SCIENCE-RELIGION DIALOGUE
Summer 2002
 
 

 

 

 

 


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Origin of Life: Scientific and Religious Perspective

ABDUL MAJID*

 In this article:

 

In this paper we shall discuss in detail different theories about the origin and evolution of life on the earth and then analyze them in the light of science and Islam. Comparison of religious and scientific viewpoints about the origin and evolution of life will be presented in 2nd part of the paper.

IMPORTANCE OF THE CONCEPT OF ORIGIN OF LIFE

According to Oparin “it is one of the most important problems of natural history. No religion or philosophical system, no outstanding thinker even failed to give this question serious consideration”. Dr. Riayat Khan in his article “The Origin of Life” writes, “the problem of life on earth has engaged the attention of thinkers in all ages. It is one of the most fundamental and at the same time one of the most difficult problems”. (1)

In spite of present knowledge of life and its processes, the Biologists think that their knowledge concerning the origin of life is limited. Professor Stanley Miller, in his article “The Origin of Life’ says, the problem of how life arose on the earth is one of the most difficult modern sciences. Almost every branch of science will have to contribute to it before the problem is solved. Knowledge from fields of Biochemistry, Microbiology, Geology and Astronomy must be brought to bear on the problem. He further says, “Furthermore we do not know when life arose, except that it occurred some time between one billion and 4.5 billion years ago. With all these unknown, it is easy to say that there are many ideas on this subject and little agreement”. (2) J.D. Be writes: The problem of origin of life is one of the major gaps to be filled in man’s knowledge of total history. (3)

Now after describing the importance of the problem, we are going to discuss different theories of the origin of life.

Different Theories about the origin of life.

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THEORIES OF SPONTANEOUS GENERATION

According to these theories, life has originated from non-living organic matter abiogenically, i.e. without the intervention of living things.

In the ancient days it was thought that life arose by spontaneous generation. Egyptians thought that snakes arose from the mud of Nile and Greeks reached on a conclusion that rats arose from piles of garbage on exposure to warmth. (4) For these reasons it was thought for a long time that such animals arose spontaneously. Aristotle, Anaxagorus, Lucretius (the Roman poet-philosopher), Newton, William Harvey, Descartes all believed in the spontaneous generation and evidenced that life arises regularly from the non-living; worms from mud, maggots from decay meat, mice from refuse of various kinds etc.(5)

The above-described hypothesis of spontaneous generation was not seriously questioned until the middle of 17th century. Francesco Redi in 1688 showed that worms did not develop in meat if the vessel containing it was covered with Muslin so that flies could not lay their eggs on the meat. (6) But it remained a difficult problem to reject the idea of the spontaneous generation of the microorganisms discovered by Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723). In 1765, however, Lazzaro Spallanzni showed that microorganisms did not appear in various material broths if the vessels were sealed and boiled. Needham objected that by heating the so-called vital force responsible for the development of life of the broth and air was destroyed. By readmitting air, it was possible to show that the broth could still support the growth of microorganisms. To meet the objections, spallanzni repeated his experiments and performed with exceptional care a large series of experiments to answer all of Needham objections. Nevertheless, he failed to convince his contemporaries and the theory of spontaneous generation persisted widely until the middle of the nineteenth century. (7) It was Pasteur (1862) who finally solved the problem. He used a flask with its end open to the air. The air was free to pass in and out of the flask but the particles of dust, bacteria and molds in the air were caught on the sides of the long S-shaped tube when broth in the flask was boiled and allowed to cool, no microorganism developed. When the S-shaped tube was broken off at the neck of the flask, microorganisms developed. (8)

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THEORY OF ETERNITY OF LIFE

It is regarded as the theory of the continuity of life.  According to this, life is as eternal as matter itself. Life only changes its forms but is never created from dead substances. It has no origin and has always existed.

