Hi everyone, today I spoke to my friend Charlie. Charlie is a good friend, but he has a problem, he believes in evolution. Charlie believes life is the result of a chemical accident. For Charlie it works like this: if you put the Earth in the right conditions and wait billions of years, life springs out of itself.
Today I decided to bring Charlie to his senses and make him understand that’s not only improbable but literally impossible. Charlie is a scientist and has studied biology for many years. If we asked him, he could spend hours and hours explaining to us the complex functioning of the systems that underlie life. He is similar to my wife talking about her problems.
But for today, we only want to superficially understand what a cell is and how it works. “Have you ever built anything with Legos?” Charlie begins. “To build, for example, a house with legos, we have different types of blocks available. Each block type is different from the others in colour, shape and size. Cells are like legos, they are the building blocks of living beings. Everything alive is made up of different types of cells. Unicellular organisms are made up of a single cell, while multicellular organisms are made up of many cells. People are made up of multiple cells. Wedding rings and straitjackets are not.
Cells reproduce by splitting in two. One cell splits into two cells, each of them into two others, and so on. A bit like apps on PlayStore.
In organisms that have multiple cells (multicellular), each cell has a specific job to do. In people, for example, each organ is made up of cells with different jobs, such as, for example, kidney cells, brain cells, lung cells, skin cells, etc… Unlike indie Playstore app developers.
Cells themselves are made up of different parts. The innermost part is called the nucleus. This is the part that controls the functioning of the cell. The part outside the nucleus is called the cytoplasm. It contains the nutrient molecules for the cell. The contents of the cell are enclosed by a thin membrane. This is basically an egg. An egg is a large cell. The bacon is not.
Inside the nucleus, we find the so-called molecular machines, which together with DNA and a complicated biological system, deal with the duplication of the cell and the synthesis of proteins necessary for its functioning. A cell is like a computer with an operating system. Except you don’t have to hit ctrl alt and delete when things go wrong”.
Thanks, Charlie, let me add that I recently discovered the creation.com website, and I recommend everyone to check it out. From here I found an article on the staggering complexity of DNA. In this article, a university study is cited, in which the cellular system was actually compared to Linux. The result is that the cellular system is much better designed and efficient than Linux. It’s like comparing a bunch of Star Trek fans to God.
According to Charlie, one of these ultra-complicated cells would have accidentally arisen on Earth, giving rise to life. Our goal today is to show Charlie how the case works. In fact, since for Charlie, it’s all about time and chance, we want to understand how these concepts work in real life.
We have our assistant, Bob, here today with us. He will help us with our experiments. Bob is carrying a coin. He’ll flip it ten times, to see how many ‘Heads’ come out. With the first ten rolls we get the ‘Head’ result 7 times. We ask Bob to complete 100 tosses and note the Heads that come out.
It’s time to introduce Carl, our statistician. “What is statistic?”, we ask Carl. He quickly replies “Statistics is a science that allows us to draw conclusions from a sample (i.e. a limited number of values) when we study phenomena”.
I get it, Carl! It’s like predicting how the rest of the day is going to do, after I remembered my wife that she should shop less.
In our case, Carl is able to predict how the coin will behave during a large number of tosses. This is commonly known as the study of probabilities. Carl tells us our launches will confirm one very obvious thing. The coin has two sides: heads and tails. So every time we cast there are only two possible outcomes. Since there is nothing that makes heads easier than tails, our probability of hitting heads is one in two.
This does not mean that by tossing the coin it will always come out first heads and then tails, but that by tossing the coin many times we will get an almost equal number of heads and tails results. So if you flip the coin 100 times, you’ll get 50 heads and 50 tails on average.
Now it’s time for Bob to earn his paycheck, he’ll cast 100 tosses for 100 times so that we have 100 different groups of tosses. After much time and effort, he brings the results to Carl. The results confirm what we expected, they are very close to 50 heads per 100 tosses. In rarer cases, we get different results, but most rolls confirm the result 50 out of 100.
