Science Disproves Evolution

[Pahu]

Genetic Information 1

 

Information never self-assembles. The genetic information in the DNA of each human cell is roughly equivalent to a library of 4,000 books (a).

 

a. Carl Sagan showed, using straight-forward calculations, why one cell’s worth of genetic information is the equivalent of 4,000 books of printed information. Each of Sagan’s 4,000 books had 500 pages with 300 words per page. [see Carl Sagan, The Dragons of Eden (New York: Random House, 1977), p. 25.]

 

Each book would have a volume of about 50 cubic inches. An adult human’s body contains about 10^¹⁴ (10 to the 14^th power) cells. About 800 cubic miles have been eroded from the Grand Canyon. Therefore, we can say that if every cell in one person’s body were reduced to 4,000 books, they would fill the Grand Canyon 98 times.

 

The Moon is 240,000 miles from Earth. If the DNA in a human cell were stretched out and connected, it would be more than 7 feet long. If all this DNA in one person’s body were placed end-to-end, it would extend to the Moon 552,000 times.

 

The DNA in a human cell weighs 6.4 x 10^^-12 (10 to the –12 power) grams. [see Monroe W. Strickberger, Genetics, 2^nd edition (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1976), p. 54.] Probably less than 50 billion people have lived on earth. If so, one copy of the DNA of every human who ever lived—enough to define the physical characteristics of all those people in microscopic detail—would weigh only 6.4 × 10^^-12 × 50 × 10^⁹  =  0.32 grams.

This is less than the weight of one aspirin.

 

“... there is enough information capacity in a single human cell to store the Encyclopaedia Britannica, all 30 volumes of it, three or four times over. ... There is enough storage capacity in the DNA of a single lily seed or a single salamander sperm to store the Encyclopaedia Britannica 60 times over. Some species of the unjustly called ‘primitive’ amoebas have as much information in their DNA as 1,000 Encyclopaedia Britannicas.”  Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker, pp. 116–117.

 

[http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/ReferencesandNotes32.html#wp1056004]

[jerryR34]

 

Genetic Information 1

 

Information never self-assembles. The genetic information in the DNA of each human cell is roughly equivalent to a library of 4,000 books (a).

 

a. Carl Sagan showed, using straight-forward calculations, why one cell’s worth of genetic information is the equivalent of 4,000 books of printed information. Each of Sagan’s 4,000 books had 500 pages with 300 words per page. [see Carl Sagan, The Dragons of Eden (New York: Random House, 1977), p. 25.]

 

Each book would have a volume of about 50 cubic inches. An adult human’s body contains about 10^¹⁴ (10 to the 14^th power) cells. About 800 cubic miles have been eroded from the Grand Canyon. Therefore, we can say that if every cell in one person’s body were reduced to 4,000 books, they would fill the Grand Canyon 98 times.

 

The Moon is 240,000 miles from Earth. If the DNA in a human cell were stretched out and connected, it would be more than 7 feet long. If all this DNA in one person’s body were placed end-to-end, it would extend to the Moon 552,000 times.

 

The DNA in a human cell weighs 6.4 x 10^^-12 (10 to the –12 power) grams. [see Monroe W. Strickberger, Genetics, 2^nd edition (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1976), p. 54.] Probably less than 50 billion people have lived on earth. If so, one copy of the DNA of every human who ever lived—enough to define the physical characteristics of all those people in microscopic detail—would weigh only 6.4 × 10^^-12 × 50 × 10^⁹  =  0.32 grams.

This is less than the weight of one aspirin.

 

“... there is enough information capacity in a single human cell to store the Encyclopaedia Britannica, all 30 volumes of it, three or four times over. ... There is enough storage capacity in the DNA of a single lily seed or a single salamander sperm to store the Encyclopaedia Britannica 60 times over. Some species of the unjustly called ‘primitive’ amoebas have as much information in their DNA as 1,000 Encyclopaedia Britannicas.”  Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker, pp. 116–117.

 

[http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/ReferencesandNotes32.html#wp1056004]

 

The issue you have, is that books, unlike cells and organisms, are not self-replicating.  Makes pretty much everything you've posted on this thread regarding evolution pointless.

 

Your are trying to make books whcih come form self replicating organisms analogous to those self replicating organisms....you can't see the problem in that?

