Beyond Urey-Miller

May 4, 2008 by Dr. Mc.

This week as I prepared to move from my home of 12 years, I
came across a "novel" I started in high school. It was in a Nifty spiral
notebook (if anyone can remember those), and it was sort of an
absent-minded-professor story. I was probably inspired by the black-and-white
Disney movie, but in my story the hero was trying to discover a way to create
life. As I read some of the lousy text I wrote back then, I was struck by the
fact that at that time in my life I bought whole-heartedly into the theory of
evolution. As with most other people, evolution was a given, and I was sure my
Christian upbringing was compatible with it all; it was just a matter of
discovering the details. As a junior scientist, I clearly understood that
neither the Urey-Miller experiment nor those of anyone else had achieved life, but I
assumed that in time someone else would. Why not my hero? Also, as a junior
scientist, and officer in my school’s science club, I knew that all life requires cell structure. As for what a cell contained, I was only slightly ahead of Darwin, knowing that
a cell had a nucleus, some jelly-like stuff (protoplasm), and a cell wall. All my hero had to do was get
the required chemicals into the right three-part arrangement, add a spark, and
life would happen! I had no concept of the sophisticated parts and incredibly
complex processes required for even the simplest cell.

By that time in high school my personal fossil finds were
overflowing boxes in my basement, and science fair awards lined my shelves.
Never once had I heard a scientific criticism of the Darwinian evolutionary model–only
religious ones. Then I was invited to a meeting on my college campus, and one
45-minute audio tape blew it all out of the water. One meeting, one audio tape.
Where had this information been all my life!

I abandoned my belief in God during my PhD program, but
that did not make Darwinian theory any more plausible. Then when I discovered
that my dissertation could not continue until I pretended confidence in
Darwinian theory, my doubts about God took a huge hit. If that group of scientists
would work that hard to prevent me from even doubting this theory, then there must
be something powerful and even real to be feared from this consideration. Slowly I concluded it must be the Truth.

Today I never hear any talk of scientist hoping to create
life from non-life, and information prevents my faith that life could ever occur
without intelligence behind it. But should some scientist (or scientists) ever
achieve life in a test tube, there would remain only one step to prove–that they
were not intelligent.

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