A surprising number of reputable scientists have stepped forward to declare the chance formation of life to be a total impossibility. Let us briefly consider some of their statements.

The entire possibility of an evolutionary origin of life field to be little more than a matter of faith:

"The hypothesis that life has developed from inorganic matter is, at present, still an article of faith."—*J. W.N. Sullivan, The Limitations of Science (1933), p. 95.

A random beginning would be impossible:

"No matter how large the environment one considers, life cannot have had a random beginning."— *Fred Hoyle and *N. Chandra Wickramasinghe, Evolution from Space (1981), dust jacket.

The origin of life was almost a miracle:

"An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it going."—Michael Pitman, Adam and Evolution, (1981) p. 268.

"The probability of life originating from accident is comparable to the probability of the unabridged dictionary resulting from an explosion in a printing shop."—*Edwin Conklin, Reader's Digest, January 1963, p. 92.

"From the probability standpoint, the ordering of the present environment into a single amino acid molecule would be utterly improbable in all the time and space available for the origin of terrestrial life."—*American Scientist, January, 1955.

"There is no general agreement on what represents primitive earth conditions."—*J. Keosian, The Origin of Life (1968), p.27.

"There is general agreement on only one broad point—that organic compounds, biotically synthesized, preceded the origin of life . . But there is no general agreement of the constitution of the primitive atmosphere nor on the mechanism of synthesis of organic compounds."—*J. Keosian, The Origin of Life (1968), pp. 13, 54.

"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 [the mathematical odds against it] wipes the idea entirely out of court. "—*Fred Hoyle and *Chandra Wickramasinghe, Evolution From Space (1981), p. 24.

"Even if we were to accept the assumption that each of these reactions pre-existed in the 'soup', the chance assembly of all of them into a functioning unit is inconceivable."—*J. Keosian, "The Origin of Life Problem—A Brief Critique," in Molecular Evolution, Prebiological and Biological (1972), p. 14.

"We have little expectation of being able to conclude a discussion with the statement 'this is how life did arise'; the best we can hope for is 'this is one of the ways life could have arisen' . . We do not know what we are trying to generate or from what. "—*N. W. Pine, "Some Assumptions Underlying Discussion on the Origins of Life, in Annals of the New York Academy of Science, 66 (1957) pp. 369, 376.

"But it is not just one instability that makes it impossible to cross the threshold between life and non-life; it is, rather a succession of instabilities of which we are only now beginning to identify certain stages."—*Ilya Prigogine, "Can Thermodynamics Explain Biological Order?" Impact of Science on Society, Vol. XXIII, No. 3 (1973), p. 169.

"Proof in the sense in which one thinks of it in chemistry and physics is not attainable in the problem of primordial biogenesis. "— *A. I. Oparin, Life: Its Nature, Origin and Development (1961), p. 33.

"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 where it is insensibly different from zero."—*Fred Hoyle and *Chandra Wickramasinghe, Evolution from Space (1981), p. 3.

"The origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfactory to get it going."—*Francis Crick, Life Itself (1982), p. 88 [discoverer of DNA].

"Ultimately the Darwinian theory of evolution is no more nor less than the great cosmogenic myth of the twentieth century. . The origin of life and of new beings on earth is still largely as enigmatic as when Darwin set sail on the Beagle. "—*Michael Denton, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis (1985), p. 358.

"Darwinism's allegations violate three principles of common observation. They are these: 1. Order never emerges unassisted from any existing condition where chaos reigns; from existing chaos only greater chaos is produced. 2. The source for the production of any product is more complex than the product turned out. A producing mechanism is therefore always more complicated, all factors considered, than whatever is produced. 3. Energy is required to build anything. In order to construct a product, energy must be of the right kind of the right amount, and made available at just the right time. Let us look at these ideas one at a time.

"1. Let us construct a possible [evolutionary prescribed] scenario for the world at the [theoretical] time that life is purported to have arisen: Volcanoes dot the landscape and are spewing out chunks of earth's insides . . Winds often of hurricane force . . Lightning is flashing . . Torrential rains are producing horrible floods which tear at the exposed landscape. The earth itself pulsates with earthquakes. . The sun unshielded by an ozone layer plays on this swirling interplay of forces with searing intensity, irradiating everything with deadly ultraviolet rays.

"Out of this troubled scene of disorder is supposed to have arisen the most ordered construction of all time—life itself . .

