Summary: The theory that all life on earth has evolved from a single cell organisms is an accepted fact of science and over the past two hundred years scientists have increasingly accumulated evidence to support their belief. However, during all that time, with all the increase in knowledge and technology, there are three questions of evolution that scientists have not been able to answer. This article takes a close look at those questions.

The theory of evolution seeks to explain how lifeforms transition from one type to another. It’s believed that in the beginning, life began as a single celled organism that eventually evolved into a multicellular organism that then transitioned into simple forms of plant life, which then evolved into more complex forms of sea plants.

It also is the theory of how fish likewise started as simple worm-like creatures and over millions of years evolved into gigantic sea creatures. Then, from there, these plants and animals transitioned from surviving only in salt water to surviving only on land where they morphed into millions of different forms of species

This is the theory of how all life on earth evolved, which scientists have spent centuries collecting evidence to support their beliefs. However, during all that time, there are three aspects of life that scientists to this day have no real explanation, despite putting forth an exhaustive effort to find an answer.

That doesn’t mean there are some who claim to have the answer, but they provide only very simple explanations that no serious scientists accept. And with all the technological advances in science, we are no closer to knowing the answer to these questions than we were when the questions were first asked.

The first is, where did life come from?

All life is made of matter, or to be more precise, atoms which form together to make molecules. Atoms are inanimate objects, meaning they are not alive. The universe, as immense as it is, is filled with matter and energy, both seen and unseen and yet despite this fact, we have never observed life coming into existence from non-living matter.

Perhaps we need to define what it means for something to be alive. There are four scientific criteria is that must be met for something to be alive, The first is that they must take in food of some kind. Secondly, they must use that food as fuel to be converted into energy. Thirdly, this process In every case, the process creates a by-product that the organism must then expel.

The fourth criteria a living organism must meet is the ability to reproduce themselves. The manner in which this is done is immaterial. Some reproduce by dividing. Some do it asexually, meaning an organism can reproduce all by itself, while others must do it sexually, meaning it takes two organisms working together in order to reproduce.

Atoms don’t reproduce themselves, nor do they need food in order to exist, nor do they create waste that must then be expelled. But this then raises the question. if all living things are made of matter that are made of atoms, and all atoms are lifeless, then what causes something to be alive?

But something that is alive is not just some simple blob of material. Even the most basic living organism is a highly complex piece of machinery that contains thousands of different parts, all of which are absolutely necessary for the organism to survive. Perhaps the most puzzling piece of “machinery” is what we call DNA.

DNA provides the instruction for how the cell is to produce different kinds of proteins and the reason this is important is because proteins are what perform the functions needed for the cell to survive. For example, our muscles are made of protein and it’s our muscles that make our limbs move. Our heart, brain, liver, gall bladder, and all the other organs in our body are made of proteins. Our nervous system is made of proteins and the enzymes that help us digest food are made of proteins. And it is the DNA that provides the instruction of how our cells make all the different proteins our bodies need in order to function.

However, it takes a protein called polymerase to read the instructions on the DNA. But if you need a protein to read the instructions to know how to make polymerase, then where did the polymerase come from? But it gets worse than that, because when the polymerase reads the instructions on the DNA, it makes a copy of those instructions known as MRNA which is read by something called a ribosome. This is a little factory that assembles amino acids in a specific sequence to make a particular kind of protein.

The problem is that a ribosome is made of protein. So how did it come into existence before it was able to make itself? This is the case of which came first, the chicken or the eggs, times two. Except there are other proteins in a cell that must be there before a protein can be made. This then becomes the chicken and the egg problem times a hundred.

What we see is that, in order for something to be alive requires a fully operational, self-functioning, self-regulating factory performing a multitude of tasks where every part of this machinery must be in place before the cell can function. If just one piece is missing, the organism can’t survive.

So the question is, how did all of this come into existence from non-living matter? Despite the best efforts of the entire scientific community over hundreds of years and with all the advancement in scientific technology, no one has been able to come up with an answer that withstands scrutiny.

But that’s just the first problem. The second problem is that of consciousness.

There are many definitions of what constitutes consciousness, and most people equate it with a brain that is able to think, but that’s not entirely true. The simplest definition is the ability to be aware of one’s surroundings and being able to react to it.

To better appreciate this definition, we have to realize that not all life forms have the same degree of consciousness. Just like there is the simple one-cell animal that is less complex from the simplest form of fish which is less complex than the simplest land animal which is less complex than higher forms of animal life, so also, consciousness goes from the simplest to the most complex.

Humans have the highest degree of consciousness, where they have a greater awareness of their environment than any other form of life. But dogs and cats, in all of their varieties likewise are conscious of their environment. When we watch a lion or a leopard stalk its prey, or watch a gazelle or antelope run from its attacker, we see them exhibiting a highly advanced sense of awareness of their surroundings where they have the ability to think, reason, make decisions, and then act on that decision. That’s what constitutes consciousness.

