This is part 3 of a series on Who Am I?
A Process
Why have I taken this circuitous route about discovering one’s self and answering the question, “who am I”? Why not just come right out and say it, this is who you are!
Because the truth of something is multifaceted, it is not one thing; it is usually a sequence of things, and the existence of life on this planet is certainly that. What we have come to learn about, who we are? Is the accumulation of thousands of years of learning.
Science and Religion Mediums of Truth
There is what you might call a simple scientific explanation to this question. There is also a simple theological explanation to this question; but I have frankly struggled with both of them. Both seemed to have unanswered questions and far stretching speculations that appeared to come up short. But I do believe the truth of our existence is found within both! But so is much error!
It has become a process of sifting through ideas to find the truths and separate the error.
Reason; The Truth Guidance Mechanism
We all possess a gift, and a capability that naturally occurs within us. It is the gift of reason. Some call it common sense, or insight. It is all of these. I have found it is a tool with far more importance to us than it would seem at face value. I believe this human capacity of reason is absolutely required to learn and believe anything. It is what we engage when personally deciding to take anything into our belief system. It must pass the muster of our own judgement, and our own sense of reason. This sense and ability to reason can grow and become stronger the more we use it, and the more it becomes informed with truth. This ability is part of the answer that lies behind who we are. We will investigate this more later.
Investigating Who We Are
We are going to look at the foundations of Modern Science and their explanation of life. I am not going to go into great detail on these concepts because that is not necessary here; but to hit the main points so you have a foundation on which to gain perspective and understanding of the modern scientific theory of life’s existence. This is necessary to begin to build an understanding of who you are.
Modern Science
Modern Science suggests: no God was involved in the building of the universe, or the accumulation of space-matter into our earth or the planets of the solar system. All of the universe and the solar system to which we belong was a natural occurring phenomenon and process. According to Modern Science, our earth was formed (1)4.5 billion years ago. After the earth was formed, as it was cooling, (2) water vapor that was present in the atmosphere began condensing and falling to the earth as rain, which created pools where chemicals existing in earths raw matter on her surface came together in certain combinations. Within that pool(3) lightning struck and ignited those chemical combinations present, turning them into chemical compounds that are the foundation of life. These chemical compounds over time combined into a living cell. This new living cell or cells springing to life began to replicate (as cells in our modern world have been observed to do), which began a cycle that over millions of years of time evolved into the first simple microbial life forms we find fossilized in the oldest most ancient rocks on earth. Those microbial forms later evolved into more complex life, and those life forms also continued to evolve into the life we see today on this planet.
Where Did These Ideas of Modern Science Come From?
They have existed for centuries; but arrived at a new epoch when Charles Darwin, a scientific enthusiast, studied the naturalist philosophies of the time; and making his own observations, was convinced life advanced through small consistent adaptive changes to its environment. He suggested a new idea, the theory of “Natural Selection”.
In his theory, Darwin believed “that all life is related and has descended from a common ancestor: the birds and the bananas, the fishes and the flowers — all related. Darwin’s general theory presumes the development of life from non-life and stresses a purely naturalistic (undirected) “descent with modification”. That is, complex creatures evolve from more simplistic ancestors naturally over time. In a nutshell, as random genetic mutations occur within an organism’s genetic code, the beneficial mutations are preserved because they aid survival — a process known as “natural selection.” These beneficial mutations are passed on to the next generation. Over time, beneficial mutations accumulate and the result is an entirely different organism (not just a variation of the original, but an entirely different creature).” (4)
The Theory of Evolution
Darwin studied the domesticated breeding that was being practiced in his day, to create refined and improved advances in species of cattle, dogs, horses, and other livestock, observing the wide variety of diversity that had come out of such methods and experiments. He concluded that if these breeding techniques could create breeding lines of superior and improved, better, stronger, more successful animals; this same process also demonstrated the advancement of life through genetic breeding. And not only would these laws apply to controlled experiments; this natural genetic force for change could also be applied to the natural world; and explain how life itself evolved. And that the most superior species would by their strength and superior gifts, win out over lessor forms; improving the species. Not only that, but if this process continued over millions of years (with species evolving to improve, change, and even diversify into limitless life forms) that these same genetic forces could result in the propagation of entirely different species.
This theory of Natural Selection; that nature through this bio-organic process would explain the advancement of life on this planet; would effectively dismiss the concept of a God creator, revealing life came about through a logical, incremental, natural process; and not under the hand of a supernatural being.
This theory was presented to the world in 1859, when Charles Darwin published his book, “On the Origin of Species”.
