Why is there life on Earth? How has the first living cell on Earth arisen? What have scientists found out about this?
Stanley L. Miller, the famous American biochemist, says: "Shortly before 1858, Charles Darwin and A. R. Wallace had published simultaneously and independently, the theory of evolution by natural selection. This theory could account for the evolution from the simplest single-celled organism to the most complex plants and animals, including man. Therefore, the problem of the origin of life was no longer how each species evolved, but only how the first living organism arose.
"Present knowledge of biochemistry shows that even the simplest bacteria are extremely complex and that the probability of the spontaneous generation of a cell from inorganic compounds in a single event is much too small to have occurred in the approximately 5x109 years since the Earth’s formation.
"A more plausible proposal is that life arose spontaneously in the oceans of the primitive Earth, which contained large quantities of organic compounds similar to those which occur in living organisms. This theory was outlined by A. I. Oparin in 1938 and forms the basis of most of the present ideas on the origin of life. Oparin argued that, if large amounts of organic compounds would react to form structures of greater and greater complexity, a structure would form which would be called living. In other words, the synthesis of the first living organism would involve many nonbiological steps, and none of these steps would be highly improbable.
"Oparin argued that organic compounds might have been formed on the primitive Earth if there were a reduced atmosphere of methane, ammonia, water, and hydrogen, instead of the present oxidizing atmosphere of carbon dioxide, nitrogen, oxygen, and water. In 1952 H. Urey placed the reducing-atmosphere theory on a firm foundation by showing that methane, ammonia, and water are the stable forms of carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen if an excess of hydrogen is present.
"Support for the ideas of Oparin and Urey came from the experiments of S. L. Miller in 1953. He showed that a mixture of methane, ammonia, water, and hydrogen, when subjected to an electric discharge, gave significant yields of simple amino acids, hydroxy acids, aliphatic acids, urea, and possibly sugars. Ultraviolet light gives similar results. On the basis of these results, it is thought that various organic compounds (such as amino acids, hydroxy acids, aliphatic acids, and sugars) were present in the oceans of the primitive Earth. It has been proposed by Oparin that the first organisms were coacervate particles instead strips of polynucleotides. A coacervate is a type of colloid which forms in two phases, one of the solution and one of the coacervate, instead of a uniform dispersion as with most colloids." - Miller, S. L. (1978:415).
Methane-Ammonia-Hydrogen-rich Primordial Atmosphere
According to the hypothesis of chemical evolution, the first cell on Earth was able to evolve by itself from inorganic matter through purely natural laws, because the atmosphere of the early Precambrian Time was highly reducing, and because it was rich in methane, ammonia, and free hydrogen. In this reducing methane-ammonia-hydrogen-rich primordial atmosphere, the amino acids and other needed building blocks of life are said to have drizzled down from the primordial atmosphere onto the surface of the Earth and into the primordial sea. In the primordial sea, the amino acids are supposed to have accumulated then in hundreds of millions or even billions of years, so that finally a chemical soup, as thick as a rich meat broth, arose.
Some followers of Professor A. I. Oparin now conclude that the building blocks of life could not have arisen in the primordial atmosphere, since they would have been destroyed by the strong ultraviolet radiation. They believe now, instead, that the building blocks of life were not produced from the chemicals of the methane-ammonia-rich atmosphere, but in the ocean, because in the ocean, the needed chemicals would have been preserved and could have accumulated. Has one been able to prove this now by modern research? Has there ever been such a highly reducing atmosphere, rich in methane, ammonia, and free hydrogen, in which the needed amino acids could have evolved through chance, lightning-strokes, and UV-radiation?
D. E. Hull
D. E. Hull of the California Research Corporation in Richmond, California, reports about the amino acids, which formed in the reducing primordial atmosphere, that would have reached the surface of the sea: "... 97% of the glycine would be decomposed before it could reach the surface." (1960:693).
And how long would these 3% of the amino acids, that would have reached the surface of the primordial sea, have remained there? Would these amino acids have been able to accumulate then into a thick soup?
D. E. Hull: "In the mixed layer above the pycnoline, about 100 metres deep, glycine would have a half-life to ultra-violet destruction of about twenty years." (1960:396).
But the primordial sea of the early Precambrian must surely have been much deeper than 100 m in many places. Could those amino acids, like glycine, not have gathered into a thick chemical soup, where it was deeper than 100 m?
D. E. Hull: "Even assuming it to be mixed to the bottom of the ocean, with an average depth of 4 km., the half-life is only 1,000 years. These short lives for decomposition in the atmosphere or ocean clearly preclude the possibility of accumulating useful concentrations of organic compounds over eons of time." (1960:694).
