Science is in a frenzied search for the mysteries of life.
Can SCIENCE create life in the test tube?
Can human heredity be chemically controlled to produce a kind of science-fiction immortality?
Where is it all leading?
AFEELING of suspense haunts modern researchers and biochemists. "We must know more!" young scientists exclaim.
"This is going to be the biggest science story of the century," declared Dr. Vincent Allfrey of the Rockefeller Institute — "bigger than nuclear fission."
The Challenge of Science
Science now supposedly teeters on the verge of CREATING LIFE! Scientists now feel they are very close to learning the secret of life! And not only that — researchers are now dazzled by the prospect of controlling human heredity and increasing the life span of man to TWO CENTURIES!
A famous biochemist recently asserted, with confidence: "This century will go down in history as the century when life ceased to be a mystery." He added, "It is complicated, yes. But we no longer have any reason to believe it is beyond human understanding."
Thrilled by the fascination — and vanity — of research, countless scientists all across the face of the earth are experimenting, pondering, searching — trying to find the answer to the riddle of life. Any day, many feel, may bring a fantastic BREAKTHROUGH!
It is one of the most expensive, challenging scientific investigations ever undertaken!
But where is it leading?
Will science really explain the secret of life? Will scientists CREATE life? How much does science really know about life? How FAR are scientists and researchers from bringing the living into existence from the not living?
One British scientist commented, in analyzing the present trend, "It seems pretty certain to me that life resulted from purely random chemical events. What's more, I feel certain that in another decade or two we ourselves will be able to CREATE life. I no longer find it necessary to believe in God" (emphasis mine, throughout article).
Science is now challenging the authority, the POWER, and the very existence of GOD! Scientists, too often, want to be God!
But what is the TRUTH? How far are scientists away from really backing up their tremendous boasts? How far are they from "creating LIFE"?
The Mad Search
The uproar began about twenty years ago. It was in the crucial year of 1944 that Dr. Oswald T. Avery and his colleagues at the Rockefeller Institute experimented with pneumonia germs. They accidentally stumbled on the discovery that DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) was the controller of heredity. Long threads of pure DNA were taken from a culture of ordinary pneumococci and added to a culture of germs which had failed to inherit the ability to make gelatinous coats, as most pneumococci do. The coatless germs began making coats, as did their progeny.
This pivotal discovery opened the floodgates for the present mad search for the secret of life! After performing many more experiments, scientists now believe DNA is the controller of heredity. Along with RNA (ribonucleic acid), it not only controls life, and is found in the nuclei of all living things, but determines the development of living things, from conception to maturity. It is, say scientists, the key to the genetic code which determines heredity!
In a later experiment, scientists put artificial RNA in a "broth" containing amino acids and substances a cell uses to make protein. The synthetic RNA acted like a genetic blueprint. A very crude, simple protein was formed from the amino acid phenylalanine. This discovery was hailed widely as the first concrete step toward "cracking the genetic code."
These, and similar experiments, are the basis of science's new hope — the fond dream of conquering all disease, controlling human heredity, and PROLONGING human life! Science is pressing its attack on the foundation of life from all sides!
But, again — how far are scientists from doing what is so loudly proclaimed — from really CREATING LIFE? When the excitement dies, and the furor subsides, WHAT do the real FACTS show? What is the TRUTH?
What Science Has Done
The truth is not as "glamorous" and dazzling as you might be led to believe! In fact, the search to create life has barely gotten started. Actually, scientists now are NO CLOSER to creating life than before they started!
According to Dr. John H. Heller, executive director of the New England Institute for Medical Research, "The whole field of molecular biology is in a state of flux. It's a young field. Theories rise and FALL daily."
Old theories are blown up and exploded every day. New theories arise to take their place daily. Does THIS sound as if science is "close" to unlocking the mystery of life? Not at all!
Rather than being dose to a fantastic "breakthrough," scientists have in reality barely begun to scratch the surface of research! They have barely STARTED! There is a VAST DIFFERENCE between synthetically forming a very simple type of amino acid "protein" — which is NOT living — and creating a LIVING CELL!
This is a very long way from fulfilling the ambition of science — to CONTROL LIFE — to foreordain the intellect and the physical characteristics of human beings — to achieve, via the test tube, a kind of immortality!
The Great Assumption
Why do scientists begin to think they can perhaps create life and control heredity? The answer is simply that they assume mankind evolved, through the ages of time, from primordial, primitive life. They assume that to create life, all they must do is learn to duplicate the steps of nature.
Since life naturally EVOLVED, they reason, there should be no logical reason WHY man cannot discover HOW it all happened. And by following similar guidelines, duplicate the process — perhaps even improve upon it!
Scientists also usually ASSUME that there is NO GOD!