" 2 . In our everyday experience, a machine which turns out a product such as steel bolts, let us say, is much more complex than its products. In fact, in this case the machine itself would not only be constructed partly of bolts itself but it would also possess nuts, gears, supports, a source of power, controls, etc. All of these would exist in a complex arrangement of coordinated operation. This kind of hierarchic relationship in which the producing mechanism is always more complex than the finalized product, one finds to be universally true. Yet Darwinists want us to accept the idea that the most complex product possible, life itself, would have been so unexacting in this regard as to arise from an antecedent situation completely lacking in complexity, in fact, totally chaotic. Experience makes this impossible to accept.

" 3. Whenever a product is being produced, we find from every earth-bound experience that energy is being brought to bear. There never is a 'free lunch' in this regard. It always costs energy to produce something. It is also true that nothing complex can be produced without the correct amount of energy being directed in just the right way, at just the right time, and it must be just the right kind of energy in the first place.

"One cannot place a needle beside a piece of thread, strike the two with a sledge hammer and expect to produce a threading of the needle. It represents the wrong kind of energy, in the wrong amount and improperly directed . . Yet Darwinists want us to believe that capricious energy, that is, of indeterminate types, of no particular intensity, and coming at indefinite times could have produced the most complex of all products—life itself."—Lester J. McCann, Blowing the Whistle on Darwinism (1986), pp. 74-76.

"It is interesting that A.R. Moore found that if the plasmodium of slime mold is allowed to flow through a sieve, even a very fine one, it will accomplish the feat unharmed. However, if forced through even a moderately fine sieve, it will be found on the other side apparently unchanged physically and chemically, but dead" [A.R. Moore, "On the Cytoplasmic Framework of the plasmodium," in Science Reports, December 1933, pp. 189—191] . .

"But until man is able to take the dead slime mold, which was alive only a moment before and which seemingly has all its chemical elements and substances present, and make it alive again, he stands no chance whatever of synthesizing living protoplasm by mingling substances from the bottles in his laboratory."—Howard Peth, Blind Faith (1990), pp. 74-75.

Proteins just do not come about by chance.

"Living matter is composed largely of proteins. Since 1930 it has been known that the amino acids that comprise proteins cannot join together if oxygen is present. In other words. Proteins could not have evolved from chance collisions of amino acids if the atmosphere contained oxygen. However, the chemistry of the earth's rocks, both on land and below ancient seas, show that the earth had oxygen before the earliest fossils formed. Even earlier, oxygen would have been produced by solar radiation breaking water vapor apart into oxygen and hydrogen. Some of the very light hydrogen would have escaped from the atmosphere into outer space, leaving behind oxygen.

"To form proteins, amino acids must also be highly concentrated. However, the early oceans or atmosphere would have diluted amino acids to the point where the required collisions between them would rarely occur. Besides, amino acids do not naturally link up to form proteins. Instead, energy sources for forming proteins (the earth's heat, electrical discharges, or the sun's radiation) destroy the protein products thousands of times faster than they could have formed. The many attempts to show how life might have arrived on earth have only demonstrated the futility of the effort, the immense complexity of even the simplest life, and the need for a vast intelligence to precede life."—Walter T. Brown, In the Beginning (1989), p. 6.

"The ‘warm little pond' scenario was invented ad hoc [for a special purpose] to serve as a materialistic reductionist explanation of the origin of life. It is unsupported by any other evidence and it will remain ad hoc until such evidence is found. Even if it existed, as described in the scenario, it nevertheless falls very short indeed of achieving the purpose of its authors even with the aid of a deus ex machine. One must conclude that, contrary to the established and current wisdom a scenario describing the genesis of life on earth by chance and natural causes which can be accepted on the basis of fact and not faith has not yet been written."—*H. P. Yockey, "A Calculation of the Probability of Spontaneous Biogenesis by Information Theory, "Journal of the Theory Biology 67 (1977), p. 396. (deus ex machine, "god out of a machine," refers to a stage trick of the classical theatrical tragedies, in which a god was lowered in a car onto the stage to solve problems.)

"Spontaneous generation" is the theory that life forms (plants and animals, including microscopic creatures) generate into life out of non-living materials. This idea was sacredly believed by many scientists over a hundred years ago, but was debunked by Redi, Spallanzani, and Pasteur.