Phillip H. Abelson
Phillip H. Abelson of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, Washington, D.C., Geophysical Laboratory, has also re-examined the hypothesis of chemical evolution and the strongly reducing methane-ammonia-rich atmosphere, it needed. - He writes:
"The hypothesis of an early methane-ammonia atmosphere is found to be without solid foundation and indeed is contraindicated. If the methane-ammonia hypothesis were correct, there should be geological evidence supporting it. What is the evidence for a primitive methane-ammonia atmosphere on earth? The answer is that there is no evidence for it, but much against it. The methane-ammonia hypothesis is in major trouble with respect to the ammonia content, for ammonia on the primitive earth would have quickly disappeared."
How fast would the ammonia have been destroyed?
Phillip H. Abelson: "A quantity of ammonia equivalent to present atmospheric nitrogen would be destroyed in 30,000 years. Small amounts of ammonia would be reformed, but this process is unimportant in comparison to the destruction." (1966:1365).
Has there at least been much methane in the primordial atmosphere?
Phillip H. Abelson: "If large amounts of methane had ever been present in the earth’s atmosphere, geologic evidence for it should also be available. Laboratory experiments show that one consequence of irradiating a dense, highly reducing atmosphere is the production of hydrophobic organic molecules, which are absorbed by sedimentary clays. The earliest rocks should contain an unusual large proportion of carbon or organic chemicals. This is not the case." (1966:1365).
Why do you say that the primordial atmosphere could not have been rich in methane?
Phillip H. Abelson: "The composition of the present atmosphere with respect to the gases neon, argon, krypton, and xenon is crucial. Neon is present on earth to the extent of about 10-10 that of cosmic abundance, and similarly argon, krypton, and xenon are relatively absent. It seems likely that if xenon of atomic weight 130 could not accumulate, other volatile light constituents such as hydrogen, nitrogen, methane, and carbon monoxide would also be lost at the same time. The concept that the earth had a dense methane-ammonia atmosphere is not supported by geochemistry, and it is contraindicated by the scarcity of xenon and krypton in our present atmosphere." (1966:1365).
A. G. Cairns-Smith
A. G. Cairns-Smith is Senior Lecturer in Chemistry at the University of Glasgow in Scotland. He has also studied the hypothesis of chemical evolution for many decades. And he has also known the Soviet biochemist and evolutionist A. I. Oparin. - What has Prof. A. G. Cairns-Smith found out about the assumed highly reducing primordial atmosphere, wherein the building-blocks of life are said to have evolved? - He writes:
"Walker (1976), for example, sees in the early atmosphere as faintly reducing at most of the time conditions had settled down sufficiently for life to be possible: he says ‘a reducing phase, if it ever existed, had a short life and a violent end’ and proposes a primordial atmosphere like our atmosphere now with the removal of all oxygen and the addition of at most a few percent of hydrogen."(1981:16).
Has there been such a methane-laden primordial atmosphere in the early Precambrian that could have supplied the oceans with the needed organic molecules, as Oparin, Eigen and others have claimed?
Prof. A. G. Cairns-Smith: "Clearly in such an uncertain field we should not be dogmatic: but in line with the skepticism of Abelson (1966) and Sillén (1965), the popular idea that life arose under a methane-laden atmosphere with the seas rich in organic molecules has little support from either astronomy or geology. The atmosphere may well have been neutral - mainly N2 and CO2 and under the action of high energy ultraviolet light penetrating an anoxic atmosphere. But the same radiation would mitigate against the build-up of large ‘food-supplies’: it breaks as well as makes organic molecules (Rein et al. 1971)."
"There is ... direct evidence against there having been a strongly reducing atmosphere as long as 3.8 billion years ago. In Greenland there are metamorphosed sedimentary rocks of this age (Moorbath, O’Nion & Parkhurst, 1973). They contain abundant carbohydrates (Allaart, 1976) showing that at least by that time carbon dioxide was in the atmosphere (Schidlowski, 1978). Indeed Moorbath (1977) suggests that since the Greenland rocks are not so very abnormal, conditions when they were laid down could not have been so very different from now." (1982:16, 17).
In their chemical experiments, Stanley Miller and his followers assumed that the primordial atmosphere contained much methane, ammonia and free hydrogen. - Has the atmosphere of the early Precambrian really contained much free hydrogen?
