what exactly do you Know... about evolution???

We now realize that the Urey/Miller experiments did not produce evidence for abiogenesis because, although amino acids are the building blocks of life, the key to life is information (Pigliucci, 1999; Dembski, 1998). Natural objects in forms resembling the English alphabet (circles, straight lines and similar) abound in nature, but this does not help us to understand the origin of information (such as that in Shakespear’s plays) because this task requires intelligence both to create the information (the play) and then to translate that information into symbols. What must be explained is the source of the information in the text (the words and ideas), not the existence of circles and straight lines. Likewise, the information contained in the genome must be explained (Dembski, 1998). Complicating the situation is the fact that
research has since drawn Miller’s hypothetical atmosphere into question, causing many scientists to doubt the relevance of his findings. Recently, scientists have focused on an even more exotic amino acid source: meteorites. Chyba is one of several researchers who have evidence that extraterrestrial amino acids may have hitched a ride to Earth on far flung space rocks (Simpson, 1999, p. 26).
Yet another difficulty is, even if the source of the amino acids and the many other compounds needed for life could be explained, it still must be explained as to how these many diverse elements became aggregated in the same area and then properly assembled themselves. This problem is a major stumbling block to any theory of abiogenesis:
...no one has ever satisfactorily explained how the widely distributed ingredients linked up into proteins. Presumed conditions of primordial Earth would have driven the amino acids toward lonely isolation. That’s one of the strongest reasons that Wächtershäuser, Morowitz, and other hydrothermal vent theorists want to move the kitchen [that cooked life] to the ocean floor. If the process starts down deep at discrete vents, they say, it can build amino acids—and link them up—right there (Simpson, 1999, p. 26). Several recent discoveries have led some scientists to conclude that life may have arisen in submarine vents whose temperatures approach 350° C. Unfortunately for both warm pond and hydrothermal vent theorists, heat may be the downfall of their theory.
Heat and Biochemical Degradation Problems
Charles Darwin’s hypothesis that life first originated on earth in a warm little pond somewhere on a primitive earth has been used widely by most nontheists for over a century in attempts to explain the origin of life. Several reasons exist for favoring a warm environment for the start of life on earth. A major reason is that the putative oldest known organisms on earth are alleged to be hyperthermophiles that require temperatures between 80° and 110° C in order to thrive (Levy and Miller, 1998). In addition some atmospheric models have concluded that the surface temperature of the early earth was much higher than it is today.
A major drawback of the “warm little pond” origin- of-life theory is its apparent ability to produce sufficient concentrations of the many complex compounds required to construct the first living organisms. These compounds must be sufficiently stable to insure that the balance between synthesis and degradation favors synthesis (Levy and Miller, 1998). The warm pond and hot vent theories also have been seriously disputed by experimental research that has found the half-lives of many critically important compounds needed for life to be far “too short to allow for the adequate accumulation of these compounds” (Levy and Miller, 1998, p. 7933). Furthermore, research has documented that “unless the origin of life took place extremely rapidly (in less than 100 years), we conclude that a high temperature origin of life... cannot involve adenine, uracil, guanine or cytosine” because these compounds break down far too fast in a warm environment. In a hydrothermal environment, most of these compounds could neither form in the first place, nor exist for a significant amount of time (Levy and Miller, p. 7933).
As Levy and Miller explain, “the rapid rates of hydrolysis of the nucleotide bases A,U,G and T at temperatures much above 0° Celsius would present a major problem in the accumulation of these presumed essential components on the early earth” (p. 7933). For this reason, Levy and Miller postulated that either a two-letter code or an alternative base pair was used instead. This requires the development of an entirely different kind of life, a conclusion that is not only highly speculative, but likely impossible because no other known compounds have the required properties for life that adenine, uracil, guanine and cytosine possess. Furthermore, this would require life to evolve based on a hypothetical two-letter code or alternative base pair system. Then life would have to re-evolve into a radically new form based on the present code, a change that appears to be impossible according to our current understanding of molecular biology.