Obviously, if life can only come from life, then if is impossible for life to have sprung forth from non-life at some earlier time.

First, we will consider a quotation from *Asimov, summarizing the evolutionists' position, and following that see what scientists have to say about spontaneous generation:

"Pasteur's demonstration apparently laid the theory of spontaneous generation to rest permanently. All this left a germ of embarrassment for [evolutionary] scientists. How had life arisen, after all, if not through divine creation or through spontaneous generation? . . [Asimov then explains why the "life seeds" from outer space theory would be impossible] . .

"Although some scientists, even today, find the possibility of seeding attractive, the large majority feel it appropriate to work out reasonable mechanisms for the origin of life right here on Earth.

"They are back to spontaneous generation, but with a difference. The pre-Pasteur view of spontaneous generation was of something taking place now and quickly. The modern view is that it took place long ago and very slowly."—*Isaac Asimov, Asimov's New Guide to Science (1984), pp. 639, 640 [italics his].

"Biogenesis: . . From the Greek words bios, life, and genesis, birth, source, creation, is the biological term for the doctrine that living organisms are produced only by other living organisms, . . biologists are now not only in virtually unanimous agreement that all life derives from preceding life, but that the parent organism and its offspring are of the same kind."—*Encyclopedia Americana, 1956 edition, Vol. 3, p. 721.

Now for a definition of spontaneous generation:

"Spontaneous generation: the generation of living from nonliving matter. . [is taken] from a belief, now abandoned, that organisms found in putrid organic matter arise spontaneously from it."— *Webster's Dictionary.

"One has only to contemplate the magnitude of this task [spontaneous generation], to concede that the spontaneous generation of a living organism is impossible. Yet here we are—as a result, I believe, of spontaneous generation."—*George Wald, Scientific American, August 1954, p. 46.

"Francesco Redi, an Italian physician, was the first (about 1688) to carry out controlled experiments that disproved the belief that maggots arose from decaying fish, snakes, and meat . . Redi proved that maggots and flies arise from living parents, not from dead matter.

"Lazzaro Spallanzani, an Italian priest (about 1780), sealed numerous vegetable juices in glass flasks and then boiled them. After allowing these materials to cool and stand for a number of days, Spallanzani could not observe any organisms. Even microscopic examination did not reveal them. Spallanzani concluded that nothing developed in the juices because boiling killed any living organisms that might have been present. Consequently, there were no living organisms to give rise to new ones.

"Louis Pasteur, a French scientist (about 1860), conclusively demonstrated that microorganisms, which are present everywhere, get into organic matter, which serves as their food. After feeding and growing, the microorganisms reproduce and thereby give rise to many others like themselves. If flasks containing food are sealed and sterilized... even after many months, no microorganisms appear."—*Mark A. Hall and "Milton S. Lesser, Review Text in Biology (1966), pp. 252-253.

"Modern medicine and surgery are founded on the truth enunciated by Pasteur, that life proceeds only from life, and only from life of the same type and kind."—*McNair Wilson, "The Witness of Science, "in Oxford Medical Publications (1942).

"[There is a question as to] how life originated, I am afraid that, since Pasteur [since his experiment disproving spontaneous generation], this question is not within the scientific domain." —*T. Mora, "Urge and Molecular Biology, " in Nature, 199 (1963), p. 122.

"Until the 1860s, many men believed the theory of 'spontaneous generation'—that is, that life (particularly lower forms of life) can arise or be generated spontaneously (from characteristics within the substance itself, as in spontaneous combustion). Perhaps no view has ever seemed more self-evident, more safely beyond debate.

"After all, didn't worms spring from mud, and maggots from spoiled meat? If one left rags in the corner, mice would appear. Frogs were created spontaneously in pond water. And wheat would generate rats. Even Sir Francis Bacon (15611626) believed that insects were 'creatures made from putrefaction,' lice were ‘bred by sweat close kept,' and fleas 'principally of straw and mats, where there hath been little moisture.' . .

"Spontaneous generation of life is the first link in the chain of evolution. Obviously, if that link cannot be forged, the whole evolutionary theory is hopelessly weakened. There must be life itself before there can be diversity of life. So it is quite necessary for the evolutionist to insist on some form of spontaneous generation, as that is the only way life can be accounted for apart from a Creator." —Howard Peth, Blind Faith (1990), pp. 70-71 [emphasis his].

