The Genetic and Embryological Impasse of Homology

The discovery which really overthrew homology is that organs accepted as "homologous" are almost all controlled by very different genetic codes. As we know, the theory of evolution proposes that living things developed through small, chance changes in their genes, in other words, mutations. For this reason, the genetic structures of living things which are seen as close evolutionary relatives should resemble each other. And, in particular, similar organs should be controlled by similar genetic structures. However, in point of fact, genetic researchers have made discoveries which conflict totally with this evolutionary thesis.

Similar organs are usually governed by very different genetic (DNA) codes. Furthermore, similar genetic codes in the DNA of different creatures are often associated with completely different organs. The chapter titled "The Failure of Homology" in Michael Denton's book, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, gives several examples of this, and sums the subject up in this way:

Homologous structures are often specified by non-homologous genetic systems and the concept of homology can seldom be extended back into embryology.278

This genetic question has also been raised by the well-known evolutionary biologist Gavin de Beer. In his book Homology: An Unsolved Problem, published in 1971, de Beer put forward a very wide-ranging analysis of this subject. He sums up why homology is a problem for the theory of evolution as follows:

What mechanism can it be that results in the production of homologous organs, the same 'patterns', in spite of their not being controlled by the same genes? I asked this question in 1938, and it has not been answered.279

Although some 30 years have passed since de Beer wrote those words, they have still received no answer.

A third proof which undermines the homology claim is the question of embryological development, which we mentioned at the start. In order for the evolutionary thesis regarding homology to be taken seriously, the periods of similar structures' embryological development—in other words, the stages of development in the egg or the mother's womb—would need to be parallel, whereas, in reality, these embryological periods for similar structures are quite different from each other in every living creature. Pere Alberch, an eminent developmental biologist, noted, it is "the rule rather than the exception" that "homologous structures form from distinctly dissimilar initial states." 280

The emergence of similar structures as the result of totally dissimilar processes is frequently seen in the latter stages of the development phase. As we know, many species of animal go through a stage known as "indirect development" (in other words the larva stage), on their way to adulthood. For instance, most frogs begin life as swimming tadpoles and turn into four-legged animals at the last stage of metamorphosis. But alongside this there are several species of frog which skip the larva stage and develop directly. But the adults of most of these species that develop directly are practically indistinguishable from those species which pass through the tadpole stage. The same phenomenon is to be seen in water chestnuts and some other similar species.281

To conclude, we can say that genetic and embryological research has proven that the concept of homology defined by Darwin as "evidence of the evolution of living things from a common ancestor" can by no means be regarded as any evidence at all. The inconsistency of homology, which looks quite convincing on the surface, is clearly revealed when examined more closely.

The Myth of Homology

Anyone who studies the different living species in the world may observe that there are some similar organs and features among these species. The first person to draw materialistic conclusions from this fact, which has attracted scientists' attention since the eighteenth century, was Charles Darwin.

Darwin thought that creatures with similar (homologous) organs had an evolutionary relationship with each other, and that these organs must have been inherited from a common ancestor. According to his assumption, both pigeons and eagles had wings; therefore, pigeons, eagles and indeed all other birds with wings were supposed to have evolved from a common ancestor.

Homology is a tautological argument, advanced on the basis of no other evidence than an apparent physical resemblance. This argument has never once been verified by a single concrete discovery in all the years since Darwin's day. Nowhere in the world has anyone come up with a fossil remain of the imaginary common ancestor of creatures with homologous structures. Furthermore, the following issues make it clear that homology provides no evidence that evolution ever occurred.

1. One finds homologous organs in creatures belonging to completely different phyla, among which evolutionists have not been able to establish any sort of evolutionary relationship;

2. The genetic codes of some creatures that have homologous organs are completely different from one another.

3. The embryological development of homologous organs in different creatures is completely different.

Let us now examine each of these points one by one.

The Invalidity of Morphological Homology

The homology thesis of the evolutionists is based on the logic of building an evolutionary link between all living things with similar morphologies (structures), whereas there are a number of homologous organs shared by different groups that are completely unrelated to each other. Wings are one example. In addition to birds, we find wings on bats, which are mammals, and on insects and even on some dinosaurs, which are extinct reptiles. Not even evolutionists posit an evolutionary relationship or kinship among those four different groups of animals.