Furthermore, the authors found that, given the minimal time perceived to be necessary for evolution to occur, cytosine is unstable even at temperatures as cold as 0º C. Without cytosine neither DNA or RNA can exist. One of the main problems with Miller’s theory is that his experimental methodology has not been able to produce much more than a few amino acids which actually lend little or no insight into possible mechanisms of abiogenesis.
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. In any case, nucleotides have not yet been produced in realistic experiments of the kind Miller did. (Cairns-Smith, 1985, p. 90). Postulating alternative codes for an origin-of-life event at temperatures close to the freezing point of water is a rationalization designed to overcome what appears to be a set of insurmountable problems for the abiogenesis theory. Given these problems, why do so many biologists believe that life on earth originated by spontaneous generation under favorable conditions? Yockey concludes that although Miller’s paradigm was at one time
worth consideration, now the entire effort in the primeval soup paradigm is self-deception based on the ideology of its champions... The history of science shows that a paradigm, once it has achieved the status of acceptance (and is incorporated in textbooks) and regardless of its failures, is declared invalid only when a new paradigm is available to replace it ... It is a characteristic of the true believer in religion, philosophy and ideology that he must have a set of beliefs, come what may... There is no reason that this should be different in the research on the origin of life ...Belief in a primeval soup on the grounds that no other paradigm is available is an example of the logical fallacy of the false alternative... (Yockey, 1992, p. 336 emphasis in original).
The many problems with the warm soup model have motivated the development of many other abiogenesis models. One is the cold temperature model that is gaining in acceptance as the flaws of the hot model become more obvious. As Vogel notes, many researchers still
argue that the first cells arose in the scalding waters of hot springs or geothermal vents, while a small but prominent band of holdouts insists on cool pools or even cold oceans. With no fossils to go by, the argument has circled a variety of indirect clues ... But now ... comes good news from the cold camp: Evidence from the genes of living organisms suggests that the cell that gave rise to all of today’s life-forms was ill-suited for extremely hot conditions (Vogel, 1999, p. 155).
Based on a geochemical assessment, Thaxton, Bradley, and Olsen (1984 p. 66) concluded that in the atmosphere the “many destructive interactions would have so vastly diminished, if not altogether consumed, essential precursor chemicals, that chemical evolution rates would have been negligible” in the various water basins on the primitive earth. They concluded that the “soup” would have been far too diluted for direct polymerization to occur. Even local ponds where some concentrating of soup ingredients may have occurred would have met with the same problem.
Furthermore, no geological evidence indicates an organic soup, even a small organic pond, ever existed on this planet. It is becoming clear that however life began on earth, the usually conceived notion that life emerged from an oceanic soup of organic chemicals is a most implausible hypothesis. We may therefore with fairness call this scenario “the myth of the prebiotic soup” (Thaxton, Bradley, and Olsen, 1984, p. 66).
It also is theorized that life must have begun in clay because the “clay-life” explanation explains several problems not explained by the “primordial soup” theory. Graham Cairns-Smith of the University of Scotland first proposed the clay-life theory about 40 years ago, and many scientists have since come to believe that life on earth must have began from clay rather than in the the warm little pond as proposed by Darwin. The clay-life theory holds that an accumulation of chemicals produced in clay by the sun eventually led to the hypothetical self-replicating molecules that evolved into cells and then eventually into all life forms on earth today.
The theory argues that only clay has the two essential properties necessary for life: the capacity to both store and transfer energy. Furthermore, because some clay components have the ability to act as catalysts, clay is capable of some of the same lifelike attributes as those exhibited by enzymes. Additionally the mineral structure of certain clays are almost as intricate as some organic molecules. However, the clay theory suffered from its own set of problems, and as a result has been discarded by most theorists. At the very least, the Stanley Miller experiments proved that amino acids can be formed under certain conditions. The clay theory has yet to achieve even this much. As a result, Miller’s experiments continue to be cited because no other viable source exists for the production of amino acids. Now, the hot thermal vent theory is being discussed once again by many as an alternative although, as noted above, it too suffers from potentially lethal problems.
What is Needed to Produce Life