"I think it is fair to say that all the facile speculations and discussions published during the last 10-15 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.

"The origin of even the simplest cell poses a problem hardly less difficult. The most elementary type of cell constitutes, a 'mechanism' unimaginably more complex than any machine yet thought up, let alone constructed, by man. There is no real clue as to the way in which any of these riddles were solved, so it is open to anyone to espouse any theory which he finds helpful." —*W. Thorpe, "Reductionism in Biology," in Studies in the Philosophy of Biology (1974), pp. 116,117.

"The improbability involved in generating even one bacterium is so large that it reduces all considerations of time and space to nothingness. Given such odds, the time until the black holes evaporate and the space to the ends of the universe would make no difference at all. If we were to wait, we would truly be waiting for a miracle."—*R. Shapiro, Origins: A Skeptic's Guide to the Creation of Life on Earth (1986), p. 128.

Evolutionary theorists generally admit that a "primitive soup" was necessary for the initial generation of life from non-living materials. This "soup" is said to have been warm and loaded with an astonishing concentration of a wide variety of chemicals needed for life. Somehow, just the right amount of low-level electricity had to continually play through it. All the hundreds of millions of aspects of a microscopic life form had to produce itself in an instant. These aspects included the DNA code, protein codes, and much, much more. Instantly if not sooner, that life form had to successfully leave its water environment, so that hydrolysis would not occur and the mixture turn back into solution. Here is what open-minded scientists have to say about "pre-biologic soup:"

"If there ever was a primitive soup, then we would expect to find at least somewhere on this planet either massive sediments containing enormous amounts of the various nitrogenous organic compounds, amino acids, purines, pyrimidines, and the like, or alternatively in much metamorphosed sediments we should find vast amounts of nitrogenous cokes (graphite—like nitrogen-containing materials). In fact, no such materials have been found anywhere on earth . . There is, in other words, pretty good negative evidence that there never was a primitive organic soup on this planet that could have lasted but a brief moment."—*J. Brooks and *G. Shaw, Origins and Development of Living Systems, (1973), p. 360.

"At least five major factors limit the kinds of compounds that might have accumulated in the primitive ocean.

"First, there are limitations on what can be made by inorganic means; second, all organic matter degrades spontaneously with time; third, some substances are readily destroyed by radiation; fourth, many compounds would have been removed from the ocean by precipitation or adsorption; fifth, there are serious chemical incompatibilities among the constituents of living matter, and some of the components of the soup would react to form nonbiologic substances. In view of these limitations, one is challenged to seek a series of steps toward life that are compatible with the environment."— *P. Ableson, "Chemical Events on the Primitive Earth," in National Academy of Sciences, (1966) Vol. 55, pp. 1365, 1369.

"The prebiotic soup has fared little better than the reducing atmosphere . . Lars Gunnar Sillen . . starts with the assumption of a methane-rich reducing atmosphere, but questions the survival of a soup under these conditions. If left to itself, he reasons, it would gradually move to the position of greatest stability, equilibrium. When this position was attained, we would be back at the starting point, with almost all carbon in the form of methane and concentrations of amino acids at negligible levels. A system may be kept away from equilibrium, of course, by a steady input of energy. All life exists in this situation today. Enormous amounts of energy would be required, however, to maintain an entire ocean in this condition. Furthermore, mixtures of organic chemicals are far less adept than living systems at handling a heavy energy flow. As we say in the Miller-Urey experiment, they continue to form chemical bonds until a heavy insoluble material, a tar, is produced, unless they are protected in some type of sanctuary."—*R. Shapiro, Origins: A Skeptic's Guide to the Creation of Life on Earth (1986), pp. 112-113.

"The physical chemist, guided by the proved principles of chemical thermodynamics and kinetics, cannot offer any encouragement to the biochemist, who needs an ocean full of organic compounds to form even lifeless coacervate."—*D. Hull "Thermodynamics and Kinetics of Spontaneous Generation," in Nature, (1960) Vol. 186, pp. 693—694.

For decades evolutionists claimed that the primitive environment had no oxygen in its atmosphere. They said this since they knew that, chemically, it would be impossible for any kind of amino acids (living or non-living) to form spontaneously in the presence of oxygen. Even in modern laboratories amino acids cannot be made in an oxygenated atmosphere.