The British biochemist Francis Crick has also looked into this. He received in 1962 together with James Watson and Maurice Wilkins the Nobel Prize for Medicine for discovering the molecular structure of the desoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). Since 1977, Francis Crick is Professor at the Salk-Institute for Biological Research in San Diego, California, and at the University of San Diego. He writes about the assumed large amounts of free hydrogen in the primordial atmosphere:
"In recent time, these ideas have been doubted. Hydrogen is so light that the gravity of the Earth is not strong enough to keep it, and it can easily escape into outer space. To which extent this will happen, depends on several factors, especially on the temperature in the upper atmosphere, for the higher the temperature, the faster the atoms and molecules will move, and the easier they will escape into outer space. Today one thinks that it is possible, that a large part of the original hydrogen escaped so fast, that it never dominated the atmosphere." (1983:83).
Klaus Dose and Horst Rauchfuß
Has there been a methane-ammonia-rich primordial atmosphere in the early Precambrian, when the first cells on Earth came into being? Could this primordial atmosphere have supplied the building blocks for the first cells? What was its chemical composition?
The Professors Klaus Dose and Horst Rauchfuß found out: "Different authors have claimed that the primordial or primitive atmosphere of the Earth (that is, the atmosphere of the prebiotic Earth) contained mainly hydrogen, methane, ammonia, water vapor, and rare gases (Russell, 1935; Oparin, 1938; Urey, 1952; Miller and Urey, 1959). Indeed, 80% of cosmic matter does consist of hydrogen. Helium and hydrogen together make up more than 90% of the matter of the universe." (1975:50).
Was the primordial atmosphere made up mainly of methane, ammonia, and free hydrogen?
Professors Dose and Rauchfuß: "If hydrogen and helium had not escaped together with other volatile substances into outer space, when the Earth was forming, and if the temperature of the primordial Earth had never risen much above 25°C, then a methane-ammonia-water-vapor-atmosphere would have been probable. These ideas, though, are geologically unrealistic, because the greater part of the primordial gases (primary atmosphere) during the formation of the Earth diffused again back into the universe. When the young Earth was forming, the Earth’s crust probably reached then only 200 to 1000°C, so that no general melting of the rocks occurred (Urey, 1962). In order that significant amounts of biochemical molecules could accumulate on the Earth’s crust, the temperature first had to fall to about the present level. Most of the biochemical compounds are at higher temperatures not stable over geological lengths of time." (1975:50, 52).
"During the first phase of the formation of the Earth, mainly free hydrogen and helium would have diffused into outer space. In the following phase, while the ‘secondary’ atmosphere was being built up through volcanic outgassings, methane and ammonia, besides water vapor, could have reached higher concentrations in the atmosphere; but mainly methane and ammonia would in the following time then have slowly oxidized through radiation and photo-chemical reaction, while splitting-products of the water (especially OH-radicals) were involved, to CO2, CO, and N2.
"Abelson (1966) concludes, that the primordial atmosphere of the Earth contained no ammonia, since its half-time exchange due to ultra-violet radiation of the sun was only some 30,000 years. According to Abelson, the atmosphere of the primordial atmosphere could also not have contained larger amounts of methane, since these gases were changed under the influence of radiation in part into higher hydrocarbons.
"These hydrocarbons would have survived until today, if they were enclosed then at once in the primitive rocks. As Abelson emphasizes, the older rocks do contain no significant amounts of organic compounds. From this, one must conclude, that the primary atmosphere, probably consisting mainly of hydrogen, ammonia, and water vapor, must have been lost already before the building-process of the young Earth was finished. A significant accumulation of organic compounds could therefore only have been caused through the influence of different energy-forms on the secondary atmosphere of the Earth." (1975:52).
Primordial Chemical Soup
Has there ever been a primordial chemical soup. And could a living cell have evolved in there by itself from inorganic matter?
P. H. Abelson: "For instance, arginine is adsorbed by sedimentary clay as are chlorophyll and porphyrins. Fatty acids from insoluble salts with magnesium and calcium, and hence would be removed from the soup. At least five major factors limit the kinds of compounds that might have accumulated in the primitive ocean.
· First, there are limitations on what can be made by inorganic means;
· second, all organic matter degrades spontaneously with time;
· third, some substances are readily destroyed by radiation;
· fourth, many compounds would have been removed from the ocean by precipitation or adsorption;
· fifth, there are serious chemical incompatibilities among the constituents of living matter, and some of the components of the soup would react to form nonbiological substances." (1966:1369).
Lars Gunnar Sillén of the Royal Institute of Technology, Dept. of Inorganic Chemistry, Stockholm, Sweden, states about the chemical soup: "Reasonable amounts of organic substances would imply thermodynamic unstable conditions... It is easier to imagine how they could be destroyed than how they could have formed, in the absence of life." (1965:455).
Klaus Dose, at the Johannes-Gutenberg-Universität in Mainz, West Germany, Institute of Biochemistry, is one of the world’s leading authorities on chemical evolution. Could there really have been such a thick soup, just like a rich meat-broth, in which the first living cell on Earth could have evolved by itself? Could the amino acids and other vital molecules really have concentrated in the primordial ocean in hundreds of millions of years into a rich chemical soup, so that from this dead soup, the first living cell could have evolved?