Part IV

Naturalism requires enormously long periods of time to allow non-living matter to evolve into the hypothetical speck of viable protoplasm needed to start the process that results in life. Even more time is needed to evolve the protoplasm into the enormous variety of highly organized complex life forms that have been found in Cambrian rocks. Neo-Darwinism suggests that life originated over 3.5 billion years ago, yet a rich fossil record for less than roughly 600 million years commonly is claimed. Consequently, almost all the record is missing, and evidence for the most critical two billion years of evolution is sparse at best with what little actually exists being highly equivocal.
A major issue then, in abiogenesis is “what is the minimum number of possible parts that allows something to live?” The number of parts needed is large, but how large is difficult to determine. In order to be considered “alive,” an organism must possess the ability to metabolize and assimilate food, to respirate, to grow, to reproduce and to respond to stimuli (a trait known as irritability). These criteria were developed by biologists who were trying to understand the process we call life. Although these criteria are not perfect, they are useful in spite of cases that seem to contradict our definition. A mule, for instance, cannot usually reproduce but clearly is alive, and a crystal can “reproduce” but clearly is not alive. One attempt by an evolutionist to determine what is needed in order to self-replicate produced the following conclusions:
If we ditch the selfish-replicator illusion, and accept that the only known biological entity capable of autonomous replication is the cell (full of cooperating genes and proteins, etc.)... 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 (Dover, 1999, p. 218).
The cell, then appears to be the only biological entity that self-reproduces and simultaneously possesses the other traits required for life. The question then becomes “What is the simplest cell that can exist?”
Many bacteria and all viruses possess less complexity than required for an organism normally defined as “living,” and for this reason must live as parasites which require the existence of complex cells in order to reproduce. For this reason Trefil noted that the question of where viruses come from is an “enduring mystery” in evolution. Viruses usually are much smaller than parasitic bacteria and are not considered alive because they must rely on their host even more than bacteria do. Viruses consist primarily of a coat of proteins surrounding DNA or RNA that contains a handful of genes, and since they do not
... reproduce in the normal way, it’s hard to see how they could have gotten started. One theory: they are parasites who, over a long period of time, have lost the ability to reproduce independently... Viruses are among the smallest of “living” things. A typical virus, like the one that causes ordinary influenza, may be no more than a thousand atoms across. This is in comparison with cells which may be hundreds or even thousands of times that size. Its small size is one reason that it is so easy for a virus to spread from one host to another—it’s hard to filter out anything that small (Trefil, 1992, p. 91).
In order to reproduce, a virus’s genes must invade a living cell and take control of its much larger DNA. A bacterium is 400 times greater in size than the smallest known virus, while a typical human cell averages 200 times larger than the smallest known bacterium. The QB virus is only 24 nanometers long, contains only 3 genes and is almost 20 times smaller than Escherichia coli, billions of which inhabit the human intestines. E. coli is 1,000 nanometers long compared to a typical human cell that is about 10,000 nanometers long (1 nanometer equals 1 billionth of a meter, or about 1/25-millionths of an inch) and contains an estimated 100,000 genes. Researchers have detected microbes in human and bovine blood that are only 2-millionths of an inch in diameter, but these organisms cannot live on their own because they need more than simple inorganic, or common inorganic molecules to survive.
Since parasites lack many of the genes (and other biological machinery) required to survive on their own, in order to grow and reproduce they must obtain the nutrients and other services they require from the organisms that serve as their hosts. Independent free-living creatures such as people, mice and roses are far more complex than organisms like parasites and viruses that are dependent on these complex free-living organisms. Abiogenesis theory requires that the first life forms consisted of free-living autotrophs (i.e. organisms that are able to manufacture their own food) since the complex life forms needed to sustain heterotrophs (organisms that cannot manufacture their own food) did not exist until later.
Most extremely small organisms existing today are dependent on other, more complex organisms. Some organisms can overcome their lack of size and genes by borrowing genes from their hosts or by gorging on a rich broth of organic chemicals like blood. Some microbes live in colonies in which different members provide different services. Unless one postulates the unlikely scenario of the simultaneous spontaneous generation of many different organisms, one has to demonstrate the evolution of an organism that can survive on its own, or with others like itself, as a symbiont or cannibal. Consequently, the putative first life forms must have been much more complex than most examples of “simple” life known to exist today.
The simplest microorganisms, Chlamydia and Rickettsea, are the smallest living things known, but also are both parasites and thus too simple to be the first life. Only a few hundred atoms across, they are smaller than the largest virus and have about half as much DNA as do other species of bacteria. Although they are about as small as possible and still be living, these two forms of life still possess the millions of atomic parts necessary to carry out the biochemical functions required for life, yet they still are too simple to live on their own and thus must use the cellular machinery of a host in order to live (Trefil, 1992, p. 28). Many of the smaller bacteria are not free living, but are parasite like viruses that can live only with the help of more complex organisms (Galtier et al., 1999).
The gap between non-life and the simplest cell is illustrated by what is believed to be the organism with the smallest known genome of any free living organism Mycoplasma genitalium (Fraser et al., 1995). M. genitalium is 200 nanometers long and contains only 482 genes or over 0.5 million base pairs which compares to 4,253 genes for E. coli (about 4,720,000 nucleotide base pairs), with each gene producing an enormously complex protein machine (Fraser et al., 1995). M. genitalium also must live off other life because they are too simple to live on their own. They invade reproductive tract cells and live as parasites on organelles that are far larger and more complicated but which must first exist for the survival of parasitic organisms to be possible. The first life therefore must be much more complex than M. genitalium even though it is estimated to manufacture about 600 different proteins. A typical eukaryote cell consists of an estimated 40,000 different protein molecules and is so complex that to acknowledge that the “cells exist at all is a marvel... even the simplest of the living cells is far more fascinating than any human- made object" (Alberts, 1992, pp. xii, xiv).

and now... Part V... and please... admin...if you're going to delete this stuff... delete the posts... and not the thread... thanks