Then, about 1980, it was discovered that the earliest rocks (the Precambrian, which were theorized to have been on the surface of the earth when the first life appeared out of dirt and water)—had oxygen in them! This was an obvious evidence that the primitive atmosphere would have had to have it also.

The Precambrian rocks are the rocks BELOW the fossil strata—and therefore the rocks that evolutionists claim to have been on the surface of the earth when life first emerged!

(Much more information on the Cambrian/Precambrian problem will be found in chapter 17 (Fossils and Strata)Fossils and Strata)

* Haldane was the first to realize the importance of an original non-oxygen atmosphere for the origin of evolutionary life.

J.B.S. Haldane, the British biochemist, seems to have been the first to appreciate that a reducing atmosphere, one with no free oxygen, was a requirement for the evolution of life from nonliving organic matter."—*R. Dickerson, "Chemical Evolution and the Origin of Life," in E. Mayr (ed.), Evolution (1978), p. 30-31.

"If it turns out that the early atmosphere was not reducing but contained a fair amount of oxygen, then the picture is more complicated."—*Francis Crick, Life Itself (1981), p. 79.

"Astronomers and geophysicists now seem to be reaching agreement on their interpretation of the early atmosphere [as containing oxygen and carbon dioxide]."—*New Scientist, May 13, 1982.

"It used to be widely thought, and widely taught, that the original 'primitive' atmosphere of the early Earth was a 'reducing' atmosphere . . The reasoning behind this assumption developed primarily from the belief that such an atmosphere would be ideal, and might be essential, for the development of the complex nonliving molecules that preceded life . . This picture captured the popular imagination, and the story of life emerging in the seas or pools of a planet swathed in an atmosphere of methane and ammonia soon became part of the scientific folklore that, today, 'every schoolchild knows.' "—*Ibid.

The next paragraph got down to basic issues:

"But now, this particular card house seems to have been demolished, and a new scientific edifice is arising in its place. In order to convince people that the Earth started out with a reduced, not a reducing, atmosphere—that is, one with oxygen already locked up in gases such as carbon dioxide, and which cannot take up more oxygen—astronomers, geophysicists and, more recently, climatologists have had to explain how life could arise on a wet planet with a carbon dioxide atmosphere laced with traces of ammonia. By such devious routes is scientific progress made."—*Ibid.

"All we have to do now is rewrite all those textbooks and ensure that `every schoolchild knows' what the best theory of the evolution of the earth's atmosphere and the origins of life is today."—*John Gribbin, quoted in Scientific American, April 1984, p. 416.

"Although biologists concerned with the origin of life often quote an early atmosphere consisting of reduced gases, this seems as much from ignorance of recent advances as from active opposition to them . . The time has come, it seems, to accept as the new orthodoxy the idea of early oxidized atmospheres on all three terrestrial planets [on earth, as well as already acknowledged on Mars and Venus], starting out from a methane/ammonia atmosphere energized by electric storms and solar ultraviolet needs to be rewritten."—*"Smaller Planets began with Oxidized Atmospheres," in New Scientist, July 1980, p. 112.

"Geologists now realize that a methane and ammonia atmosphere would have been destroyed within a few thousand years by chemical reactions caused by sunlight."—*R. Shapiro, Origins: A Skeptic's Guide to the Creation of Life on Earth, (1986), pp. 111-112.

In spite of clear-cut evidence to the contrary, there are still those who find it difficult to accept the fact that our planet has always had oxygen. They recognize that in so doing, they place the possibility of life originating by chance in great jeopardy. (See *Isaac Asimov, Asimov's New Guide to Science (1984), pp. 639-643.)

Yet there is such a massive amount of oxygen in Earth's atmosphere—and in the crust beneath it—that there is no way that there could have been a time when it did not exist here. How could oxygen, one of the basic elements, magically make itself out of one of the other elements? It is so lightweight that it surely did not fly into our atmosphere from outer space. *Asimov says this:

"Nearly 94 percent of the volume of the Earth's crust is taken up by oxygen. The 'solid' earth is a well-packed set of oxygen anions (negatively charged ions), crowded closely together, with the small rations (positively charged ions) of the other seven elements tucked here and there in the interstices. Even the Rock of Gibraltar is a heap of oxygen and little more."—*Isaac Asimov, Asimov's Book of Facts, p. 326.

