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Nonphysical.org
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True or False? Testing the Cornerstones of Modern Biology What is the Truth? Science Textbooks Tell Us:
The Issues
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Dedicated to a Revolution in Biological Theory
Life Originated by Chance in Earth's Primeval Seas. True or False? In general, scientists reject the view that God organized molecules into the awesome complexity of plants and animals. Since the famous Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925, scientists have presented Darwin's theory of evolution to counter the Biblical account that God created Earth and life in six miraculous days. Scientists point to evidence that the Universe and life evolved over a great expanse of time. In sedimentary rocks, one finds fossils of far simpler plants and animals. When one attaches dates to these rock layers, one sees that over billions of years life has become increasingly complex. Ancient designs of simpler creatures gradually evolved into a great tree of life that blossomed into our modern plants and animals. The fact that life evolved does dismiss the possibility that living form is constructed by God or other unacknowledged force. However, many scientists insist that Darwin's theory of evolution proves that plants and animals are simply chemical processes organized by the known forces of physics. They aggressive dismiss any possibility that life is the construction of a vast dimension of conscious intelligence. In accord with this purely material view of life, biology textbooks explain that the seas of early Earth were filled with small organic molecules. By chance, the small molecules gradually assembled into huge, complex metabolic machines. Then, these extremely complex molecules chanced to organize as the self-reproducing metabolic systems. As the complexity of these primitive cells increased, they gained long molecules of DNA containing genes. The DNA served as "information directed" biochemistry. Over time, chance mutations to the genetic "design and operating programs" produced new creatures that were then tested by Darwin's environmental selection. Those which were "most fit" proliferated the world with the genetic code of their offspring. In this way, science explains that simple organisms developed into modern plants and animals. Scientists readily admit the improbability of their theory of life's origin. It is exceeding unlikely that mere chance would direct simple molecules to assemble into metabolically active machines that contain hundreds or thousands of atoms (1). Yet scientists assert that with billions of years, chance events overcame the immense improbability that molecules would fall, by themselves, into the life's complex structures. But is this a reasonable theory? Or are the improbabilities of current scientific explanation so great that no expanse of time could ever overcome them? If so, should another theory must be considered? And if God created the living form of plants and animals, should we ignore the fact? Should we exclude such evidence from biology textbooks because science intersects with religion? How did the first cells form? One might complain that we cannot know what happened three billion years ago. However, suppose we craft a simple model to consider what might have occurred. Suppose, we model the origin of life with a large mass of tiny plastic beads that have magnets implanted in their sides. True atoms are more complex than our tiny magnetic beads, but atoms bind together by the same force, the electromagnetic force. There is no magic in the nonliving world. Atoms stick together as molecules and interact from the force of electromagnetic attraction and repulsion. To model the early seas, we pour these neutrally buoyant beads into a large tub of water. The beads orient themselves so that they clump together. The clumps float through out the water. If we give the water a good stir, the colored beads dance about in the current. As we stir, the organized structures continuously break up and reform. Once we stop stirring, the motion of the beads gradually becomes disorganized. Soon the beads move to a state of "timelessness" in which overall change ceases. This is what we expect. Should we take a pen to paper, it is easy explain what happens, be it beads or atoms. Suppose we draw tiny arrows that indicate the motion of molecules. There are an endless number of ways molecules can bounce against each other. And like the billiard balls organized by a triangle at the beginning of the game, once they are hit by the cue ball, they can move in a infinite variety of ways. Complex structures tend to break, form simpler arraignments, and become disorganized. Likewise, organized currents of molecular motion become disorganized. The natural tendency towards disorganization and a state of "timelessness" occurs because disorganization includes so possible outcomes. In their theories of how early life might have formed, scientists focus on life's initial molecular "structures." Scientists note that some molecules such as fats naturally organize