[Guest]

Got

 

So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. Romans 10:17

 

Book?

 

And Jesus answered him, saying, It is written, That man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God. Luke 4:4

 

Get

 

And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ: Ephesians 3:9

 

Faith~!

 

Wherefore I give you to understand, that no man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed: and that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost. 1 Corinthians 12:3

 

Just Won't Get The Point?

 

Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created. Revelation 4:11

 

You Will~!

 

Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:

 

And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name:

 

That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth;

 

And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Philippians 2:6-11

 

~

 

....The issue you have, is that books....

 

....unlike cells and organisms, are not self-replicating.... 

 

....Makes pretty much everything you've posted on this thread regarding evolution pointless....

 

....Your are trying to make books which come from self replicating organisms....

 

....analogous to those self replicating organisms....

 

....you can't see the problem....

 

....?....

 

 

Beloved

 

Thy word is true from the beginning: and every one of thy righteous judgments endureth for ever. Psalms 119:160

 

If You Can't

 

How foolish can you be? He is the Potter, and he is certainly greater than you, the clay!

 

Should the created thing say of the one who made it, "He didn't make me"?

 

Does a jar ever say, "The potter who made me is stupid"? Isaiah 29:16 (NLT)

 

Read The Book

 

And the vision of all is become unto you as the words of a book that is sealed, which men deliver to one that is learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee: and he saith, I cannot; for it is sealed:

 

And the book is delivered to him that is not learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee: and he saith, I am not learned. Jeremiah 29:11-12

 

Please Don't Blame The

 

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

The same was in the beginning with God.

 

All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.

 

In him was life; and the life was the light of men.

And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not. John 1:1-5

 

Messenger

 

Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God.

 

For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. 2 Corinthians 5:20-21

 

~

 

Believe

 

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. John 3:16

 

And Be Blessed Beloved

 

The LORD bless thee, and keep thee:
The LORD make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee:
The LORD lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace.

 

And they shall put my name upon the children of Israel; and I will bless them. Numbers 6:24-27

 

Love, Joe

[warrior]

oh look. Another christian who knows nothing about evolution who thinks he is the genius biologist who just disproved evolution and its mountains of evidence backing it up.

 

 

[Pahu]

Genetic Information 2

 

Even if matter and life (perhaps a bacterium) somehow arose, the probability that mutations and natural selection produced this vast amount of information is essentially zero (b). It would be similar to producing 4,000 books with the following procedure ©:

 

a. Start with a meaningful phrase.

b. Retype it, but make some errors and insert a few letters.

c. See if the new phrase is meaningful.

d. If it is, replace the original phrase with it.

e. Return to step “b.”

 

b. “Biochemical systems are exceedingly complex, so much so that the chance of their being formed through random shufflings of simple organic molecules is exceedingly minute, to a point indeed where it is insensibly different from zero.” Hoyle and Wickramasinghe, p. 3

 

“No matter how large the environment one considers, life cannot have had a random beginning. Troops of monkeys thundering away at random on typewriters could not produce the works of Shakespeare, for the practical reason that the whole observable universe is not large enough to contain the necessary monkey hordes, the necessary typewriters, and certainly the waste paper baskets required for the deposition of wrong attempts. The same is true for living material.” Ibid., p. 148.

 

Not mentioned by Hoyle and Wickramasinghe is the simple fact that even a few correct words typed by the hordes of monkeys would decay long before a complete sentence of Shakespeare was completed. Correspondingly, a few correct sequences of amino acids would decay long before a complete protein was completed, not to mention all the thousands of proteins that must be in their proper place in order to have a living cell (minus, of course, its DNA).

 

“From the beginning of this book we have emphasized the enormous information content of even the simplest living systems. The information cannot in our view be generated by what are often called ‘natural’ processes, as for instance through meteorological and chemical processes occurring at the surface of a lifeless planet. As well as a suitable physical and chemical environment, a large initial store of information was also needed. We have argued that the requisite information came from an ‘intelligence’, the beckoning spectre.” Ibid., p. 150.

 

“Once we see, however, that the probability of life originating at random is so utterly minuscule as to make the random concept absurd, it becomes sensible to think that the favourable properties of physics on which life depends are in every respect deliberate.”