"Life on the Earth probably developed in an oxygen-free atmosphere."—*Isaac Asimov, Asimov's Book of Facts, p. 328.

"The sedimentary distribution of carbon, sulfur, uranium, and ferric and ferrous iron depend greatly upon ambient pressure and should reflect any major change in the proportion of oxygen in the atmosphere or hydrosphere [oceans and lakes]. The similar distributions of these elements in sedimentary rocks of all ages are here interpreted to indicate the existence of a Precambrian atmosphere containing much oxygen.. We can find no evidence . . that an oxygen-free atmosphere has existed at any time during the span of geological history recorded in well preserved sedimentary rocks."—*Erich Dimroth and *Michael M. Kimberly, "Precambrian Atmospheric Oxygen: Evidence in the Sedimentary Distribution of Carbon, Sulfur, Uranium, and Iron, " in Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences, 13(9):1181—1185 (1976).

Walton adds this:

" . . [It thus is clear that] no other conclusion than that oxygen has always been an important constituent of the atmosphere seems possible. "—*John C Walton, "The Chemical Composition of the Earth's Original Atmosphere," in Origins, 3(2):66—84.

"Such an atmosphere was photochemically unstable if it existed at all."—*New Evidence on Evolution of Early Atmospheres and Life" in Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 63(11):1328-1330 (1982), p. 1328.

On this basis they conclude:

"The overwhelming majority of chemical evolution experiments [Miller, Fox, etc.] since the first in 1952 may have been conducted with the wrong atmospheric mixture."—*Op. cit., p. 1329.

"The implications of all this are profound . . How could life have formed and evolved in such a hostile environment?"— *Ibid.

No evidence for; but much against.

"What is the evidence for a primitive methane-ammonia atmosphere on earth? The answer is that there is no evidence for it, but much against it."—*Philip H. Abelson, "Chemical Events on the Primitive Earth," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 55 (1968), p. 1365.

"I believe this [the overwhelming tendency for chemical reactions to move in the direction opposite to that required for the evolution of life] to be the most stubborn problem that confronts us—the weakest link at present in our argument [for the origin of life)."— *George Wald, Physics and Chemistry of Life (1955), p. 50.

Almost no concentrations, and they quickly decompose.

"The conclusion from these arguments presents the most serious obstacle, if indeed it is not fatal, to the theory of spontaneous generation. First, thermodynamic calculations predict vanishingly small concentrations of even the simplest organic compounds. Secondly, the reactions that are invoked to synthesize such compounds are seen to be much more effective in decomposing them."—*D.E. Hull, "Thermodynamics and Kinetics of Spontaneous Generation, " Nature, May 28, 1960, p. 694.

Ozma 1—1960 - $1 million — A Green Bank radio telescope probe of two nearby stars (Epsilon Eridoni and Tau Ceti) for signals indicating intelligent life. Result: No signals detected.

Apollo—1969-1972 - $30 billion — Exploration of the moon, in the hope of finding evidences of life. Result: No life detected.

Pioneer 10—1972 - Cost not available — This interspace probe was sent out beyond our solar system in the hope that intelligent beings would find it and contact us. A plaque is inside it. Result: No life/signals detected.

Ozma 11—1973 - Cost not available — 500 of the closest stars have been monitored for intelligent radio signals. Result: No signals detected.

Arecibo—1974 - Cost not available — This, the largest radio telescope on earth, was constructed for the purpose of continuously monitoring nearby stars for signals. Result: No signals detected.

National Radio-Astronomy Observatory—1974 - Cost not available. The NRAO scanned 10 nearby stars for intelligent signals. Result: No signals detected.

Two Viking landers—1977 - $1 billion — These two landers were sent out in the hope of finding evidences of life on the planet Mars. Result: No life detected.

Voyager 1 and 2—1977 - Cost not available — Probes sent to outer planets; each carrying detailed messages from earth. Result: No life/signals detected.

Pioneer Venus—1977 - $230 million — Probes sent to planet Venus to measure atmospheric conditions and the possibility of life on its surface. Result: No life detected.

Very Large Array—1980 - $78 billion — 27 radio antennas constructed in New Mexico. They are probing for evidence of organic molecules in interstellar gas. Result: No life detected.

Mariner—1980 - Cost not available — This probe was specifically designed to analyze Saturn's largest moon for signs of life. Result: No life/signals detected.

