In a February 1, 1871, letter to his best friend, botanist Joseph Dalton Hooker, Charles Darwin suggested a warm little pond was the site where primitive life first arose.¹ But the place, time, and conditions of such a pond remain unknown.

Recently, another strange idea has surfaced in evolution’s fruitless search to explain how organic life randomly sprung from inorganic nonlife.

According to evolutionism, our roots reach back 3.8 billion years ago when our “ancestors” were small beads of RNA (ribonucleic acid).² A ScienceDaily article states that “new research shows that rainwater could have helped create a meshy wall around protocells 3.8 billion years ago, a critical step in the transition from tiny beads of RNA to every bacterium, plant, animal, and human that ever lived.”³ The researchers feel these meshy walls allegedly created “the conditions that could have led to life [emphasis added].”³

Small, dense droplets called coacervates are suggested by most origin of life evolutionists as being something like primitive protocells: “The research looks at ‘coacervate droplets’ -- naturally occurring compartments of complex molecules like proteins, lipids, and RNA. The droplets, which behave like drops of cooking oil in water, have long been eyed as a candidate for the first protocells.”³

However, there are serious problems with these oily droplets somehow becoming—through many “millions of years”—an intricate cell. Such difficulties include molecular exchange, integrity and stability,⁴ complexity of formation,⁴ and selective permeability of the plasma membrane, which is the cell’s capacity to allow certain molecules to pass through it while stopping others. Such selectivity is why the membrane is called “living.”

Being naturalists (or materialists), evolutionists must suggest life came spontaneously from nonliving material.^5,6 But what came first—protein or nucleic acids such as RNA? “Researchers like [biologist Jack] Szostak theorized that RNA came first, ‘taking care of everything’ in [postdoctoral researcher Aman] Agrawal’s words, with proteins and DNA slowly evolving from it.”³ But this is incorrect. According to evolutionist Harold Bernhardt, there are at least four problems with this hypothesis.

The following objections have been raised to the RNA world hypothesis: (i) RNA is too complex a molecule to have arisen prebiotically; (ii) RNA is inherently unstable; (iii) catalysis is a relatively rare property of long RNA sequences only; and (iv) the catalytic repertoire of RNA is too limited.⁷

Regardless, the evolutionists conducted experiments as if they were working with living cells, stating that, “transferring coacervate droplets into distilled water increased the time scale of RNA exchange -- from mere minutes to several days. This was long enough for mutation, competition, and evolution.”³ But how can there be mutation, competition, and evolution in nonliving systems? In addition, “Commercial lab water is free from all contaminants, has no salt, and lives with a neutral pH perfectly balanced between base and acid [emphasis added].”³ Lab water is not alive; it just exists.

It is good to keep in mind these supposed events occurred 3.8 billion years ago in an unknown part of the earth with unknown chemicals and unknown environmental conditions. The scientists are only working with models that they themselves design in hopes they will discover more suitable molecules.

The new paper proves that this approach of building a meshy wall around protocells is possible and can work together to compartmentalize the molecules of life, putting researchers closer than ever to finding the right set of chemical and environmental conditions that allow protocells to evolve.

"The molecules we used to build these protocells are just models until more suitable molecules can be found as substitutes," Agrawal said.³

Despite all their efforts, studies, and belief in billions of years, organic life cannot randomly arise from nonlife.⁸ Life comes only from the life-giver, the Lord Jesus Christ.

References

1. See an image of the Charles Darwin’s letter to J. D. Hooker at www.researchgate.net/figure/charles-darw
   in-and-his-much-cited-1871-letter-to-JD-
   Hooker_fig6_341641546.
2. The RNA molecule is found in all living cells and is designed to carry genetic information.
3. University of Chicago. Life from a Drop of Rain: New Research Suggests Rainwater Helped Form the First Protocell Walls. ScienceDaily. Posted on sciencedaily.com August 21, 2024. 
4. Moulik, S. et al. 2022. An Overview of Coacervates: The Special Disperse State of Amphiphilic and Polymeric Materials in Solution. Colloids and Interfaces. 6 (3).
5. Thomas, B. New Life Origins Theory Has Old Problems. Creation Science Update. Posted on ICR.org September 29, 2011.
6. Thomas, B. Historic ‘Primordial Soup’ Study Yields New Data, But Not New Answers. Creation Science Update. Posted on ICR.org April 25, 2011.
7. Bernhardt, H. 2012. The RNA World Hypothesis: The Worst Theory of the Early Evolution of Life (Except for All the Others). Biology Direct. 7, article 23.
8. To appreciate the impossibility of spontaneous abiogenesis (life from nonlife), consider reading The Stairway to Life by Change Laura Tan and Rob Stadler.

* Dr. Sherwin is a science news writer at the Institute for Creation Research. He earned an M.A. in invertebrate zoology from the University of Northern Colorado and received an honorary doctorate of science from Pensacola Christian College.