M. genitalium is one-fifth the size of E. coli but four times larger than the putative nanobacteria. Blood nanobacteria are only 50 nanometers long (which is smaller than some viruses), and possess a currently unknown number of genes. When Finnish biologist Olavi Kajander discovered nanobacteria in 1998, he called them a “bizarre new form of life.” Nanobacteria now are speculated to resemble primitive life forms which presumably arose in the postulated chemical soup that existed when earth was young. Kajander concluded that nanobacteria may serve as a model for primordial life, and that their modern-day primordial soup is blood. Actually, nanobacteria cannot be the smallest form of life because they evidently are parasites and primordial life must be able to live independently. Like viruses they are not considered alive but are of intense medical interest because they may be one cause of kidney stones (Kajander and Ciftcioglu, 1998). Other researchers think these bacteria are only a degenerate form of larger bacteria.
For these reasons, when researching the minimum requirements needed to live the example of E. coli is more realistic. Most bacteria require several thousand genes to carry out the minimum functions necessary for life. Denton notes that even though the tiniest bacterial cells are incredibly small, weighing under 10–12 grams, each bacterium is a
veritable micro-miniaturized factory containing thousands of exquisitely designed pieces of intricate molecular machinery, made up altogether of one hundred thousand million atoms, far more complicated than any machine built by man and absolutely without parallel in the non-living world (Denton, 1986, p. 250).
The simplest form of life requires millions of parts at the atomic level, and the higher life forms require trillions. Furthermore, the many macromolecules necessary for life are constructed of even smaller parts called elements. That life requires a certain minimum number of parts is well documented; the only debate now is how many millions of functionally integrated parts are necessary. The minimum number may not produce an organism that can survive long enough to effectively reproduce. Schopf notes that simple life without complex repair systems to fix damaged genes and their protein products stand little chance of surviving. When a mutation occurs
cells like those of humans with two copies of each gene can often get by with one healthy version. But a mutation can be deadly if it occurs in an organism with only a single copy of its genes, like many primitive forms of life.... (Schopf, 1999, p. 102)
Therefore, the answer to our original question, “What is the smallest form of nonparasitic life?” probably is an organism close to size and complexity of E. Coli, possibly even larger. No answer is currently possible because we have much to learn about what is required for life. As researchers discover new exotic “life” forms thriving in rocks, ice, acid, boiling water and other extreme environments, they are finding the biological world to be much more complex than assumed merely a decade ago. The oceans now are known to be teeming with microscopic cells which form the base of the food chain on which fish and other larger animals depend. It now is estimated that small, free-living aquatic bacteria make up about one-half of the entire biomass of the oceans (MacAyeal, 1995).
Many highly complex animals appear very early in the fossil record and many “simple” animals thrive today. The earliest fossils known, which are believed to be those of cyanobacteria, are quite similar structurally and biochemically to bacteria living today. Yet it is claimed they thrived almost as soon as earth formed (Schopf, 1993; Galtier et al., 1999). Estimated at 3.5 billion years old, these earliest known forms of life are incredibly complex. Furthermore, remarkably diverse types of animals existed very early in earth history and no less than eleven different species have been found so far. A concern Corliss raises is “why after such rapid diversification did these microorganisms remain essentially unchanged for the next 3.465 billion years? Such stasis, common in biology, is puzzling” (1993, p. 2). E. coli, as far as we can tell, is the same today as in the fossil record.
Probability Arguments
As Coppedge (1973) notes, even 1) postulating a primordial sea with every single component necessary for life, 2) speeding up the bonding rate so as to form different chemical combinations a trillion times more rapidly than hypothesized to have occurred, 3) allowing for a 4.6 billion- year-old earth and 4) using all atoms on the earth still leaves the probability of a single protein molecule being arranged by chance is 1 in 10,261. Using the lowest estimate made before the discoveries of the past two decades raised the number several fold. Coppedge estimates the probability of 1 in 10119,879 is necessary to obtain the minimum set of the required estimate of 239 protein molecules for the smallest theoretical life form.
At this rate he estimates it would require 10119,831 years on the average to obtain a set of these proteins by naturalistic evolution (1973, pp. 110, 114). The number he obtained is 10119,831 greater than the current estimate for the age of the earth (4.6 billion years). In other words, this event is outside the range of probability. Natural selection cannot occur until an organism exists and is able to reproduce which requires that the first complex life form first exist as a functioning unit.
In spite of the overwhelming empirical and probabilistic evidence that life could not originate by natural processes, evolutionists possess an unwavering belief that some day they will have an answer to how life could spontaneously generate. Nobel laureate Christian de Duve (1995) argues that life is the product of law-driven chemical steps, each one of which must have been highly probable in the right circumstances. This reliance upon an unknown “law” favoring life has been postulated to replace the view that life’s origin was a freakish accident unlikely to occur anywhere, is now popular. Chance is now out of favor in part because it has become clear that even the simplest conceivable life form (still much simpler than any actual organism) would have to be so complex that accidental self-assembly would be nothing short of miraculous even in two billion years (Spetner, 1997). Furthermore, natural selection cannot operate until biological reproducing units exist. This hoped for “law,” though, has no basis in fact nor does it even have a theoretical basis. It is a nebulous concept which results from a determination to continue the quest for a naturalistic explanation of life. In the words of Horgan:
One day, he [Stanley Miller] vowed, scientists would discover the self-replicating molecule that had triggered the great saga of evolution....[and] the discovery of the first genetic material [will] legitimize Millers’s field. “It would take off like a rocket,” Miller muttered through clenched teeth. Would such a discovery be immediately self-apparent? Miller nodded. “It will be in the nature of something that will make you say, ‘Jesus, there it is. How could you have overlooked this for so long?’ And everybody will be totally convinced” (Horgan, 1996, p. 139).

