in reproducing itself! That is 1 followed by 450 zeros!

If you are unacquainted with large numbers, 10⁴⁵⁰ is inconceivably large.

Let me explain it so you can understand the immensity of such large numbers: According to the experts, there are only 10⁸⁰ particles in all the universe! If every particle in the universe were a machine trying to do this, and each machine was making decisions at a billionth of a second, there could still be only 10¹⁰⁷ attempts made in all the universe in all time! 10⁴⁵⁰ is immensely larger than 10¹⁰⁷, so it could never possibly be done.

1500 choices all made correctly, yet once the units were gathered in, each would then have to be put in the right positions and properly connected with one another—but that fact was not mentioned in Goley's calculation.

Far smaller are all the words in all the books ever published. They would only amount to 10²⁰, and that would be equivalent to only 66 of those 1500 50-50 choices all made correctly in succession!

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TOO MANY NUCLEOTIDES—Just the number of nucleotides alone in DNA would be too many for Goley's machine calculations. There are not 1500 parts to work out the probabilities on—there are multiplied thousands of factors, of which the nucleotides constitute one factor.

(1) There are 5,375 nucleotides in the DNA of an extremely small bacterial virus (theta-x-174). (2) There are about 3 million nucleotides in a single cell bacteria. (3) There are more than 16,000 nucleotides in a human mitochondria) DNA molecule. (4) There are approximately 3 billion nucleotides in the DNA of a mammalian cell. (People and most animals are mammals.)

Technically, a "nucleotide" is a complex chemical structure composed of a (nucleic acid) purine or pyrimidine, one sugar (usually ribose or deoxyribose), and a phosphoric group. Each one of those thousands of nucleotides within each DNA are all aligned sequentially in a very specific order) Imagine 3 billion complicated chemical links, each of which has to be in a precisely correct sequence)

NOT POSSIBLE BY CHANCE—Many similar mathematical comparisons could be made. The point is that chance cannot produce what is in a living organism,—not now, not ever before, not ever in the future. It just cannot be done.

And even if it could produce life—all the various parts would have to be instantly assembled at once in order for that organism to continue to live beyond a split second! It would have to instantly be able to breath, think, move about, make necessary decisions, eat, digest, reproduce itself, and more and more beside.

And once made, it would have to have an ongoing source of living food continually available as soon as it evolved into life. When the evolutionist's organism emerged from rock, water, and a stroke of lightning hitting it on the head,—it would have to have its living food source made just as rapidly.

The problems and hurdles are endless.

"Based on probability factors . . any viable DNA strand having over 84 nucleotides cannot be the result of haphazard mutations. At that stage, the probabilities are 1 in 4.80 x 10⁶⁰. Such a number, if written out, would read: 480,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000.

"Mathematicians agree that any requisite number beyond 10⁶⁰ has, statistically, a zero probability of occurrence (and even that gives it the benefit of the doubt!). Any species known to us, including the smallest single-cell bacteria, have enormously larger numbers of nucleotides than 100 or 1000. In fact, single cell bacteria display about 3,000,000 nucleotides, aligned in a very specific sequence. This means, that there is no mathematical probability whatever for any known species to have been the product of a random occurrence—random mutations (to use the evolutionist's favorite expression)."—I. L. Cohen, Darwin was Wrong (1984), p. 205.

The next quotation is a gem. Evolutionists claim that everything impossible can happen by the most random of chances,—simply by citing a large enough probability number. *Peter Mora explains to his fellow scientists some of the reasons why life could not possibly originate by itself:

"A further aspect I should like to discuss is what I call the practice of avoiding the conclusion that the probability of a self-reproducing state is zero. This is what we must conclude from classical quantum mechanical principles, as Wigner demonstrated

"These escape clauses [the enormous chance-occurrence numbers cited as proof by evolutionists that it could be done] postulate an almost infinite amount of time and an almost infinite amount of material (monomers), so that even the most unlikely event could have happened. This is to invoke probability and statistical considerations when such considerations are meaningless.

"When for practical purposes the condition of infinite time and matter has to be invoked [in order to make evolution succeed], the concept of probability [possibility of its occurrence] is annulled. By such logic we can prove anything, such as that no matter how complex, everything will repeat itself, exactly and innumerably."—*P. T. Mora, "The Folly of Probability," in *S. W. Fox (ed.), The Origins of Prebiological Systems and of Their Molecular Matrices (1965), p. 45.

Wysong explains the requirements needed to code one DNA molecule. By this he means selecting out the proper proteins, all of them right handed, and then placing them in their proper sequence in the molecule—and doing it all by chance:

"This means 1/10⁸⁹¹⁹⁰ DNA molecules, on the average, must form to provide the one chance of forming the specific DNA sequence necessary to code the 124 proteins. 10⁸⁹¹⁹⁰ DNA's would weigh 10⁸⁹¹⁴⁷ times more than the earth, and would certainly be sufficient to fill the universe many times over. It is estimated that the total amount of DNA necessary to code 100 billion people could be contained in 1/2 of an aspirin tablet. Surely 10⁸⁹¹⁴⁷ times the weight of the earth in DNA's is a stupendous amount and emphasizes how remote the chance is to form the one DNA molecule. A quantity of DNA this colossal could never have formed."—R.L. Wysong, The Creation-Evolution Controversy, p. 115.

EVERY SPECIES DNA DIFFERENT—A few paragraphs ago we considered the utter impossibility of trying to obtain just one DNA molecule by a chance ordering of chemicals. But there are millions of different DNA codes in the world! Each cell within mankind is different than each cell within each bird, fish, animal or plant! If this were not so, we would all look, act, and think like a certain type of creature, a porpoise for example. For it is the DNA that contains the genetic material that makes us all uniquely ourselves. This is why basic species cannot breed across with other species.

Although subspecies may not also breed across because of physical or other limitations, basic species cannot cross-breed because they have different DNA coding.

(When we use the term "species" in any chapter, we mean basic types of plants and animals; for example, dogs, cats, cows, horses, and sheep. There are several dozen subspecies of dogs and cats, but the dogs are still dogs, and the cats are still cats. Another helpful name for these basic types is "Genesis kinds."

"What would happen if germ cells of two kinds of plants or animals were brought together? Since the chromosome patterns are different, the chromosomes of the egg and those of the sperm would not match. Even if it were possible for these chromosomes lying together in the fertilized cell to stimulate growth, which is very rare, when the reduction division occurred in the next generation, it could not take place properly. So, usually, crosses between different species are impossible.

"Let us use a simple illustration. We go down to the Ford salesroom to order a Falcon . . But suppose the salesman sends the order to the Chevrolet factory. They would reply that they were unable to assemble a Falcon. ‘But,’ the salesman might ask, ‘don't you have automobile parts? Don't you have frames, engines, wheels, bodies?’

"’Surely, we do, but all the Chevrolet parts in the world will not make a Ford.’

"The same thing is true in the plant and animal kingdoms. An order sent from rose pollen to a lily ovary would be as useless as an order from a Ford dealer to a Chevrolet factory, or an order from a cat sperm to a dog egg. Each must act within the limits of its own kind."—Harold W. Clark, Genesis and Science (1967), p. 47.

Chapter 10 DNA AND PROTEIN Part 2