Preyer (1880) assumed that life comes only from life and never from lifeless matter. According to him, life must have existed even at that time, when earth was a mass of molten liquid. (9) Bondi (1952), Hoyle and Gold have forwarded the view that the universe has always, on the whole, been much as it is now. (10)

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COSMOZOIC THEORY, METEORITE AND PANASPERIMIATIC VIEWS:

These theories also assume that life came by the spores or other particles from other planets on the earth. Richter (1865) supposed that during the origin of earth various celestial bodies and small particles became dislodged and propelled into space. These particles might have carried viable germs (spores), which upon reaching suitable planets (having conditions favourable for life) could develop and initiate a panoply of living organisms. (11)

Helmholtz (1864) propounded the meteorite idea, according to which live germs were brought to the earth by meteorites falling from other planets. He based this possibility upon the fact that meteorites, on passing through the Earth’s atmosphere, are heated only on the surface while the interior remains cool. (12)

Arrhenius revived the theory of cosmozoa and considered the panspermia as mainly responsible for transfer of germs from other planets to earth. (13) These theories of inter-planetary exchange of viable spores became remote and obsolete in the light of modern researches.

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OPARIN HYPOTHESIS ON THE ORIGIN OF LIFE

According to Oparin, origin of life was a gradual process and that life did not come into existence suddenly as a consequence of a combination of a whole series of chance occurrences. Here we shall describe in detail the A.I.Oparin hypothesis according to his book “The Origin of Life” especially his Coacervate model. Coacervate is a solution of high molecular weight chemicals i.e. Carbohydrates and proteins, etc. During various mechanisms of polymerization and condensation which were going to in the ocean water, a particular phenomenon of Cocervation took place, which according to Oparin, led to the origin of life. According to this, as a result of mixing of two different colloid solutions, some microscopic droplets become separated from them called as Coacervate (from Latin word acervus meaning pile). These droplets (Coacervates) contain almost all the Colloidal particles in specific ration and having the peculiar property of not allowing their drops (though saturated with liquid and water) to mix with surrounding water solution. The same property is exhibited by the protoplasm of Colloidal nature. Oparin considered these Coacervates as the sole living molecules which gave rise to the life. (14)

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COULD LIFE ORIGINATE BY CHANCE?

Let us analyze the notion that different complex organic molecules and then a perfect machine – a cell – came into being just by the interactions of different chemicals under the influence of some physical factors (forces). Oparin comments, “If the reader were asked to consider the probability that in the midst of inorganic matter a large factory with smoke stacks, pipes, boilers, machines, ventilators, etc; suddenly sprang into existence by some natural process, let us say a volcanic eruption, this would be taken at best for a silly joke”. He further says, “Yet even the simplest microorganism has a more complex structure than any factory, and therefore its fortuitous creation is very much less probable”. He further writes, “Every factory is constructed in accordance with some set, previously worked out plan (so he says that unquestionably, a factory could never originate through some natural phenomenon and independently of man). He confesses this, “It is conceivable that such a preconceived plan of protoplasmic structure could exist unless one assumes a creative divine will and a plan of creation.” In spite of confessing the fact, he in the second sentence says, “but a definite protoplasmic organization and fitness of its inner structure to carry out definite functions could easily be formed in the course of evolution of organic matter just as highly organized animals and plants have come from the simplest living things by a process of evolution” (15)

G.S. Cartor, after observing the great complexity and organization of living things (especially animals) says “No one can look at the immensely complicated organization of an insect or a vertebrate without doubting that our relatively simple theories can completely explain the origin of such complexity” (16). Professor Klaus Dose, the President of the Institute of Biochemistry at the University of Johannes Gutenberg states:

 “More than 30 years of experimentation on origin of life in the fields of chemical and molecular evolution have led to a better perception of the immensity of the problem of the origin of life on earth rather than to its solution. At present all discussions on principal theories and experiments in the field either ends in stalemate or in a confession of ignorance (17). Similarly other biologists and biochemists staggered at the origin of life just by chance. Professor William Thorpe of the Zoology department of Cambridge University told his fellow Scientists: “All the facile speculations and discussions published during the last ten or fifteen years explaining the mode of origin of life have been shown to be far too simple-minded and to bear very little weight. The problem in fact seems as far from solution as it ever was. (18).

About chance, Professor Edwin Conklin rightly comments: “The probability of life originating from accident comparable to probability of the unabridged dictionary resulting from an explosion in a printing press”. (19)

Even, if we take it for granted that matter in a crude form spontaneously originated in the universe, and that a chain of voluntary action and reaction is responsible for creation, (although such assumption is baseless). We have no adequate explanation for the existence of the universe and life.

