INTRODUCTION

In order to answer the question: "Is Biochemical Evolution Possible?" we
must have a clear understanding of the role that science plays in the
answer. To this end, we will momentarily digress into the arena of human
thought and there establish a rational basis for answering our question.
 

HUMAN THOUGHT

All human thought processes are divided into "analytic" and "synthetic"
systems. The former contains elements that are definitions, whereas the
latter consists of events in space-time. The first offers conclusions
that are known with certainty, whereas those of the latter can only be
known with to a certain degree of confidence. Let's quickly discuss each
to illustrate why this is true. It's boring, but necessary. Stay with it.
 

ANALYTIC THOUGHT

Analytic conclusions are always known with certainty because they are
nothing more than the logical outcomes of definitions. For example, one
plus two equals three because of what is meant by the definitions of
"one", "two", "three", "plus" and "equals". In other words, "three" is a
logical outcome of the definitions of "one", "plus" and "two" from number
theory. Other examples of analytic thought are Weierstrass and Bessel
Functions, Lobachevskiy's "Angle of parallelism", Euler's Integrals,
Euclidean Geometry, Piano's Number Theorm, and L'Hopital's Rule.
 

SYNTHETIC THOUGHT

As is apparent, the above examples tend not to impact our daily lives as
do, say, knowing if a hurricane is coming or whether there's food to eat.
The elements of synthetic thought are events in space-time. We know of at
least three: reproducible events, unpredictable events and singular
events. Reproducible events lend themselves to scientific inquiry.
Unpredictable events lend themselves to statistical inquiry. But singular
or one-time events, such as the Creation of our world, or the bodily
resurrection of Christ-- these lend themselves to LEGAL inquiry.
 

ROLE OF SCIENCE

If one-time events, such as the Creation of the world lend themselves to
legal inquiry, what then is the role of science? The answer is that
science gathers evidence to support or reject a given hypothesis. The
"little warm pond" hypothesis (as it is sometimes called) asserts that
life spontaneously arose from non-life. This idea holds that the early
earth supported conditions through which non-living chemicals assembled
themselves into the first living object. Until very recently, there was
no way to prove or disprove this idea. But that now has changed. Modern
science has the tools needed to collect evidence. You be the jury.
 

PROBABILITY & CERTAINTY

Can life's appearance on earth be rationally explained without
intelligence? The answer is no. To help us understand why this is so, we
need to introduce a concept called "certainty." If you flipped a penny 10
times, the probability of its coming up heads each time would be less
than one in one-thousand. Stated differently, the "certainty" that 10
consecutive heads will NOT occur is better than a thousand to one. Framed
in these terms, how sure are we that life did not occur accidentally? In
other words, what is the certainty that life appeared on earth by design?
 

INTELLIGENCE CREATED LIFE

Let's assess how certain we are in the belief that Intelligence created
life by filling an 8.5" x 11.0" sheet of paper (both sides) with letters
or numbers. Since each sheet typically has 80 columns by 66 rows, we
could fill both sides with over 10,000 numbers or letters. We can stack
about 320 sheets per inch, which means that we can fit about 36 thousand
numbers or letters in each cubic inch of stacked paper. The question is,
how much space is needed to put all of the paper whose letter or number
count equals the certainty that one of life's tiny building blocks
(Cytochrome-c) did not arise accidentally? Based on Yockey's calculations
(J. Theor. Biol. 67:377), the answer is forty billion universes, each 30
billion light-years wide.

Light travels at a speed of about 186,332 miles per second, which means
that it can travel seven and one-half times around the earth in just one
second. Imagine, therefore, how far light can travel in one year. This
distance (almost 6 thousand billion miles) is called a "light-year," and
our universe is about 26 billion light-years wide. The certainty that
life did not create itself equals the number of letters or numbers that
could be put into the space of 40 thousand universes, each 30 billion
light-years wide.
 

GRAVITY'S INVERSE SQUARE LAW

By way of comparison, how sure are we of the inverse square law of
gravity? It appears all agree that this is true. This law of gravity has
been known for less than 400 years. Imagine that we instantly transformed
all six billion people alive on earth today into scientists, and
magically enabled them to complete an experiment on the inverse square
law each second of their lives. They don't eat, they don't sleep-- all
they do is confirm the inverse square law of gravity. Allowing each to
live over the entire 400 years, the certainty that we would know the
inverse square law of gravity would necessarily be less than the letter
or number count in a space under two miles on a side.

Think about it. We know the law of gravity is true with a certainty
corresponding to a volume of two miles, and we know life could not have
arisen accidentally with a certainty that corresponds to the volume of 40
thousand universes, each about 30 billion light-years wide. We accept the
first, yet reject the latter.

Keep in mind that we have NOT been speaking of life, nor even of one cell
of life. We haven't even been speaking about a large protein molecule
(such as hemoglobin). We are ONLY discussing the practical impossibility
of something as small a Cytochrome-c (101 amino acid residues) arising
from chance. Stated differently, the accidental advent of Cytochrome-c is
a "statistical impossibility."
 

