Creationists proclaim that life could never have evolved on its own, because with all our science we haven't been able to do it, nor can we produce proof that it evolved at all. Their misguided logic leads them to the conclusion that since life cannot have evolved, then it MUST have been created by God!

Two words: They're wrong. Here, I'll talk about what is needed for life to happen, how it has been proven, and how it was done in a laboratory... by regular, ordinary, everyday, non-omniscient, non-omnipotent, non-godlike human beings.

What You Need
Life as we know it requires three things. Earth is teeming with life; it can be found in virtually every place you look. In volcanoes, arctic tundra, suboceanic boiling springs, frozen lakes, and so on... in every climate, in every type of venue. Regardless of what the life is, or where it is found, these three things are absolutely necessary:

1. Liquid water
   • Liquid water is essential for life to evolve and subsequently survive. Finding life on other worlds would require that liquid water be present (or had been present in the past, if we're looking for evidence of life once having existed, as on Mars). Liquid water is necessary because it is at the proper temperature to allow many simple chemical elements dissolve. Parts of various chemicals are either attracted to or repelled by liquid water, which helps such reactions happen. These reactions are absolute requirements in order for such simple chemicals to combine and form complex chemicals.
      
2. Chemical building blocks like carbon, oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen
   • Carbon: Carbon has the ability to form long, chain-like molecules. Carbon chains are the basic framework of organic molecules.
   • Hydrogen and oxygen: Hydrogen and oxygen together make up water molecules and both can bond with carbon in many different ways.
   • Nitrogen: Nitrogen can also combine with carbon in many different ways.
   • Large molecules: Creating large molecules in a laboratory has shown us that they tend to become unstable. There are, however, some naturally-occurring large molecules that are very stable. Large molecules made from carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen tend to be very stable.
   • Other elements: Calcium, cobalt, copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium, sodium, sulphur, and zinc are all needed for life as we know it.
      
3. An energy source
   • All chemical reactions need an energy source in order to happen. Most plants and primitive animals use photosynthesis to absorb ultraviolet energy from the Sun in order to get energy. Higher forms of life, such as humans and other animals, get energy by consuming food--eating plants or other animals. Ultimately, following the logic of the food chain, all animals rely on the Sun for life energy.

How To Do It
Here's the skinny on the "godlike" process of creating life:

1. Mix together the ingredients necessary for life
   • For life to evolve, simple molecules have to combine to form more complex ones. This mixing would have happened in the seas of the early Earth, often called the 'primordial soup'.
      
2. Add energy
   • Next you need energy. This may have come from lightning storms or hot underwater springs. This injection of energy sparked chemical reactions. These simple molecules began joining to form larger, more complex ones, called 'amino acids'. In a classic experiment in 1953, Stanley Miller and Harold Urey recreated the primordial soup (see below) in a laboratory. By passing electricity through a mixture of simple molecules, they were able to make amino acids.
      
3. The ingredients will react and form complex molecules
   • Amino acids then join together end-to-end to form long, chain-like molecules, known as proteins. You could say that amino acids are the building blocks of proteins. Proteins are essential for building a living creature. They are involved in the formation of just about everything in your body, from the color of your skin to the layout of neurons in your brain.
      
4. Wait for these molecules to reproduce; life has begun
   • Another complex molecule that was formed during these reactions was DNA. DNA has an amazing characteristic that makes it essential for life - it can reproduce itself. It also carries all the code needed to make a living creature.

Where and How It Happened (The Primordial Soup)
The watery seas of the early Earth are often referred to as the primordial soup. They were rich with simple chemicals and the Earth had two abundant energy sources: the Sun and geothermal energy. Water, simple chemicals, and energy—all the ingredients needed for life.

Over millions of years, this concoction of molecules evolved into bacteria. The earliest fossils we have found on Earth are simple, single celled bacteria about 3.8 billion years old. These are the ancient ancestors of all life on Earth today.
 

Comet Life
Some scientists speculate that life on Earth could have been seeded by amino acids left here by impacting comets. This is often blindly dismissed by scoffing disbelievers as science-fiction sensationalism—but then, so were the ideas of submarines, aerial flight, space travel, and lots of other outlandish notions.

