A new fossil discovery
makes it even tougher for Darwinists to explain the origin of life.
There’s an old story /about a chemist, a physicist, and an economist
/stranded on a desert island /with nothing to eat but a can of soup.
Puzzling over how to open the can, the chemist says, “Let’s heat the can
/until it swells and bursts /from the buildup of gases.” “No, no,” says
the physicist, “let’s throw it /off that cliff /with just enough kinetic
energy /to split it open /on the rocks below.” The economist, after
thinking a moment says, “Assume a can opener.”
There’s more than one trade //that deals /in assumptions. [The way
() Darwinists approach the origin of life] is a lot like that
economist’s
idea /for opening the can. The Darwinian mechanism of mutation and
natural selection explains everything about
life, we’re told—except how
it began. “Assume a self-replicating cell /containing information /in the
form of genetic code,”
Darwinists are forced to say. Well, fine. But
where did that little miracle come from?
A new discovery makes [explaining even that first cell] [tougher still].
Fossils /unearthed by Australian scientists in Greenland
may be the
oldest traces of life /ever discovered. [A team /from the University of
Wollongong] recently published their findings
in the journal “Nature,”
describing a series of structures /called “stromatolites” //that emerged
from receding ice.
“Stromatolites” may sound like something () your doctor would diagnose,
but they’re actually biological rocks /formed by
colonies of microbes
//that live in shallow water. If you visit the Bahamas today, you can see
living stromatolites.
What’s so special about them? Well, they appear /in rocks () most
scientists date /to 220 million years older /than the oldest
fossils,
which pushes the supposed date /for the origin of life /back to 3.7
billion years ago.
This,
admits the New York Times, “complicate[s] the story of evolution of
early life from chemicals...”
No kidding!
According to conventional
geology, these microbe colonies existed /on the heels of a period /when
Earth was undergoing
heavy asteroid bombardment, making it virtually
uninhabitable. This early date, adds The Times, “leaves comparatively
little time
for evolution to have occurred…”
That is an understatement. These life forms came /into existence
/virtually /overnight, writes David Klinghoffer at Evolution News and
Views. “[g]enetic code, proteins, photosynthesis, the works.”
[This appearance of fully-developed life forms so early in the fossil
record] led Dr. Abigail Allwood of Caltech to remark that “life [must not
be] a fussy, reluctant and unlikely thing.” Rather, “[i]t will emerge
whenever there’s an opportunity.”
Pardon me? If life occurs so spontaneously and predictably even under
the harshest conditions, then it should be popping up all over the
place! Yet scientists still cannot come close to producing even a single
cell /from raw chemicals in the lab.
Dr. Stephen Meyer explains in his book “Signature in the Cell” [why
this may be Darwinism’s Achilles heel]. In order to begin
evolution by
natural selection, you need a self-replicating unit. But the cell and
its DNA blueprint are too complicated by far
to have arisen through
chance chemical reactions. [The odds of even a single protein /forming by
accident] are astronomical.
So Meyer and other Intelligent Design
theorists conclude that Someone must have designed and created the
structures
necessary for life.
Meanwhile Darwinists, faced with a fossil record //that theoretically
pushes the origin of life back further into the past,
are forced to
assume the metaphorical can opener.
They just don’t know how these early
cells came into existence, and the more we dig up, the more
improbable
—rather than likely—life becomes.
For them at least.
Further Reading and Information
Evolution’s Can Opener: The Origin of Life Gets Even Trickier
As Eric has highlighted, this fascinating new find in the fossil
record is complicating things for evolutionists. Find out more about the
discovery by clicking on the links below, and get a copy of Stephen
Meyer's book "Signature in the Cell" for an in-depth study of this
topic. It's available at the online bookstore.
Resources
World’s Oldest Fossils Found in Greenland
Nicholas Wade | New York Times | August. 31, 2016
Greenland Fossils, Earth's Oldest, Pose an Evolutionary Dilemma
David Klinghoffer | Evolutionnews.org | September 1, 2016
Available at the online bookstore
Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design
Stephen C. Meyer | HarperOne Publisher | June 2010
Darwin’s Doubt: The Explosive Origin of Animal Life and the Case for Intelligent Design
Stephen C. Meyer | HarperOne Publisher | June 2013