Another striking example is the amazing resemblance and the structural similarity observed in the eyes of different creatures. For example, the octopus and man are two extremely different species, between which no evolutionary relationship is likely even to be proposed, yet the eyes of both are very much alike in terms of their structure and function. Not even evolutionists try to account for the similarity of the eyes of the octopus and man by positing a common ancestor.

According to the "tree of life" proposed by evolutionists, octopuses are some of the remotest creatures from man. But the octopus eye has exactly the same structure as ours. This is an indication that similarity of structure is no evidence for evolution.

In response, evolutionists say that these organs are not "homologous" (in other words, from a common ancestor), but that they are "analogous" (very similar to each other, although there is no evolutionary connection between them). For example, in their view, the human eye and the octopus eye are analogous organs. However, the question of which category they will put an organ into, homologous or analogous, is answered totally in line with the theory of evolution's preconceptions. And this shows that the evolutionist claim based on resemblances is completely unscientific. The only thing evolutionists do is to try to interpret new discoveries in accordance with a dogmatic evolutionary preconception.

However, the interpretation they put forward is completely invalid. Because organs which they have to consider "analogous" sometimes bear such close resemblance to one another, despite being exceedingly complex structures, that it is totally illogical to propose that this similarity was brought about as a result of coincidental mutations. If an octopus eye emerged completely by coincidence, as evolutionists claim, then how is it that vertebrates' eyes can emerge by the very same coincidences? The famous evolutionist Frank Salisbury, who got dizzy from thinking about this question, writes:

Even something as complex as the eye has appeared several times; for example, in the squid, the vertebrates, and the arthropods. It's bad enough accounting for the origin of such things once, but the thought of producing them several times according to the modern synthetic theory makes my head swim.275

According to the theory of evolution, wings emerged independently of each other four times: in insects, flying reptiles, birds, and flying mammals (bats). The fact that wing with very similar structures developed four times—which cannot be explained by the mechanisms of natural selection/mutation—is yet another headache for evolutionary biologists.

One of the most concrete examples of such an obstacle in the path of evolutionary theory can be seen in mammals. According to the accepted view of modern biology, all mammals belong to one of three basic categories: placentals, marsupials and monotremes. Evolutionists consider this distinction to have come about when mammals first appeared, and that each group lived its own evolutionary history totally independent of the other. But it is interesting that there are "pairs" in placentals and marsupials which are nearly the same. Placental wolves, cats, squirrels, anteaters, moles and mice all have their marsupial counterparts with closely similar morphologies.276

In other words, according to the theory of evolution, mutations completely independent of each other must have produced these creatures "by chance" twice! This reality is a question that will give evolutionists problems even worse than dizzy spells.

One of the interesting similarities between placental and marsupial mammals is that between the North American wolf and the Tasmanian wolf. The former belongs to the placental class, the latter to the marsupials. Evolutionary biologists believe that these two different species have completely separate evolutionary histories.277 (Since the continent of Australia and the islands around it split off from Gondwanaland (the supercontinent that is supposed to be the originator of Africa, Antarctica, Australia, and South America) the link between placental and marsupial mammals is considered to have been broken, and at that time there were no wolves). But the interesting thing is that the skeletal structure of the Tasmanian wolf is nearly identical to that of the North American wolf. Their skulls in particular, as shown on the next page, bear an extraordinary degree of resemblance to each other.

The wings of a flying reptile, a bird, and a bat. These wings, between which no evolutionary relationship can be established, possess similar structures.

Starting with kangaroos, all mammals in the continent of Australia belong to the "pouched" or marsupial subclass. According to evolutionists, they have no evolutionary relationship with placental mammals in the other regions of the world.

Extraordinary resemblances and similar organs like these, which evolutionary biologists cannot accept as examples of "homology," show that homology does not constitute any evidence for the thesis of evolution from a common ancestor. What is even more interesting is that the exact opposite situation is to be observed in other living things. In other words, there are living things, some of whose organs have completely different structures, even though they are considered to be close relatives by evolutionists. For example, most crustaceans have eye structures of the "refracting lens" type. In only two species of crustacean—the lobster and the shrimp—is the completely different "reflecting" type of eye seen. (See the chapter on Irreducible Complexity.)

Mammal Twins That Defy Homology

The presence of "twin" species between marsupial and placental mammals deals a serious blow to the claim of homology. For example, the marsupial Tasmanian wolf (above) and the placental wolf found in North America resemble each other to an extraordinary degree. To the side can be seen the skulls of these two highly similar animals. Such a close resemblance between the two, which cannot be suggested to have any "evolutionary relationship," completely invalidates the claim of homology.