What are all these calculations for? Knowing the probability of an outcome helps us know what to expect. In practice, if we flip the coin 1000 times we expect 500 heads. If we roll it a million times, we’ll expect 500,000 heads. In this case, statistics are very useful, because they allow us, in a certain sense, to predict the future. We don’t need to flip the coin literally one million times to know that we will get around 500 thousand Heads. It’s like counting how many times my wife gets locked out after she forgets her keys in the fridge. (Sorry, dear, I forgot to take my pills, as I do once in twice.)
Now we give Bob a six-sided die. Bob will make 100 rolls, and keep a note every time a six comes out.
Carl informs us that the die has 6 sides (…interesting Carl, this is why we have an expert here). So on each roll, we have six possible outcomes. So, since there is nothing that makes a particular result easier, the probability of rolling a six is one in six. So, we expect to hit a six about every six rolls. Bob rolls the dice 1000 times and brings his notes to Carl. Carl is uncorking champagne: results confirm what he said. in 1000 tosses we get about 160 six (That is about 1000 divided by six).
Now Bob will play the lottery. His neighbourhood is organising a local lottery. There are about 100 houses, so the organizer decided to print 100 tickets, one for each house. Bob buys a ticket. Bob now has a one-in-a-hundred chance of winning. Although there are 99 other tickets that can be drawn, Bob still has a good chance of winning. It’s like the odds to be fined having your parking meter expired on the high road.
Let’s now say that the neighborhood lottery has expanded to the rest of the nation. Let’s say Bob lives in Canada. The population of Canada is more than 38 million people. So, by buying one ticket, Bob has one chance in 38 million. That’s more difficult Bob!
Carl, being a statistician, often deals with large numbers. Carl knows that he can write any lot-of-zeros-number into a shorter form. This trick is called scientific notation. For example, the number 38000000, can be written as 3.8 * 10^6. It basically tells us that the number is a 3 followed by six zeros. Carl also does kickflips on his skateboard.
If Bob lived in China, the lottery we invented would have 1.4 billion tickets, such as its inhabitants. Bob’s chance of winning, with just one ticket, would be one in 1.4 billion, or one in 1.4 * 10^9. That’s a one followed by nine zeros.
I asked ChatGPT to give me the name of a famous lottery because I don’t play the lottery. GPT gave me the name of the Powerball lottery. The chance of hitting the ‘Jackpot’ (the main prize) for this lottery is one in 10^11 (a 1 followed by 11 zeros, almost one hundred times the number of inhabitants of China). While this is a very low probability, over the years that this game has been played, many people have hit the ‘Jackpot’. This doesn’t happen every year, and for this reason, according to the rules of the game, the Jackpot increases from year to year, until someone cashes it out.
I asked ChatGPT the following question: If we decreased the chances of winning the Jackpot to one in 10^21, would it be possible for someone to win the Jackpot within 10 years? Here follows the answer
If the Powerball lottery had a 1 in 10^21 chance of winning the jackpot, it would still be theoretically possible for someone to win the jackpot within a span of 10 years. However, the probability of winning would be extremely low.
To put this into perspective, a chance of 1 in 10^21 means that for each individual ticket purchased, there is a 1 in 10^21 chance of winning. Even with millions of tickets sold for each drawing, the odds of winning would still be astronomically small.
Given the extremely low probability, it is highly unlikely that a jackpot would be won within a 10-year period. It’s important to understand that the lottery is a game of chance, and the odds are structured to favor the lottery operator, ensuring that large jackpots are infrequently won.
ChatGPT
To understand this number we can compare it to the estimated number of stars in the universe which is of the order of 10^22 – 10^24. Or the total number of grains of sand on Earth which is on the order of 10^18.
A new task for Bob, he will have to reach a random place on Earth and pick up a single grain of sand. We will ask a random volunteer in the audience to do the same. If the volunteer doesn’t choose Bob’s grain, he loses. The volunteer will have to bet all his savings on this game.
After cashing the bet, and breaking a random person, we can continue to understand how this happy little game of probability works.