STATISTICAL IMPOSSIBILITY DEFINED

What is a statistical impossibility? It is a probability so small as to
impart one-hundred percent conviction that it's occurrence is impossible.
Let's illustrate with a real life example. The United States government
has nuclear devices in all fifty States. But for nuclear fail-safe
mechanisms, these devices could detonate, putting an end to civilization
as we know it. Although these fail-safe mechanisms are designed not to
fail, they would do so if a small statistically improbable event occurred
viz., if all the molecules that comprise a small, critical part of the
nuclear fail-safe mechanism were to each move in the same direction.

What is the statistical likelihood of this event occurring? In the minds
of the engineers who designed it, the likelihood is zero. The U.S.
government is so sure the risk is nonexistent-- they have exposed our
entire population in complete confidence that the event will NEVER occur.
But how really sure are we that it could not happen? What is the
certainty that it would never occur?

In terms of our earlier discussion, the certainty that it will not occur
corresponds to a volume of about 1.5 cubic miles on a side. In the minds
of nuclear engineers and federal government officials, this magnitude of
assurance equates to a statistical impossibility.

By way of comparison, how sure are we that cytochrome-C could not have
occurred by accident? The certainty corresponds to the volume of forty
thousand universes, each about 30 billion light-years wide. Not only is
there almost an infinity between these numbers, the latter does not speak
to life, or to even a living cell, but merely addresses one of life's
simple building blocks-- Cytochrome-c. Moreover, the scientific case
against self-creation is vastly stronger than even this.
 

HOW COMPLEX IS LIFE'S SMALLEST BLUEPRINT?

In January, 1952 a mathematical genius named John von Neumann began
presenting a series of lectures on "Probabilistic Logics and the
Synthesis of Reliable Organisms from Unreliable Components" at California
Institute of Technology in Pasadena. The lectures lasted twelve days and
proved so remarkable, that they established the foundation for an entire
new field of study on "Self-reproducing Automata" that was published
twelve years later in 1966 by the University of Illinois Press in Urbana.

In essence Dr. von Neumann solved the following problem: Imagine a living
machine with access to a bin containing all the parts of which it is
composed-- reaching into the bin, and sequentially withdrawing one part
after another, and accepting or rejecting each part that it removes. Now
here's the question that von Neumann solved: What is the least number of
sequential yes / no decisions that the machine must make without error in
order to reproduce itself? Dr. von Neumann's answer was fifteen hundred.

Each "yes / no" decision made by the machine in accepting or rejecting
the part withdrawn from the bin corresponds to a "bit" of information,
similar to "informational bits" found in information theory. What is
truly astounding is that quite apart from this, the independent
application of information theory to measurements of the structure of
simple protein made in the late sixties using electron microscopy
revealed that the complexity of simple protein contained about fifteen
hundreds bits of information-- the very number deduced by von Neumann
sixteen years earlier!
 

HOW COMPLEX IS OUR UNIVERSE?

This means that a structure with less than 1500 informational bits of
complexity cannot support life because it cannot self-replicate. At the
time this was discovered, very few materialists understood the
implications of the result. But those who did were confronted with a
monumental problem. Seven years earlier Golay had published calculations
revealing that the complexity of our universe was characterized by
informational content of, at most, 220 bits.

The meaning of this was clear: How could a universe characterized by 220
informational bits have spawned physical structures with 1500 bits of
complexity? Although our universe is 13 billion years old and over 25
billion light-years wide, it is still much too young and small to have
ever spawned life.

As majestic and awe-inspiring as the vast expanse of galaxies spread over
light-years of space may be, this inorganic collection is nonetheless
much too simple a structure to have ever spawned even the simplest of
protein. To believe otherwise is to accept the notion that shaking metal,
glass and phosphor will eventually yield television sets. It doesn't work
that way.

Functionality that satisfies intent results by strategically separating
parts into complex organized structures. This is the activity of
intelligence. Conversely, and on average, modern thermophysics teaches
that random collisions destroy information and, therefore, complexity.

Twenty years later, I published calculations (Origins & Destiny, Word
Books (1986) Appendix 6) showing that Golay's numbers were somewhat
pessimistic, and that the complexity of our universe could reach a maximum
of about 293 bits. About that time James Treifel (Space, Time & Infinity,
Smithsonian Institute, Washington, DC) published 280 bits.
 

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION

Informational bits change as the logarithm of the probability of the
number of states of a system. Thus the difference between, say, 300 bits
and 1500 bits is NOT a factor of five, but instead the number 10
multiplied by itself 360 times i.e., the difference in complexity between
300 bits and 1500 bits is the number one trillion repeated thirty times.

Back in 1952, John von Neumann established that the minimum information
needed by organisms to self-replicate was 1500 bits. Marcel Golay showed,
and I after him, that a 13 billion year old, and about 26 billion
light-year wide universe was still much to young and small to have ever
spawned life through natural processes. Therefore belief in biochemical
evolution i.e., the natural spontaneous advent of life, is not only void
of factual support-- it is without rational warrant.

Claims that life can be rationally explained without an originating
Intelligence become even more impossible when we consider the fact of the
fossil record. The complexity of a simple bacterium is described NOT by
1500 bits, but by several million bits. Moreover, and as I show in
Origins & Destiny (ibid.), the complexity of a human cell is
characterized by several billion bits.

It is not possible to rationally explain the empirical existence of
life's vast complexity on the basis of natural processes. Modern science
shows that it simply isn't doable. Those who strive to make it work do so
not on the basis of scientific reason or data, but instead are driven by
an irrational passion to avoid the alternative.