You want a full picture? Then read
this:
Because the scientific evidence contradicts the origin of life by natural processes, Miller resorted to unrealistic initial conditions to develop amino acids in his experiment (no oxygen and excessive energy input). However, there is more to the story. Producing amino acids is not the hard part. The difficult part is getting the right type and organization of amino acids. There are over 2,000 types of amino acids, but only 20 are used in life. Furthermore, the atoms that make up each amino acid are assembled in two basic shapes. These are known as
left-handed and
right-handed. Compare them to human hands. Each hand has the same components (four fingers and a thumb), yet they are different. The thumb of one hand is on the left, and the thumb of the other is on the right. They are mirror images of each other. Like our hands, amino acids come in two shapes. They are composed of the same atoms (components) but are mirror images of each other, called left-handed amino acids and right-handed amino acids. Objects that have handedness are said to be
chiral (pronounced ky-rul), which is from the Greek for
hand.
Handedness is an important concept because all amino acids that make up proteins in living things are 100 percent left-handed. Right-handed amino acids are never found in proteins. If a protein were assembled with just one right-handed amino acid, the proteins function would be totally lost. As one PhD chemist has said:
Many of lifes chemicals come in two forms, left-handed and right-handed. Life requires polymers with all building blocks having the same handedness (homochirality)proteins have only left-handed amino acids. . . . But ordinary undirected chemistry, as is the hypothetical primordial soup, would produce equal mixtures of left- and right-handed molecules, called racemates.
A basic chemistry textbook admits:
This is a very puzzling fact. . . . All the proteins that have been investigated, obtained from animals and from plants from higher organisms and from very simple organismsbacteria, molds, even virusesare found to have been made of L-amino [left-handed] acids.
The common perception left by many textbooks and journals is that Miller and other scientists were successful in producing the amino acids necessary for life. However, the textbooks and media fail to mention that what they had actually produced was a mixture of left- and right-handed amino acids, which is detrimental to life. The natural tendency is for left- and right-handed amino acids to bond together. Scientists still do not know why biological proteins use only left-handed amino acids.
The reason for this choice [only left-handed amino acids] is again a mystery, and a subject of continuous dispute.
Jonathan Wells, a developmental biologist, writes:
So we remain profoundly ignorant of how life originated. Yet the Miller-Urey experiment continues to be used as an icon of evolution, because nothing better has turned up. Instead of being told the truth, we are given the misleading impression that scientists have empirically demonstrated the first step in the origin of life.
Despite the fact that the Miller experiment did not succeed in creating the building blocks of life (only left-handed amino acids), textbooks continue to promote the idea that life could have originated by natural processes. For example, the following statement from a biology textbook misleads students into thinking Miller succeeded:
By re-creating the early atmosphere (ammonia, water, hydrogen and methane) and passing an electric spark (lightning) through the mixture, Miller and Urey proved that organic matter such as amino acids could have formed spontaneously.
First, note the word
proved. Miller and Urey proved nothing except that lifes building blocks could
not form in such conditions. Second, the textbook completely ignores other evidence, which shows that the atmosphere always contained oxygen. Third, the textbook ignores the fact that Miller got the wrong type of amino acidsa mixture of left- and right-handed.
The Miller experiment (and all experiments since then) failed to produce even a single biological protein by purely naturalistic processes. Only God could have begun life.
(AiG)
