Why and how are we here? These two fundamental questions have been repeatedly asked by the human race since the beginning of time. Different ideas and suggestions based on a wide variety of beliefs have been produced and shared by an array of people. One of these ideas, the theory of evolution, has been a well knownwell-known, yet widely controversial idea between different religious groups, scientists, and society in general. The theory of evolution affects the history of every organism on Earth. While many people accept the theory of evolution, I personally do not believe there is enough scientific evidence to support this theory. There are too many claims within the theory that contain gaps, guesses, and non-evidence based events for the theory to be accepted. The first problem with the theory of evolution starts with the creation monomers of organic molecules that are necessary for life.
Over the years, there have been various opinions on how organic molecules were created. They believed for a long time that the atmosphere of early earth was made up mostly of carbon dioxide, methane, ammonia nitrogen, hydrogen, and hydrogen sulfide. From this belief, the Miller-Urey experiment was created which showed that organic molecules could be produced in the lab with the same conditions that were thought to be present in the early atmosphere. They then thought that these organic molecules entered the oceans as it rained. However, it is now believed that the early atmosphere was instead made up of mostly nitrogen and carbon dioxide, which are both not very reactive, with little methane and ammonia. Without the methane and ammonia, no amino acids or nucleic acids could be produced because of the lack of nitrogen and carbon provided, and therefore living organisms could not be made. Since this belief came to be known, experiments similar to the Miller-Urey using various atmospheres without methane and ammonia have been performed.
However, no organic molecules have been produced. If scientists were somehow able to produce organic molecules in the lab, the next problem is combining these molecules to create appropriate proteins and other organic molecules. Since ribosomes and enzymes did not exist yet, scientists have had to find other ways to combine the monomers. Some believe that they became polymers by washing up onto hot volcanic rock or using deep sea volcanic vents. However, the likelihood of combining the amino acids into the correct sequence by chance is slim to none. Another idea was that life developed on clay or other biogenic surfaces that served as templates and catalysts. The same problem exists as before with amino acids forming in the right sequences to bring about life, as well as the fact that we do not know if the clay today is similar to what was present on early earth. The problem of creating organic molecules has been so hard to solve that one group of scientists even hypothesized that they came from somewhere else in space on a meteor. After complex organic molecules are created, the next step would be to bring these molecules together into a centralized location so they can begin to work together.
Living things must have a metabolism to survive. This is not possible without various enzymes together in one location. Scientists believe that droplets called liposomes may have formed from lipids grouping together. These liposomes would be able to form vesicles with a lipid bilayer to help centralize and protect certain enzymes. When the enzymes are added, the scientists give the liposomes a new names, a protobiont. They then think that the enzymes added to protobionts could perform chemical reactions that would stimulate a metabolism. The first problem is the enzymes that are needed to breakdown organic molecules that were present would not be able to pass through the lipid bilayer of the liposomes because they would most likely be too big and have a charge due to their R group causing them to be attracted to bilayer instead of going into the cell. The liposome would somehow need to obtain the transport proteins that would allow each of the enzymes to be transported into the liposome to create a protobiont. If the enzymes were somehow able to pass through, the second problem is that the liposomes would have to encapsulate the correct enzymes from a world full of different amino acid sequences, most of which do not have any function at all. There is a very low probability of this occurring. Another problem the protobionts would have is their classification. In order to be classified as a living thing, cells must have accurate replication of the genetic material. It is believed that the first genetic material may have been RNA because it is less complex. Short RNA polymers may have been able to copy themselves and with the addition of zinc as a catalyst to join amino acids into the proteins. The drawback with this theory is that there are no living organisms today that contain RNA as their genetic material. Although scientists say that DNA would have developed from the RNA because it was more stable, it is odd that there are no organisms today, not even prokaryotes, that have RNA as their genetic material showing no evidence that RNA started off as the genetic material. A big problem with RNA or whatever genetic material was used is putting it in the correct order to produce an operational cell. Even the simplest cells have 100 or more proteins.
These 100 some proteins are coded for by 100 amino acids each. Each amino acid is coded for by 3 nucleotides. In order to create the 100 proteins in the simplest of cells, 30,000 nucleotides would have to be put in the precise order needed. Additionally, there are 4 base options for every nucleotide so the chances of getting them in the correct order are 1 in 430,000 which, typed into a calculator, translates to 1 in infinity. Some argue that with the billions of years that the earth has been around for this to spontaneously occur, it may happen, but the probability is so low with even the simplest organism that is is basically deemed impossible. Without the possibility of creating a correct nucleotide sequence, a cell cannot produce the necessary proteins to carry out their essential cellular activities and is inoperational. Scientist who believe in the theory of evolution commonly use fossils as their strongest piece of evidence. They believe in the concept of gradualism where many layers of sediment were slowly laid over billions of years in thin layers. This would have created a challenge in producing fossils because in order to make a fossil it would have had to be buried quickly. Due to the great difficulty of creating a fossil, many organisms that scientists hypothesized existed have not been found or only parts of an organism is found and scientists put them together in the way they believe they looked rather than what they may have actually looked like.
Scientists either use relative dating or absolute dating to determine the age of the fossils. However, most of the dating methods are flawed and require assumptions to be made. Relative dating does not give the actual age of the fossil, but instead compares the fossil to an index fossil to obtain a relative time frame of when it may have existed. The problem with this is that there are likely to be gaps due to times when the area was above sea level or when the rock was eroded away. Also, this way of dating requires scientists to accept the theory of gradualism over a catastrophism. If a flood or some type of swell came over an area and covered up all the organisms at once and sediment fell over them at the same time in layers, all of the fossils could be the same age but scientists may claim they came from completely different time periods. The last piece of evidence scientists use to back their theory is similar to DNA and amino acid sequences. The thought is that if two organisms share similar sequences, they must have recently branched off from a common ancestor. However, many of these DNA sequences are found in various organisms because they code for proteins essential to life. All organisms need certain proteins for life functions. Additionally, if two organisms share similar features, there is a good chance they are similar DNA sequences that code for the proteins that produce those features. These features may be beneficial to both organisms so they both developed those features within their individual species causing similar DNA sequences to be made.
Therefore, these similarities do not help aide in the evidence for the theory of evolution. All togetherAltogether, the theory of evolution has numerous problems starting from the simplest thing of creating monomers for organic molecules and ranging to how large scale changes can be produced between organisms. The evidence scientists use to support their theory commonly involves various assumptions to be made and has additional conclusions that can be drawn as to why organisms became the way they did does not include evolution. From a more personal standpoint, I believe that there is a God who created each creature in its own and perfect form instead of random mutations creating numerous different species. Therefore, I reject the theory of evolution from a scientific standpoint.
