17. Errors in the Origin of Life and the Theory of Evolution (Creationism and Evolution)

• Modern science explains the origin of life as follows:

Amino acids, the components of life, coincidentally formed when the primordial atmosphere was subjected to electrical stimuli. These combined to give rise to primitive life forms which diversified into various organisms through endless evolution. Humans too are a product of this evolutionary process.

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• The Bible states that God created the entire universe and all things, including humans and all creatures according to their kinds. But isn't this completely opposite to objective and rational modern science? How can we resolve this contradiction?

What is the scientific truth about the origin of life? Many people think 'origin of life = evolution = scientific establishment = scientific law' and 'biblical creationism = unscientific = religious belief = fiction.' Do you also perhaps think this way?

Let's examine whether the hypotheses and theories of evolution proposed so far about the origin of life are scientific truths, and whether creationism is fiction.

17.1. The Origin of Life

The most classical concept of the origin of life can be briefly summarized as follows:

The primitive earth was covered with various chemical substances, providing an environment conducive to the formation of life. When energy was supplied through lightning, the chemical substances in the "primordial soup," which contained all sorts of ingredients necessary for creating life, connected to form simple life forms.

Over the course of several billion years, gradual evolution occurred to develop into more advanced organisms. As they differentiated, diverse organisms emerged.

The first person to propose this scenario was Russian biochemist Alexander Oparin.

In 1924, he published a hypothesis that simple molecules present on the primitive earth evolved to create complex molecules and living organisms. In 1928, British biologist J.B.S. Haldane proposed the theory that ultraviolet light acting in the environment of the primitive earth concentrated sugars and amino acids in the sea, and life emerged from that primordial soup.

This idea was concretely realized through experiments in 1955 by Stanley Miller at the University of Chicago. Miller recreated the primitive earth environment in the laboratory. He applied electrical stimuli to a mixture of methane, ammonia, water, and hydrogen, which were thought to act as the "raw materials" for living organisms. As a result, amino acids (the components of proteins), the basic building blocks of life, were synthesized. Through this experiment, he provided the clue that living organisms could be generated from lifeless chemical substances.

Miller immediately published the results of this experiment in Science magazine, and the impact was truly enormous. The gas composition in the flask was thought to be the same as that of the early primitive earth's atmosphere, and organic compounds - amino acids that make up living organisms - were extracted from inorganic matter. The scientific community was very excited, believing they had obtained scientific evidence that organisms could be generated from chemical substances through random and coincidental natural processes. Accordingly, many scientists accepted Miller's experimental results as decisive evidence for the "spontaneous generation of life."

You probably already roughly know this content. When various ingredients that serve as the raw materials for organisms are mixed together and subjected to some electrical stimuli (lightning, heat, etc.), amino acids, the basis of life, were formed. As these amino acids were further stimulated and continuously linked, proteins were generated. As this process was repeated with increasing complexity, they evolved into living organisms. At a glance, it seems plausible. Since it was proven through scientific experiments, there seemed to be no problem. However, as time passed, fatal flaws in this experiment were discovered.

The first problem was that there was a fatal error in the hypothesis that the early environment of the earth consisted of ammonia, methane, and hydrogen. In fact, the composition of the actual primitive earth's atmosphere was found to be completely different. Miller used the combination proposed in the experiment to artificially create favorable conditions for producing amino acids. For example, if gases such as nitrogen or carbon dioxide are used in the experiment, amino acids are not produced.

Since 1980, scientists at NASA have revealed that there was no methane, ammonia, or hydrogen at all on the primitive earth. Rather, the primitive earth was composed of water, carbon dioxide, and nitrogen. Using these compounds, the same experimental results as Miller's could never be obtained, which was confirmed through various subsequent experiments. Of course, when experiments were conducted using this atmosphere, some organic molecules were produced. However, unfortunately, the substancegenerated from experiments using conditions close to the actual primitive earth's atmosphere was 'formaldehyde,' a substance used as a powerful disinfectant in laboratories. Rather than aiding the generation of life, it was a substance that destroyed proteins.