Hubble Space Telescope—1990 - $1.5 billion — This newly-launched orbiting telescope will be searching for planets circling other planets. Result: No life/signals detected yet.

Cyclops—1990s - $20 billion — Result: Not constructed yet.

'' In 1971, a NASA group under Bernard Oliver suggested what has come to be called Project Cyclops. This would be a large array of radio telescopes, each 100 meters [109 yd] in diameter; all arranged in rank and file; all steered in unison by a computerized electronic system. The entire array, working together, would be equivalent to a single radio telescope some 10 kilometers [6.2 miles] across. Such an array would detect radio beams of the kind Earth is inadvertently leaking at a distance of a hundred light years, and should detect a deliberately aimed radio-wave beacon from another civilization at a distance of a thousand light years.

"To set up such an array might take twenty years and cost 100 billion dollars."—*Asimov's New Guide to Science (1984), pp. 648-649.

PROJECT OZMA—The only means of achieving communication with other planetary systems, using existing technology, is by radio. Radio waves move at the same velocity as light and would take years to reach even the nearest star. Nevertheless, it is about all that the scientists have to go on in their efforts at trans-communication with intelligent beings on other worlds.

In 1960, radio astronomers at Green Bank, West Virginia, began an ambitious program known officially as Project Ozma. Powerful radio equipment, connected to radio telescopes, is focused on the two nearest stars that are reasonably like the Sun: Tau Ceti and Epsilon Eridani, both of which are over 10 light years distant, and are slightly smaller and cooler than the Sun. A wavelength of 21.1 cm [8 in] was selected because this is the wavelength of the radio signals emitted by the clouds of cold hydrogen spread throughout the Galaxy. The thinking is that radio astronomers on other planets in the universe might also use that as the particular wavelength for communication. The first radio signals were sent out in 1960, and the earliest radio responses could return from other worlds was 1980, but, to date, no signals have been received.

Interestingly enough, all of nature—stars, planets, moons, orbits, plants and animal life on earth—is filled with patterns and structures requiring an intelligence far beyond ours to conceive and fabricate! Yet all this is ignored as the result of "random selection," while men instead listen for radio signals with systematic patterns from outer space.

"'Bioastronomy' and ‘exobiology' are the studies of life in outer space. These are the only fields of 'science' without evidence or subject matter. People in these fields are trying to detect signals from outer space that would imply an intelligent source. Radio-telescopes linked with computers are searching thousands of radio frequencies for a non-random, non-natural, extraterrestrial signal. NASA is even planning an expensive project to monitor 14 million separate frequencies and 800 nearby stars. These researchers hope to find just a short sequence of information that would imply an intelligent source. And yet, these researchers fail to see that the long sequence of information in the DNA of every living thing also implies an intelligence—a vastly intelligence Creator."—Walter T. Brown, In the Beginning (1989), p. 87.

A WARNING FROM ROSS—Hugh Ross, an astrophysicist at Caltech, did some research and, about the year 1989, came up with an intriguing observation. We have noted that immense pressure has been placed on the U.S. Government and NASA to fund, at enormous expense, a manned voyage to Mars. Ross has discovered a primary reason for this seemingly senseless waste of money.

As you may know, winds carry small living creatures, such as microbes and spiders, to high atmospheric levels. Ross says that solar winds are able to waft particles of formerly living substances out of our high-level atmosphere—and blow them away from the sun, outward into space. Ross declares that some of the particles, caught in Mar's gravitational field, could well have landed on the surface of Mars.

He believes that evolutionists are well aware of this possibility, and that they want to send that manned flight to Mars to recover those particles. The main objective of the mission would be to find dead life forms on the surface of Mars, and then use that as "evidence" that life once must have independently evolved on Mars! It is felt that this would provide a powerful boost to the evolutionary cause.

We have here another example of evolutionary deceit at work, and we may well see this "discovery" made within the next decade or two.

Instructor: The first life form came into existence about 4.6 million years ago.

Student: But Prof., how can we know it happened 4.6 million years ago?

Instructor: Because geologists theorized the date. The first living creature developed from inorganic materials.

Student: But Prof., you mean dead things like rock and water became alive?

Instructor: Well, we don't like to say it that way, but I guess that is what happened.

Student: But Prof., how could something that was dead come to life?