“By the 1870s, the scientific community and a majority of the educated public had accepted evolution as a fact. However, many favored competing explanations which gave only a minor role to natural selection, and it was not until the emergence of the modern evolutionary synthesis from the 1930s to the 1950s that a broad consensus developed in which natural selection was the basic mechanism of evolution. Darwin’s scientific discovery is the unifying theory of the life sciences, explaining the diversity of life.” (5)
But this theory of Natural Selection, still did not offer a solution to how the first life came to be. How inanimate dead matter, could spring to life. As a solution to that question, Darwin suggested the following:
”But if (and oh what a big if) we could conceive in some warm little pond with all sorts of ammonia & phosphoric salts, light, heat, electricity etcetera present, that a protein compound was chemically formed, ready to undergo still more complex changes…” this, Darwin suggested, might have been the beginning of the formation of life on this world. (6)
Oparin and Haldane Hypothesis
These ideas were adopted into the naturalist community, which was small at the time, but did not capture large public support. Fifty-three years later in 1924 Aleksandr Oparin (a Russian Scientist) expounded on this idea, “suggesting that the organic compounds (in the natural environment) could have undergone a series of reactions leading to more and more complex molecules if they were exposed to an energy source such as lightning or ultraviolet light. He proposed that the molecules undergoing such changes formed colloid aggregates [naturally forming dual interspersed substance combinations] or ‘coacervates’, in an aqueous [water base] environment”. (7) That this could be part of the process with which life on this planet formed.
In 1929, the English biologist J. B. S. Haldane (unaware at the time of Oparin’s theories) proposed a similar premise, furthering Darwin’s original hypothesis, which was compatible with Oparin’s theory.
“Haldane outlined how organic chemicals could build up in water, ‘[until] the primitive oceans reached the consistency of hot dilute soup’. This set the stage for ‘the first living or half-living things’ to form…” (6) These combinations gathered together perhaps in chemical combinations called coacervates. “At some point a kind of ‘oily film’ was produced that enclosed self-replicating nucleic acids, thereby becoming the first cell.” (9)
The idea that life formed in a primordial soup of organic chemicals became known as the Oparin-Haldane hypothesis.
This theory began to gain a following, and garner support in the universities up through the 1950’s.
Harold Urey, a Noble Prize winning scientist in 1934, (10 ) “became interested in the chemistry of outer space, [and] particularly what went on when the Solar System was first forming. One day in 1952 he gave a lecture and pointed out that there was probably no oxygen in Earth’s atmosphere when it first formed. This would have offered the ideal conditions for Oparin and Haldane’s primordial soup to form: the fragile chemicals would have been destroyed by contact with oxygen.”
The Stanley Miller Experiment
Stanley Miller, a doctrinal student in the audience later approached Urey with the idea of carrying out an experiment to prove the Oparin and Haldane hypothesis.
Urey at first was skeptical, but assisted Miller in carrying out the experiment.
“The set-up was simple. Miller connected a series of glass flasks and circulated four chemicals that he suspected were present on the early Earth: boiling water, hydrogen gas, ammonia and methane. He subjected the gases to repeated electric shocks, to simulate the lightning strikes that would have been a common occurrence on Earth so long ago.”
“Miller found that ‘the water in the flask became noticeably pink after the first day, and by the end of the week the solution was deep red and turbid’[opaque]. Clearly, a mix of chemicals had formed.”
“When Miller analyzed the mixture he found that it contained two amino acids: glycine and alanine. Amino acids are often described as the building blocks of life. They are used to form the proteins that control most biochemical processes in our bodies. Miller had made two of life’s most important components, from scratch.” (11)
The experiment and its results were published in the Science journal in 1953 and became the most famous experiment of evolutionary science to date.
Modern Science was on its way, it believed, to solving the mystery of life.
To be continued. . .
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Sources and Notes:
1. How Did Life Arise on Earth? By Ker Than September 01, 2016 https://www.livescience.com/1804-greatest-mysteries-life-arise-earth.html; Earth is estimated to be about 4.5 billion years old, and for much of that history it has been home to life in one weird form or another.
2.The Secret of How Life began on the Earth, Article by Michael Marshall, 31 October 2016 http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20161026-the-secret-of-how-life-on-earth-began Eventually the Earth cooled enough for water vapor to condense into liquid water, and the first rain fell. Before long Earth had oceans, which were hot and rich in carbon-based chemicals.
3.The Secret of How Life began on the Earth, Article by Michael Marshall, 31 October 2016 http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20161026-the-secret-of-how-life-on-earth-began [T]here was once a small body of water, filled with simple organic compounds and bathed in sunlight. Some of those compounds might combine to form a life-like substance such as a protein, which could then start evolving and becoming more complex.
4. Discover Website: Darwin’s Theory Of Evolution (darwins-theory-of-evolution.com)
5.Charles Darwin: Charles Darwin – Wikipedia
6. The Secret of How Life began on the Earth, Article by Michael Marshall, 31 October 2016 http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20161026-the-secret-of-how-life-on-earth-began
7. Origin Of Life: Twentieth Century Landmarks, Copyright Chris Gordon-Smith 2003, https://www.simsoup.info/Origin_Landmarks_Oparin_Haldane.html.
8. J. B. S. Haldane, Wikipedia, Encyclopedia J. B. S. Haldane – Wikipedia
9. The Secret of How Life began on the Earth, By Michael Marshall, 31 October 2016 http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20161026-the-secret-of-how-life-on-earth-began
10. The Secret of How Life began on the Earth, By Michael Marshall, 31 October 2016 http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20161026-the-secret-of-how-life-on-earth-began
11. The Secret of How Life began on the Earth, Article by Michael Marshall, 31 October 2016 http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20161026-the-secret-of-how-life-on-earth-began
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