18. How realistic are the odds of even a simple protein molecule forming by chance?

¹⁸ The proteins needed for life have very complex molecules. What is the chance of even a simple protein molecule forming at random in an organic soup? Evolutionists acknowledge it to be only one in 10¹¹³ (1 followed by 113 zeros). But any event that has one chance in just 10⁵⁰ is dismissed by mathematicians as never happening. An idea of the odds, or probability, involved is seen in the fact that the number 10¹¹³ is larger than the estimated total number of all the atoms in the universe!

19. What chance is there of getting the needed enzymes for a living cell?

¹⁹ Some proteins serve as structural materials and others as enzymes. The latter speed up needed chemical reactions in the cell. Without such help, the cell would die. Not just a few, but 2,000 proteins serving as enzymes are needed for the cell’s activity. What are the chances of obtaining all of these at random? One chance in 10^40,000! “An outrageously small probability,” Hoyle asserts, “that could not be faced even if the whole universe consisted of organic soup.” He adds: “If one is not prejudiced either by social beliefs or by a scientific training into the conviction that life originated [spontaneously] on the Earth, this simple calculation wipes the idea entirely out of court.”⁠¹³

20. Why does the membrane needed by the cell add to the problem?

²⁰ However, the chances actually are far fewer than this “outrageously small” figure indicates. There must be a membrane enclosing the cell. But this membrane is extremely complex, made up of protein, sugar and fat molecules. As evolutionist Leslie Orgel writes: “Modern cell membranes include channels and pumps which specifically control the influx and efflux of nutrients, waste products, metal ions and so on. These specialised channels involve highly specific proteins, molecules that could not have been present at the very beginning of the evolution of life.”⁠¹⁴

The Remarkable Genetic Code

21. How difficult would it be to get the histones the DNA requires?

²¹ More difficult to obtain than these are nucleotides, the structural units of DNA, which bears the genetic code. Five histones are involved in DNA (histones are thought to be involved in governing the activity of genes). The chance of forming even the simplest of these histones is said to be one in 20¹⁰⁰​—another huge number “larger than the total of all the atoms in all the stars and galaxies visible in the largest astronomical telescopes.”⁠¹⁵

22. (a) How is the old puzzle of ‘the chicken or the egg’ related to proteins and DNA? (b) What solution is offered by one evolutionist, and is this reasonable?

²² Yet greater difficulties for evolutionary theory involve the origin of the complete genetic code​—a requirement for cell reproduction. The old puzzle of ‘the chicken or the egg’ rears its head relative to proteins and DNA. Hitching says: “Proteins depend on DNA for their formation. But DNA cannot form without pre-existing protein.”⁠¹⁶ This leaves the paradox Dickerson raises: “Which came first,” the protein or the DNA? He asserts: “The answer must be, ‘They developed in parallel.’”⁠¹⁷ In effect, he is saying that ‘the chicken’ and ‘the egg’ must have evolved simultaneously, neither one coming from the other. Does this strike you as reasonable? A science writer sums it up: “The origin of the genetic code poses a massive chicken-and-egg problem that remains, at present, completely scrambled.”⁠¹⁸

23. What do other scientists say about the genetic machinery?

²³ Chemist Dickerson also made this interesting comment: “The evolution of the genetic machinery is the step for which there are no laboratory models; hence one can speculate endlessly, unfettered by inconvenient facts.”⁠¹⁹ But is it good scientific procedure to brush aside the avalanches of “inconvenient facts” so easily? Leslie Orgel calls the existence of the genetic code “the most baffling aspect of the problem of the origins of life.”⁠²⁰ And Francis Crick concluded: “In spite of the genetic code being almost universal, the mechanism necessary to embody it is far too complex to have arisen in one blow.”⁠²¹

24. What can be said about natural selection and the first reproducing cell?

²⁴ Evolutionary theory attempts to eliminate the need for the impossible to be accomplished “in one blow” by espousing a step-by-step process by which natural selection could do its work gradually. However, without the genetic code to begin reproduction, there can be no material for natural selection to select.

Amazing Photosynthesis

25. Evolution attributes to a simple cell the amazing ability to originate what process?

²⁵ An additional hurdle for evolutionary theory now arises. Somewhere along the line the primitive cell had to devise something that revolutionized life on earth​—photosynthesis. This process, by which plants take in carbon dioxide and give off oxygen, is not yet completely understood by scientists. It is, as biologist F. W. Went states, “a process that no one has yet been able to reproduce in a test tube.”⁠²² Yet, by chance, a tiny simple cell is thought to have originated it.

26. What revolutionary change did this process cause?

²⁶ This process of photosynthesis turned an atmosphere that contained no free oxygen into one in which one molecule out of every five is oxygen. As a result, animals could breathe oxygen and live, and an ozone layer could form to protect all life from the damaging effects of ultraviolet radiation. Could this remarkable array of circumstances be accounted for simply by random chance?

Is Intelligence Involved?

27. Where has the evidence left some evolutionists?

²⁷ When confronted with the astronomical odds against a living cell forming by chance, some evolutionists feel forced to back away. For example, the authors of Evolution From Space (Hoyle and Wickramasinghe) give up, saying: “These issues are too complex to set numbers to.” They add: “There is no way . . . in which we can simply get by with a bigger and better organic soup, as we ourselves hoped might be possible a year or two ago. The numbers we calculated above are essentially just as unfaceable for a universal soup as for a terrestrial one.”⁠²³

[Box/​Picture on page 48, 49]

The Incredible Cell

A living cell is enormously complex. Biologist Francis Crick endeavors to describe its workings simply, but he finally realizes that he can go only so far, “because it is so complicated the reader should not attempt to struggle with all the details.”⁠^a

The instructions within the DNA of the cell, “if written out, would fill a thousand 600-page books,” explains National Geographic. “Each cell is a world brimming with as many as two hundred trillion tiny groups of atoms called molecules. . . . Our 46 chromosome ‘threads’ linked together would measure more than six feet. Yet the nucleus that contains them is less than four ten-thousandths of an inch in diameter.”⁠^b

Newsweek magazine uses an illustration to give an idea of the cell’s activities: “Each of those 100 trillion cells functions like a walled city. Power plants generate the cell’s energy. Factories produce proteins, vital units of chemical commerce. Complex transportation systems guide specific chemicals from point to point within the cell and beyond. Sentries at the barricades control the export and import markets, and monitor the outside world for signs of danger. Disciplined biological armies stand ready to grapple with invaders. A centralized genetic government maintains order.”⁠^c

When the modern theory of evolution was first proposed, scientists had little inkling of the fantastic complexity of a living cell. On the facing page are a few of the parts of a typical cell​—all packed into a container only 1/1000 inch across.

CELL MEMBRANE

The covering that controls what enters and leaves the cell

RIBOSOMES

Structures on which amino acids are assembled into proteins

NUCLEUS

Enclosed in a double-membrane envelope, it is the control center that directs the cell’s activities

CHROMOSOMES

They contain the cell’s DNA, its genetic master plan

NUCLEOLUS

The site where ribosomes are assembled

ENDOPLASMIC RETICULUM

Sheets of membranes that store or transport the proteins made by the ribosomes attached to them (some ribosomes float free in the cell)

MITOCHONDRIA

Production centers for ATP, the molecules that supply energy for the cell

GOLGI BODY

A group of flattened membrane sacs that package and distribute proteins made by the cell

CENTRIOLES

They lie near the nucleus and are important in cell reproduction

[Picture]

Did Your 100,000,000,000,000 Cells Just Happen?