Two Unrelated Extinct Mammals With Giant Teeth

Another example of extraordinary resemblance between placental and marsupial mammal "twins," is that between the extinct mammals Smilodon (right) and Thylacosmilus (left), both predators with enormous front teeth. The great degree of resemblance between the skull and teeth structures of these two mammals, between which no evolutionary relationship can be established, overturns the homological view that similar structures are evidence in favor of evolution.

North American wolf skull.

Tasmanian wolf skull.

Order Cannot Be Explained by Coincidence

So far, we have examined how impossible the accidental formation of life is. Let us again ignore these impossibilities for just a moment. Let us suppose that millions of years ago a cell was formed which had acquired everything necessary for life, and that it duly "came to life." Evolution again collapses at this point. For even if this cell had existed for a while, it would eventually have died and after its death, nothing would have remained, and everything would have reverted to where it had started. This is because this first living cell, lacking any genetic information, would not have been able to reproduce and start a new generation. Life would have ended with its death.

The genetic system does not only consist of DNA. The following things must also exist in the same environment: enzymes to read the code on the DNA, messenger RNA to be produced after reading these codes, a ribosome to which messenger RNA will attach according to this code, transfer RNA to transfer the amino acids to the ribosome for use in production, and extremely complex enzymes to carry out numerous intermediary processes. Such an environment cannot exist anywhere apart from a totally isolated and completely controlled environment such as the cell, where all the essential raw materials and energy resources exist.

As a result, organic matter can self-reproduce only if it exists as a fully developed cell, with all its organelles. This means that the first cell on earth was formed "all of a sudden," together with its extraordinarily complex structure.

So, if a complex structure came into existence all of a sudden, what does this mean?

Let us ask this question with an example. Let us liken the cell to a high-tech car in terms of its complexity. (In fact, the cell is a much more complex and developed system than a car.) Now let us ask the following question: What would you think if you went out hiking in the depths of a thick forest and ran across a brand-new car among the trees? Would you imagine that various elements in the forest had come together by chance over millions of years and produced such a vehicle? All the parts in the car are made of products such as iron, copper, and rubber—the raw ingredients for which are all found on the earth—but would this fact lead you to think that these materials had synthesized "by chance" and then come together and manufactured such a car?

There is no doubt that anyone with a sound mind would realize that the car was the product of an intelligent design, and wonder what it was doing there in the middle of the forest. The sudden emergence of a complex structure in a complete form, quite out of the blue, shows that this is the work of an intelligent design.

Believing that pure chance can produce perfect structures goes well beyond the bounds of reason. Yet every "explanation" put forward by the theory of evolution regarding the origin of life is like that. One outspoken authority on this issue is the famous French zoologist Pierre-Paul Grassé. Grassé is an evolutionist, yet he acknowledges that Darwinist theory is unable to explain life and makes a point about the logic of "coincidence," which is the backbone of Darwinism:

The opportune appearance of mutations permitting animals and plants to meet their needs seems hard to believe. Yet the Darwinian theory is even more demanding: A single plant, a single animal would require thousands and thousands of lucky, appropriate events. Thus, miracles would become the rule: events with an infinitesimal probability could not fail to occur… There is no law against daydreaming, but science must not indulge in it.273

All living things in the world, all of which are clear examples of the intelligent planning we have just been discussing, are at the same time living evidence that coincidence can have no role to play in their existence. Each of its component parts—never mind a whole living creature—contains structures and systems so complex that they cannot be the work of coincidence. We need go no further than our own bodies to find examples of this.

One example of this is our eyes. The human eye sees by the working together of some 40 separate parts. If one of these is not present, the eye will be useless. Each of these 40 parts possesses complex structures within itself. The retina at the back of the eye, for instance, is made up of 11 layers. Each layer has a different function. The chemical processes that go on inside the retina are so complex that they can only be explained with pages full of formulae and diagrams.

The theory of evolution is unable to account for the emergence of even such a flawless and complex structure as a single eye by means of "accident," let alone life itself, or mankind.