PART VI

The atheistic world view requires abiogenesis; therefore scientists must try to deal with the probability arguments. The most common approach is similar to the attempt by Stenger, who does not refute the argument but tries to explain it by way analogy:
For example, every human being on Earth is the product of a highly elaborate combination of genes that would be a very unlikely outcome of a random toss. Think of what an unlikely being you are—the result of so many chance encounters between your male and female ancestors. What if your great great great grandmother had not survived that childhood illness? What if your grandfather had been killed by a stray bullet in a war, before he met your grandmother? Despite all those contingencies, you still exist. And if you ask, after the fact, what is the probability for your particular set of genes existing, the answer is one hundred percent. Certainty! (1998, p. 9).
The major problem with this argument, as shown by Dembski, is that it is a gross misuse of statistics, one of the most important tools science has ever developed. Although change is involved, intelligence is critically important even in the events Stenger describes. The fallacy of his reasoning can be illustrated by comparing it to a court case using DNA. Stenger’s analogy cannot negate the finding that the likelihood is 1 in 100 million that a blood sample found on the victim at the crime is the suspect’s. For this reason, it is highly probable that the accused was at the crime scene; the fact that his blood was mixed with the victim’s, will no doubt be accepted by the court and an attempt to destroy this conclusion by use of an analogy such as Stenger’s will likely be rejected.
Conclusions
It appears that the field of molecular biology will falsify Darwinism. An estimated 100,000 different proteins are used to construct humans alone. Furthermore, one million species are known, and as many as 10 million may exist. Although many proteins are used in most life forms, as many as 100 million or more protein variations may exist in all plant and animal life. According to Asimov:
Now, almost each of all the thousands of reactions in the body is catalyzed by a specific enzyme ... a different one in each case ... and every enzyme is a protein, a different protein. The human body is not alone in having thousands of different enzymes—so does every other species of creature. Many of the reactions that take place in human cells also happen in the cells of other creatures. Some of the reactions, indeed, are universal, in that they take place in all cells of every type. This means that an enzyme capable of catalyzing a particular reaction may be present in the cells of wolves, octopi, moss, and bacteria, as well as in our own cells. And yet each of these enzymes, capable though it is of catalyzing one particular reaction, is characteristic of its own species. They may all be distinguished from one another. It follows that every species of creature has thousands of enzymes and that all those enzymes may be different. Since there are over a million different species on earth, it may be possible—judging from the enzymes alone—that different proteins exist by the millions! (Asimov, 1962, pp. 27–28).
Even using an unrealistically low estimate of 1,000 steps required to “evolve” the average protein (if this were possible) implies that many trillions of links were needed to evolve the proteins that once existed or that exist today. And not one clear transitional protein that is morphologically and chemically in between the ancient and modern form of the protein has been convincingly demonstrated. The same problem exists with fats, nucleic acids, carbohydrates and the other compounds that are produced by, and necessary for, life.
Scientists have yet to discover a single molecule that has “learned to make copies of itself” (Simpson, 1999, p. 26). Many scientists seem to be oblivious of this fact because
Articles appearing regularly in scientific journals claim to have generated self-replicating peptides or RNA strands, but they fail to provide a natural source for their compounds or an explanation for what fuels them... this top-down approach... [is like] a caveman coming across a modern car and trying to figure out how to make it. “It would be like taking the engine out of the car, starting it up, and trying to see how that engine works” (Simpson, 1999, p.26).
Some bacteria, specifically phototrophs and lithotrophs, contain all the metabolic machinery necessary to construct most of their growth factors (amino acids, vitamins, purines and pyrimidines) from raw materials (usually O2, light, a carbon source, nitrogen, phosphorus, sulfur and a dozen or so trace minerals). They can live in an environment with few needs but first must possess the complex functional metabolic machinery necessary to produce the compounds needed to live from a few types of raw materials. This requires more metabolic machinery in order to manufacture the many needed organic compounds necessary for life. Evolution was much more plausible when life was believed to be a relatively simple material similar to, in Haeckel’s words, the “transparent viscous albumin that surrounds the yolk in the hen’s egg” which evolved into all life today. Haeckel taught the process occurred as follows:
By far the greater part of the plasm that comes under investigation as active living matter in organisms is metaplasm, or secondary plasm, the originally homogeneous substance of which has acquired definite structures by phyletic differentiations in the course of millions of years (1905, p.126).
Abiogenesis is only one area of research which illustrates that the naturalistic origin of life hypothesis has become less and less probable as molecular biology has progressed, and is now at the point that its plausibility appears outside the realm of probability. Numerous origin-of-life researchers, have lamented the fact that molecular biology during the past half-a-century has not been very kind to any naturalistic origin-of-life theory. Perhaps this explains why researchers now are speculating that other events such as panspermia or an undiscovered “life law” are more probable than all existing terrestrial abiogenesis theories, and can better deal with the many seemingly insurmountable problems of abiogenesis.
Acknowledgements: I want to thank Bert Thompson, Ph.D., Wayne Frair, Ph.D., and John Woodmorappe, M.A., for their comments on an earlier draft of this article.

