Chapter 3:

Two Worldviews in Conflict
What do thousands of scientists believe about creation and evolution?

Life from Non-Life

• The basis for evolution led to a revival of the spontaneous biogenesis theory, also known as chemical evolution, or spontaneous generation. Spontaneous generation is the hypothetical process by which living organisms develop from nonliving matter. However, this concept was disproved by Louis Pasteur, whose contributions were among the most valuable in the history of science.^[9] Pasteur proved through famous experiments that all life comes from life, never from non-life.^[10]
  
  
• There has never been a scientific experiment that has produced pure samples of the correct type of proteins or nucleotides necessary for the production of life. However, in 1953 the famous Miller/Urey experiment proved that in a hypothetical primordial atmosphere, ammonia, water, methane, and energy can combine to form some amino acids which are required for life. Yet the highly praised Miller/ Urey experiment did not produce any of the fundamental building blocks of life itself. It produced 85 percent tar, 13 percent carbolic acid, 1.05 percent glycine, 0.85 percent alanine, and trace amounts of other chemicals. Although the amino acids glycine and alanine are required for life, the tar and carbolic acids would be toxic to any proteins if they ever formed. Every subsequent experiment of this kind has produced similar results. Some experiments have produced slightly higher percentages of the usable product, but the majority of the material that is produced by these experiments is toxic to life.^[11]
  
  
• In fact, the Encyclopedia Britannica has affirmed in one article that modern findings “pose grave difficulties” for spontaneous generation theories supported by the famous Miller/ Urey experiment.^[12] Moreover, many scientists now believe that the earth’s early atmosphere would have made the synthesis of organic molecules virtually impossible in the Miller/Urey experiment. For example, NASA has reported that a “reducing atmosphere” has never existed, although the experiment assumes one.^[13] It is also now realized that the ultraviolet radiation from sunlight is destructive to any developing life. And there are many other specific criticisms of the Miller/Urey experiment as well that show its fundamental assumptions about the primordial atmosphere to be false.^[14]
  
  
• Despite the accumulating evidence that stacks up against the Miller/Urey experiment, it is nonetheless still used in educational institutes worldwide to support the idea that life was spontaneously produced from non-life.
  
  
• The evolutionist and Nobel Prize winner George Wald demonstrates this inconsistency very clearly: “Spontaneous generation of a living organism is impossible. Yet here we [human beings] are, as a result, I believe, of spontaneous generation.”^[15]

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