Scientists who followed Oparin and Miller's hypotheses did not acknowledge this despite such serious errors. Although the basic units of life, amino acids, were not generated, they brushed it off, saying that since some organic molecules were produced, these substances must have somehow become living organisms.

Secondly, Miller immediately cooled the synthesized substances with a cooling device and concentrated them in a cold trap. However, he could not explain at all how such a highly efficient cooling device existed on the primitive earth to prevent the synthesized substances from decomposing again. In other words, this was an excessive leap in logic or unfounded rationalization.

Thirdly, even if amino acids were coincidentally generated, it failed to overcome the challenge that living organisms would have to go through too arduous a process to form. Amino acids alone cannot form any living organisms. Amino acids must combine into hundreds or more to form proteins, which can then act as a single component of cells. Even a single protein is, figuratively speaking, equivalent to just one brick in a huge building. Therefore, even if amino acids were coincidentally generated, it was an excessively large leap to conclude that these combined into proteins and those proteins combined to form cells.

Moreover, amino acids have two structural types, L-form and D-form. While the proteins that make up living organisms are all L-form, the amino acids that occur naturally and were extracted through Miller's experiment were 1:1 ratios of L-form and D-form. Therefore, it was also discovered that the probability of a protein composed of hundreds of amino acids being generated solely from L-form amino acids in Miller's experimental method was mathematically close to zero.

Even Miller himself, 38 years after his experiment was published, admitted in 1991:

In hindsight, the hypothesis we proposed in the past about the origin of life in the primitive ocean was too much like a fairy tale. Currently, no one knows how life began in the beginning.

Subsequently, in 1993, Time magazine reported that at the Origin of Life conference held in Barcelona, Spain, Miller's theory was officially "discarded" by biologists. Currently, Miller's experiment has been meaninglessly discarded scientifically like Steady State theory and has been reduced to merely one historically interesting experiment.

After Miller's experiment was discarded, various hypotheses were proposed to explain the origin of life, but they were all either groundless or dealt with absurd content and were eventually abandoned. Let's examine a few representative ones.

First, there is the chemical affinity theory. In 1969, Dean Kenyon argued that there must be some inherent attraction that spontaneously links amino acids in the correct order. It is precisely through this that protein molecules are created and living cells emerge from there. At a glance, it seems plausible. However, the problem was that this hypothesis had no "scientific basis" at all.

Scientists verified through computer simulations the sequences of 250 proteins to determine whether amino acids really take positions next to other amino acids. It was revealed that the order of amino acids was completely unrelated to chemical affinity. Eventually, even Kenyon himself, who proposed this hypothesis, denied it.

Second, there is the self-ordering tendency theory. This theory posits that under certain circumstances, when energy passes through a system at a very rapid rate, the system becomes unstable and rearranges into a more complex state. If you think about water draining from a bathtub, initially the water flows randomly into the drain, but as the water is almost drained, the water itself forms a vortex and the outlet becomes much more orderly. It's a similar concept.

This concept also seems plausible at a glance, but it was difficult to avoid criticism that there is an enormous difference in complexity between the regularity of water draining and the level of regularity at which living organisms form. It's an excessive leap in logic. Renowned information theorist Hubert Yockey stated, "Attempts to relate the concept of order to biological organization are little more than a play on words which cannot stand careful scrutiny."

Third, there is the hypothesis of "seeds that flew in from space." Scientists, troubled by insurmountable obstacles to chemical evolution on earth, came to propose the extraordinary theory that the basic building blocks of life flew in from somewhere else in the universe. This theory gained attention as it was also asserted by Francis Crick, who discovered the double helix structure of DNA and had the greatest impact on 20th-century biology. Scientists who supported this theory speculated that living molecules the size of cells could have reached the earth without burning up in the atmosphere. Crick and Leslie Orgel went a step further, suggesting that some advanced civilization in the universe may have sent life factors to earth with the purpose of making it a wilderness or zoo, or a garbage dump of the universe.