If there were no God, and if life did evolve from not-living matter, due to random accidents and circumstances — then, very possibly some day man would uncover nature's deepest secrets and learn the riddle of life!
But that is a "big if." There is a God! Life did not evolve from the non-living.
Life was supernaturally CREATED by a process which NO MAN can duplicate.
Science itself proves, if willing to admit it, that God Exists! Creation is the PROOF of God! Write for our fascinating, free booklet Does God Exist? and Seven Proofs of God. They will open your eyes to the TRUTH. They conclusively, thoroughly PROVE the existence of the Almighty Creator GOD!
There is no need for doubt!
GOD is the One Who created LIFE!
He and He alone, is LIFE-GIVER! No mere mortal man has the power or intelligence to duplicate GOD!
Primeval Earth and Sky
Since scientists have already rejected God, they have concocted a method — and a theory — by which they think life upon the earth came into existence. Evolution, they say, was the process.
The theory of evolution states that billions of years ago the planet earth was formed. Perhaps at one time, they say, it was a "chunk" of flaming gases cast off by the sun. Then these gases began to cool. Slowly, a hardened crust of volcanic rock was formed, and masses of silicon, according to this theory, combined with other elements to form the foundations of the continents.
Volcanoes belched steam, methane, ammonia. Other gases gushed to the surface, forming the earth's primitive atmosphere. Still, there was no life. But this dream of evolutionary science isn't over.
Gradually, with the passage of eons of time, atoms began to form themselves together, combining slowly, evolving toward complex forms. The rains came; tremendous squalls drenched the earth. Molecular structures accumulated in warm ocean waters, forming a hot, dilute soup. Still, no life.
Other millions of years crept by. Lightning flashed, cosmic rays from outer space struck the warm ocean "soup." Somehow, this produced amino acids, necessary to life. But Still — NO LIFE! Nowadays, lightning always destroys life; X-rays and cosmic rays are known to shorten life; but apparently, according to scientists, the opposite was true eons ago!
What next? Scientists wracked their brains. Somehow, in order to have LIFE, the amino acids must combine to form complex, gigantic protein molecules with THOUSANDS of atoms! This was a real puzzler! Somehow, they say, it occurred!
How could primitive proteins, even if they had been formed, ever become a living cell? There was another brain-numbing, head-scratching problem! One scientist estimates that molecular particles must have evolved for TWO BILLION YEARS before the first living cell appeared on the scene!
The Great Leap
But somehow, according to evolutionary scientists, the GREAT LEAP was made. Living cells miraculously appeared, multiplied, squirmed, reproduced and became increasingly more complex and intricate. After more eons of time, viruses, bacteria, and protozoa were produced.
The process was now started. Or so the theory demands. Gradually, plant life and animal life evolved. Fish developed legs and lungs and left the sea — or was it the reverse? Some animals developed wings, flexed them, and learned to FLY!
Finally, in one of the most amazing evolutionary leaps, some ancient type of monkey swinging through the recently evolved trees, got tired of trees and decided to use its head instead of its tail. Consequently, his brain grew bigger than his tail and he began manufacturing stone weapons to defend himself. In this manner, primeval apes became primitive cave-men. Then, even "man" evolved until modern man came along.
Sound fantastic? Hard to believe? Of course — but what exciting reading it makes! What a spine-tingling science-fiction thriller!
But it is patently impossible!
Read this age-consuming scientific account again. Notice all the fantastic gaps, gulfs, "amazing leaps" and MIRACLES which must have taken place! The truth is, by science's own discoveries life could not have EVOLVED.
Scientists too often refuse to face the FACT of the existence of a Creator GOD!
Evolutionary scientists always begin their theories with one gigantic ASSUMPTION: their schemes and speculations, dreams and theories always begin with an already-existing planet EARTH and a gigantic UNIVERSE! Where did all THESE come from?
If evolution be true, where did the earth, the complex solar system, the sun, other stars and galaxies evolve from? And, where did the LAWS of chemistry and physics that govern and guide the behavior of matter and energy come from? Where did those amazing LAWS of science textbooks evolve from?
Did some unthinking force suddenly decide that matter should have an attraction for other matter — an attraction called the law of gravity?
Where did LAW come from?
These are among the unanswerable enigmas of science! These problems still plague the minds of evolutionists! They have NO ANSWER!
But, unwilling to admit their theory is shot full of huge holes, evolutionists come up with the same old swan-song: "More study is needed"; "Give us more time"; "The answers are just around the corner."
The fact is, the more scientists discover, the more fascinating QUESTIONS they uncover! Rather than becoming simpler, the more COMPLEX life is shown to be!
When will God-rejecting man ever learn? With the overwhelming FACT of Creation staring them right in the face, most men turn away, ignore the PROOF of God, and idle away their time with the study of the absurd fantasies of evolution. What a paradox! What a tragic waste of precious ability and time!