So, what do these extraordinary features in living things prove to us about the origin of life? As we made clear in the opening part of this book, only two different accounts can be given regarding the origin of life. One is the fallacious evolutionary explanation, the other the evident "fact of creation." As explained throughout the book, the evolution claim is impossible, and scientific discoveries prove the truth of creation. This truth may surprise some scientists, who from the nineteenth century to the present have seen the concept of "creation" as unscientific, but science can only progress by overcoming shocks of this kind and accepting the truth. Chandra Wickramasinghe describes the reality he faced as a scientist who had been told throughout his life that life had emerged as a result of chance coincidences:

From my earliest training as a scientist, I was very strongly brainwashed to believe that science cannot be consistent with any kind of deliberate creation. That notion has had to be painfully shed. At the moment, I can't find any rational argument to knock down the view which argues for conversion to Allah. We used to have an open mind; now we realize that the only logical answer to life is creation - and not accidental random shuffling.274

The Invalidity of the RNA World

The discovery in the 1970s that the gases originally existing in the primitive atmosphere of the earth would have rendered amino acid synthesis impossible was a serious blow to the theory of molecular evolution. Evolutionists then had to face the fact that the "primitive atmosphere experiments" by Stanley Miller, Sydney Fox, Cyril Ponnamperuma and others were invalid. For this reason, in the 1980s the evolutionists tried again. As a result, the "RNA World" hypothesis was advanced. This scenario proposed that, not proteins, but rather the RNA molecules that contained the information for proteins, were formed first.

According to this scenario, advanced by Harvard chemist Walter Gilbert in 1986, inspired by the discovery about "ribozymes" by Thomas Cech, billions of years ago an RNA molecule capable of replicating itself formed somehow by accident. Then this RNA molecule started to produce proteins, having been activated by external influences. Thereafter, it became necessary to store this information in a second molecule, and somehow the DNA molecule emerged to do that.

Made up as it is of a chain of impossibilities in each and every stage, this scarcely credible scenario, far from providing any explanation of the origin of life, only magnified the problem, and raised many unanswerable questions:

1. Since it is impossible to accept the coincidental formation of even one of the nucleotides making up RNA, how can it be possible for these imaginary nucleotides to form RNA by coming together in a particular sequence? Evolutionist John Horgan admits the impossibility of the chance formation of RNA;

As researchers continue to examine the RNA-World concept closely, more problems emerge. How did RNA initially arise? RNA and its components are difficult to synthesize in a laboratory under the best of conditions, much less under really plausible ones.267

2. Even if we suppose that it formed by chance, how could this RNA, consisting of just a nucleotide chain, have "decided" to self-replicate, and with what kind of mechanism could it have carried out this self-replicating process? Where did it find the nucleotides it used while self-replicating? Even evolutionist microbiologists Gerald Joyce and Leslie Orgel express the desperate nature of the situtation in their book In the RNA World:

This discussion… has, in a sense, focused on a straw man: the myth of a self-replicating RNA molecule that arose de novo from a soup of random polynucleotides. Not only is such a notion unrealistic in light of our current understanding of prebiotic chemistry, but it would strain the credulity of even an optimist's view of RNA's catalytic potential.268

3. Even if we suppose that there was self-replicating RNA in the primordial world, that numerous amino acids of every type ready to be used by RNA were available, and that all of these impossibilities somehow took place, the situation still does not lead to the formation of even one single protein. For RNA only includes information concerning the structure of proteins. Amino acids, on the other hand, are raw materials. Nevertheless, there is no mechanism for the production of proteins. To consider the existence of RNA sufficient for protein production is as nonsensical as expecting a car to assemble itself by simply throwing the blueprint onto a heap of parts piled up on top of each other. A blueprint cannot produce a car all by itself without a factory and workers to assemble the parts according to the instructions contained in the blueprint; in the same way, the blueprint contained in RNA cannot produce proteins by itself without the cooperation of other cellular components which follow the instructions contained in the RNA.

Proteins are produced in the ribosome factory with the help of many enzymes, and as a result of extremely complex processes within the cell. The ribosome is a complex cell organelle made up of proteins. This leads, therefore, to another unreasonable supposition—that ribosomes, too, should have come into existence by chance at the same time. Even Nobel Prize winner Jacques Monod, who was one of the most fanatical defenders of evolution—and atheism—explained that protein synthesis can by no means be considered to depend merely on the information in the nucleic acids:

The code is meaningless unless translated. The modern cell's translating machinery consists of at least 50 macromolecular components, which are themselves coded in DNA: the code cannot be translated otherwise than by products of translation themselves. It is the modern expression of omne vivum ex ovo. When and how did this circle become closed? It is exceedingly difficult to imagine.269