The logic is that the basic chemical compounds found in stellar dust clouds—carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, ammonia, and hydrogen cyanide, for example—can form amino acids while in space. This theory was laboratory-tested by multiple science teams, where the conditions were reproduced down to the -260-degree temperature and very low pressure that would be found in such stellar clouds. Grains similar to those found in stellar dust formed. Then, the scientists illuminated these grains with ultraviolet radiation—the kind you get from the Sun and other stars, and which is found aplenty in outer space. The results were that amino acids were formed—as many as sixteen different types in one team's experiment. This proved that amino acids could form in space—and since similar clouds of stellar material are found all over the place, the quantities are sufficient to show that it isn't only possible that comets could pick up such material, but likely.

That doesn't mean that a comet crashing into the Earth DID contain amino acids and cause the beginnings of life here. It does show that it's entirely reasonable that it COULD happen, and that the idea is far less science-fiction sensationalism and more science fact musing. It also shows that it is likely that planetary bodies forming in a young solar system, full of cosmic dust, could have been infused with amino acids right from the beginning—not needing crashing comets to start the ball rolling.

The end result is that life is not something that happened by astronomical chance: it's something that is literally inevitable where amino acids, water, and an energy source are present.

The European Space Agency plans to launch a new telescope in 2007, named "Herschel." Herschel will be capable of detecting far-infrared and submillimeter light—what you need to detect when searching for complex chemical compounds such as organic molecules.
 

What About Cells?
So the basic building blocks of life can be made in a laboratory... but what about cells? If chemicals and amino acids are the basic building blocks of life, then cells are the next higher level. After all, simple chemicals, amino acids, carbon chains, and DNA may be building blocks, but they aren't alive. Cells are. They contain a number of things, most notably a bubble-like membrane surrounding and protecting the insides.

Emulating the harsh conditions found in outer space, NASA scientists have created what they call "proto-cells" in the laboratory. They used simple, common chemicals to do so: ices made of ammonia, carbon monoxide, methanol, and water. They then exposed the array to ultraviolet light to simulate the same exposure the chemicals would receive in outer space. This produced solid materials which, when immersed in water, spontaneously created bubble-like membranes that contained both inside and outside layers.
 

Summary
While the proto-cell structures themselves are not alive, they closely mimic what living cells do. While it can be argued that full, 100% complete life hasn't yet been created, everything leading up to it has happened in the laboratory. Further, it has been proven that spontaneous formation of amino acids can take place... on Earth as well as in space. It's likely only a few years before more lowly humans figure out how to go that final step... and create living, breathing life.

None of it sounds so divine anymore, is it?
 

A Few Life-Related Terms

CELL: The smallest structural unit of an organism that is capable of independent functioning, consisting of one or more nuclei, cytoplasm, and various organelles, all surrounded by a semi-permeable cell membrane.

PROKARYOTE: Simple, one-celled living thing. It lacks a nucleus and other features of complex cells of all other living things (eukaryotes). Two major types are bacteria and cyanobacteria. The DNA is a single molecule that lies within the cell's protoplasm.

EUKARYOTE: Cell with a nucleus. Nucleus has a membrane about it (the cell's inner membrane), in addition to the normal outer membrane surrounding the entire cell. The DNA is contained in the nucleus and is in much greater amounts than in the single molecule found in prokaryotes.

PROTEINS: Proteins are formed from 20 different amino acids. These aminos can be combined in many different ways to form chains. The globular and spiral ways these chains coil help explain the diversity of tasks proteins perform. Plants can make all their amino acids; most other living things can make only some of them... others are obtained through food.

Home   About   Contact   Other   Links
Articles   Alphabetical List of Articles

Article Categories:
The Basics   Information   Legal Stuff
Funny Stuff   Essays   Quotes

Atheist and Proud!

Copyright © 2004-2005 David M. Fitzpatrick, indy@fitz42-QQQ.net
Remove the "-QQQ" part before you send your email! Click here to learn why.