Instructor: We think it was a thick soup. A concentrated brew of chemicals in a primitive ocean produced the first life forms.

Student: But Prof., there is no evidence today—or from the past—that any such concentration of diverse chemicals has ever existed outside of living plants and animals. And if they could get together in the ocean in one instant, in the next they would separate out again because of the law of mass action. This is common knowledge among chemists. In addition, only a well-stocked laboratory would have the needed chemicals.

Instructor: It is thought that a lightning bolt energized the mixture and produced those first delicate creatures.

Student: But Prof., whether it be delicate or rugged, a lightning bolt would kill any living creature.

Instructor: A continual source of energy was required for the task.

Student: But Prof., a lightning bolt is neither a continual source of energy, nor a low-level source.

Instructor: As a result, a living creature immediately came into existence.

Student: But Prof., the next instant it would die, unless hundreds of thousands of different functions and structures were not immediately formed within it. Instant success in every way was required.

Instructor: So life originated from non-living materials.

Student: But Prof., this is the theory of spontaneous generation warmed over! It is a superstitious belief from the middle ages, which Pasteur and other scientists disproved over a hundred years ago.

Instructor: After coming into existence, the first living creature gradually adapted itself to its environment as, over a period of millions of years, its food came into existence.

Student: But Prof., that first living creature would have had to immediately have its food available—and that food would have to be organic; plants already living, or both plants and animals.

Instructor: After a lengthy time, this first creature would, by chance, evolve methods of division and reproduction.

Student: But Prof., that first creature would have to be able to immediately produce additional cells and reproduce.

Instructor: It is fortunate that the oceans of the world are so large, for this increases the likelihood that the right chemicals might somehow, by chance, get into the proper, strong concentration to produce a living creature.

Student: But Prof., chemicals dissipate in the ocean, they do not concentrate in it. In addition, chemists know that the chemicals needed to produce life must, in laboratories, be handled in fluids other than water! The presence of water inhibits the growth of complex chemicals.

Instructor. So we see that all these organic products were formed in the ocean—and then became alive.

Student: But Prof., the problem of chemical precipitation would instantly nullify all that might be gained. The chemicals themselves would quickly inhibit and destroy the chemical compounds and enzymes produced. Many of the chemicals would also react with other chemicals, producing non-useful—and even toxic—compounds.

Instructor: In a similar manner fats, sugars, and nucleic acids were produced.

Student: But Prof., they would all have to be produced simultaneously at the same time and in the same place. The problem of fluid condensation would doom them all to destruction. This is because only by the careful removal of water can fats, sugars, and nucleic acids be produced from protein. Without controlled, yet fairly rapid water loss, proteins could never form in water.

Instructor. Scientists have decided that the only practical place where life could have come into existence would be in the primitive ocean.

Student: But Prof., every biochemist knows that the chemicals of life quickly decompose in the presence of oxygen. So there could be no oxygen in the atmosphere—and no oxygen in the water. And that's two-thirds of what water is made of: 1 part hydrogen and 2 parts oxygen!

Instructor: We think that the original atmosphere was reducing, that is, without oxygen. It was composed of carbon dioxide, methane, hydrogen, ammonia, and nitrogen, instead of our present carbon dioxide, water, nitrogen, and oxygen.

Student: But Prof., there is no evidence anywhere in the rock strata that this planet has ever been without oxygen. The earliest rocks show evidence of oxidized iron, and there could be no water without oxygen. Every living creature has to have water, and it has to have oxygen! 

Instructor: That is true, but we think that the oxygen came later. 

Student: But Prof., without oxygen, deadly peroxides would quickly form, killing all life. Without oxygen, there would be no ozone layer in the atmosphere. Without ozone, there would be no protection from lethal ultraviolet rays from the sun.

Instructor: It is thought that, perhaps, on the very day the first living creature came into existence,—the atmosphere suddenly changed.

Student: But Prof., there is no possible way that that could happen! 

Instructor: Fortunately, we know that life can come from non-living matter, because it has been done in the laboratory.

Student: But Prof., no life resulted from that lab experiment, only non-living amino acids. And they were made without water, without oxygen, and in a very concentrated mixture of certain laboratory chemicals, aided by continued carefully-controlled sparking.  

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APPENDIX 9:
NEXT— Go to the next chapter in this series,

Chapter 10 -DNA AND PROTEIN EVOLUTION