Jerry Bergman has seven degrees, including in biology, psychology, and evaluation and research, from Wayne State University, in Detroit, Bowling Green State University in Ohio, and Medical College of Ohio in Toledo. He has taught at Bowling Green State University, the University of Toledo, Medical College of Ohio and at other colleges and universities. He currently teaches biology, microbiology, biochemistry, and human anatomy at the college level and is a research associate involved in research in the area of cancer genetics. He has published widely in both popular and scientific journals. [RETURN TO TOP]

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Schopf, J. William. 1993. Microfossils of the early Archean, Apex chert; new evidence of the antiquity of life. Science 260:640–646.
———. 1999. Cradle of life: The discovery of the earth’s earliest fossils. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ.
Shapiro, Robert. 1986. Origins; A skeptics guide to the creation of life on earth. Summit Books, New York.
Simpson, Sarah. 1999. Life’s first scalding steps. Science News, 155(2):24–26.
Spetner, Lee. 1997. Not a chance! Shattering the modern theory of evolution. Judaica Press, New York.
Standen, Anthony. 1950. Science is a sacred cow. E. P. Dutton, New York.
Stenger, Victor. 1998. Anthropic design and the laws of physics. Reports: National Center for Science Education, 18(3):8–12.
Thaxton, Charles, Walter Bradley, and Roger Olsen. 1984. The mystery of life’s origin; reassessing current theories. Philosophical Library, New York.
Trefil, James. 1992. 1001 things everyone should know about science. Doubleday, New York.
Vogel, Gretchen. 1999. RNA study suggests cool cradle of life. Science. 283(5399):155–156.
Wynn, Charles M. and Arthur W. Wiggins. 1997. The five biggest ideas in science. John Wiley and Sons, New York.
Yockey, Hubert P. 1992. Information theory and molecular biology. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, p. 336.
Editor’s Note
The Quarterly has published numerous items on the same subject as Dr. Bergman’s article. Readers should find the following references of interest.
Armstrong, H. 1964. The possibility of the artificial creation of life. CRSQ 1(3):11.
———. 1967. Is DNA only a material cause? CRSQ 4: 41–45.
Butler, L. 1966. Meteorites, man and God’s plan. CRSQ 2(4):33–34.
Coppedge, J. F. 1971. Probability of left-handed molecules. CRSQ 8:163–174.
Frair, W. F. 1968. Life in a test tube. CRSQ 5:34–41.
Gish, D. T. 1964. Critique of biochemical evolution. CRSQ 1(2):1–12.
———. 1970. The nature of speculations concerning the origin of life. CRSQ 7:42–45, 83.
Henning, W. L. 1971. Was the origin of life inevitable? CRSQ 8:58–60.
Lammerts, W. E. 1969. Does the science of genetic and molecular biology really give evidence for evolution? CRSQ 6:5–12, 26.
Nicholls, J. 1972. Bacterium E. Coli vs. evolution. CRSQ 9:23–24.
Sharp, D. . 1977. Interdependence in macromolecular synthesis: Evidence for design. CRSQ 14:54–61.
Trop, M. 1975. Was evolution really possible? CRSQ 11:183–187.
Williams, E. L. 1967. The evolution of complex organic compounds from simpler chemical compounds: Is it thermodynamically and kinetically possible? CRSQ 4:30–35.
Zimmerman, P. A. 1964. The spontaneous generation of life. CRSQ 1 (Annual):13–17.


ving creatures (Black, 1998).

hey there guys... one of about 100 ... I am just an idiot... and I can't come up with my own stuff... (looks like you can't either).... don't worry... they'll probably get rid of it in an hour or so

oh yea... and remember... you guys gave a little past first... so I copied... if you don't... I won't... I can keep it to paraphrasing and whatnot if you can

by the way... read some of the stuff...