But what about smaller animals such as ants, mosquitos, spiders, and other creeping creatures? As we observe them, they too have an acute awareness of what is happening around them and are able to make decisions of how to act. Ants know how to build nests underground, how to forage for food, how to communicate with other ants where to find food, and how to defend the colony. All of that takes consciousness, howbeit at a lower level than humans or horses, or elephants.

Something as simple as a worm has a rudimentary brain and it too is aware of its surroundings. It knows how to go hunting for food and knows it can find it in dirt. It knows it needs to burrow into the ground and it knows how to extract the nutrient it needs from the dirt. Put a worm on a bucket of sand and it knows that’s not the environment it needs to find food.

A single-cell bacteria is a living organism, but does it have awareness? The answer is yes, and we know that by observing how it behaves. It doesn’t have a mouth but it gets its “food” through its skin, known as a membrane. Since it has no eyes to see, it therefore swims about in the water searching for food that will seep through its skin. Although it has no brain, yet, on an extremely rudimentary level, it not only is aware of its surroundings but it makes decisions of where it wants to go. If you poke it, it will respond by trying to avoid what it perceives as danger. That constitutes consciousness.

When most people look at plants, they assume they have no sense of awareness but again, that’s not true. They react to their environment. It used to be thought that these were just based on chemical reactions, but experiments have shown that even plants have an awareness of their environment and deliberately and purposefully react to it.

All living things have consciousness, but consciousness is not the same as life. The question is, where does consciousness come from? We traditionally say it comes from our brain because it has the ability to think, but a bacteria or a plant has no brain, yet it has consciousness.

But a brain is made of matter called neurons that carry electrical signals to the brain that then interprets those signals. The brain has often been compared to a computer that likewise interprets electrical signals but it has no consciousness, meaning it has no awareness of itself or its surroundings. Then where does consciousness come from in all living beings? Science has no answer to that question and so it remains a complete mystery to them.

Closely associated with awareness are emotions, such as love, hate, fear, joy, sorrow, disappointment and satisfaction. Again, this is more highly developed in highly developed animals than it is in lesser developed organisms, although their emotions are of a more limited and primitive nature. But what is it that allows inanimate material to develop emotions? Science is completely baffled by this question.

But here is a third perplexing problem which is that of personality.

In human reproduction, we understand the mechanics of how DNA shapes the features of a human, from the color of their hair, the shape of their fingers, and even the height of their body, but as nearly all parents can attest, each child is born with different personalities.

In an effort to explain away these differences, we’re told that it’s the experiences we have that shapes our personalities, and it is claimed that even when two children live together, they nonetheless have different experiences which accounts for why they have a different personality. But again, when we closely examine this explanation we find it’s not entirely correct.

There are many stories told of how a child who grew up with a bad background but was turned around by the influence of a particular person in their life, so it is true that our environment and the experiences we have do effect on the kind of person we become, however, that alone cannot explain the reason for every individual personality.

Parents can easily see a difference in personality in one child from another even at the time of birth or at keast within one year of birth, and often that personality continues throughout their life. Some children exhibit a head-strong personality, while others are more docile and compliant. Some have a sweet disposition at birth and some are complainers. Some are studious while others are more fun-loving. Some children have a natural affinity towards music, or math, or history than others.

Children born to the same parents have the same genes, are raised the same way, and have a similar home environment and yet many times they turn out different. Some of that can be explained by the experiences they’ve had, but many times that answer is not the complete explanation.

If personality was simply the result of biological chemistry, then children would be no different than computers made by the same manufacturer, using the same materials, and employing the same software. But computers don’t have personalities. Computers don’t have consciousness, and computers are not living organisms.

But humans are not the only ones who have personalities. We see it in dogs, cats, horses, elephants, and other mammals. When we look at insects, we tend to think they are all alike, but when scientists closely study them they find that they too have individual personalities but not as complex or pronounced as in higher forms of life. But what about single-cell bacteria?

If they do have individual personalities, it would be very primitive, therefore, as we study them under the microscope, it would be hard to detect such slight differences among them. However, given that the living organisms we can study all exhibit personality traits, it’s highly probable that even single-cell living organisms have them as well.

Rocks, water, soil, metals, and gases are all composed of atoms, yet they are not living entities and they possess no consciousness or personality. Still, every living organism is made from the same inanimate, inorganic matter that behaves according to the familiar laws of chemistry and physics. If that’s true, what then makes the difference between lifeless matter and a living organism endowed with awareness and individual personality?

For centuries, scientists have searched for a natural explanation to that question and yet they remain no closer to an answer than researchers were two hundred years ago. By refusing to consider that it might stem from an intelligent mind operating beyond the bounds of natural physics, they ensure that these questions will continue to remain a great mystery.

 

Related articles can be found at The Foundation of Faith, the Nature of Evolution