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The Origin of Life
Bernard V Palmer
MA MB MChir MRCP FRCS
Evolution
Means different things,
 Micro-evolution

Charles Darwin
1809 - 1889
Macro-evolution
Neo-Darwinism

The theory that life evolves by chance genetic
mutations which give survival advantage. But
1) Virtually all mutations are deleterious
2) Life has NOT developed over 4.7 billion
years. All phyla suddenly appeared during
the Cambrian period (the Cambrian
Explosion) which started ? 570 million
years ago and lasted ? 50 million years
Cambrian Explosion
A Trilobite
1967 Conference at Wistar
Institute, Philadelphia
A rather acrimonious confrontation between some
mathematicians and leading Darwinists. The
mathematicians showed that NeoDarwinism was
statistically highly improbable.
Dr D.S.Ulam argued that it was highly improbable
that the eye could have evolved by the
accumulation of small mutations, because : The number of mutations needed would be so large
 There was inadequate time for them to appear
 Most needed at once for any advantage
Prof H.S.Lipson –

Professor of Physics
Famous Physicist who chaired the 1967
Philadelphia conference. Later the
‘Physics Bulletin’ stated.
“Very reluctantly, he now took the
view that evolution could not be a
chance process and that the only
alternative is to postulate a creator.”
DNA
Is extraordinarily
efficient
Contains a highly
refined language
Can Replicate itself
The Eye
Flagellum
Prof Richard Dawkins
Insists that life appeared by CHANCE
 But CHANCE is a mathematical
statistic.
 The CHANCE that life developed
without being planned is infinitesimal.

Genetic differences

The Problem of New
Chromosomes
No mechanism is
known for forming
new chromosomes
with meaningful code
‘Primordial Soup’
Primordial Soup Theory



In 1920s two Marxist biologists
Alexandre Operin (USSR) and
J.B.S.Haldane (GB) independently
proposed this theory.
In 1950s Stanley Miller (Chicago)
experimented in reduced
atmosphere and found traces of
glycine and alanine. None form if
oxygen present
BUT analysis of ancient rocks
confirms oxygen was present before
life began.
Sir Fred Hoyle
He wrote in Nature (1981)
on the probability of life forming
from inanimate matter,
This chance “is one to a number with 40,000
noughts after it . . . It is big enough to bury Darwin
and the whole theory of evolution. There was no
primeval soup or any other. If the beginnings of life
were not random, they must therefore have been
the product of purposeful intelligence”
NB Earth has only existed for 1015 seconds!
Design in Nature
Bombardier Beetle
The Atheists Faith
“In the beginning there was
nothing and then it exploded.
Nothingness exploded in such a
way that the world and human
beings formed by random chance.”
Two World Views

“In the beginning God created . . .”
Genesis 1 v. 1
OR

“In the beginning, life assembled itself”
Prof Sidney Fox, secular evolutionist
Psychology and Philosophy
If life assembled itself ‘by chance’, think of the
consequences




No
No
No
No
meaning to life
truth or logic
morality
answer to guilt
Meaninglessness
If there is no God then
our existence is
meaningless.
Albert Camus wrote,
“What is intolerable is to see one’s life
drained of meaning. To be told there is
no reason for existing. A man cannot
live without a reason for living.”
No Morality
If we are just chance happenings and
there is no creator to whom we are
responsible then there can be no right and
wrong.
No Morality
“Is there no God? Then everything is
permissible.” Dostoevsky
“If God is dead, if man is the highest, good
and evil are decided by popular vote.”
William Golding in ‘Lord of the Flies’
Friedrich Nietzsche 1844-1900




Recognised that society
would “kill off God”
This would leave a
moral vacuum
Science cannot give
moral knowledge
Therefore an ‘overman’
will be needed
Friedrich Nietzsche 1844-1900
Derided people who had killed God but kept
Christian values.
“When one gives up the Christian faith one
pulls the right to Christian morality from
under ones feet.”
in “ Twilight of the Idols”
Instinct


“I’ve got values, but I don’t know how or
why.”
The Who
Instinctively we all know that there is a right
and wrong. God says he put it there!
Guilt
This is a problem for us all
C.S.Lewis, when first considering the claims
of Jesus, wrote,
“For the first time I examined myself with a
seriously practical purpose. And there I
found what appalled me, a zoo of lusts, a
bedlam of ambitions, a nursery of fears, a
harem of fondled hatreds. My name was
Legion.”
Forgiveness
Marghanita Laski, a humanist, was
debating on television with a Christian.
“What I envy most about you Christians
is your forgiveness. I have no-one to
forgive me.”
Why?
Sir William Bragg (1862–1945),
Nobel prize-winning physicist said,
“From religion comes man’s purpose, from science
his power to achieve it. Some people ask if
religion and science are opposed to each other.
They are, in the same way that the thumb and
fingers are opposed to one another. It is an
opposition by which anything can be grasped”.
The Evidence about Jesus
What convinced
his disciples?
Did he really die
and rise again?
Is he the Messiah of the Jewish Scriptures?
Can he change people today?
Stepping Stones
Reconciling Genesis 1 with
modern science
Similar Story
The earth had a beginning with
progressive development
Structure of Genesis 1
Use of Words
Fossils
Limitations of Science


Science is about technology, it cannot
solve the real problem that faces us all
– “WHY”.
Prof Stephen Hawking acknowledged
this, “Although science may solve the
problem of how the universe began, it
cannot answer the question, ‘Why does
the universe bother to exist?’ ”
Probability
Science relies on probability.
Why do people want the improbable
to be true?
Why Isn’t Everyone a Christian?

We want to remain independent of God. Yet it is
this independence that so angers God.
“The wrath of God is being revealed from
heaven against all godlessness and wickedness
of men who suppress the truth by their
wickedness, since what may be known about
God is plain to them, because God has made it
plain to them.”
Romans 1:18