This theory also did not even need to be refuted. Again, it was criticized for not being based on clear scientific evidence, but rather forcibly contriving an explanation to account for the origin of life. Moreover, even if such a substance flew to earth from outer space, there was also the fundamental problem of the question remaining as to the origin of that extraterrestrial substance.

In addition, theories have been proposed such as the deep-sea hydrothermal vent theory, which posits that organic molecules formed when hot heat was applied to compounds in deep-sea hydrothermal vents, and Smith's theory that life came from soil. However, all of these were evaluated as mere "forced-fitting hypotheses" lacking any scientific basis.

In this way, the numerous seemingly plausible hypotheses about the origin of life have also been revealed to be groundless as new scientific facts have come to light. Anyone can freely "create" and fabricate "groundless hypotheses" that can explain the origin of life. But no one has yet provided an answer based on "objective scientific evidence."

17.2. Is Darwin's Theory of Evolution Really True?

The theory of evolution posits that as organisms go through many generations, changes accumulate according to the environment, leading to the birth of new species. The core of the theory of evolution can be summarized as natural selection by survival of the fittest. According to the theory of evolution, organisms that adapt to or overcome environmental factors in their situation survive, while "losers" who cannot eventually become extinct. In the process of adapting to or overcoming the environment, changes occur in organisms. As these "slight changes" "accumulate" over a long period of time and are passed down to subsequent generations, new organisms - that is, new species - emerge. Here, the "slight changes" Darwin asserts are explained as "genetic mutations" from a biological perspective today.

At a glance, it seems highly rational and appears to be a theory that rationally explains the origin and differentiation of diverse organisms. However, while the theory of evolution received overwhelming support in the 19th century when Darwin proposed this theory, fatal flaws in the theory of evolution were revealed as biology developed by leaps and bounds in the 20th century.

The theory of evolution argues that "slight mutations" that occur in the process of adapting to the environment accumulate, leading to "genetic changes" (genetic changes signify changes in phenotype, that is, traits). As this is inherited by subsequent generations and accumulates, new species appear. They asserted that the diversity and process of change in genes are the result of the accumulation of countless random mutations and natural selection over millions of years.

As the double helix structure of DNA was revealed by Watson and Crick in the mid-20th century, modern biology advanced by leaps and bounds and the mechanisms of genes and mutations were elucidated. However, the facts revealed in this way dealt a fatal blow to the theory of evolution. This was because the frequency of occurrence of "genetic alterations," that is, mutations, which were thought to be the driving force of evolution, was found to be very low. Moreover, the vast majority of mutations were found to have serious adverse effects on organisms.

The frequency of mutations varies for each species and gene, so it is difficult to summarize in a single statement. However, it is known that on average, mutations occur about once every 100,000 to 1 million generations. Another interesting fact is that within the cells of organisms, there is also an astonishingly sophisticated self-contained mechanism that repairs these rarely occurring mutations.

When one geneticist investigated the frequency of beneficial and harmful mutations, computer analysis revealed that there were 186 beneficial mutations, while there were 453,732 harmful mutations. The ratio of beneficial mutations to harmful mutations was 0.00041. Furthermore, the fundamental cause of cancer, one of the most fatal diseases, is also genetic mutation. It is known that the causes of nearly 4,000 diseases are DNA mutations.

Scientists thought that for one type of organism to differentiate into various types, many diverse mutations would have to accumulate and be inherited by subsequent generations. However, it was revealed that not only did the phenomenon of mutation itself occur at a very low frequency, but even if mutations did occur, the vast majority had adverse effects on the survival of organisms, causing them to die or become extinct.