If the number 10^21 is very large, imagine another number: 10^164, a 1 followed by 164 zeros. If you don’t believe it can exist in real life, stay tuned because this number will pop up later.
Now the spotlight is on Charlie, who will explain to us, how, according to him and his fellow evolutionists, life arose spontaneously. Charlie begins to tell us his fairy tale: “Once upon a time there was a long, long, long, long, long time ago a sea full of amino acids…” Ok! Stop for a moment Charlie, we need to explain to the public what amino acids are. We are made of Lego cells. Cells are made of Lego proteins. Proteins are made of Lego amino acids. There are 20 different types of amino acids in nature that can combine to form proteins. Not all amino acid sequences make up a protein. The sequence must be ‘correct’ for the protein to form.
To understand what we are talking about we can think of the alphabet. The alphabet has a very similar number of letters. Not all sequences of letters form a word. For example ‘QWERTYUIOPASDFG’ is a sequence of letters but not a word; while the sequence ‘PARALLELOGRAM’ is also a dictionary word.
Now let’s go see Dr Nick. Dr Nick is writing a dictionary, and he has found an unusual way to not forget a single word. He’s going through all the possible combinations of letters, discarding the ones that don’t represent a word, and keeping the others. Dr Nick didn’t choose a very efficient method to write his dictionary, because there are a huge number of letter combinations to check. When Dr. Nick draws a meaningless sequence he deletes it, when he draws one that represents a word, he writes it in the dictionary.
In the same way, proteins work with amino acids. When the sequence represents a protein, the protein is formed, otherwise the chain breaks, because it is not chemically stable.
“Okay Charlie, go ahead with your story,” I say. And Charlie continues “Long, long… long time ago the Earth was very different from today. There was the ‘primordial soup’…” Stop Charlie! Are we talking about soup? You mean there was a soup but the dinosaurs ate it?
I look at Charlie who is visibly annoyed. How can I be so ignorant that I don’t know what primordial soup is? But I don’t know, so he explains it to me. Basically, translating for you, it’s a certain combination of gases and chemical stuff that, according to his story, were found on Earth billions of years ago.
Charlie continues “… The soup was there. And the Sun hit it with its ultraviolet rays. Electric discharges (lightning?) From one side of the broth to the other…”. Wait, Charlie… I’ve heard this story before, this is… Frankenstein!
Charlie is leaving, I persuade him to stay and finish his story, this time I’ll try to keep my mouth shut, I didn’t think he was so touchy.
Charlie continues “… Thus the first organic molecules (proteins) were formed, which, through a subsequent process of chemical evolution, they would have recomposed until the spontaneous birth of life.”
Nice story Charlie! Let’s give him a round of applause, audience! Now I understand, even if it seems a little vague to me. However, let’s pretend this is possible and do some math to calculate the odds of this story happening. NASA gave us a second-hand supercomputer to do the dirty work for us. Today we will see what are the chances of a protein forming spontaneously in a sea of amino acids.
In our simulation, we set the data and create an ideal environment. In this way, it will be easier for our protein to form spontaneously. First, we completely fill the oceans with amino acids. Every atom on Earth, including every supply of Carbon, Nitrogen, Oxygen, Hydrogen and Sulfur, is available to form amino acids of all 20 types. In this imaginary world, we want to give Charlie a little help removing the effect of ultraviolet rays, which could hinder the formation of our first protein.
Okay! I put all the data into the program and hit the enter key on the NASA brainiac. The simulation begins. Amino acids begin to bond with each other, forming chains. As soon as the first correct sequence has formed, Charlie will have won the challenge, and we will have confirmation that his story may have some basis.
The protein we are looking for is made up of 150 amino acids. Charlie is well aware that there are proteins composed of 20 or 30 amino acids in sequence, but these have secondary functions in living beings. Most proteins in simple life forms have a sequence of 156 to 283 amino acids. If we think of the analogy with the alphabet, proteins with 20 and 30 amino acids are like symbols: comma, period, etc… We can’t make a real sentence with symbols alone (unless we’re censoring some f-word !?#,.!).