How could an RNA chain in the primordial world have taken such a decision, and what methods could it have employed to make protein production happen by doing the work of 50 specialized particles on its own? Evolutionists have no answer to these questions. One article in the preeminent scientific journal Nature makes it clear that the concept of "self-replicating RNA" is a complete product of fantasy, and that actually this kind of RNA has not been produced in any experiment:

DNA replication is so error-prone that it needs the prior existence of protein enzymes to improve the copying fidelity of a gene-size piece of DNA. "Catch-22" say Maynard Smith and Szathmary. So, wheel on RNA with its now recognized properties of carrying both informational and enzymatic activity, leading the authors to state: "In essence, the first RNA molecules did not need a protein polymerase to replicate them; they replicated themselves." Is this a fact or a hope? I would have thought it relevant to point out for 'biologists in general' that not one self-replicating RNA has emerged to date from quadrillions (1024) of artificially synthesized, random RNA sequences.270

Dr. Leslie Orgel uses the term "scenario" for the possibility of "the origination of life through the RNA World." Orgel described what kind of features this RNA would have had to have and how impossible these would have been in his article "The Origin of Life," published in Scientific American in October 1994:

This scenario could have occurred, we noted, if prebiotic RNA had two properties not evident today: A capacity to replicate without the help of proteins and an ability to catalyze every step of protein synthesis.271

As should by now be clear, to expect these two complex and extremely essential processes from a molecule such as RNA is againt scientific thought. Concrete scientific facts, on the other hand, makes it explicit that the RNA World hypothesis, which is a new model proposed for the chance formation of life, is an equally implausible fable.

John Horgan, in his book The End of Science, reports that Stanley Miller viewed the theories subsequently put forward regarding the origin of life as quite meaningless (It will be recalled that Miller was the originator of the famous Miller Experiment, which was later revealed to be invalid.):

In fact, almost 40 years after his original experiment, Miller told me that solving the riddle of the origin of life had turned out to be more difficult than he or anyone else had envisioned… Miller seemed unimpressed with any of the current proposals on the origin of life, referring to them as "nonsense" or "paper chemistry." He was so contemptuous of some hypotheses that, when I asked his opinion of them, he merely shook his head, sighed deeply, and snickered—as if overcome by the folly of humanity. Stuart Kauffman's theory of autocatalysis fell into this category. "Running equations through a computer does not constitute an experiment," Miller sniffed. Miller acknowledged that scientists may never know precisely where and when life emerged.272

This statement, by a pioneer of the struggle to find an evolutionary explanation for the origin of life, clearly reflects the despair felt by evolutionist scientists over the cul-de-sac they find themselves in.

DNA cannot be Explained by Coincidences

At this point, there is an important detail that deserves attention. An error in the sequence of the nucleotides making up a gene would render that gene completely useless. When it is considered that there are some 30,000 genes in the human body, it becomes clearer how impossible it is for the millions of nucleotides making up these genes to have been formed, in the right sequence, by chance.

The impossibility of the formation of RNA and DNA by a coincidental accumulation of nucleotides is expressed by the French scientist Paul Auger in this way:

We have to sharply distinguish the two stages in the chance formation of complex molecules such as nucleotides by chemical events. The production of nucleotides one by one—which is possible—and the combination of these within very special sequences. The second is absolutely impossible.258

For many years, Francis Crick believed in the theory of molecular evolution, but eventually even he had to admit to himself that such a complex molecule could not have emerged spontaneously by chance, as the result of an evolutionary process:

An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that, in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle.259

The Turkish evolutionist Professor Ali Demirsoy was forced to make the following confession on the issue:

In fact, the probability of the formation of a protein and a nucleic acid (DNA-RNA) is a probability way beyond estimating. Furthermore, the probability of the emergence of a certain protein chain is so slight as to be called astronomic.260

DNA codes of the beta-globin gene. These codes make up one of the parts of the haemoglobin that carry oxygen in the blood. The important thing is that if there is an error in just one of these codes, the protein that is produced will be totally useless.

