Did God Create Life? Ask a Protein

In 1953 Stanley Miller performed an experiment which rocked the world! He showed that passing a spark through a chosen mixture of gasses will form some amino acids, the building blocks of proteins which are the main ingredients of living cells. With no more basis than this, biology textbooks taught us that amino acids became concentrated in a primordial "ORGANIC SOUP" then linked together to form proteins, the principle ingredients of living cells. The proteins, it was claimed, got together with DNA to form cells. God was given no part in the creation of life.

Amino acids, however, will not "link together" to form proteins! Living cells are the only places in nature where proteins are made because they contain the information to put amino acids in the right order for each individual protein, and have tiny machines that link them together. No proteins ever form in nature outside of already living cells. Never!

As you read each piece of evidence, ask yourself, "Which view does this evidence support? Did life begin by itself in organic soup, or did God create life? To remind you, I will often put the word "evidence" in bold. I will include many quotes from authorities who do not believe in the Creator, but reveal important evidence against the popular atheistic viewpoint because they favor a different atheistic viewpoint.

The evidence that life never comes from non-living materials is so abundant that it is a basic principle of science, called the Principle of Biogenesis. (Living things come only from living things.) In spite of this, atheists and many agnostics have faith that, at least once, life started spontaneously from chemicals. They call this "abiogenesis" which comes from roots meaning "not Biogenesis." They prefer not to use the older name, "spontaneous generation."

Amino acids come in two kinds: Half are called left-handed and half right-handed. Only left-handed amino acids will work in living things. Proteins which contain any right-handed amino acids have the wrong shape and will not connect properly to the proteins around them. It is like taking a piece out of a puzzle, turning it upside down and trying to put it back in. It is the same size and shape, but it won't fit. Amino acids formed in nature or in experiments like Miller's will not work to make the proteins of living things because they are half left, and half right-handed. This evidence, added to the fact that proteins never form outside of cells, makes it even more clear that life could not have come from organic soup.

In spite of the difficulty, already living cells can make proteins because:

• If you think of DNA as the cell's library, and RNA as a book that can be checked out of the library, one kind of RNA checks out information from the DNA to line up left handed amino acids in the precise order for a particular protein.
• The amino acids are then linked together by a "molecular machine" made of another kind of RNA and several proteins. Each cell has many kinds of molecular machines.

Because no machine exists that did not have an intelligent inventor, each of the cell's machines is more evidence for an intelligent Creator.

After having taught for 40 or 50 years that life began when amino acids linked together in organic soup in the ocean and formed proteins, atheists are abandoning this claim because amino acids:

• Do not concentrate in the ocean. They disperse and break down.
• Outside of cells, amino acids will not link together in nature to form proteins, not even when scientists help them by buying all left-handed amino acids from a chemical supply house to make the perfect organic soup.
• Proteins could not get together with DNA in a primordial soup because DNA does not form outside of cells either. Scientists can't even make DNA in the laboratory.

The argument that convinced two generations that life began without a Creator was false in each step. The overwhelming evidence against it, however, is only one of the reasons this argument is being abandoned. It is also because atheists now favor another theory: that life was formed by RNA rather than proteins. Notice the reasons this schoolbook offers:

"Scientists have not been able to cause amino acids dissolved in water to join together to form proteins. The energy-requiring chemical reactions that join amino acids are reversible and do not occur spontaneously in water. However, most scientists no longer argue that the first proteins assembled spontaneously. Instead, they now tell us that the initial macromolecules were composed of RNA, and that RNA later catalyzed the formation of proteins."¹

I rejoice that some schoolbooks now tell the truth about proteins: Amino acids do not link together in "organic soup" to form proteins. The teaching that convinced so many people that life had no Creator was false.

The idea that RNA, rather than proteins, formed in primordial soup, is also false. RNA and DNA are made of nucleotides, a bit like proteins are made of amino acids. Fry states:

"…water greatly interferes with the linking of amino acids and nucleotides into chains, a crucial step in the origin of life."²

In fact, even when the nucleotides are dry, RNA cannot be made except by already living cells:

"…no one has yet succeeded in creating RNA."³

Many atheists today are abandoning the false argument that life began when proteins formed in primordial soup to believe the even more false claim that RNA did. Not only can RNA not be formed anywhere except in living cells, it contains sugars which must all be right-handed. If left-handed sugars were present, and were included, RNA would never work even if it could form. Hiding these facts, some schoolbooks now make the formation of RNA sound as easy as they made protein formation sound to previous generations of students. Here is an example:

"First, RNA nucleotides formed from simple gas molecules in much the same way as in experiments similar to those done by Miller and Urey. Nucleotides then assembled spontaneously into small chains…. These small chains were able to make copies of themselves. Once replicating molecules like these appear, natural selection and evolution are possible."⁴

This is science fiction. Perhaps the authors have confused nucleotides, which will not form, with bases, the main ingredients of nucleotides. Scientists have repeated the experiment of Stanley Miller and his teacher, Urey, many times in many variations. Neither RNA nor nucleotides, their building blocks, will form, nor could nucleotides sort for all right-handed sugars if they did form. This is real evidence, and has been put to the test.

Here is a quote from another schoolbook which leads students to believe that life evolved from chemicals:

"Perhaps RNA was the first self-replicating information-storage molecule. After it had formed, it could also have catalyzed the assembly of the first proteins…."⁵

Before you get too enthused over the marvelous powers of "perhaps RNA," remember that years of research have not been able to make RNA form, nor does RNA catalyze the assembly of proteins.