Prof. Klaus Dose: "Such a concentration is far too low for direct formation of polymers and more complicated structures. One may compare it with the concentration of free amino acids in the contemporary North Atlantic Ocean... It is therefore likely that the mean concentration of free amino acids in the primordial ocean was never significantly different from the present level." (1974:74).
Cells are made from proteins and genetic codes. Proteins are made from amino-acid chains and genetic codes from nucleic-acid chains: Could those amino- and nucleic-acid chains have evolved in a chemical soup?
Prof. Klaus Dose: "The chance for polypeptides or polynucleotides to survive in any aqueous system are much smaller than those for the free amino acids. ... No source of polypeptides can be visualized which would keep the peptide in the ocean at a level high enough, perhaps at least a 1% solution, to allow a spontaneous organization of prebiotic systems. Hence, we arrive at the conclusion that the primitive ocean may have constituted a huge reservoir of all amino acids and other kinds of molecules of biological significance, but their concentration was too low to permit the direct self-organization of prebiotic systems." Dose, K. (1974:74).
"An accumulation of different types of biochemical compounds in vast parts of primitive waters was, however, extremely unlikely, for several reasons.
· First, amino acids, aldehydes, cyanides, and other such reactive materials are especially unstable in aqueous solution.
· Second, most of the resulting products are far from identical with biologically important molecules.
· Third, the primitive ocean was steadily irradiated with a relatively high dose of solar ultra-violet light.
"A steady irradiation of a rather homogeneous solution results in degradative rather than synthetic reactions: a photochemical equilibrium is finally reached. ... the concept of a primitive ‘thick soup’ or ‘primordial broth’ is one of the most persistent ideas, at the same time it is most strongly contraindicated by thermodynamic reasoning and by a lack of experimental support." - Fox, S. W. and K. Dose (1977:37, 38).
J. Brooks and G. Shaw report about this mythical "chemical soup": "There is no evidence that a ‘primitive soup’ ever existed on this planet for any appreciable length of time. If a ‘soup’ had existed, the very basis of the Chemical Evolution Theory would require that it would have to contain large amounts of nitrogen-containing organic compounds (amino acids, nucleic acids bases, etc.). Such materials in laboratory experiments are readily adsorbed on sedimentary inorganic particles and would therefore under normal geological conditions and in an environment that did not contain life unquestionably sediment along with the rock and mineral particles."
"The result of this should have been the formation of vast areas of sediments containing organic compounds - since the theories of Chemical Evolution demand that large quantities of such compounds should occur over long periods of time, so that chance might have had an opportunity to exert its influence on the various chemical processes which are assumed to have led to a living system."
"It would of course be inevitable that such sediments would undergo normal diagnetic processes when we would then expect to find significant quantities of ‘nitrogenous-cokes,’ trapped in various sediments. The formation of ‘cokes’ is the normal result obtained by heating organic matter rich in nitrogenous substances. No such materials have yet been found in Precambrian rocks of this planet. In fact the opposite seems to be the case." - Brooks, J. and G. Shaw (1978:604, 605).
How much nitrogen does Precambrian organic matter contain?
J. Brooks and G. Shaw: "The nitrogen content of Precambrian organic matter is extremely low (<0.2%). The insoluble organic matter (‘kerogen’) present in Precambrian sediments generally contains largely carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen with very little organic nitrogen or sulphur." (1978:604).
What do you conclude from your research of Precambrian sediments?
J. Brooks and G. Shaw: "There never was any substantial amount of ‘primordial soup’ on earth when ancient Precambrian sediments were formed... If such a ‘soup’ existed it was only for a brief period of time. ... The geochemical investigations indicate that throughout the early Precambrian there is ample evidence in the rocks that living systems were present at the time of their deposition and where photosynthesizing and undergoing biochemical reactions similar to those of current living systems." (1978:605).
Professor H. Follmann says about the "chemical soup", its contents, and concentration: "One of the great unkowns in Precambrian events are the concentrations of the organic compounds in the primordial ocean. They do determine the speed and directions, but cannot be simulated very well in our laboratories, whereby in a short time always only very few percent of turned-over matter and few substances do occur side by side. Very rich can this primordial soup certainly not have been: Even if all present organic matter were dissolved in the oceans, only a 1% solution would result from this. ... A mixture of organic substrates will not make yet a metabolism, and a few nucleotides together, no genetic information." (1981:66).