Ibid., p. 141.

 

Hoyle and Wickramasinghe go on to say that our own intelligences must reflect some sort of vastly superior intelligence, “even to the extreme idealized limit of God.” They believe life was created by some intelligence somewhere in outer space and later was transported to Earth. [emphasis in original] Ibid., p. 144.

 

“All point mutations that have been studied on the molecular level turn out to reduce the genetic information and not to increase it.” Lee Spetner, Not by Chance (Brooklyn, New York: The Judaica Press, Inc., 1996), p. 138.

 

c. Murray Eden, as reported in “Heresy in the Halls of Biology: Mathematicians Question Darwinism,” Scientific Research, November 1967, p. 64.

 

“It is our contention that if ‘random’ is given a serious and crucial interpretation from a probabilistic point of view, the randomness postulate is highly implausible and that an adequate scientific theory of evolution must await the discovery and elucidation of new natural laws—physical, physico-chemical, and biological.” Murray Eden, “Inadequacies of Neo-Darwinian Evolution as a Scientific Theory,” Mathematical Challenges to the Neo-Darwinian Interpretation of Evolution, editors Paul S. Moorhead and Martin M. Kaplan, June 1967, p. 109.

 

[http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/ReferencesandNotes32.html#wp1056004]

[Guest]

oh look. Another christian who knows nothing about evolution who thinks he is the genius biologist who just disproved evolution and its mountains of evidence backing it up.

 

~

 

So

 

And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.

 

And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

 

And the evening and the morning were the third day. Genesis 1:11-13

 

Glad

 

And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.

 

And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

 

And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.

 

And the evening and the morning were the fifth day. Genesis 1:20-23

 

Yet Too Bad

 

Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Genesis 3:1(a-c )

 

Said The

 

And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ: Ephesians 3:9

 

Sad

 

How foolish can you be? He is the Potter, and he is certainly greater than you, the clay! Should the created thing say of the one who made it, "He didn't make me"? Does a jar ever say, "The potter who made me is stupid"? Isaiah 29:16 (NLT)

[Pahu]

Genetic Information 3

 

To produce just the enzymes in one organism would require more than 10^^40,000 trials (d). (To begin to understand how large 10^^40,000 is, realize that the visible universe has fewer than 10^⁸⁰ atoms in it.)

 

In 1972 (e), evolutionists, out of ignorance (f), began referring to large segments of DNA as “junk” DNA, because it supposedly had no purpose and was left over from our evolutionary past. What evolutionists called “junk” DNA is now known to contain millions of switches which regulate gene activity at specific times and in unique ways for each of thousands of different types of cells. Most of the genetic changes that cause disease lie outside the genes and on the 95% of the DNA that evolutionists used to call “junk (g).”

 

Based on all known experience—scientific or otherwise—information comes only from intelligence. Vast amounts of information require a vast intelligence.

 

d. “The trouble is that there are about two thousand enzymes, and the chance of obtaining them all in a random trial is only one part in (10^²⁰)^2,000 = 10^^40,000, an outrageously small probability that could not be faced even if the whole universe consisted of organic soup. If one is not prejudiced either by social beliefs or by a scientific training into the conviction that life originated on the Earth [by chance or natural processes], this simple calculation wipes the idea entirely out of court.” Hoyle and Wickramasinghe, p. 24.

 

“Any theory with a probability of being correct that is larger than one part in 10^^40,000 must be judged superior to random shuffling [of evolution]. The theory that life was assembled by an intelligence has, we believe, a probability vastly higher than one part in 10^^40,000 of being the correct explanation of the many curious facts discussed in preceding chapters. Indeed, such a theory is so obvious that one wonders why it is not widely accepted as being self-evident. The reasons are psychological rather than scientific.” Ibid., p. 130.

 

After explaining the above to a scientific symposium, Hoyle said that evolution was comparable with the chance that “a tornado sweeping through a junk-yard might assemble a Boeing 747 from the materials therein.” Fred Hoyle, “Hoyle on Evolution,” Nature, Vol. 294, 12 November 1981, p. 105.

 

              e. See Susuma Ohno, “So Much ‘Junk’ DNA in Our Genome,” The Brookhaven Symposium on Biology, Vol. 23, 1972, pp. 366–370.

