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Proteins 1
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Living matter is composed largely of proteins, which are long chains of amino acids. Since 1930, it has been known that amino acids cannot link up if oxygen is present. That is, proteins could not have evolved from chance chemical reactions if the atmosphere contained oxygen. However, the chemistry of the earth??s rocks, both on land and below ancient seas, shows the earth had oxygen before the earliest fossils formed [a]. Even earlier, solar radiation would have broken water vapor into oxygen and hydrogen. Some hydrogen, the lightest of all chemical elements, would then have escaped into outer space, leaving behind excess oxygen [b].

a. An authoritative study concluded that the early biosphere contained oxygen before the earliest fossils (bacteria) formed. Iron oxides were found that ??imply a source of oxygen enough to convert into insoluble ferric material the ferrous solutions that must have first formed the flat, continuous horizontal layers that can in some sites be traced over hundreds of kilometers.? Philip Morrison, ??Earth??s Earliest Biosphere,? Scientific American, Vol. 250, April 1984, pp. 30??31.

To form proteins, amino acids must also be highly concentrated in an extremely pure liquid [c]. However, the early oceans or ponds would have been far from pure and would have diluted amino acids, so the required collisions between amino acids would rarely occur [d]. Besides, amino acids do not naturally link up to form proteins. Instead, proteins tend to break down into amino acids [e].
Charles F. Davidson, ??Geochemical Aspects of Atmospheric Evolution,? Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 53, 15 June 1965, pp. 1194??1205.

Steven A. Austin, ??Did the Early Earth Have a Reducing Atmosphere?? ICR Impact, No. 109, July 1982.

??In general, we find no evidence in the sedimentary distributions of carbon, sulfur, uranium, or iron, that an oxygen-free atmosphere has existed at any time during the span of geological history recorded in well-preserved sedimentary rocks.? Erich Dimroth and Michael M. Kimberley, ??Precambrian Atmospheric Oxygen: Evidence in the Sedimentary Distributions of Carbon, Sulfur, Uranium, and Iron,? Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences, Vol. 13, No. 9, September 1976, p. 1161.

??What is the evidence for a primitive methane-ammonia atmosphere on earth? The answer is that there is no evidence for it, but much against it.? Philip H. Abelson, ??Chemical Events on the Primitive Earth,? Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 55, June 1966, p. 1365.

b. R. T. Brinkmann, ??Dissociation of Water Vapor and Evolution of Oxygen in the Terrestrial Atmosphere,? Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol. 74, No. 23, 20 October 1969, pp. 5355??5368.

c. ??It is difficult to imagine how a little pond with just these components, and no others [no contaminants], could have formed on the primitive earth. Nor is it easy to see exactly how the precursors would have arisen.? Francis Crick, Life Itself (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1981), p. 85.

d. ??But when multiple biopolymers must all converge at the same place at the same time to collectively interact in a controlled biochemical cooperative manner, faith in ??self-organization?? becomes ??blind belief.?? No empirical data or rational scientific basis exists for such a metaphysical leap.? Abel and Trevors, p. 9.

e. ??I believe this [the overwhelming tendency for chemical reactions to move in the direction opposite to that required for the evolution of life] to be the most stubborn problem that confronts us??the weakest link at present in our argument [for the origin of life].? George Wald, ??The Origin of Life,? p. 50.

In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood - 29. Proteins