Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
other words, I am not alleging that evolutionism is a fatal problem for evolu-
tionary science. Although I am by no means qualified to judge its scientific
merits fully, I take its integrity on faith because I think it is reasonable (if
not prudent and honorable) to give presumption, at least provisionally, to
the consensus of professional practitioners. It is only when evolutionary
science goes public that its scientistic potency is likely to become manifest.
I suspect that the allure of scientism has distorted one particular treat-
ment of evolutionary science in Chicago's Field Museum. In addition to cov-
ering the basic principles of Darwinian selection, the museum's evolution
exhibit also summarizes the well-known experimental program launched by
Stanley Miller and Harold Urey in 1953 in an effort to determine whether
the basic amino acids making up RNA and DNA could have formed spon-
taneously in the earth's early atmosphere. The conclusions that the exhibi-
tors draw from this famous research project seem to reach well beyond its
scientific scope. While it would seem reasonable to say that the Miller-Urey
experiment demonstrated that one vital condition necessary for the origin
of life, the natural generation of amino acids, had been shown to exist, one
does not need to be a scientific expert to recognize that this study did not
demonstrate
that life can or did evolve from nonlife. But this is precisely
where the Field Museum's language seems to take us.
How Could Life Begin?
A breakthrough in 1953 let us imagine life beginning as a natural event.
Stanley Miller built this terrarium of ancient lifeless Earth. Simulated
lightning striking its atmosphere of water, ammonia, methane and hydro-
gen left a sum of amino acids. A simple thunderstorm had produced the
building blocks of life.
A chemical reaction started everything. Miller's experiment broke
our imagination barrier. Its message? Life could begin from chemical reac-
tions between common materials found anywhere on earth. In fact the
building blocks of life are even found in outer space! When this meteorite
crashed to earth in 1969, it was carrying amino acids as passengers.
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Did these experiments really show that “a chemical reaction started every-
thing,” or that “life
could
begin from chemical reactions”? We might plau-
sibly believe, independent of any definitive information about the earth's
primitive atmosphere, that a “simple thunderstorm had produced the build-
ing blocks of life,” but Miller's synthesis of amino acids certainly did not
tell us anything about “how life could begin.” To insist that it did would