Biochemist A. G. Crains-Smith says about the primordial soup in flat ponds, and about the time, when the first cells arose: "The starting monomers would have been grossly impure. On the basis of simulation experiments they would have been present in complex mixtures that contained a great variety of reactive molecules. No sensible organic chemist would hope to get much out of a reaction from starting materials that were tars containing the reactants as minor constituents. Perhaps because they are sensible organic chemists most experimenters, in trying to establish some prevital path to biopolymers, do not start with such complex mixtures." (1982:45, 46).
What other problems are there for chemical evolution?
Cairns-Smith: "The importance of ultraviolet radiation in destroying organic molecules was again emphasized by Rein, Nir & Stamadiadou (1971). ... Dose points out that the concentration of amino acids in the ‘soup’ would have been about the same as the concentrations in the oceans now. A similar conclusion has been reached by Nissenbaum (1976) on the basis of other (non-biological geochemical processes) that scavenge organic molecules from the oceans (for example adsorption on sinking materials).
"As a result the mean residence time for organic molecules is 1000-3000 years. A further effect that can be seen in action now on Mars would have tended to keep surface regions clean of organic molecules. Ultraviolet radiation that can penetrate an anoxic atmosphere can have an oxidising effect on inorganic surface materials creating species that are ready to destroy any organic molecules that are formed.
"All the major biopolymers are metastable in aqueous solutions in relation to their (deactivated) monomers. Left to itself in water, a polypeptide will hydrolyse to its constituent amino acids: Miller & Orgel (1974) estimate that the half life of alanylanine is about 8 x 107 years at 0°C, and about 6 x 105 years at 25°C." (1982:46-48).
"It seems to me that the idea of coupling agents putting together polypeptides on a lifeless earth adds another dimension of unreality to an already unreal thought.
· Remember that primordial simulations generally give only low yields in amino acids.
· Remember that the products are tars and that suggestions for prevital work-up procedures are usually absent.
· Remember the difficulties anyway in building concentrations of solutions of amino acids or of the cyanide or phosphate to make a coupling agent.
· Remember that even from laboratory bottles the agents in question do not work very well.
"It is similarly difficult to imagine anything like polysaccharide being accumulated in primordial waters. As we saw, the monsaccharides could only have been made easily from formaldehyde, as far as anyone knows, and there is doubt if there could have been sufficient concentrations of that. In any case, as we remember, the product of the formose reaction is a very complex mixture that easily leads to higher polymers and to caramel." - Cairns-Smith, A. G. (1982:52-55).
P. Karlson writes in his textbook for biochemistry: "Proteins cannot develop from amino acids by the reversal of the proteolysis. We have mentioned that the equilibrium is all on the side of hydrolysis. Peptides also split easily into amino acids. But amino acids do not come together into peptides. For this, the amino acid must be ‘activated’, that is, must be lifted on a higher group-transmission-potential. The energy, needed for this, is supplied by Adenosintriphosphat (ATP). For every amino acid there is at least one specific activating enzyme and at least one specific transfer-RNA. The substances, that enable those rather complicated reactions, are also enzymes and transfer-RNA, that cannot evolve out of lightning, ammonia, and water-vapor. The synthesis of peptides and proteins in a primordial soup would also have been impossible because of this reason." (1966:115).
Sir Fred Hoyle has last been Director of the Cambridge Institute of Theoretical Astronomy. He has also thought about the question: Could the first cell on Earth have evolved in a "chemical soup"? He concludes: "There is not a thread of objective evidence to support the hypothesis that life began in an organic soup here on the Earth. Indeed, Francis Crick, who shared the Nobel Prize for the discovery for the structure of DNA, is one of the biophysicists who finds this theory unconvincing. So why do biologists indulge in unsubstantiated fantasies in order to deny what is so patently obvious, that the 200,000 amino acid chains, and hence life, did not appear by chance?" (1983:22, 23).
Paul Lüth
The West German physician Paul Lüth writes: "Amino acids build proteins, and proteins are apparatuses. But we must not overlook here: Proteins, whose building blocks were now suddenly there, are themselves not life yet. Protein alone is not able to live. Viruses, made up of nucleoproteids, are not able to perform a single process, typical of life, also not that of reproduction; they always need a living cell. The cell takes in the non-protein-part of the virus-molecule, the nucleic acid, while the virus-protein stays outside. With that we are suddenly confronted with the real problem: We do find life never outside of living beings." (1981:48, 49).
Did Stanley Miller’s biochemical experiments prove that the first cell on Earth could have evolved in a primordial chemical soup?
Paul Lüth: "We have noted already that protein does not mean life yet: amino acids do not live. Every biologist knows that. But during the discussion of Miller’s experiments, it is retouched a little, so that the non-informed person could believe that with those amino acids, we had covered already the gap between chemical and biological evolution.