The chance occurrence of a single protein molecules would require that amount of matter to be shaken together would be millions of times greater than that in the whole universe. In his book, Human Destiny, Le Comte Du Nouy had made  an excellent, detailed analysis of this problem:

 (For such a chance) The volume of the substance necessary for such a probability to take place is beyond all imagination. It would be that of a sphere with a radius so great that light would take 1082 years to cover this distance. The volume is incomparably greater than that of the whole universe including the farthest galaxies, whose light takes only 2 X 106  (two million) years to reach us. In brief we would have to imagine a volume more than one sextillion, sextillion, sextillion times greater than the Einsteinian universe. (20)

The probability for a single molecule of high symmetry to be formed by the action of chance and normal thermic agitation remains practically nil. Indeed, if we suppose 500 trillion shakings per second (5 X 1014), which corresponds to the order of magnitude of light frequency, we find that the time needed to form, on an average, one such molecule in a material volume equal to globe is about 10243 billions of years of years (1 followed by 243 zeros). (21)

But we must not forget that the Earth has only existed for 4-5 billion years ago, and that life appeared about 2-3 billion year ago. Here life itself in not in question but merely one of the substances, which constitute living beings. Now, one molecule is of no use. Hundreds of millions of identical ones are necessary. We would need much more figures to explain the appearance of a series of similar molecules, improbability increasing considerably. When a period of trillions and trillions of years would be required for a single non-living proteinaceous molecule to develop in a purely random way, we have to ask ourselves, how more than 20 lacs (2 million) species of plants and animals with fully developed bodies could have originated upon the surface of the earth within relatively short period of 2-3 billion years. And how was it that innumerable members of each species reproduce themselves and became widespread throughout the land and the oceans? It is really inconceivable than within such a short span of time, a superior and the most advanced and intelligent creature like ‘Man’ could have evolved from inferior living organisms, and all just by the merest chance. Whereas evolutionary theory is based upon a certain incidence of chance mutations – accidental variations – among different species, but even supposing rare mutations conferring a 1 percent advantage did occasionally occur, just how rapidly could they be accumulated in a species. Prof Patau, in his Mathematical Analysis of the Evolutionary Theory has shown that it would take about 1000,000 (10 lacs) generations to effect a population breeding true for this new mutation. (22) According to Dr. Haluke Noor Baqi, about 39 X 1020 changes are required in the genetic code to evolve an insect from amoeba. Similarly about 3 X 10520 alterations are necessary for the evolution of Man from a monkey, which requires time that cannot be expressed in figures. (23) But keep this fact in mind that first monkey appeared on earth 35 million years ago, and the first bipedal anthropoids walking on two feet – Homo erectus – appeared about 3 million years ago and the modern man Homo sapiens sapiens appeared about 35 thousand years ago. (26)

This detailed analysis has been made here simply to expose the absurdity of the “chance occurrence” theory. Neither an atom, nor a molecule, nor the mind, which applies itself to how the universe originated, could have come into existence by pure “chance”. No how long a period may be considered for it, the theory of chance occurrence is impossible, not only from the mathematical point of view, but also from the standpoint of common sense. As a theory, it just does not carry any weight.

An American physiologist, Dr. Andrew Conway Ivy writes: It is many times more absurd to believe that this causal chain came from nothing, and was due to chance, that it would be to believe that you could get a map of the world by spilling a glass of water on the floor. Hoyle comments rightly: “If one is not prejudiced either by social beliefs or by a scientific training into the conviction that life originated (spontaneously) on the earth, this simple calculation wipes the idea entirely out of court”. (2)

M. B. Kreider is very much right in his comment “The mathematical probability of chance occurrence of all the necessary factors in the right proportion is almost nil”. (26)

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WITHOUT A CREATOR, ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF LIFE IS IMPOSSIBLE

There are three ways of trying to explain how life came here:

  1. Either it was made, or created or caused by nothing at all.
  2. or it is created itself
  3. or it has a creator, cause or maker outside itself

The first and second explanations are obviously impossible. It is inconceivable for something that has a beginning in time to come out of or be made of nothing, at all. It is also inconceivable that it should bring itself into being. The universe (and all living things in it) therefore could not have been created itself nor did it come about by chance as we observed in the preceding pages. The conclusion then is clear. The universe and all living things owe their existence to a Creator or a Maker outside the universe. This fact, besides all religious teachings, also authenticated and endorsed by eminent biologists and scientists of the past and of the current eras.

