NASA researchers have found some of the building blocks for life in meteorites, indicating that the components for life on Earth may have originated in outer space. Â Is this news? Â Is the story complete? Does the media discern or mislead?
What the recent article says: “Meteorites contain a large variety of nucleobases, an essential building block of DNA.” Â Okay, there is fact to the statement, but where does this lead us?
Consider that there will always be those humans who want a material and scientific explanation for life in the universe. But the same science that brings data is also the platform for discernment. Wishful thinking by space agency personnel may relate to the desire for new funding and more exploration. To be clear, this blog post would be in favor of more exploration. Science can be awesome, fun, and wonderful. Â But assumptions are not science at its best, so consider the following words from the IBTIMES:
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IBTimes Headline
NASA: DNA Found on Meteorites Indicates Life May Have Originated in Space. (full article here)
from August 9, 2011 12:51 PM EDT
“Researchers from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., report evidence that ready-made DNA parts could have crashed to the surface on objects like meteorites, and then assembled under Earth’s early conditions to create the first DNA.
“The discovery was made using samples from 12 carbon-rich meteorites, nine of them from Antarctica. The team extracted small fragments of the meteorite and ran them through a process to determine their structure. What they found was adenine and guanine. These are two of the nucleobases needed to make the rungs of DNA’s spiral ladder (in addition to thymine and cytosine, which were not present in the sample).”
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For our readers we say the fact of utmost importance is knowing the chemistry. Is this news story a springboard to a realistic scenario that potentially leads to a credible account for a chemical origin to life on earth. What the story does not tell you is that there are physical/chemical reasons why the meteorites have the guanine and cytosine, but not the early earth. Further even if the other two of four building blocks were present (and possibly not so because of other physical/chemical reasons in space) the odds of these chemicals surviving on early earth present huge problems.
You, the unsuspecting reader, are left with huge assumptions. And the vast majority of the initial problems to be surmounted by the presence of the building blocks and making any DNA what so ever on early earth … all that has been addressed already by scientists who have written on this topic. We recommend a reading of “The Mystery of Life’s Origin” by Thaxton, Bradley, and Olsen. The authors of this short book outline a methodical approach to considering the conditions on early earth and how chemicals would occur or encounter. The survival of enough chemistry on early earth, of the right type and sufficient quantity, leaves life out of the picture as opposed to leading to a plausible scenario.
You can obtain a free copy of the PDF version of the book shown here:
The media fail to bring other important facts to your attention. Let’s say enough of all the building blocks could exist on earth, all in the right spot, under the right conditions. Would that do the trick? Chemistry is not the entire story. Information coded into DNA, even if it could be made from the four bases, is the next problem. And the rather implausible leap from chemicals to complex information is also not mentioned by the IBTIMES. They just have no discernment, like NASA has no increases to it’s budget for the near future!
To address the latter part of the DNA and life story, you really need to read “The Signature In The Cell,” by Stephen Meyers. The complex information in DNA and the manner in which DNA is made poses what might be identified insurmountable problems. Real science looks at every aspect to the larger story. Origin of life symposia over the past several decades has lead scientists flat with no plausible scenario for a workable chemical origin to life. From there, no plausible explanation other than raw chance is provided for the high order of information that is present in our DNA of the cells in our bodies and in all of life.
So, the IBTIMES does you a huge disservice if you read their article and say … “Wow, maybe it’s really true that life is everywhere in the universe.” The prospects for livable planets in all of the galaxies across the entire universe is still another problematic area. Here too, as we describe on another page of WindowView, is a prospect that is diminishing and less likely.
A good imagination and deep scientific questions are all good stuff, but really, in further consideration, life on earth is more ‘the only’ than ‘one of many.’ And that we believe, in spite of life anywhere else (that, yes, may exist), is important to getting us to reflect on purpose to life. And that is a question built into our awareness, but not by chance.
The purpose of this blog post is much like the entire WindowView web presence. Â We really want you to think that Science and Scripture both have something to tell us. Â If you think science is the ‘last word’ on our being here, you have not thought it through and not considered all the ‘data’ that exists here. Â If you read the suggested books and look at the links provided here, you will have an opportunity of a life time … let us know if you do, we think it will change your life.
Director, WindowView