Therefore, rather than these mutations accumulating in large numbers with the fittest surviving and being passed on to subsequent generations, species with accumulated mutations are instead eliminated and removed. Intact species without mutations survive and pass on unaltered genes to subsequent generations. Of course, genes altered by mutation are also inherited as they are "genes." But these "altered" individuals do not "evolve" into different "species." In most cases, they are eventually eliminated and disappear.

In fact, not all "variations" in genes signify "mutations." You and I are both human, with eyes, nose, hands, feet, legs, and internal organs. But there are slight differences, right? The reason is that your genes and my genes are not completely identical. For example, if we compare the genes that determine your eye color and the genes that determine my eye color, they should originally be the same since they are genes that determine the eye color of the same human. However, in reality, there are slight differences in the base sequences.

These "differences in genes that occur relatively commonly at normal levels between individuals" are called "polymorphisms," not "mutations." "Polymorphisms" are not abnormal or rare phenomena, but extremely normal and common phenomena, which distinguishes them from mutations. It is through this mechanism of "polymorphism" that your eye color and mine differ slightly, and various physical characteristics differ between individuals.

Strictly speaking, polymorphisms are also the result of "changes" in genes and are inherited intact by subsequent generations. However, these changes due to polymorphisms are fundamentally different from mutations.

First, polymorphisms involve variations in genes that occur at the level of a single base sequence. Therefore, there is no significant change at the overall gene level. Second, these single nucleotide polymorphisms are mostly asymptomatic or cause only minor functional abnormalities. They do not have a serious impact to the extent of directly affecting the survival of the individual.

In other words, "polymorphisms" signify that the level of variation itself is small, so the degree of change is also small. Mutations often involve changes in uncommon regions or large-scale alterations in genes. Therefore, in the vast majority of cases, they have a serious impact on the individual.

Some people confuse the concept of single nucleotide polymorphisms with the concept of mutations. They argue that since polymorphisms are also inherited, if they accumulate, couldn't new species emerge? But this is a misconception. It's like replacing a part from company A with a part from company B when repairing a car engine. The engine doesn't turn into a steering wheel.

The fact that it is the same car engine remains unchanged. There are only minor performance changes in the engine. The engine doesn't turn into a steering wheel just because a part was replaced, right? In contrast, if several major engine parts are replaced with completely random parts, the engine itself will cease to function and become unusable, right? This is mutation.

Even if genetic variations manifest as polymorphisms or mutations and new changes accumulate, the probability of evolving from lower organisms with extremely simple gene sequences to higher organisms is astronomically low. Moreover, even assuming that mutations accumulate and genes change, the time required for the extremely minute changes at the level of altering three or four proteins exceeds the evolutionary age of the earth of 5 billion years by far. This is due to the extremely low frequency of mutations themselves.

In the 20th century, many geneticists attempted to "accelerate evolution" by increasing the mutation rate. They expected new organisms to be born by subjecting fruit flies to X-rays, chemical mutagens, and ionizing radiation. The results were failures. Decades of similar studies all ended in failure. All observed mutations acted absolutely unfavorably to the survival of organisms. Not a single enhanced mutation was observed even in surviving individuals.

To summarize, not only is the frequency of mutations themselves low, but there are also systems that repair them. Even if mutations manage to evade this and occur, it has been revealed that they act unfavorably to the survival of organisms, making it difficult for them to be passed on to subsequent generations. In other words, the survival mechanism of organisms is not "change" but "preservation." It has been revealed that "changes" due to mutations cause "elimination" and "extinction," not "evolution" and "survival."

Have you perhaps thought until now that "creationism" is unscientific, a religious belief, and a product of fiction, while "evolution" is science, rational, and "truth"? It's a huge misconception. The theory of evolution is not the "law of evolution." It is, after all, the theory of evolution and merely a hypothesis. It should be kept in mind that it is not an absolute law of established natural science like the "law of universal gravitation" that everyone acknowledges to be scientifically flawless.