A very interesting paradox emerges at this point: While DNA can only replicate with the help of special proteins (enzymes), the synthesis of these proteins can only be realized by the information encoded in DNA. As they both depend on each other, they have to exist at the same time for replication. Science writer John Horgan explains the dilemma in this way:

DNA cannot do its work, including forming more DNA, without the help of catalyticproteins, or enzymes. In short, proteins cannot form without DNA, but neither can DNA form without proteins. 261

This situation once again undermines the scenario that life could have come about by accident. Homer Jacobson, Professor Emeritus of Chemistry, comments:

Directions for the reproduction of plans, for energy and the extraction of parts from the current environment, for the growth sequence, and for the effector mechanism translating instructions into growth—all had to be simultaneously present at that moment [when life began]. This combination of events has seemed an incredibly unlikely happenstance...262

The quotation above was written two years after the discovery of the structure of DNA by Watson and Crick. But despite all the developments in science, this problem for evolutionists remains unsolved. This is why German biochemist Douglas R. Hofstadter says:

'How did the Genetic Code, along with the mechanisms for its translation (ribosomes and RNA molecules), originate?' For the moment, we will have to content ourselves with a sense of wonder and awe, rather than with an answer.263

Stanley Miller and Francis Crick's close associate from the University of San Diego, California, the highly reputed evolutionist Dr. Leslie Orgel says in an article published in 1994:

It is extremely improbable that proteins and nucleic acids, both of which are structurally complex, arose spontaneously in the same place at the same time. Yet it also seems impossible to have one without the other. And so, at first glance, one might have to conclude that life could never, in fact, have originated by chemical means.264

Alongside all of this, it is chemically impossible for nucleic acids such as DNA and RNA, which possess a definite string of information, to have emerged by chance, or for even one of the nucleotides which compose them to have come about by accident and to have survived and maintained its unadulterated state under the conditions of the primordial world. Even the famous journal Scientific American, which follows an evolutionist line, has been obliged to confess the doubts of evolutionists on this subject:

Even the simpler molecules are produced only in small amounts in realistic experiments simulating possible primitive earth conditions. What is worse, these molecules are generally minor constituents of tars: It remains problematical how they could have been separated and purified through geochemical processes whose normal effects are to make organic mixtures more and more of a jumble. With somewhat more complex molecules these difficulties rapidly increase. In particular a purely geochemical origin of nucleotides (the subunits of DNA and RNA) presents great difficulties.265

As revealed by what has been discussed so far, since it is impossible for life to have emerged by chemical means, life was created by All Powerful Allah. This "chemical evolution" that evolutionists have been talking about since the beginning of the last century never happened, and is nothing but a myth.

But most evolutionists believe in this and similar totally unscientific fairy tales as if they were true, because accepting that living things were created means accepting Almighty Allah's existence—and they have conditioned themselves not to accept this truth. One famous biologist from Australia, Michael Denton, discusses the subject in his book Evolution: A Theory in Crisis:

To the skeptic, the proposition that the genetic programmes of higher organisms, consisting of something close to a thousand million bits of information, equivalent to the sequence of letters in a small library of 1,000 volumes, containing in encoded form countless thousands of intricate algorithms controlling, specifying, and ordering the growth and development of billions and billions of cells into the form of a complex organism, were composed by a purely random process is simply an affront to reason. But to the Darwinist, the idea is accepted without a ripple of doubt - the paradigm takes precedence!266

The extraordinary information concealed in DNA is clear proof that life did not emerge by chance, but was deliberately created. No natural process can account for the origin of DNA.

The Origin of the DNA Molecule

Our examinations so far have shown that the theory of evolution is in a serious quandary at the molecular level. Evolutionists have shed no light on the formation of amino acids at all. The formation of proteins, on the other hand, is another mystery all its own.

Yet the problems are not even limited just to amino acids and proteins: These are only the beginning. Beyond them, the extremely complex structure of the cell leads evolutionists to yet another impasse. The reason for this is that the cell is not just a heap of amino-acid-structured proteins, but rather one of the most complex systems man has ever encountered.

While the theory of evolution was having such trouble providing a coherent explanation for the existence of the molecules that are the basis of the cell structure, developments in the science of genetics and the discovery of nucleic acids (DNA and RNA) produced brand-new problems for the theory. In 1953, James Watson and Francis Crick launched a new age in biology with their work on the structure of DNA.