"According to the law of mass-action, all chemical reactions are reversible, depending on the conditions, that were present at the starting position. Equilibriums namely will arise, that develop from both sides, because the speed of reaction from ‘left’ and ‘right’ is the same. According to St. Miller’s experiments, there arose in the primordial soup, quasi according to natural law, amino acids that in turn build up higher types of amino acids (polypeptides). This is a reaction, described as condensation, since there always one molecule of water is set free. Formerly one used to assume that the essence of life consisted of ‘nothing else’, but this process between amino acids with precipitation of water. When from simple amino acids dipeptides arise, then one molecule of water is set free. And when dipeptides are combined into tripeptides, this happens again." - Lüth, P. (1981:50).
"But if one brings the amino acids into water, the condensation-process does not begin. It does not, because a surplus of water as a starting position is present. Polypeptides, that might have formed already, would be split again into individual amino acids. ... In this surplus of water, no reaction can occur, that would weld amino acids into polypeptides.
"One has, of course, never publicly admitted this, but has tried to get around the consequences from the validity of the law of mass-action, that also has to be assumed for the primordial atmosphere, through an auxiliary hypothesis. One points to the outbreaks of glowing lava and expects then the formation of crusts, on which such biogenic reactions could have happened. No matter, of what such crusts would have been made, they would have been in each case hot - but heat, as everyone knows, whoever has boiled an egg, destroys, denaturates the protein. The protein, that is left after heating, is in such a state that it cannot bear life anymore. Thus, with the theory, everywhere offered, there must be something wrong, so that we must return to the result already reached: Life is built from known life. There exists no real synthesis of the biotic from the abiotic, for the synthesis supplies only the pre-stages, leads close to life - but not to life itself." (1981:50).
What has one produced in Miller’s biochemical experiments?
Paul Lüth: "What has been produced in Miller’s experiments, was neither life nor a pre-stage of life; for the produced molecules were lifeless. ... Miller’s thesis leads us into a dead-end-road. We do meet here, by the way, for the first time, the tautological basic quality of the purely materialistic attempts of explanation: Life always arises, when life is already there. ... The essential pre-condition, namely optically left-winding amino acids, will only arise, when optically active amino acids in pure form are already there. From racematic mixtures, that are optically inactive, they cannot arise." (1981:51, 58).
"The nucleic acids are turning to the right, just as exclusively as the amino acids, life is using, are turning to the left. The nucleic acids themselves are bound to the nucleus, that is, to an already differentiated form of organization of life. The ribonucleic acids, however, are found mainly outside of the nucleus. ... A direct connection between the two is not known. Here we notice that there are no so-called missing links, that is, transitional forms, that could prove and explain the evolution - the qualitative jump - from one form, from one kind into another. Assuming in this case that a form of ‘glass-pearl-game’ (M. Eigen) would be enough to get the things together by throwing dice, so that at the end such a complicated form will arise, does reveal a pronounced belief in miracles.
"Proteins are machines, but they are not the engineers, who have thought out and constructed those machines. Here is a hiatus (= gap), that cannot be overlooked: By referring to the game theory, nothing is won, for not dices decide, where actually very consequently determined functions, directed toward a goal, are being realized." - Lüth, P. (1981:59, 60).
A. E. Wilder Smith
Professor A. E. Wilder Smith says about the "chemical soup" and the Miller tests, said to prove chemical evolution: "The primordial cell could never have evolved from a mixture of amino acids (after Miller), that came into being by chance through lightnings. For all building blocks of life - amino acids or also other asymmetric (that is mirror-capable substances, needed for life), that develop through lightnings, that is, by chance or other natural, non-biological processes, do consist only of racemates, that is, out of 50% left-winding and 50% right-winding forms.
"The amino acids produced by Miller are only racemates - and are therefore basically and absolutely ‘unable to live’ (lebensuntüchtig). A racemate (dl-form) is under absolutely no conditions able, to produce any kind of protein or viable protoplasma. The spatial configuration of a racemate is - according to what we know today -, not suitable for the synthesis of life. In order to make protoplasma and other vital proteins during primordial pro-creation, one has to start with pure l-amino acids. Mixtures of l- and d-forms will not do as a source. Lightning and chance can fundamentally never produce pure left-winding amino acids - they are always racemates - that is, 50% l- and 50% d-forms."
"That is why it is a scientific error to claim that Miller’s experiments have made the synthesis of life through natural procedures possible (through organic chemistry and chance). This is a misleading half-truth, for Miller and his colleagues after him have all produced only racemates that are just as useless as no amino acids at all. It is much harder (and needs more know-how), to synthesise the optically pure form, than those racemates. ... Broad circles of scientists in Europe have now slowly begun to realize that neo-Darwinism has more to do with metaphysics than with natural science." - Wilder Smith. A. E. (1980:29, 30; 1983:11).
