Let's picture in a fun way the creation of the simplest of cells (a bacterium?) from each of its parts being in a primordial "soup" to its becoming a functioning unit. What are the ODDS that it could be done, based on what we know from scientific observation?

To visualize our project, let's start with some scrabble letters to represent the amino acids (20 of them) that make up a protein chain. The genes or protein chains are around 1000 "letters" in length, with the bacterium cell having perhaps 500 such chains, so we are talking about 500,000 bits of orderly, instructional code in a DNA chain in the simplest of cells. (Google Bacterium's Code built) We will start with 1000 of our scrabble letters -- enough to make a single chain, and put them in a bucket, having marked the 20 amino acid names or symbols on groups of them and then we will just draw out one at a time to create our bacterium, picturing a mutation or other action having caused the joining of one amino acid to another one. And lets make the bucket self-replenishing just for the sake of simplicity.

We've got to do something, though, to the bucket before we start. We must make it half lower case letters and half upper case. Chirality is the problem of some amino acids being left-handed and others right-handed, even though all of the letters in a given protein chain ladder's rungs have to be only left handed, and the amino acids that form the two sides of the ladder must be only right-handed. But in nature we always find a mix of 50% of each....so at least we have the raw materials. This selectivity in DNA formation doubles our starting odds of getting the right letter in each place in the double helix or chain.

So where are we on the odds of making one protein chain. Let's see...

Draw one letter. (Random action or Mutation #1) It needs to be the very first letter of the instructions for (say) making the cell wall (can't have the RNA read TEG if the word is really GET), and in this part of the chain all the letters need to be upper case. It is not in dispute that one lower case letter here will terminate the project! (Google: chirality problem)

So the chances we will get the first letter right are one in 20, and the chances it will be lower case, takes it to 1 in 40. Now the second letter must be the right letter and lower case, so are we now at one chance in 80 for the two to be right? But there is a problem now. That second letter has no designer instructing it to "go to the end of the line"; it might attach to the front. (there's no "life" yet so any attachment would be 100% random.) So we need to multiply that number by 2 (80 x 2 = 160) On to the third letter. Now we add 1 chance in 40, and then multiply that by 2 ( 160 x 40 x 2 = 12,800 ) THIS action must be repeated about 1/2 million times... so what are the odds now? It is far higher than one chance in 40 million because of the starting over factor that takes one back to zero if any mistake is made. I started out by adding, but that won't work. One must multiply one chance in 80 TIMES (one chance in) 80 about 1/2 million times. Care to figure that one out?

Oh-oh! We have another huge problem! There is a tendency for the activated amino acids to attach to both ends of a given chain! In other words... your attempt to get the word GET encoded might end up with the code reading TEGET. It ruins the whole process!

Add to this the problem of extraneous molecules. It is as if someone threw in some protein molecules beyond the 20 we need (think of them as numbers added to the bucket in our analogy) that also might attach to the protein chain. Now we've got a code that looks like this: TE3GET. What are the odds NOW for getting a "pure" chain?

And as if that isn't enough... we have a chemical reaction problem. We don't even have all the scrabble letters we need (amino acids). When one puts reducing sugars and certain amino acids together in our soup, (both needed by the cell), they tend to interact and neutralize, or CANCEL OUT ONE ANOTHER in the mix. OOOOOOppps! There go our vowels! Now "GET" has become T3GT.

One more problem. HOW LONG will this process take? How often did things occur on our early earth to trigger the joining of amino acids together and phosopholipid molecules together? Once a week? Once a month? Once a year? If we can regularly draw out one letter every month...(going back to the bucket) that translates to 500,000 months just for the DNA to come together (and we haven't talked about RNA yet!)... a time period of over over 410,000 years. Just how long will these chains in the construction process (still dead bits of matter unprotected by a skin) stay useable given the second law of thermodynamics...that says all things tend to run down, decay, and become less useable? We must factor in the possibility that the parts may just break apart when the wind blows... or get watered down by rain, or dried up by no rain... Was there rain? Was there wind? We just don't know do we? What if earth's temperature was too cold or too hot? And the electrical possibilities? What if the lightning strikes TOO CLOSE...? No more soup...no more bucket of letters...no more project. We start over from scratch. And remember...we ALSO must start over from scratch any time the wrong scrabble letter shows up in the code. This is an EXTREMELY fragile and unlikely picture. And it would appear that it is just plain impossible:

