Metal 'Snakes' Fall Far Short of Life | The Institute for Creation Research

Metal 'Snakes' Fall Far Short of Life

Researchers at Argonne National Laboratories have observed nickel filings ordering into rows atop a special fluid. With precisely structured electromagnetic fields surrounding them, the snake-like rows undulated in their beakers. The magnetically-motivated metal’s meanderings appeared so lifelike that Wired Science writer Alexis Madrigal suggested the tiny nickel trains can provide “clues about how life originally organized itself.”1

A report on these magnetic “swimmers” was recently published in Physical Review Letters. In their paper posted on the Argonne National Laboratory website, the researchers stated:

Apparently, as the frequency of the magnetic field is increased, the snake develops highly asymmetric vortex structure. One pair of the vortices associated with one of the snake's tails becomes stronger than another meaning that one of the “engines" becomes more powerful. Resulting net difference in the engines power propels the snake.2

This strange phenomenon is seriously being entertained by some as a model for the self-organization of inanimate matter, with possible implications for the origin of life. Wired Science suggested that “perhaps, by studying this simple system, they can understand what [Argonne physicist Igor] Aronson calls ‘the fundamentals of self assembly, how nature can organize itself into ordered states.’”1 Instead of natural self-assembly, this “simple system” clearly demonstrates the distinct qualitative differences between ordered systems, like the nickel-filings train, and complex ordered systems, like life.

Evolutionary biochemist Jeffrey Wicken stated in 1979 that “whereas ordered systems are generated according to simple algorithms and therefore lack complexity, organized systems must be assembled element by element according to an external ‘wiring diagram’ with a high information content.”3

The nickel “snakes” of the Argonne studies, while more ordered than randomly scattered bits of metal, were not organized according to a specified plan. They were merely ordered by uniquely tuned, external electromagnetic fields acting on the inherent properties of the metal. The machinery of life does not simply have a greater amount of the same kind of order that the nickel snakes had. Life is different on a qualitative, not just quantitative, level. The machinery of life is organized according to massive “wiring diagrams.” That is, living cells consist of an unlikely arrangement of parts that are specified to precise functions. Moreover, an array of hundreds of these machines of life must all be pre-specified to work properly as well as inter-relationally in order to sustain any viable life form.

Writhing bits of electromagnetically-stimulated metal, like atoms in a crystal, are ordered. However, they are not specified. Rather than providing clues to “how life originally organized itself,” this research illustrates the utter inadequacy of natural forces alone to provide the information required to specify life. That information must therefore have come from a source outside of the natural universe. It is legitimate, then, both scientifically and logically to acknowledge the One by whom “were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth.”4

References

  1. Madrigal, A. Metal Bits Self-Assemble Into Lifelike Snakes. Wired Science. Posted on blog.wired.com March 5, 2009, accessed March 24, 2009.
  2. Snezhko, A. et al. 2009. Self-Assembled Magnetic Surface Swimmers. Physical Review Letters. 102 (11): 118103. Pre-published version posted on mti.msd.anl.gov, the website of the Materials Theory Institute of the Argonne National Laboratory.
  3. Wicken, J. S. 1979. The generation of complexity in evolution: A thermodynamic and information-theoretical discussion. Journal of Theoretical Biology. 77 (3): 349.
  4. Colossians 1:16.

Image Credit: Betsy Mason/Wired.com

* Mr. Thomas is Science Writer at the Institute for Creation Research.

Article posted on April 6, 2009.

The Latest
ACTS & FACTS
Pervasive Genome Functionality Destroys the Myth of Junk DNA
In 2001, the first rough draft of the human genome was published in a collaborative effort between private industry and the public sector.1,2...

NEWS
Happy Labor Day 2025
“For we are laborers together with God: ye are God’s husbandry, ye are God’s building.” (1 Corinthians 3:9) Labor Day was...

ACTS & FACTS
The Age of Reptiles Myth
We hear about the Age of Reptiles, also called the Age of Dinosaurs, almost as early as we can understand the idea. Even kindergarteners might be taught...

ACTS & FACTS
The Tiktaalik Missing Link Myth
In 2004, the paleontological community—and the world—was presented with what many evolutionists considered to be a dyedin- the-wool missing...

ACTS & FACTS
Archaeopteryx, Myth of a Transitional Fossil
In 1860, one year after the publication of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, a wonderfully preserved fossil feather was discovered in...

ACTS & FACTS
Busting the Myth about Lucy
by Brian Thomas, Ph.D., and Chris Rupe, Ph.D.* Most folks consider our ape ancestry as established science, with Lucy as the main link. However,...

ACTS & FACTS
Evolutionary Vestigial Features: Worse Than Myth, a Scam
Due to teachers’ influence during the formative years of young people’s lives, they can be a powerful force in spreading evolution to new...

ACTS & FACTS
Blind Cavefish Unmask the Convergent Evolution Myth
Within the ever-expanding theory of evolution, there is a system of specialized language designed to identify each major interpretative concept. Some...

ACTS & FACTS
A Booming Generation
And the king answered them roughly; and king Rehoboam forsook the counsel of the old men, and answered them after the advice of the young men.…And...

ACTS & FACTS
Darwin's Galápagos Finches: The Myth of Natural Selection
A group of birds known as Darwin’s finches (genus Geospiza) lives in the Galápagos Islands in the Pacific Ocean 600 miles west of Ecuador....