 

Ohno’s catchy term “junk DNA” stuck and no doubt discouraged a generation of researchers from studying the vast amount of important “junk” DNA that did not code for proteins. (Who wants to study junk?) This is one example of the harm that evolution thinking has done to science. Nevertheless, the thrust of Ohno’s paper made an insightful point: If all the DNA “of man, mice, and other organisms” was useful, so many mutations would accumulate in hundreds of millions of years that those species would become extinct. What Ohno overlooked is that life has not been on earth for hundreds of millions of years. Belief in the supposedly old age of the earth has also been harmful to science.

 

Non-coding DNA differs more among different species than does protein coding DNA. Had the non-coding DNA received equal attention since 1972, the great dissimilarity between species would have been more apparent.

 

“So whereas if you find a particular protein-coding gene in a human, you’re going to find nearly the same gene in a mouse most of the time, and that rule just doesn’t work for regulatory elements [non-coding DNA].” [see Ewan Birney, “Journey to the Genetic Interior,” Scientific American, Vol. 307, October 2012, p. 82.]

 

f. “The failure to recognize the importance of introns [so-called junk DNA] may well go down as one of the biggest mistakes in the history of molecular biology.” John S. Mattick, as quoted by W. Wayt Gibbs, “The Unseen Genome: Gems among the Junk,” Scientific American, Vol. 289, November 2003, pp. 49–50.

 

“What was damned as junk because it was not understood may, in fact, turn out to be the very basis of human complexity.” Ibid., p. 52.

 

“Noncoding RNAs (ncRNAs) [so-called junk RNA] have been found to have roles in a great variety of processes, including transcription regulation, chromosome replication, RNA processing and modification, messenger RNA stability and translation, and even protein degradation and translocation. Recent studies indicate that ncRNAs are far more abundant and important than initially imagined.” Gisela Storz, “An Expanding Universe of Noncoding RNAs,” Science, Vol. 296, 17 May 2002, p. 1260.

 

“The term ‘junk DNA’ is a reflection of our ignorance.” Gretchen Vogel, “Why Sequence the Junk?” Science, Vol. 291, 16 February 2001, p. 1184.

 

“... non-gene sequences [what evolutionists called ‘junk DNA’] have regulatory roles.” John M. Greally, “Encyclopaedia of Humble DNA,” Nature, Vol. 447, 14 June 2007, p. 782.

 

g. Brendan Maher, “The Human Encyclopedia,” Nature, Vol. 489, 6 September 2012, pp. 46–48.

 

This issue of Nature contains six of the 30 papers explaining the discoveries of the ENCODE (Encyclopedia of DNA Elements) project, conducted by more than 500 international scientists beginning in 2003. Their discoveries will revolutionize our understanding of the vast complexity of the human genome. The other papers are published in Genome Research and Genome Biology.

 

Gary Taubes, “RNA Revolution,” Discover, October 2009, pp. 47–52.

 [http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/ReferencesandNotes32.html#wp1056004]

[Pahu]

Genetic Information 4

 

The Elephant in the Living Room

 

Writer George V. Caylor interviewed Sam, a molecular biologist. George asked Sam about his work. Sam said he and his team were scientific “detectives,” working with DNA and tracking down the cause of disease.  Here is their published conversation.

 

G:  “Sounds like pretty complicated work.”

S:  “You can’t imagine how complicated!”

G:  “Try me.”

S:  “I’m a bit like an editor, trying to find a spelling mistake inside a document larger than four complete sets of Encyclopedia Britannica. Seventy volumes, thousands and thousands of pages of small print words.”

G:  “With the computer power, you can just use ‘spell check’!”

S:  “There is no ‘spell check’ because we don’t know yet how the words are supposed to be spelled. We don’t even know for sure which language. And it’s not just the ‘spelling error’ we’re looking for. If any of the punctuation is out of place, or a space out of place, or a grammatical error, we have a mutation that will cause a disease.”

G:  “So how do you do it?”

S:  “We are learning as we go. We have already ‘read’ over two articles in that encyclopedia, and located some ‘typo’s’. It should get easier as time goes by.”

G:  “How did all that information happen to get there?”

S:  “Do you mean, did it just happen? Did it evolve?”

G:  “Bingo. Do you believe that the information evolved?”