I have not yet found a science textbook for school kids which admits that RNA is never spontaneously generated, but here is a quote from a philosopher of science which states that not even the nucleotides from which RNA is made will form that way:

"Though a few organic substances-for instance, certain simple amino acids-can form relatively easily under prebiotic conditions, other biochemical building blocks, such as nucleotides and lipids, require for their synthesis a 'real factory.' … The synthesis of these substances involves a series of reactions, each reaction following the previous one in utmost accuracy."⁶

The "real factory" that can make nucleotides is any living cell. Some other atheistic scientists also tell it like it is:

"Some of the steps leading to the synthesis of DNA and RNA can be duplicated in the laboratory, others cannot."⁷

The fact that RNA does not form in nature outside of living cells and scientists cannot even make it from scratch in the lab is scientific evidence, and can be tested. In the case of both proteins and RNA, atheists have opposed my evidence by pointing out smaller and simpler molecules which do form in nature. This is true, but so what? Proteins do the work of the cell with the direction and help of RNA, and DNA. All three are often called macromolecules because they are so large and complex. None of them form in nature outside of living cells.

Teaching kids that life started without a Creator produces atheists. Doubts grow and faith in God is undermined. Many then adopt moral standards based on atheism. If you personally turned to atheism because you were taught that proteins formed spontaneously, what will you do now that even atheists admit that was false? Will you be faithful to the religion of atheism that was wrong about proteins, and blindly switch your faith to the false argument that RNA formed spontaneously? Or will you accept the evidence?

Want more evidence? I adapted this booklet from my book, Answers to my Evolutionist Friends, How Life Began (Chick Publications, 2002, 160 pages) which backs up the booklet with much more evidence, in greater depth, and with more references to atheistic sources.

Whatever you believe about where proteins came from, they are the principle ingredients of living cells and deserve your serious consideration. As we dive in, I warn you, they provide powerful scientific evidence that living things have an intelligent Creator! Read on if you dare:

Proteins must fold perfectly

When a cell has made a new protein, while it is still moving into place, it folds into the exact shape which will allow it to connect with the proteins next to it. Some scientists use the illustration of a hand in a glove to describe how a protein must fit. Others liken it to the way a key fits in a lock. How does a new protein know how to fold? IBM is building the world's most powerful super computer named Blue Gene, hoping to figure this out. The Oregonian describes the new super computer:

"The machine, dubbed Blue Gene, will be turned loose on a single problem. The computer will try to model the way a human protein folds into a particular shape that gives it its unique biological properties."⁸

IBM writes:

"To make proteins, agents known as ribosomes connect amino acids into long strings. These strings loop and fold around each other in a variety of ways. However, only one of these many ways will allow the protein to function properly."⁹ "… proteins fold into a highly complex, three-dimensional shape that determines their function. Any change in shape dramatically alters the function of a protein, and even the slightest change in the folding process can turn a desirable protein into a disease."¹⁰

Because Blue Gene will unleash tremendous computing power, by running it day and night it should only take, "about one year to simulate the complete folding of a typical protein."¹¹ Living cells, however, fold such proteins in less than a second. This evidence shows that the One who invented the way proteins fold in cells is much more intelligent than the new super computer.

In the lab, intelligent scientists have learned how to link amino acids together to form some of the smaller proteins. However, unless the amino acids are all left-handed and the proteins fold properly, they are no better than miniature spaghetti as far as biological activity is concerned.

Addressing proteins

Even though there are huge numbers of wrong places for proteins to go, there is only one correct place in which each newly made protein can fit and function. Proteins are worthless except in the one spot they fold to fit. How do proteins find their way?

"… newly minted proteins contain an amino acid string that determines their eventual home."¹²

The amino acid string which forms the address is usually added as a tail on the end of the longer string of amino acids which make up the protein. This tail has been compared to the address on an envelope.

Before you claim this evidence does not matter, put a bunch of your letters in the mail box without addressing them. If the right addresses form spontaneously, let me know! Science News says,

"Misplacing a protein is more serious than losing a letter, however. There are diseases where proteins are mistargeted in cells."¹³

In 1999, "The Nobel Prize for Medicine went to Dr. Guenter Blobel of The Rockefeller University in New York"¹⁴ for discovering the amino acid address tags that direct each protein to its proper place in the cell. All available evidence indicates that creating the correct information for each address, and expressing it in code requires intelligence. Cells can't live unless each of their many proteins not only folds correctly, but receives the correct address tag. Things which will not work at all unless several things were in place and working together from the very first are called "irreducibly complex."

Turning proteins on and off

The cell also needs the right amount of each protein. If there was even one protein that the cell did not stop making after it had made enough, the cell would soon be jammed so full of that protein that it would pop. The production of every individual protein is, and must be, turned on and off at just the right moments.¹⁵

If a first cell did not contain the information to correctly turn on and off the production of each protein, that cell would have died. This is evidence that the divine programmer who coded in the necessary information knew when to turn protein production on and off.

So what?

The proteins that make up cells do not form anywhere in nature except in already living cells. One reason cells can make them is because the instructions for constructing them and then turning their production on and off are already present in the cell's library of information. Once made, proteins could not function unless they were properly folded and addressed. Neither making proteins, folding, addressing, nor regulating their production could invent itself, yet no cell could live unless all were in place and coordinated. These are scientific facts; evidence for a very intelligent Creator who plans ahead.

Textbook authors who replace scientific evidence with atheistic theory contribute to the "dumbing down" of students. Students are not taught the important scientific facts we have just seen because they contradict atheistic theory. Instead, class time is taken up learning propaganda that is contrary to real science.

Footnotes

©2003 by Thomas F. Heinze Reproduced by permission

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