A. G. Cairns-Smith, Senior Lecturer in Chemistry, says about the Miller-type tests: "In any case, the success of the simulation experiments have been, at times, overstated. The products are invariably complex mixtures, usually largely polymeric tars. Furthermore some critical molecules of intermediate complexity, particularly nucleotides and lipids, have not been shown to be formed under simple uncontrolled conditions (Miller and Orgel, 1974, Dickerson, 1978)." (1981:17).
Sir Fred Hoyle says about the Urey-Miller tests: "No one has shown that the correct arrangement of amino acids, like the ordering of enzymes, can be produced by this method. No evidence for this huge jump in complexity has ever been found, nor in my opinion, will it be." (1983:18).
Bruno Vollmert
Bruno Vollmert, Professor of Chemistry and Director of the Polymer Institute at the University of Karlsruhe, West Germany, states about the "chemical soup" and the Miller-tests: "The primordial soup (whatever its composition might have been), was a dead ocean, that in its material-chaotic composition can be compared with what remains, when living beings have rotted and decayed. ... Even if one considers that the Earth and the primordial soups were in a thermodynamical sense open systems, so that the primordial soups received energy-rich monomers from the sun all the time, the primordial soup would still have remained a dead sea, since in primordial soups, time is working for hydrolysis (= chain-splitting by water)."
"Experiments by scientists, conducted independently in three different laboratories, have namely shown that with increasing chain-length - as theoretically expected - the hydrolysis-proneness increases. That means, the longer the chains by polycondensation get, the faster they are divided again. Poly-condensation in primordial soups would be, even if it were able to start, a process, that, in the manner of an autocatalysis, brings itself again to a stop."(1983:20).
"If the many self-organization-experimenters were really serious in trying to find out, if in a primordial soup, macro molecules could evolve or not, it is high time that they stopped using pure starting compounds, that have been produced under the strongest exclusion of water. And they should, instead, realize their polycondensation-experiments in a real situation. They can be sure that not only the self-organization-theorists will be grateful, if they found macro molecules under such conditions, but also the board of directors of the large chemical corporations, making in their factories synthetics through poly-condensation.
"More than half of the production-costs for these synthetics are caused by the operation for the cleaning of the monomer starting compounds by costly separation processes for the removing of mono-functional impurities. These costs could be saved, if it were possible to cause the raw materials - corresponding to the primordial soup - to poly-condensate without having been cleaned. That means, if they could be caused to go through the process of synthetics-synthesis. If still no industrial chemist is searching for such a procedure, it is, because all do know that, against the existing natural laws, poly-condensation in mono-functional compounds in mixtures, containing high concentration, does not happen. For the functional ‘impurities’ are from the same reactor. This means, they have developed under the same reaction-conditions, and thus, are of the same type and have the same reaction speeds. The same it is with the compounds of the primordial soup."
"A separation into pure compounds would require that large primordial-soup-production-installations evolved by themselves, which is of course pure nonsense. The compound-mixtures of the early Earth at the same place were governed by the same conditions. Same conditions, though, always permit only the development of the same functional groups. It does not matter at all, if these are single or double per molecules. Such groups, therefore, have nearly equal reaction speeds. The idea that the right building blocks will react faster, is therefore only wishful thinking. For its realization in a primordial soup, no matter how it might be composed, there is no chance at all." - Vollmert, B. (183:23).
"The comparison - primordial soup and poly-condensation laws - shows us that the now widely spread hypothesis about the origin of life by self-organization as proved theories, are lacking every scientific basis. Because the evolution of macromolecules in primordial soups is extremely unlikely.
1. because with increasing chain-length, the chain-splitting speed through hydrolysis increases.
2. because the primordial mono-functional molecules, blocking chain-growth, as compared with the bi-functional monomer-molecules, enabling the chain to grow, are in the majority.
"One can only wonder, with what a naivety, lacking all expert knowledge, OPARIN, HALDANE, and FOX have thought out their protobionts or micro-balls as pre-stages of the cell and sold them to the uncritical reader as a science - as if these quite common colloid systems had anything to do with living cells." - Vollmert, B. (1983:23).
When chains will grow
Proteins are made from amino-acid-chains, and genetic codes from nucleic-acid-chains. When will these chains form, and when not?
Prof. Bruno Vollmert: "If one has suitable molecules, known as monomers, they will unite by themselves into a chain, under the influence of the motion of the molecules. They will always do this, when the used monomer starting-molecules are bi-functional. That is, if they have, so to say, two sticking spots, like the burr-thistle-zipper, where they will keep sticking, so that automatically chains are formed.