well... actually they want you to spread around the stuff... it isn't copywrited anyways... and if I'm wrong... (I will check on that)... oh well...

lets stick with the stuff I posted earlier... debate any of the points you like... not the copied stuff.. but the earlier things...

there were three specific examples...

take care

FOW

thanks bear... and what did you say... I didn't know anything about it... please... teach me!!

take care

FOW

hey... here's one on the glaciers too... It is not uncommon to read that ice cores from the polar regions contain records of climatic change from the distant past. Research teams from the United States, the Soviet Union, Denmark, and France have bored holes over a mile deep into the ice near the poles and removed samples for analysis in their laboratories.
Based on flow models, the variation of oxygen isotopes, the concentration of carbon dioxide in trapped air bubbles, the presence of oxygen isotopes, acid concentrations, and particulates, they believe the lowest layers of the ice sheets were laid down over 160,000 years ago. Annual oscillations of such quantities are often evident in the record.
Are these records in the ice legitimate? Do they cause a problem for the recent-creation model of earth history? What are we to make of these data? This article will show that the great ages reported for the bottom layers of ice sheets depend on assumed models of past climate and are not the result of direct counting of layers. An alternative model of recent glacier formation following the Flood described in Genesis will be suggested.
World War II Airplanes Under the Ice
The Greenland Society of Atlanta has recently attempted to excavate a 10-foot diameter shaft in the Greenland ice pack to remove two B-17 Flying Fortresses and six P-38 Lightning fighters trapped under an estimated 250 feet of ice for almost 50 years (Bloomberg, 1989). Aside from the fascination with salvaging several vintage aircraft for parts and movie rights, the fact that these aircraft were buried so deeply in such a short time focuses attention on the time scales used to estimate the chronologies of ice.
If the aircraft were buried under about 250 feet of ice and snow in about 50 years, this means the ice sheet has been accumulating at an average rate of five feet per year. The Greenland ice sheet averages almost 4000 feet thick. If we were to assume the ice sheet has been accumulating at this rate since its beginning, it would take less than 1000 years for it to form and the recent-creation model might seem to be vindicated.
Greenland Ice Cores
However, life is never as simple as implied above. In making our calculations, we did not take into account the compaction of the snow into ice as it is weighted down by the snow above. Neither did we consider the thinning of ice layers as the tremendous weight above forces the ice at lower levels to squeeze out horizontally. More importantly, we did not consider the average precipitation rate and actual depths of ice for different locations on the Greenland ice sheet.
When these factors are taken into account, the average annual thickness of ice at Camp Century located near the northern tip of Greenland is believed to vary from about fourteen inches near the surface to less than two inches near the bottom (Hammer, et al., 1978). If, for simplicity, we assume the average annual thickness to be the mean between the annual thickness at the top and at the bottom (about eight inches), this still gives an age of less than 6000 years for the 4000-foot-thick ice sheet to form under uniformitarian conditions.
This is in relatively good agreement with the number of annual oscillations of O currently observed in Greenland cores. Although occasional ambiguities occur, it is relatively easy to count annual layers downward from the surface through considerable depths in the Greenland ice sheet. This is possible because of the large precipitation rates in Greenland and the preservation of the annual effects.
It is also possible with a high degree of accuracy to cross check the counting of annual layers with occasional peaks in acidity and particulates from the fallout of historic volcanic events. Hammer, et al. (1978) have correlated the peaks in the mean acidity of annual layers from 553 to 1972 A.D. with historic volcanic events. About a dozen historical volcanic eruptions are evident in the ice core from Crete in central Greenland. Several unknown eruptions are also documented in the ice core record.
The confidence in the chronology becomes less the lower in the ice sheet one goes, however. The amplitude of the annual oscillations slowly decreases relative to other factors, and historic markers are fewer and farther apart. Glaciologists estimate that uncertainties in identification of layers will probably limit the number of countable layers to less than about 8,500 (Hammer, et al., 1978).
Antarctic Ice Cores
The claims that layers of ice were formed 160,000 years ago or more come primarily from interpretation of ice cores in Antarctica (Jouzel, et al., 1987; Barnola, et al., l987). The Soviet Antarctic Expeditions at Vostok in East Antarctica recovered an ice core which was almost 7,000 feet long in a region where the total ice thickness is about 12,000 feet (Lorius, et al., 1979; Lorius, et al., 1985). Since the current precipitation rate is so much less than Greenland (on the order of one inch per year) the crude calculation of age, without corrections for compression and horizontal motion for the lowest layers is more than 100,000 years.