Some 40 years of experiments, Professor Miller told the Scientific American.

“The problem of the origin of life has turned out to be  convincing. (27) Klaus Dose a German Biochemist observed: “At present all discussions on Principal theories and experiments in the field either end in stalemate or in a confession of ignorance”. (28) Even at the 1996 international conference on Origin of life, no solutions were presented. Instead, the journal “Science” reported that the nearly 300 scientists who convened had grappled with the riddle of how (DNA and RNA) molecules first appeared and how now they evolved into self reproducing cells”. (28)

Interviewed in a documentary film Professor Maciej Giertych, a noted geneticist from the Institute of Dendrology of the Polish Academy of Science answered:

“We have become aware of the massive of information contained in the gene. There is no known way to science how that information can arise spontaneously. It requires an intelligence; it cannot arise from chance event. Just mixing letters does not produce words.” He added:

“For example the very complex DNA, RNA, protein replication system in the cell must have been perfect from the very start. If not, life systems could not exist. The only logical explanation is that this vast quantity of information came from an intelligence .The more we learn about the wonders of life, the more logical it is to agree that the origin of life requires an intelligent source.” (29) But why many scientists and evolutionists do not believe in that intelligent source, Sir Fred Hoyle comments:

“Indeed such a theory (that life was assembled by an intelligence) is so obvious that one wonder why it is not widely accepted as being self evident. The reasons are psychological rather than scientific”. (30)

About this psychological reason, Physicist H.S.Lipson said:

“The only acceptable explanation (for the origin of Life) is creation. I know that this is anathema to physicists, as indeed it is to me, but we must not reject a theory that we do not like if the experimental evidence supports it”. He further observed that after Darwin’s book, “The Origin of Species”, evolution became in a sense a scientific religion; almost all scientists have accepted it and many are prepared to ‘bend’ their observations to fit in with it”. (31)

Chandra Wichramasinghe, Professor at University College Cardiff rightly comments on the evolution of such psychology:

“From my earliest training as a scientist I was very strongly brain- washed to believe that science cannot be consistent with any kind of deliberate creation. That notion has had to be very painfully shed. I am quite uncomfortable in the situation, the state of mind I now find myself in. But there is no logical way out of it; it is just not possible that life could have originated from a chemical accident.”

So Wickramasinghe concludes:

“There is no other way in which we can understand the precise ordering of the chemicals of life except to invoke the creations on cosmic scale.” (32)

Darwin himself due to the daggering complexity of life compelled to write in the final paragraph of “The Origin of  Species” “The Creator originally breathed life into few forms or into one. From so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been and are being evolved”. After referring to the Darwin, the writer of the Scientific Americans Leslie Orgel writes (which is again due to psychological training) that Darwin, in his private correspondence was of the opinion that life could have originated by mere chemical reactions without creator. He writes:

“In private correspondence, however, he suggested life could have arisen through chemistry, in some warm little pond, with all sorts of ammonia and phosphoric salts, light, heat, electricity, etc present”. After quoting this, Orgel further describes the psychological bend of mind of the twentieth century, which led to atheism.

“For much of the 20th century, origin-of-life research has aimed to flesh out Darwin’s private hypothesis (and not public opinion that The Creator originally breathed life into few forms or into one) – to elucidate how, without Supernatural intervention, spontaneous interaction of relatively simple molecules dissolved in the lakes or oceans of the periodic world could have yielded life’s last common ancestor”. (33)

But after the research of more than 100 years, that “Private Hypothesis” of Darwin is not proved yet, and much remains to be done.