"That will only work, if the monomers do have exactly two sticking-spots. When there are also molecules with only one sticking-spot, while the other side is smooth, these so-called mono-functionals will fill the chain-ends. And a lengthening of the chain is impossible, since for the repeated hooking up of molecules, two sticking-spots or sticking-groups per molecule are needed.
"What this model does show us, is the law of constant proportions, also known as stoichiometry. This law says that the formation of macro molecules is impossible, if beside the bi-functional ones, a large part of mono-functional molecules - corresponding to the ball with only one snap-fastener-part - in the starting mixture is present, and, thus, provides clearly outlined natural conditions for the formation of macro molecules by poly-condensation." (1983:11, 12).
Urey-Miller Tests: why they will not work
Evolutionists in East and West claim that chemical evolution has been proved by the Urey-Miller tests. The textbooks of biology are full with such assertions. - Are they true?
Prof. Bruno Vollmert: "The analysis shows that the compounds with mono-functional molecules like formic acids, acetic acids, propionic acid, and monoamines were produced in large surplus, compared with the amino acids, that had also formed. The monomer building blocks of the nucleic acid DNA and RNA one has not found in these tests.
"How the nucleosidphosphatmonomers or nucleotides are supposed to have evolved, is hard to imagine. It is sure that in all the possible occurring processes, that might have led to the formation of nucleotides, also always the corresponding mono-functionals with the same functional groups develop. That is in chemical processes of compound mixtures, running uncontrolled, wholly unavoidable. We should remember here: Primordial soups - if they ever existed and whatever their composition might have been in detail - were solutions with many different components of mono-functional, bi-functional, and higher-functional ones with more than two groups per molecule.
"Now remember, please, that according to the stoichiometric law of poly-condensation, macro molecules with long chains cannot develop, when beside the bi-functional monomers or chain-building-parts, also mono-functional components with equal functioning groups or sticking-groups are present, and not at all, if - as when in the primordial soups - these mono-functional components are present in large surplus.
"The ideas spread in talks, magazines and school-textbooks that primordial soups could have been a suitable medium for the evolution of vital macro molecules, is completely wrong and should be dropped as scientifically untenable. Thereby, all the hypotheses about the evolution of living cells collapses. For where no macro molecules can evolve by poly-condensation, no life can evolve by itself either."
"The result is always the same: In the presence of a surplus of mono-functional molecules, the development of long-chained molecules is extremely unlikely. This means, primordial soups are most unsuitable for the process of prebiotic evolution. Nevertheless, by now, we do know much more about primordial soups - mainly due to the experiments of UREY and MILLER, than our self-organization theorists like. This much at least, that we can say with assurance that the primordial soup is most unsuitable for the process of poly-condensation, and thereby also for the evolution of life." - Vollmert, B. (1983:14-18).
What we only need to know
Prof. Bruno Vollmert asks: "For what must we all know about primordial soups, to arrive at this statement? No more than that it was a compound mixture of bi-functional bi-monomers and homologous monofunctional ones, also chain-building-preventing molecules like mono-carbon acids and monoamines. That has been proved now by hundreds of repetitions of the UREY-MILLER-tests again and again."
But Stanley Miller assumed in his tests, that there was a methane-ammonia-laden primordial atmosphere. That one has disproved now.
Prof. Bruno Vollmert: "Even if we should reject the MILLER-tests, because it cannot be proved that the primordial atmosphere really had the assumed composition, this statement would keep standing. For whatever the composition of the primordial atmosphere might have been in detail, the long experience of the chemical industry does show us that during gas-reactions with a strong local warming, always compound mixtures with many mono- and poly-functional components will develop." (1983:18).
What else speaks against the evolution of macromolecules?
Prof. Bruno Vollmert: "Also a second argument speaks against the evolution of macro molecules of the kind of nucleic acids and proteins by poly-condensation in watery solution, that by the splitting of one water molecule per reaction-step is opposed by the chain-splitting-reaction of hydrolysis, caused by the insertion of one water-molecule per splitting-spot.
"As long as the chain is growing, while both reactions are just as fast, it is in equilibrium. This means, that nothing is changing. And when the hydrolysis is faster, the chain-length is reduced. Which one of the two reactions is faster, depends on the equilibrium-constants and on the concentration of the reaction-partner, here mainly on the water-concentration. That is why, if one wants to get polyesters like Trevira or polyamides like Nylon with the high molecular-weights, needed for the required strength, in the synthesis by poly-condensation, it must have during the synthesis by poly-condensation very low water concentrations of less than 1/100 per cent, for example, by producing a high vacuum." - Vollmert, B. (1983:19).