As Charlie said, cells are the ‘Lego blocks’ that build up living things, and amino acids are the same for proteins. Proteins are the ‘Lego building blocks’ that make up molecular machines. In order to work, any cell needs all molecular machines, DNA and other complicated chemical stuff. Molecular machines are actual machines made up of proteins.
In our simulation, lots of amino acid chains are forming quickly. Every time a ‘wrong’ sequence is randomly assembled the chain breaks, and the process starts all over again. For ‘wrong sequence’ I mean a sequence that doesn’t match any protein.
To understand this mechanism let’s go back to visit Dr.Nick. He has found a way to work faster and finish his dictionary. Before that, he was picking the sequences of letters in alphabetical order, for example: ‘A’, ‘AA’, ‘AAA’… But now he is picking up random letters. This way he is creating a random string of letters. When this sequence is not found at the beginning of any existing word, he can discard it, and all the other sequences beginning with that particular sequence.
For example, if he extracts the sequence ‘QW’, Nick already knows that there is no word that begins with ‘QW’, so he discards all sequences beginning with ‘QW’. So, as soon as a ‘wrong’ sequence (according to this criterion) is formed, it is useless to add more letters to it. So Nick starts all over again with another sequence. This is what is happening with the amino acids in our simulation. With the exception that randomness could pick up ‘QW’ again more times.
The computer informs us that, in our virtual primordial soup, 6*10^42 attempts are made every minute. With this large number surely we will soon have our first protein. But there are still some problems the case needs to solve for Charlie.
- A 150 amino acids sequence, also has to fold in the right way, to be a functional protein. The chances for each chain are one in 10^74
- Like people, amino acids are right or left-handed. A right-handed amino acid cannot bind to a left-handed one. We can see it as a child who wants to put his left hand into his right glove. It just doesn’t go in. Unfortunately for Charlie, nature supplies both right-handed and left-handed amino acids, but living organisms use only left-handed ones and have mechanisms to discard right-handed ones. To have the correct sequence we have to consider a chance on 10^45.
- Amino acid chains are like my cat, they don’t get along with water. Charlie informs me about the technical details of a bond between Hydrogen and Oxygen, but the only thing I understood is that to pass this obstacle the chain has, once again, a chance on 10^45.
The computer gives us the result: the probability that a chain of 150 amino acids becomes a functional protein under these conditions is one in 10^164. “Do you remember this number, Charlie?” We talked about it before. It’s a 1 followed by 164 zeros.” I remind my friend. Charlie is doing the math with pen and paper: 74+45+45 really equals 164!
In our simulation, every second a chain of 150 amino acids is assembled. The computer asks us how long we want to extend the simulation. Charlie argues that the Earth can’t be more than 5 billion years old. (It is actually only six thousand, but let’s not be too hard, today is a tough day for him.)
The computer replies that in 5 billion years we can expect as many as 10^58 chains to be produced. As we have seen before, in order to have at least one proper protein, we expect a number of attempts in the range of 10^164. So 10^58 attempts are not enough. Charlie has lost!
“Put it this way…” I tell Charlie, “It’s like buying 10^58 tickets in a lottery, where this lottery offers a Jackpot chance on 10^164. If we do the math it’s like buying a single lottery ticket that offers a Jackpot chance out of 10^106. Remember the grain of sand game we played with our volunteer from the audience? Surely he hasn’t forgotten it.”
Our simulation is inspired by the book “Evolution: Possible or Impossible?” By James F. Coppedge. Here Coppedge creates an imaginary race. On one side an amoeba (a cell). On the other, our amino-acids-soup-world. Since 5 billion years are not enough to get the protein, we want to know how long we should wait.
First, we make a path: a bridge that spans from one side of the (observable) universe to the other. This bridge is 90 billion light-years long.
We also have our astronomer Willy with us. We ask Willy what a light year is. Willy replies that it’s important to know that light is made (simplifying) of electromagnetic waves. Those are waves similar to sea ones, except for the fact that they are made of energy. Every wave moves at a certain speed. Light moves at the speed of light. As we know from the movie Superman, nothing (except Superman) can go faster than light.