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Some Other Confession from Evolutionists

The same writer Orgel confesses:

“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 (and also in long run) one might have to conclude that life could never, in fact, have originated by chemical means”. (31) This fact is also admitted by other scientist:

 “DNA cannot do its work, including forming more DNA, without the help of catalytic proteins or enzymes. In short, proteins cannot form without DNA, but neither can DNA form without proteins. How did the Genetic Code, along with the mechanism 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? (35)

The answer to the big question of how and why life originated is not with science but with religion because as Astronomer Robert Jastrow said that “Scientists have no proof that life was not result of an act of creation”. (36)

Lord Kelvin is very much right in saying :

“It is impossible to conceive either the beginning or continuous of life without an overruling creative power. Over powering strong proofs of benevolence and intelligent design are to be found around us, teaching that all living things depend on one everlasting Creator and ruler.” (37)

Another scientist writes:

“So highly intricate are the organic and biochemical processes functioning in the animal organisms that all this demands a planner and a sustainer of infinite intelligence. The simplest man-made mechanism requires a planner and a maker. How a mechanism ten thousand times more evolved and intricate can be conceived as self-constructed and self developed, is completely beyond me.” (38)

At this point I am compelled to quote the words of the Arabic desert nomad about God, which are although much simpler, but much profound and adequate for this occasion. He said:

 “That Camel droppings point to existence of a camel. Footprints on the sand tell of a traveller. The heavens with all its (billions and trillions) of stars, the earth with its mountains and valleys and the seas with all its waves (and other diverse living creatures) – don’t they point to the Maker, all-Powering, Knowing, Wise and Caring”. (35)

 

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REFERENCES

 

  1. A.I.Oparin: Origin of Life (New York: Dover Publications Inc. 1953) p.1
  2. Quoted in Majid Ali Khan’s book Islam on Origin and Evolution of Life (Delhi:Idarah-i-Adbiyat Delhi, 1978), p.124
  3. Ibid, 123
  4. Ibid, 124
  5. Ibid, 125
  6. Ibid
  7. Ibid
  8. Ibid, 126
  9. Tomar and Singh: General Biology (Meerut: Rastogi Publications, 1987) p.4
  10. Ibid
  11. Ibid
  12. Ibid
  13. Ibid
  14. A.I. Oparin: Origin of Life, pp.149-153
  15. Ibid, pp.60-61
  16. Did Man Get Here by Evolution or Creation (Newyork: Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, 1967), p.36
  17. Quoted in Harun Yahya’s book Evolution Deceit (London: Ta-Ha Publishers, Wynne Road, 199) p. 82
  18. Life – How Did it Get Here? p.39
  19. Quoted in M. Wahid-ud-Din Khan’s book God Arises: Evidence of God in Nature and in Science (New Delhi: Goodword Books, 1985) p.93
  20. Le Comte Du Nouy: Human Destiny (New York: Menter Books New American Library) p.35
  21. Ibid, p.36
  22. Wahid-ud-din Khan, p.99
  23. Dr. Haluke Noorbaqi: The Story of Evolution in Ruhani Digest, (Nazimabad, Karachi, September 1998), p.33
  24. Donald D. Ritchie and Robert Carola: Biology (London: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1984) p.642
  25. Life-How did it Get Here by Evolution or Creation (New York, Watch Tower, Bible and Tract Society ), p.52
  26. Wahid-ud-din Khan: Ilmi Jadeed ka Challenge (Lahore: Nashriat-i-Islam) p.111
  27. Is there a Creator Who Cares about you? (New York: Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society) p.40
  28. Ibid
  29. Ibid, pp.43-44
  30. Fred Hoyle, Chandra Wichramasinghe: Evolution from Space (New York: Simon and Shuster, 1984) p.148
  31. Life – How Did it Get Here, pp.52-53
  32. Ibid, p.53
  33. Leslie E. Orgel: The Origin of Life on Earth in The Scientific American (Special Issue on Evolution) October, 1994, p.53
  34. Ibid, 54
  35. Harun Yahya, p.110
  36. Life – How did it Get Here? p.53
  37. Quoted in Dr. Ghulam Jilani Berq’s book Two Quran (Lahore, Sh. Ghulam Ali and Sons, 1981), p.219
  38. Did Man Get Here by Creation or Evolution, p.41
  39. Quoted in Dr. Ghulam Murtaza’s Book Wujood-i-Bari Tahala aur

Tawhid (Lahore: Zaib Taleemi Trust, Urdu Bazar) p.43


 

* Assistant Professor of Zoology, Govt. Post Graduate College, Mansehra, NWFP, Pakistan.

 

 

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