Origin of Life Mystery Solved?

The media has been buzzing lately with headlines like “Origin-of-Life Story May Have Found Its Missing Link” and "Researchers May Have Solved ‘Missing Link’ Mystery in the Origin of Life.” The question of the origin of life has long been a puzzle to evolutionary scientists. After all, one of the laws of nature is the law of biogenesis; life only comes from other life. This law is confirmed no matter where we look on Earth and, despite years of research, life only ever comes from other life—it has never, not even once, been observed to come from non-life. This is a major problem, of course, for evolutionists, and one they must solve if they have any hope of life evolving.

One of the greatest puzzles in the origin-of-life story is aptly summed up in this news article: “how did the chemistry of simple carbon-based molecules lead to the information storage of ribonucleic acid, or RNA? The RNA molecule must store information to code for proteins.” This is a major challenge to the idea of life from primordial soup because information only ever comes from an information giver. We never—not even once—have seen meaningful information arise by random, natural processes. Information only comes from an information giver! So how did these researchers supposedly overcome these overwhelming challenges to evolutionary ideas?

Well, these headlines loudly proclaim that this conundrum might not be such a problem anymore, based on recent research. It’s also good to recognize the tentative terminology rife in such articles such as this one where we read, “The new research . . . suggests a way . . . probably pools of water . . . The idea . . . Carter thinks he's found a way for the information storage . . . still doesn't answer the ultimate question . . . ”

But what does this research really show? It reveals the presuppositions and wishful thinking of evolutionists! Basically, their answer to the mystery of the origin of life is that they don’t know how it came about, but they do have some stories of how it might have. Their thinking is, Well, even if we don’t really know, it simply must have happened since we are here today!

You see, what these scientists have “discovered” is they have “suggest[ed] a way for RNA to control the production of proteins by working with simple amino acids that does not require the more complex enzymes that exist today.” Supposedly this is “a way for the information storage of chemical structures like tRNA [transfer RNA] to have arisen—a crucial piece of passing on genetic traits.” Basically, in two separate studies, they did some observational science and realized that tRNA (a molecule that works with RNA in the cell) can discriminate between molecules and that temperature doesn’t appear to have an effect on this. They then took these observations and applied them to the question of the origin of life. Of course, this does not show that life evolved from primordial soup. All this shows is that tRNA can discriminate between molecules irrespective of temperature. This is observational science in the present and applies to the molecules and proteins that we have in the present. It has nothing to do with how life might have arisen—except in the minds of the researchers who have rejected the answer to that question found in the revealed Word of God! You see, this does not provide them with a code—information—from which life could come. All it provides them with is a pile of amino acids sorted according to shape and size. But this a far cry from the complexity of life. Without the information behind life, nothing is going to use these sorted amino acids, so they’re going nowhere.

The final paragraph of the news story reads, “This work still doesn't answer the ultimate question of how life began, but it does show a mechanism for the appearance of the genetic codes that pass on inherited traits, which got evolution rolling.” Despite the brazen headline, they haven’t found a “missing link” in the question of the origin of life. They’ve simply, based on their belief in evolution, assumed that evolution happened and have suggested an unsatisfying mechanism that got life started.

For more information on the question of the origin of life, I encourage you to check out researcher and writer Dr. Elizabeth Mitchell’s full-length article on similar claims that were in the headlines earlier this year. You can read that article here.

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,
Ken

This item was written with the assistance of AiG’s research team.