The origin of life on Earth is one of the most polarizing issues across the history of mankind. From the perspective of conventional science, life emerged by the production of living matter from nonliving matter through a complex, multicomponent process characterized as abiogenesis (a = without, bio = life, genesis = origin).^1,2 This hypothetical framework implies that inorganic substances were abiotically synthesized into the fundamental organic compounds (amino acids, lipids, nucleotides) ultimately required for the structure and function of living cells.

Historically, notable hypotheses for life’s origin include Aristotle’s early account of spontaneous generation,³ later refuted by Pasteur and Tyndall;⁴ Darwin’s conception that life arose in a warm little pond;⁵ and the primordial soup of warm oceans and hydrothermal vents that Operin and Haldane proposed.⁵ However, the classical experiment on abiogenesis by Stanley Miller⁶ has received the most attention and is promoted today within college textbooks worldwide.⁷ So what did Miller and others actually find?

The Miller-Urey experiment attempted to reproduce atmospheric conditions on a prebiotic earth (Figure 1).^6,8 Methane, ammonia, and hydrogen gases (CH₄, NH₃, H₂) were combined in a closed system to simulate a reducing environment (e.g., without oxygen or oxidizing gases). Water vapor was circulated through the gases, exposed to an electric discharge, condensed, and then sampled. The only meaningful organic compounds identified were low yields of glycine and alanine,^8–10 two of the set of 20 amino acids required for life by all organisms. Soon after, another scientist synthesized adenine (DNA nucleotide) from hydrogen cyanide under conditions also assumed to represent a primitive earth.¹¹

Moreover, researchers promoting origin of life (OoL)^12,13 and RNA world^14,15 hypotheses suggest that prebiotic chemistry may have been delivered to Earth by asteroids, meteorites, or comets.^16,17 But is there any real evidence that ancient, random, naturalistic forces transformed inorganic chemistry into essential organic compounds or the biochemical codes of life on Earth or any other planet? No!

First, Miller-type experiments under reducing⁶ or oxidizing⁸ atmospheres only produce proteinogenic glycine and alanine (racemic), both of which would be reactively hindered by non-proteinogenic amino acids and other substances.^9,10 Second, the most essential macromolecules of life (proteins, nucleic acids, phospholipids, carbohydrates) only function as polymers and would hydrolyze in the presence of water.¹⁰ Therefore, they are inoperable outside of a cell, the basic functional unit of life.¹⁸ Third, if abiogenesis were operative today, microbes would instantly devour all of the essential organic molecules, as both Darwin and Oparin percieved.^5,19 Fourth, since abiogenesis is postulated to have occurred on Earth more than 3.5 billion years ago, it is not testable, verifiable, or falsifiable and is therefore outside the purview of science.²⁰

Yet even remote timeframes are no obstacle for an inflexible mind determined to prove that life arose from nonliving molecules. The following quote from Miller and Urey is revealing.

Since the demonstration by Pasteur that life does not arise spontaneously at the present time, the problem of the origin of life has been one of determining how the first forms of life arose, from which all the present species have evolved.⁸

Sound minds would have stopped at Pasteur’s refutation of spontaneous generation.⁴ Instead, those intent on a God-free origin of life plunge toward incomprehensible time—the keystone of evolution—while ignoring the true and accurate biblical account of history. Clearly, the elapsed ~6,000-year scriptural record would not only prohibit the inception, diversification, and functionality of abiotic chemical precursors, but it would also rule out the immense time required for their transformation into the essential biochemistry we find today in all cellular life.

Notably, both unicellular and multicellular prokaryotes (bacteria) still inhabit extreme and inhospitable environments today²¹ and most likely function as originally designed. Perhaps cyanobacteria, within which chloroplasts are thought to have first evolved,²¹ are aligned with the biblical timeline as well. Additionally, cyanobacterial origins, along with their presumed role in the initiation of Earth’s oxygen-containing atmosphere 2.44–2.22 billion years ago, remain another facet of wishful conjecture.²²

Likewise, warm little ponds, hydrothermal vents, lightning, and primitive atmospheres are merely subjective forgeries to counter what the heavens and Earth clearly reveal: existing abiotic and biotic chemicals do not reflect the ancient precursors of essential macromolecules or living cells that may have arisen from unassisted experiments billions of years ago. Simply put, life cannot create itself.

To completely convince the world of abiogenesis and all that is proposed to arise from it, theorists will need to start from scratch. That is, they will need to get their own stars, their own Earth, and all of the matter, energy, and laws that hold them together and maintain the operation of every elemental product contained within them. Until then, mixing known chemicals, gases, fluids, and electricity found on our planet in order to abiotically synthesize the fundamental organic compounds necessary for existing life is refutable.