S:  “George, nobody I know in my profession truly believes it evolved. It was engineered by ‘genius beyond genius,’ and such information could not have been written any other way. The paper and ink did not write the book. Knowing what we know, it is ridiculous to think otherwise. A bit like Neil Armstrong believing the moon is made of green cheese. He's been there!”

G:  “Have you ever stated that in a public lecture, or in any public writings?”

S:  “No. It all just evolved.”

G:  “What? You just told me — ?”

S:  “Just stop right there. To be a molecular biologist requires one to hold on to two insanities at all times. One, it would be insane to believe in evolution when you can see the truth for yourself. Two, it would be insane to say you don’t believe in evolution. All government work, research grants, papers, big college lectures—everything would stop. I’d be out of a job, or relegated to the outer fringes where I couldn’t earn a decent living.”

G:  “I hate to say it, Sam, but that sounds intellectually dishonest.”

S:  “The work I do in genetic research is honorable. We will find the cures to many of mankind’s worst diseases. But in the meantime, we have to live with the ‘elephant in the living room’.”

G:  “What elephant?”

S:  “Design. It’s like the elephant in the living room. It moves around, takes up an enormous amount of space, loudly trumpets, bumps into us, knocks things over, eats a ton of hay, and smells like an elephant. And yet we have to swear it isn’t there!”

George V. Caylor, “The Biologist,” The Ledger,  Vol. 2, Issue 48, No. 92, 1 December 2000, p. 2. (www.ontherightside.com) Printed with permission.

 

[http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/LifeSciences38.html#wp4029961]

[Pahu]

 

DNA and Proteins

 

DNA cannot function without hundreds of preexisting proteins (a), but proteins are produced only at the direction of DNA (b). Because each needs the other, a satisfactory explanation for the origin of one must also explain the origin of the other ©. Therefore, the components of these manufacturing systems must have come into existence simultaneously.  This implies creation.

 

Some of these necessary protein systems decode the DNA, store the DNA (histones spools), transcribe it into messenger RNA, and assemble proteins (ribosomes). These systems, present in each cell, are extremely complex.

 

One of the most studied proteins in mammals, including humans, is called p53. It binds to thousands of DNA sites and influences cell growth, death, and structure. It is involved in fertility and early embryonic development. It also stifles cancers by repairing DNA, suppressing tumors, and killing genetically damaged cells (d). How could DNA have survived unless p53 and its many functions already existed?

 

In each human, tens of thousands of genes are damaged daily (e)! Also, when a cell divides, its DNA at times is copied with errors. Every organism has machinery that identifies and repairs damaged and mistranslated DNA (f). Without such repair systems, the organism would quickly deteriorate and die. If evolution happened, each organism would have become extinct before these DNA repair mechanisms could evolve.

 

Life’s complexity is mind boggling—not something that random process could ever produce.

 

a. Ribosomes, complex structures that assemble proteins, have or require about 200 different proteins. The number depends somewhat on whether the organism is a bacterium, eukaryote, or archaea.

 

b. Richard E. Dickerson, “Chemical Evolution and the Origin of Life,” Scientific American, Vol. 239, September 1978, p. 73.

 

“The amino acids must link together to form proteins, and the other chemicals must join up to make nucleic acids, including the vital DNA. The seemingly insurmountable obstacle is the way the two reactions are inseparably linked—one can’t happen without the other. Proteins depend on DNA for their formation. But DNA cannot form without pre-existing protein.” Hitching, p. 66.

 

c. “The origin of the genetic code presents formidable unsolved problems. The coded information in the nucleotide sequence is meaningless without the translation machinery, but the specification for this machinery is itself coded in the DNA. Thus without the machinery the information is meaningless, but without the coded information the machinery cannot be produced! This presents a paradox of the ‘chicken and egg’ variety, and attempts to solve it have so far been sterile.” John C. Walton, (Lecturer in Chemistry, University of St. Andrews, Fife, Scotland), “Organization and the Origin of Life,” Origins, Vol. 4, No. 1, 1977, pp. 30–31.

 

“Genes and enzymes are linked together in a living cell—two interlocked systems, each supporting the other. It is difficult to see how either could manage alone. Yet if we are to avoid invoking either a Creator or a very large improbability, we must accept that one occurred before the other in the origin of life. But which one was it? We are left with the ancient riddle: Which came first, the chicken or the egg?” Shapiro, p. 135.