The molecule known as DNA, which is found in the nucleus of each of the 100 trillion cells in our bodies, contains the complete blueprint for the construction of the human body. The information regarding all the characteristics of a person, from physical appearance to the structure of the inner organs, is recorded in DNA within the sequence of four special bases that make up the giant molecule. These bases are known as A, T, G, and C, according to the initial letters of their names. All the structural differences among people depend on variations in the sequences of these letters. In addition to features such as height, and eye, hair and skin colors, the DNA in a single cell also contains the design of the 206 bones, the 600 muscles, the 100 billion nerve cells (neurons), 1.000 trillion connections between the neurons of the brain, 97,000 kilometers of veins, and the 100 trillion cells of the human body. If we were to write down the information coded in DNA, then we would have to compile a giant library consisting of 900 volumes of 500 pages each. But the information this enormous library would hold is encoded inside the DNA molecules in the cell nucleus, which is far smaller than the 1/100th-of-a-millimeter-long cell itself.

When Watson and Crick discovered the structure of DNA, they revealed that life was much more complicated than had previously been thought.

DNA cannot be Explained by Coincidences

At this point, there is an important detail that deserves attention. An error in the sequence of the nucleotides making up a gene would render that gene completely useless. When it is considered that there are some 30,000 genes in the human body, it becomes clearer how impossible it is for the millions of nucleotides making up these genes to have been formed, in the right sequence, by chance.

The impossibility of the formation of RNA and DNA by a coincidental accumulation of nucleotides is expressed by the French scientist Paul Auger in this way:

We have to sharply distinguish the two stages in the chance formation of complex molecules such as nucleotides by chemical events. The production of nucleotides one by one—which is possible—and the combination of these within very special sequences. The second is absolutely impossible.258

For many years, Francis Crick believed in the theory of molecular evolution, but eventually even he had to admit to himself that such a complex molecule could not have emerged spontaneously by chance, as the result of an evolutionary process:

An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that, in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle.259

The Turkish evolutionist Professor Ali Demirsoy was forced to make the following confession on the issue:

In fact, the probability of the formation of a protein and a nucleic acid (DNA-RNA) is a probability way beyond estimating. Furthermore, the probability of the emergence of a certain protein chain is so slight as to be called astronomic.260

DNA codes of the beta-globin gene. These codes make up one of the parts of the haemoglobin that carry oxygen in the blood. The important thing is that if there is an error in just one of these codes, the protein that is produced will be totally useless.

A very interesting paradox emerges at this point: While DNA can only replicate with the help of special proteins (enzymes), the synthesis of these proteins can only be realized by the information encoded in DNA. As they both depend on each other, they have to exist at the same time for replication. Science writer John Horgan explains the dilemma in this way:

DNA cannot do its work, including forming more DNA, without the help of catalyticproteins, or enzymes. In short, proteins cannot form without DNA, but neither can DNA form without proteins. 261

This situation once again undermines the scenario that life could have come about by accident. Homer Jacobson, Professor Emeritus of Chemistry, comments:

Directions for the reproduction of plans, for energy and the extraction of parts from the current environment, for the growth sequence, and for the effector mechanism translating instructions into growth—all had to be simultaneously present at that moment [when life began]. This combination of events has seemed an incredibly unlikely happenstance...262

The quotation above was written two years after the discovery of the structure of DNA by Watson and Crick. But despite all the developments in science, this problem for evolutionists remains unsolved. This is why German biochemist Douglas R. Hofstadter says:

'How did the Genetic Code, along with the mechanisms for its translation (ribosomes and RNA molecules), originate?' For the moment, we will have to content ourselves with a sense of wonder and awe, rather than with an answer.263

Stanley Miller and Francis Crick's close associate from the University of San Diego, California, the highly reputed evolutionist Dr. Leslie Orgel says in an article published in 1994:

It is extremely improbable that proteins and nucleic acids, both of which are structurally complex, arose spontaneously in the same place at the same time. Yet it also seems impossible to have one without the other. And so, at first glance, one might have to conclude that life could never, in fact, have originated by chemical means.264

Alongside all of this, it is chemically impossible for nucleic acids such as DNA and RNA, which possess a definite string of information, to have emerged by chance, or for even one of the nucleotides which compose them to have come about by accident and to have survived and maintained its unadulterated state under the conditions of the primordial world. Even the famous journal Scientific American, which follows an evolutionist line, has been obliged to confess the doubts of evolutionists on this subject:

Even the simpler molecules are produced only in small amounts in realistic experiments simulating possible primitive earth conditions. What is worse, these molecules are generally minor constituents of tars: It remains problematical how they could have been separated and purified through geochemical processes whose normal effects are to make organic mixtures more and more of a jumble. With somewhat more complex molecules these difficulties rapidly increase. In particular a purely geochemical origin of nucleotides (the subunits of DNA and RNA) presents great difficulties.265

As revealed by what has been discussed so far, since it is impossible for life to have emerged by chemical means, life was created by All Powerful Allah. This "chemical evolution" that evolutionists have been talking about since the beginning of the last century never happened, and is nothing but a myth.