Grand prismatic spring, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming. The bright colors are produced from biofilms of archaea and extremophile bacteria.

Image credit: Image credit: Ajith Kumar | iStock

What is irrefutable is that existing life has only ever been confirmed to arise from preexisting life. Without human intervention, matter alone cannot create or perform a “Miller” experiment or ever account for the supremely intelligent mind behind the Quaternary Triplet Code of DNA.²³ In fact, the massless information intrinsic to every form of biological life “has never been observed to arise from purely physical or chemical processes.”²³

These facts are established, but to a reprobate mind the alternative is unacceptable: “For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day” (Exodus 20:11). Any other view belongs exclusively within the purview of mythology, as exemplified here by the myth of abiogenesis.

References

1. Lawrence, E., ed. 2011. Henderson’s Dictionary of Biology, 15th ed. San Francisco, CA: Benjamin Cummings.
2. Borror, D. J. 1960. Dictionary of Word Roots and Combining Forms. Mountain View, CA: Mayfield Publishing Co.
3. Cresswell, R., trans. 1887. Aristotle’s History of Animals. London, UK: George Bell & Sons.
4. Conant, J. B. 1953. Pasteur’s and Tyndall’s Study of Spontaneous Generation. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
5. Schopf, J. W. 2024. Pioneers of Origin of Life Studies–Darwin, Oparin, Haldane, Miller, Oró–and the Oldest Known Records of Life. Life. 14 (10): 1345.
6. Miller, S. L. 1953. A Production of Amino Acids under Possible Primitive Earth Conditions. Science. 117 (3046): 528–529.
7. Urry, L. A. et al. 2017. Campbell Biology, 11th ed. London, UK: Pearson Education, Inc.
8. Miller, S. L. and H. C. Urey. 1959. Organic Compound Synthesis on the Primitive Earth: Several Questions about the Origin of Life Have Been Answered, but Much Remains to Be Studied. Science. 130 (3370): 245–251.
9. Truman, R., B. Schmidtgall, and C. Basel. 2024. Relative Proportion of Prebiotic Amino Acids: Part 3–Experiments Using Reduced Gas Mixtures. Journal of Creation. 38 (3).
10. Truman, R., B. Schmidtgall, and C. Basel. 2025. Relative Proportion of Prebiotic Amino Acids: Part 4–The Case for the Primitive Atmosphere Having Been Weakly Reducing. Journal of Creation. 39 (1).
11. Oró, J. 1961. Mechanism of Synthesis of Adenine from Hydrogen Cyanide under Possible Primitive Earth Conditions. Nature. 191: 1193–1194.
12. Szostak, J. 2018. How Did Life Begin. Nature. 557 (7704): S13–S15.
13. Sasselov, D. D., J. P. Grotzinger, and J. D. Sutherland. 2020. The Origin of Life as a Planetary Phenomenon. Science Advances. 6 (6).
14. Gilbert, W. 1986. Origin of Life: The RNA World. Nature. 319 (6055): 618.
15. Orgel, L. E. 2004. Prebiotic Chemistry and the Origin of the RNA World. Critical Reviews in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. 39 (2): 99–123.
16. Pearce, B. K. et al. 2017. Origin of the RNA World: The Fate of Nucleobases in Warm Little Ponds. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 114 (43): 11327–11332.
17. Rivilla, V. M. et al. 2022. Molecular Precursors of the RNA-World in Space: New Nitriles in the G+ 0.693− 0.027 Molecular Cloud. Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Sciences. 9: 876870.
18. Alberts, B. et al. 2022. Molecular Biology of the Cell, 7th ed. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company.
19. Oparin, A. I. 1953. The Origin of Life, 2nd ed. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, Inc.
20. Cupps, V. R. 2014. Hijacking the Scientific Method. Acts & Facts. 43 (8): 13–15.
21. Rogers, K. Abiogenesis. Encyclopædia Britannica. Posted on britannica.com.
22. Schirrmeister, B. E., A. Antonelli, and H. C. Bagheri. 2011. The Origin of Multicellularity in Cyanobacteria. BMC Evolutionary Biology. 11, article 45: 1–21.
23. Gitt, W. W., R. W. Compton, and J. A. Fernandez. 2011. Without Excuse. Powder Springs, GA: Creation Book Publishers.

Dr. Boyle is a research scientist at the Institute for Creation Research and earned his Ph.D. in zoology from the University of Hawaii at Manoa.