That leads to another question. Who taught each of the cell's workers or systems to understand the RNA language and PERFORM what the RNA code tells them to do? How do they KNOW to hook up with the RNA to get their orders, ranging from food absorption, making and transportation of energy from food, waste removal. wall maintenance? We've got LOTS of training classes going on, all with dead nucleotides or enzymes or ribosomes for students!

Then there is the extremely complex issue of cell REPLICATION. If we as humans have no idea how to make ourselves replicate (I did not say reproduce)...how could simple bits of matter do it like clockwork??? Talk about complexity!!! It's a good thing we've got lots of time.

Or do we? Age of the universe estimates(by evolutionists) range from 17 billion to 5 billion years. HOWEVER, it has also been suggested that life on earth could not have begun prior to 400 million years ago once we allow for the earth to cool to a just right temperature and condition for the first life to appear or evolve. Considering how many species of plants, land animals, birds, and fish we have, plus man, I'd say there's no time, no way! (Google: Is there enough time?, for an article by that name with info on this.)

But there's more trouble ahead for our miracle cell. Presuming we can get the cell functioning on a minimal basis in spite of these problems and ridiculous odds,...it is presumed that any FUTURE upward action (macro-evolution) to take the organism from bacterium to the next level up, will occur through mutations. Aren't MUTATIONS harmful? Fruit fly experiments have yielded NO beneficial mutations after 1500 generations of the critters having been subjected to experiments. What they DO see are shriveled wings, crooked bodies, weak eyes, no eyes, and sterile flies. (I saw a picture in one book of a fruit fly with legs coming out its eyes! No lie!) One book I have stated that 99.99% of fruit fly mutations are harmful. It would appear that we do not have a mechnism that makes sense either for the initial formation of a bacterium nor for its progression upward! (Peppered moths = micro-evolution; they are still moths.)

NOW... the final death-blow is this: It is now understood that a "soup" won't work at all. The moisture would weaken the joined chains. But the rest of the story is that some of the interactions necessary to cause the amino acids to join require moisture. We are in a sort of catch-22 situation here. What are we left with for options? Should we go back to a primordial clay or dust-bowl? Or perhaps a crystal rock for a birthplace?

"Amino acids are relatively stable in water and do not react to form proteins in water, and nucleotides do not react to form DNA. In order to make amino acids and nucleotides react to form a polymer, they must be chemically activated to react with other chemicals. But this chemical activation must be done in the absence of water because the activated compounds will react with water and break down." (From ICR.org article on line, Evolution Hopes You Don't Know Chemistry)

Let's review: No soup, not enough letters, not enough time, too fragile an environment, too many extra elements to ruin the mix, extremely long chains to be built, no instructor for language and job training, and no "life" cause. The odds are zero... just plain zero!

P.S. An update: the oldest fossil found to date in the cambrian layer isn't a bacterium, but a more complex COMB JELLY....dated at 540 million years old. (What? I thought the earth wasn't ready for life until 400 million years ago!)

"Comb jellies are remarkable marine animals. They have a complex digestive system, with mouth and "pharynx, where ingested material passes into a complex system of radiating vascular structures that include eight meridional canals, one beneath each comb row," the authors state. The combs are used for locomotion, another complex system. And they give the most remarkable light shows in nature: colorful streams of blinking lights that cascade down their sides. Each of these are irreducibly complex systems without fossil precursors". www.apologetics.org (Comb Jellies article)

Soup to cell? Or was it clay or crystal to comb jelly (a water animal)? I'd be glad to take your bet!

For documentation on any one of these points, see the companion article, Evolution Fairy Tales, google the key words, or e-mail us at sainttalk@cableone.net. We welcome your comments or questions.