However, such estimates are critically based on the assumption that the accumulation rate has not varied greatly over the past. Unlike the Greenland ice cores, annual oscillations of ð18O and other parameters cannot be traced deeply into the ice sheet on Antarctica. In Greenland, the high precipitation rates not only provide relatively thick annual layers for analysis, but the accumulating snow quickly seals off the ice beneath and protects the record from metamorphosis by pressure and temperature changes in the atmosphere. In Antarctica, by the time the ice has been buried deeply enough to no longer be influenced by the atmosphere, annual variations have been greatly dampened by diffusion (Epstein, et al., 1965; Johnsen, et al., 1972).
The technique used to estimate the age of an ice layer deep in the ice sheet is to measure its ð18O content and compute the atmospheric temperature which is observed to produce such concentrations today (Jouzel and Merlivat, 1984). Through a second-known relation between temperature and precipitation rate, again observed in today's atmosphere, the accumulation rate for a given layer is calculated (Lorius, et al., 1985). Once the accumulation rate is calculated for each layer, the depth and age for each layer in the ice is calculated by integrating the annual accumulation downward from the surface.
There are several historical markers in Antarctica which can be used to cross check these calculations for the past few thousand years. But historical volcanic events are not known beyond a few thousand years in the past which provide any certainty to the calculation of age. This method would be reasonably reliable if precipitation rates had been similar in the past. However, some creationist models predict significant quantities of snow immediately after the Flood (Oard, 1990). Perhaps as much as 95% of the ice near the poles could have accumulated in the first 500 years or so after the Flood.
The Age of the Earth
From a creationist perspective, it would be extremely valuable to thoroughly explore these ice-core data. We would not assume that the precipitation rate has always been similar to that of today. We would expect considerably higher precipitation rates immediately following the Flood. The layers of ice near the bottom of the core should be thicker than expected by the uniformitarian model and contain unusual excursions in ð18O, acidity, and particulates from levels higher in the core. The "annual" layers deep in the Greenland ice sheet may be related to individual storms rather than seasonal accumulations. If these evidences are found, direct information on conditions following the Flood would be available to us.
Nothing in the ice-core data from either Greenland or Antarctica requires the earth to be of great age. In fact, there are good reasons to believe that the ice cores are revealing important information about conditions following the Flood of Genesis and the recent formation of thick ice sheets. Reports of ice-core data containing records of climatic changes as far back as 160,000 years in the past are dependent upon interpretations of these data which could be seriously wrong, if the Genesis Flood occurred as described in the Bible. Further research on ice-core data should be a high priority for creationist researchers.
REFERENCES
Barnola, J.M., D. Raynaud, Y.S. Korotkevich, and C. Lorius, 1987. "Vostok ice core provides 160,000-year record of atmospheric carbon dioxide." Nature, 329:408.
Bloomberg, R., 1989. "WW II planes to be deiced." Engineering Report, March 9.
Epstein, S., R.P. Sharp, and A.J. Gow, 1965. "Six-year record of oxygen and hydrogen isotope variations in south pole fire." Journal of Geophysical Research, 70:1809.
Hammer, C.U., H.B. Clausen, W. Dansgaard, N. Gundestrup, S.J. Johnsen, and N. Reeh, 1978. "Dating of Greenland ice cores by flow models, isotopes, volcanic debris, and continental dust." Journal of Glaciology, 20:3.
Hammer, C.U., H.B. Clausen, and W. Dansgaard, 1980. "Greenland ice sheet evidence of post-glacial vulcanism and its climate impact." Nature, 288:230.
Johnsen, S.J., W. Dansgeard, and H.B. Clausen, 1972. "Oxygen isotope profiles through the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets." Nature, 235:429.
Jouzel, J. and L. Merlivat, 1984. "Deuterium and oxygen 18 in precipitation: modeling of the isotopic effects during snow formation." Journal of Geophysical Research, 89:11, 749.
Jonzel, J., C. Lorius, J.R. Petit, C. Genthon, N.I. Barkov, M. Kotlyakov, and M. Petrov, 1987. "Vostok ice core: a continuous isotope temperature record over the last climatic cycle (160,000 years)." Nature, 329:403.
Lorius, C., L. Merlivat, J. Jonzel, and M. Pourchet, 1979. "A 30,000-yr isotope climatic record from Antarctic ice." Nature, 280:644.
Lorius, C., J. Jouzel, C. Ritz, L. Merlivat, N.I. Barkov, Y.S. Korotkevich, and V.M. Kotlyakov, 1985. "A 160,000-year climatic record from Antarctic ice." Nature, 316:591.
Oard, M.J., 1990. "An Ice Age Caused by the Genesis Flood." ICR Monograph, 243 pp.

so what did your post say about the 'evidence' in the rocks... I believe that in my earlier.. un-pasted posts... that stuff was questioned by me... and you have not given anyone a reason otherwise... you have simply posted something that says... the fossils are there... and that means that evolution happened...

nothing about how the record supports evo... not how the radiometric dating is right on... not any of that stuff...

bear... lets try to be friends...

FOW