 

“Because DNA and proteins depend so intimately on each other for their survival, it’s hard to imagine one of them having evolved first. But it’s just as implausible for them to have emerged simultaneously out of a prebiotic soup.” Carl Zimmer, “How and Where Did Life on Earth Arise?” Science, Vol. 309, 1 July 2005, p. 89.

 

d. Mitch Leslie, “Brothers in Arms Against Cancer,” Science, Vol. 331, 25 March 2011, pp. 1551–1552.

 

Erika Check Hayden, “Life Is Complicated,” Nature, Vol. 464, 1 April 2010, pp. 664–667.

 

e. “... the human body receives tens of thousands of DNA lesions per day.” Stephen P. Jackson and Jiri Bartek, “The DNA-Damage Response in Human Biology and Disease,” Nature, Vol. 461, 22 October 2009, p. 1071.

 

f. Tomas Lindahl and Richard D. Wood, “Quality Control by DNA Repair,” Science, Vol. 286, 3 December 1999, pp. 1897-1905.

 

[http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/LifeSciences39.html]

[Pahu]

Handedness: Left and Right 1

 

Genetic material, DNA and RNA, is composed of nucleotides. In living things, nucleotides are always “right-handed.” (They are called right-handed,  because a beam of polarized light passing through them rotates like a right-handed screw.) Nucleotides rarely form outside life, but when they do, half are left-handed, and half are right-handed. If the first nucleotides formed by natural processes, they would have “mixed-handedness” and therefore could not evolve life’s genetic material. In fact, “mixed” genetic material cannot even copy itself (a).

 

Each type of amino acid, when found in nonliving material or when synthesized in the laboratory, comes in two chemically equivalent forms. Half are right-handed, and half are left-handed—mirror images of each other. However, amino acids in life, including plants, animals, bacteria, molds, and even viruses, are essentially all left-handed (b) —except in some diseased or aging tissue ©.

 

(a). “Equally disappointing, we can induce copying of the original template only when we run our experiments with nucleotides having a right-handed configuration. All nucleotides synthesized biologically today are righthanded. Yet on the primitive earth, equal numbers of right- and left-handed nucleotides would have been present. When we put equal numbers of both kinds of nucleotides in our reaction mixtures, copying was inhibited.”  Leslie E. Orgel, “The Origin of Life on the Earth,” Scientific American, Vol. 271, October 1994, p. 82.

 

“There is no explanation why cells use L [left-handed] amino acids to synthesize their proteins but D [right-handed] ribose or D-deoxyribose to synthesize their nucleotides or nucleic acids. In particular, the incorporation of even a single L-ribose or L-deoxyribose residue into a nucleic acid, if it should ever occur in the course of cellular syntheses, could seriously interfere with vital structure-function relationships. The well-known double helical DNA structure does not allow the presence of L-deoxyribose; the replication and transcription mechanisms generally require that any wrong sugar such as L-deoxyribose has to be eliminated, that is, the optical purity of the D-sugars units has to be 100%.” Dose, p. 352.

 

(b). An important exception occurs in a component in cell membranes of eubacteria. There the amino acids are right-handed. This has led many to conclude that they must have evolved separately from all other bacteria. Because evolving the first living cell is so improbable, having it happen twice, in effect, compounds the improbability. [see Adrian Barnett, “The Second Coming: Did Life Evolve on Earth More Than Once?” New Scientist, Vol. 157, No. 2121, 14 February 1998, p. 19.]

 

©. Recent discoveries have found that some amino acids, most notably aspartic acid, flip (at certain locations in certain proteins) from the normal left-handed form to the right-handed form. Flipping increases with age and correlates with disease, such as Alzheimer’s disease, cataracts, and arteriosclerosis. As one ages, flipping even accumulates in facial skin, but not other skin. [see Noriko Fujii, “D-Amino Acid in Elderly Tissues,” Biological and Pharmaceutical Bulletin, Vol. 28, September 2005, pp. 1585–1589.]

 

If life evolved, why did this destructive tendency to flip not destroy cells long before complete organisms evolved?

 

[http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/LifeSciences40.html]