This point, of course, also applies to "creationism." It is up to you to believe in creationism or evolution. But you should base your belief on which one is scientifically valid and can rationally explain this world. If you have thought vaguely or taken it for granted that the theory of evolution is "scientific" and "rational," you should know that there is a big problem with this. All the objective evidence of modern science, which has advanced by leaps and bounds in the 20th century, heralds the end of the theory of evolution.

So far, we have briefly examined the greatest controversies in the debate between creation and evolution regarding the origin of life and the theory of evolution. However, in almost all fields of science, including geology, anthropology, and chemistry, creationism and evolution clash on various topics. This document is far from sufficient to cover all these controversies in detail.

One thing is certain. In the debates on all these other fields as well, as scientific facts and discoveries have emerged, claims previously made from an evolutionary and atheistic perspective have been found to be groundless or are now refuted by objective scientific evidence. For example, in embryology, Haeckel's embryo development diagrams, which were considered absolute evidence for evolutionary differentiation, were revealed to be artificially manipulated. The ape fossils presented as evidence for evolution from apes to humans were found to be either monkey bones or fabricated by combining bones from far apart.

Moreover, atheists realized that it is probabilistically impossible to explain the extremely elaborate and complex state maintained in the universe and the earth's various physical constants as having "formed by coincidental regularity through coincidental circumstances." So they asserted the forced-fitting "multiverse theory," claiming that there are countless "diverse types of universes" in the cosmos and our universe just happens to be the one where all those conditions match perfectly.

In this way, the debates on the origin of the universe and life, along with the cutting-edge physical and biological knowledge revealed in the 21st century, strongly refute that the absolute essential elements for the origin of the universe and life are endless accumulation through coincidental changes. Rather, they indicate it is intentional intelligence. Moreover, the numerous hypotheses confidently proposed in the past from the perspective of "atheistic naturalism," which posits that scientific facts are far from the existence of God, are being refuted by the very "modern science" they firmly believed in, losing their place by the day.

Let's think deeply for a moment.

• If metal chunks and various materials are put in a large room and shaken violently for 100 years, can an airplane emerge? If 100 years is not enough, will an airplane be created after 1,000 or 10,000 years?
• If a chunk of pork is put in a glass bottle and subjected to all sorts of heat, electricity, pressure, and other conditions for 5 billion years, can a human be born from it?

Do you think the pork example is a forced argument because it's not a living organism? After all, all chemical evolution hypotheses so far posit that organisms arose from inorganic matter. However, at the very least, wouldn't it be much easier for a living organism to emerge from pork, which contains countless "complete" protein molecules and DNA, than for DNA and amino acids to form from ammonia, methane, and hydrogen gas and become living organisms?

At a glance, the chemical evolution hypothesis and the theory of evolution - that environmental conditions were met for basic amino acids to form from primitive chemical substances, combine to have the components of proteins and living organisms, and evolve into advanced life forms - seem plausible if we only consider the principle. However, how about when we consider actual examples? Is it believable?

Do you really believe that a single-celled organism like plankton, which unicellular marine creatures feed on, evolved over billions of years to become a human with 60 trillion cells that feels joy, sorrow, love, and hatred? Are you really intuitively convinced? How will you explain the existence of emotions and the soul?

Did you know that a single cell of an organism is more elaborate and complex than any complicated machine invented by humans? How could a living organism with such sophisticated cells gathered in countless numbers forming sophisticated systems arise through the accumulation of coincidental changes? Moreover, it has been scientifically proven that the driving force behind such changes acts in the direction of "elimination" and "extinction," not "development" and "survival."

Among the countless theories, hypotheses, and speculations about all these origins, there is only one hypothesis that explains all these objective facts most perfectly and rationally. It is not because it is a reckless "religious belief" without any basis, but because it is the most "scientific," most "logical," and most "rational."

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." (Genesis 1:1)