into structures such as spheres. Perhaps, they suggest, concentrations of complex organic chemicals developed in such tiny spheres and gradually assembled into the machinery of life. These bubbles of organic molecules then gradually developed metabolic systems that sustained their operation and reproduced. But, this ignores the real mystery. It ignores the organized "motion" of life. As we see in life today, living form arises from life's chronologically directed molecular motion. Life's organized currents of molecules create the structures of cells. These currents do not just amble about in a cell. Rather, a cell's fantastically intertwined motions of millions of molecules never ceases. The currents are highly regulated. The vast hierarchy of molecular interactions is rigidly organized in both time and space. At precise rates, a myriad of these directed currents move food molecules into the cell, send it through metabolic machines, capture energy, use atoms to construct new molecular machinery, build membranes, and then expel the remains as waste. Molecules in the nonliving world come to rest. But life's molecular currents never come to rest in equilibrium. They do not become disorganized. Life's rigidly directed patterns of motion have persisted for billions of years. And in the growth of an organism these directed currents of molecular motion not only remain perpetually organized but evolve into astronomic complexity. Life sucks in the randomness of the nonliving world and turns it into the incredibly organized choreography of living form. This is the hallmark of life. Life possesses highly regulated, yet fluid, currents of molecular activity that continually expand their organization in time and space. Suppose we return to our model. Suppose we start with magnetic beads arranged in any sort of complex shapes. Even if thousands of complex molecules floating in the early seas were to assemble in a membrane with the structures of viable metabolic machines, why would such an assembly not come to rest or equilibrium? Even if the metabolic machines could extract energy from the environment to sustain their motion, what would rigidly direct the overall fluid, molecular dynamic within the first cell? Why would a fluid, organized dynamic not dissipate as occurs in the nonliving world? This is the real question. It is completely ignored by conventional science. One cannot create a tangible model by which individual atoms and molecules, interacting only with each other, sustain life's chronologically organized motion. There is no tangible mechanism for molecular machines, by themselves, to sustain and grow life's fluid, dancing dynamic. As Erwin Schrodinger noted, life's rigidly choreographed motion of molecules is the real mystery (2). As Schrodinger explained, from the physicist's point of view, all chemical reactions are reversible. Yet life's molecular reactions proceed in the direction of ever-expanding complexity in time and space. Exactly why does this occur, he demanded? He could not answer his question and today science simply ignores it. A robust theory of life must clearly explain how the reactive molecular forces of the nonliving world actually become the highly organized, proactive forces of life. The answer, which is aggressively dismissed by conventional science, is that an invisible structure sustains atoms and molecules' highly directed motion in a cell. And this invisible structure expands over time to become ever more complex. With an external field, one can readily provide a model for life's coordinated molecular motion (eg. Many iron filings on a page of paper are simultaneously organized by a magnetic field held beneath). However, one cannot create a model for this dynamic simply from the forces of direct contact between adjacent molecules. In our simple model, the directed motion of the hand in the water provides an external organizing force to collectively move the beads and maintain a chronological progression of events. However, left to themselves, the beads come to rest in a state of "timelessness." It is not hard to associate the mysterious organizing field of life's molecular motion with a force of conscious intelligence. As one moves down the evolutionary ladder to the simplest life forms, that of tiny bacteria, one finds that their behaviors indicate that they consciously perceive their environments (3). Bacteria display choice, selectivity, and memory as they interact with their environments. Such behaviors indicate that the activity of the conscious mind. This suggest that this force of conscious mind is common to all life. It is not a great leap from here to conclude that the nonphysical dimension of conscious intent is in fact life's mysterious force of molecular organization. The Vital Dimension develops the full argument in Chapters 12 and 13.
References: (1) The Nobel Prize scientist, George Wald writing for the Scientific American. (2) The Nobel Prize chemist, Erwin Schrodinger, What is Life? (3) The distinguished biologist, Herbert Jennings, The Behaviors of Lower Organisms. Also, see The Vital Dimension by Carl Gunther.
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