The speed of light is approximately 300,000 kilometres per second. A light year is the distance that light would travel in one year. This, as we can imagine, is a very large distance. We are talking about 10 trillion kilometres, that is 10^12 kilometres. Yet the celestial objects are many light years away from each other. The closest star is called Alpha Centauri and is about 5 light years away from us.
Our path is 90 billion light-years long. The amoeba will have to travel it all and come back. On the other hand, on Earth, the sea of amino acids will have to create the protein. Who will win?
The amoeba will travel along the path, at an impressive speed of 30 centimetres per year. While we wait for the protein to form, the amoeba travels 5 trillion trillion years to cross the entire universe and return. How does it end? The amoeba won, not even a single functional protein was formed on Earth.
The amoeba begins a new journey, back and forth, covering the same distance, taking the same amount of time. But still nothing on Earth. For the next trip, the amoeba will carry a single atom on its top. Arrived at the end of the path, the amoeba drops the atom and begins to go back, to bring more. On Earth, Mr Broth is not lucky, still no protein in sight… Bro!
The amoeba completes another 10, 20, … 100 … 1000 trips, but not a single usable protein appears. After 10^15 trips, the amoeba transported my mother-in-law to the other side of the universe. After 10^17, my wife’s whole family. After 10^20 trips I receive my “NextGen Time Machine Kit” from Amazon.
The amoeba has completed so many journeys that it has transported as many atoms as are contained in the entire Earth. Then, continuing like this, it carries a number of atoms equal to those contained in the entire Solar System. It’s been a while… The amoeba transported the whole solar system to the other side.
Waiting for the protein to form, the amoeba had so much time that it was able to transport the whole universe to the end of the journey, one atom at a time! The amoeba has time to transport the entire universe, one atom at a time, going 30 centimetres per year, 56 million times. That is Approximatively 10^82 atoms.
Okay! We’ve waited a long time, Charlie! But now we have a functional protein! Hooray! But sadly for Charlie, protein is not a form of life. To make a cell we need at least 300 proteins of this type. But, even if we had this number of proteins, Charlie’s shopping chart still needs other molecules such as carbohydrates, complex sugars, nucleic acids, DNA and RNA, lipids, and a large variety of chemical elements. Even if we had all these pieces of the puzzle, we’d have to put them together in a cell. That is, they should be incredibly close at the same time and in the right place, enclosed within a cell membrane. A bit like when you are baking a Soufflé, or my wife’s family at a party without it ending in a shootout.
As I hand Charlie a tissue to wipe away his tears, I feed all the data into the simulation, and the computer gives me the result of a one in 10^340,000 chance that this could happen.
Let’s do the experiment again with the grain of sand. We call an unsuspecting volunteer who will choose a grain of sand from a container. By putting the grain back in the container, he will have to find it again. The container contains one million grains. So the volunteer has a one-in-a-million chance of pulling up the same grain. Now let’s take a swimming pool and fill it with a million containers of sand, including our container. The volunteer now has a one in a billion chance of extracting that grain. For the next step, we will fill a 35 x 19 km lake with one billion pools containing sand. For the volunteer there is now a chance in a billion billion, that is one in 10^18.
It’s time to take a billion sand lakes and pour them on the earth to fill the earth with sand. Probability: one in 10^30. With ‘one hundred thousand Earths’, we fill the Sun with sand. With a trillion suns, we fill the solar system. 10 trillion solar systems fill one cubic light year (a cube with sides one light year long). 100 thousand trillion cubic (light years) to fill the volume of the Milky Way Galaxy. And finally, 10 billion Milky Ways to fill the observable universe (the amoeba may not agree with this idea). Now the probability of finding the grain of sand in the entire observable universe is one in 10^96. Volunteer, it’s time to pick your grain.
I turn around but Charlie is gone, probably back in his lab with his fellow scientists. I hope that at least for the public this is clear. This story that life is a chemical accident is totally impossible! IT DID NOT HAPPEN!