By Babatunde Jose
“Behold! In the creation of the heavens and the earth; in the alternation of the night and the day; in the sailing of ships through the ocean, for the profit of mankind; in the rain which Allah sends down from the skies, and the life which He gives therewith to an earth that is dead; in the beasts of all kinds that He scatters through the earth; in the change of the winds, and the clouds which they trail like their slaves between the sky and the earth; here indeed are Signs for a people that are wise” (Quran 2:164)
Of all the mysteries confronting Mankind’s quest for knowledge, the greatest is the mystery called life. Evolution theory attempt to explain how life on Earth evolved, all the way from the earliest, one-celled creatures to Homo Sapiens: But it does not explain how life on Earth began. Beyond the question, are we alone? lies the more fundamental question: Is life on Earth unique, unmatched in our Solar System, our galaxy, the whole universe?
How did life start? We’re talking about life; the condition that distinguishes animals and plants from inorganic matter, including the capacity for growth, reproduction, functional activity, and continual change preceding death.
On the origins of life, there’s no shortage of scientific speculation, and new findings turn up all the time about how life could have been generated in primordial conditions or delivered to Earth from outer space, a concept which has gained traction in academic circles.
Life on Earth, it is speculated, began at least 3.77 billion years ago, possibly as early as 4.28 billion years, or even 4.5 billion years; evolving from the most basic of microbes into a dazzling array of complexity over time; and this is subject to debate as it is based on conjectures and refutations.
There are approximately 1.2 million known species of animals, but scientists estimate there are closer to 8.7 million species on earth: indeed, an array of dazzling complexity. Thousands of new species are discovered each year, but it will still take hundreds of years to find the rest. It means that a staggering 86% of land species and 91% of marine species remain undiscovered.
But how did life on Earth begin? Life started with an electric spark, claimed one theory: Electric sparks that generated amino acids as was shown in the famous Miller-Urey experiment of 1953, suggesting that lightning might have helped create the key building blocks of life on Earth in its early days. Although research since then has revealed the early atmosphere of Earth was hydrogen poor, and this is enough to behead that theory.
The first molecules of life might have met on clay, according to an idea elaborated by organic chemist Alexander Graham Cairns-Smith at the University of Glasgow in Scotland.
There is the deep-sea vent theory which suggests that life may have begun at submarine hydrothermal vents. Even now, these vents, rich in chemical and thermal energy, sustain vibrant ecosystems. But are they the source of life?
The next idea is a chilling thought. Ice might have covered the oceans 3 billion years ago, as the sun was less luminous than it is now. This layer of ice, possibly hundreds of feet thick, might have protected fragile organic compounds in the water below from ultraviolet light and destruction from cosmic impacts. But where did these organic compounds come from?
Understanding life’s origin may also involve unravelling the mystery of DNA’s formation. DNA needs certain proteins to replicate. Proteins need DNA to form. Neither could have formed naturally without the other already in existence. So how could these have formed without each other?
Writing in 1908, Svante Arrhenius (Worlds in the Making) proposed that life-bearing spores were driven to Earth by the pressure of light waves from the star of another planetary system where life had evolved long before it did on Earth. The notion came to be known as “the theory of Panspermia”; it languished on the fringes of accepted science because, at the time, one fossil discovery after another seemed to corroborate the theory of evolution as an unchallenged explanation for the origin of life on Earth.
However, more recent scientific advances changed these attitudes. The change in opinion was also due to the discovery that of the myriad of amino acids that exist, it is only the same twenty or so that are part of all living organisms on Earth, no matter what these organisms are and when they evolved; and that the same DNA, made up of the same four nucleotides—that and no other—is present in all living things on Earth.
The participants of the Conference on the Origins of Life, held at Berkeley, California, in 1986 arrived at the consensus that “all life on Earth, from bacteria to sequoia trees to humans, evolved from a single ancestral cell.”
But where did this single ancestral cell come from? When all was said and done, the assembled scientists were left with only one avenue that, they hoped, might provide the answer to the puzzle of the origin of life on Earth: Space.
Such a course of research reflects the acceptance, it must be obvious, of the premise that life is not unique to Earth. The first reason for such a premise is the extensive evidence that organic compounds permeate the Solar System and outer space.
The data from interplanetary probes have revealed that life-related elements and compounds in outer space are voluminous.
In 1977 an international team of astronomers at the Max Planck Institute discovered water molecules outside our own galaxy. The density of the water vapor was the same as in Earth’s galaxy, and Otto Hachenberg of the Bonn Institute for Radio Astronomy considered that finding as support for the conclusion that “conditions exist at some other place which, like those on Earth, are suitable for life.”
In 1984 scientists at the Goddard Space Center found ‘a bewildering array of molecules, including the beginning of organic chemistry’ in interstellar space. According to Patrick Thaddeus of the Center’s Institute for Space Studies, it was “reasonable to assume that these compounds were deposited on Earth at the time of its forming and that life ultimately came from them.”
In 1987, to give one more instance, NASA instruments discovered that exploding stars (supernovas) produced most of the ninety-odd elements, including carbon, that are contained in living organisms on Earth.
Of particular interest to scientists are meteorites containing carbonaceous chondrites, believed to represent the most primordial planetary matter in the Solar System. One, which fell near Murchison in Victoria, Australia, in 1969, revealed an array of organic compounds, including amino acids and nitrogenous bases that embraced all the compounds involved in DNA. According to Ron Brown of Monash University in Melbourne, researchers have even found “formations in the meteorite reminiscent of a very primitive form of cell structure.”
But the jury is still out there. There has been no consensus on the seeding of life on Earth. And if you thought all that was mysterious, consider this: Scientists admit they don’t even have a good definition of life! Indeed, there are many things we don’t understand. But God has been revealing Himself to man through all these research findings and we should not close the door on them.
“Verily in the heavens and the earth are signs for those who believe. .” (Quran 45:3-5).
Thus, the elements and the matter destined to become the planets and stars began to cool, come together, and form into shape, following the natural laws that Allah established in the universe. See (21:33). (7:54). (22:47).
Fortunately, there is little or no sharp disconnect between the creation stories of the Sumerians, Genesis and the Quran and modern scientific theories. Even the theory of clay mixture and creation tend to blur the vision. But most importantly, whatever the ‘life’ theory, without the ‘spark’ of life, there can be no life. And this is exactly what the Creationists have been saying. This is even more so when we come to consider the advent of Man or the Adam.
The conflict between Creationists and Evolutionists reaches its crux in the interpretation of what happened next—-the appearance of Man on Earth. It is a subject that will be dealt with in the next Sermon.
While Islam recognizes the general idea of the development of life in stages, over a period, human beings are considered as a special act of creation.
Barka Juma’at and a happy weekend
Babatunde Jose