But most evolutionists believe in this and similar totally unscientific fairy tales as if they were true, because accepting that living things were created means accepting Almighty Allah's existence—and they have conditioned themselves not to accept this truth. One famous biologist from Australia, Michael Denton, discusses the subject in his book Evolution: A Theory in Crisis:

To the skeptic, the proposition that the genetic programmes of higher organisms, consisting of something close to a thousand million bits of information, equivalent to the sequence of letters in a small library of 1,000 volumes, containing in encoded form countless thousands of intricate algorithms controlling, specifying, and ordering the growth and development of billions and billions of cells into the form of a complex organism, were composed by a purely random process is simply an affront to reason. But to the Darwinist, the idea is accepted without a ripple of doubt - the paradigm takes precedence!266

The extraordinary information concealed in DNA is clear proof that life did not emerge by chance, but was deliberately created. No natural process can account for the origin of DNA.

Fox's Experiment

Challenged by the abovementioned dilemma, evolutionists began to invent unrealistic scenarios based on this "water problem" that so definitively refuted their theories. Sydney Fox was one of the best known of these researchers. Fox advanced the following theory to solve the problem. According to him, the first amino acids must have been transported to some cliffs near a volcano right after their formation in the primordial ocean. The water contained in this mixture that included the amino acids must have evaporated when the temperature increased above boiling point on the cliffs. The amino acids which were "dried out" in this way, could then have combined to form proteins.

However this "complicated" way out was not accepted by many people in the field, because the amino acids could not have endured such high temperatures. Research confirmed that amino acids are immediately destroyed at very high temperatures.

But Fox did not give up. He combined purified amino acids in the laboratory, "under very special conditions," by heating them in a dry environment. The amino acids combined, but still no proteins were obtained. What he actually ended up with was simple and disordered loops of amino acids, arbitrarily combined with each other, and these loops were far from resembling any living protein. Furthermore, if Fox had kept the amino acids at a steady temperature, then these useless loops would also have disintegrated.

Another point that nullified the experiment was that Fox did not use the useless end products obtained in Miller's experiment; rather, he used pure amino acids from living organisms. This experiment, however, which was intended to be a continuation of Miller's experiment, should have started out from the results obtained by Miller. Yet neither Fox, nor any other researcher, used the useless amino acids Miller produced.

Fox's experiment was not even welcomed in evolutionist circles, because it was clear that the meaningless amino acid chains that he obtained (which he termed "proteinoids") could not have formed under natural conditions. Moreover, proteins, the basic units of life, still could not be produced. The problem of the origin of proteins remained unsolved. In an article in the popular science magazine, Chemical Engineering News, which appeared in the 1970s, Fox's experiment was mentioned as follows:

Sydney Fox and the other researchers managed to unite the amino acids in the shape of "proteinoids" by using very special heating techniques under conditions which in fact did not exist at all in the primordial stages of Earth. Also, they are not at all similar to the very regular proteins present in living things. They are nothing but useless, irregular chemical stains. It was explained that even if such molecules had formed in the early ages, they would definitely be destroyed.257

Indeed, the proteinoids Fox obtained were totally different from real proteins, both in structure and function. The difference between proteins and these proteinoids was as huge as the difference between a piece of high-tech equipment and a heap of unprocessed iron.

Furthermore, it was impossible for these irregular amino acid chains to have survived in the primordial atmosphere. Harmful and destructive physical and chemical effects caused by heavy exposure to ultraviolet light and other unstable natural conditions would have caused these proteinoids to disintegrate. Because of the Le Châtelier principle, it was also impossible for the amino acids to combine underwater, where ultraviolet rays would not reach them. In view of this, the idea that the proteinoids were the basis of life eventually lost support among scientists.

 

Fox's "Proteinoids"

Sydney Fox, who was influenced by Miller's scenario, formed the above molecules, which he called "proteinoids," by joining amino acids together. However, these chains of nonfunctioning amino acids had no resemblance to the real proteins that make up the bodies of living things. Actually, all these efforts showed not only that life did not come about by chance, but also that it could not be reproduced in laboratory conditions.