Origin of Life

How did Life originate? Science has found the answer to this important question. The purpose of this essay is to explain it.

Today scientists have explored the 140 billion year history of the Universe to a certain extent. The Universe started with the Big Bang and then the
stars, galaxies and planets were formed. In one planet, life started and evolved into the human being with its wonderful brain.

Life originated spontaneously in the primordial soup which was a chemical fluid containing many elements and compounds. This is the answer given by Science.

Earth's surface was covered by this chemical sea. From the sky lightning was striking and sending high voltage electricity onto this sea.

In the 1950's two scientists Stanley Miller and Harold Urey in the University of Chicago performed an important experiment. Their aim was to explore how life might have originated on the Earth. It was an attempt to know how life might have originated from lifeless chemicals.

They mixed the chemicals methane, ammonia with hydrogen and water. All these were present in the oceans billions of years ago. They put this mixture in a bottle and heated it. Then they passed a high-voltage electric current into the mixture. The mixture was allowed to cool down. When they examined the mixture, it was found that some amino acids were formed. Amino acids are found in the bodies of all living beings. So one may say that the Miller-Urey experiment discovered how life originated. But there are many amino acids that are more important for life. These as well as other important organic compounds were not formed in the Miller-Urey experiment. Hence the general conclusion of the scientific world was that Miller-Urey experiment was a failure.

But fifty years after Miller-Urey experiment, in the year 2007, a surprising discovery was made. Miller-Urey's bottles were found in a cupboard at University of California, San Diego. After Miller's death his research scholars examined the bottles again. In these 50 years, laboratory procedures had improved considerably and very sensitive tests had been developed. Using these the research scholars found that apart from the chemical compounds already found many more chemical compounds which are not easy to form were found - many amino acids, even parts of RNA.

Hence one must conclude that the Miller-Urey experiment did show the correct way. For life to originate from inanimate matter, a long time is needed. Life took hundreds of million years to appear on the Earth. The age of the Miller-Urey bottles is only 50 years. If the bottles are examined after many more years, DNA and some living beings might be found there.

So it is clear that life has originated from the Laws of Physics. Laws of Physics lead to chemistry and chemistry generates life from a chemical soup.

But there is an obstacle in understanding this. There is an important principle in Physics, called the Principle of Entropy. According to this principle, all regular arrangements spontaneously decay to become irregular or random arrangements. If we make a beautiful sand-castle in the beach, a wind or a sea wave will destroy it. If we heat the water in a vessel and collect the heat, after some time, the collected heat spreads to the surrounding air.

So order degenerates to disorder. This is the Law of Nature. In that case, how do the disorderly chemical substances combine in an orderly manner and generate life? For instance how did the supremely regular DNA molecule get formed from the chemicals in the soup?

The answer to this question is in another law of physics. All matter spreads concentrated energy. Heat is a form of energy. Physics tends to spread out heat or energy. During this process order results.

All the iron atoms in a piece of iron are tiny bar magnets. But they are normally pointing in different directions and so they cancel out. They do not form a big bar magnet. If we keep this iron piece in a strong magnetic field, all the small atomic magnets turn and point in the same direction. So together we get a big magnetic field and the iron piece becomes a bar magnet. Under some conditions, it becomes a permanent bar magnet. That is, even without the external magnetic field, it remains as a magnet.

Disorderly tiny bar magnets change their directions and become a big bar magnet. But for this to happen, we must first place the iron in a magnetic field. If we keep certain liquids in a bottle without shaking, a beautiful well-ordered crystal is formed. So it is not surprising that from a disordered chemical soup a well-ordered life-form emerged.

Under favorable conditions, ordered life forms originate from disordered chemicals. This has happened according to the laws of physics only. Another truth comes to light if we ponder on the similarity between a crystal and a living form. What a close similarity between an inanimate object and a living being? So living being is a continuation of an inanimate object. There is no line separating the two. The birth of life from inanimate objects is in the nature of Physics.

For a magnet or a crystal to be formed, favorable conditions are necessary, for the former a magnetic field and for the latter a static environment. For the birth of life too favorable conditions are necessary. Such conditions were available on the Earth's 4 billion year history. We must keep one thing in mind. For these conditions to happen, there must be enough time and space. Both were available on the Earth. 4 billion years and
the whole surface of the Earth. When both are available, when suitable conditions happen, life is born.

All these are described in an interesting way by Dan Brown in his novel "Origin".

Since the origin of life has been explained by Science without the help of any Divine power, many scientists conclude that God does not exist. This is wrong.

We found that the Laws of Physics created life. Who created the Laws of Physics?

What is the first cause of all causes?

What is the First Law of all the Laws of Physics?

Our brain cannot catch this First Law by its rationality. Our brain and its functioning have been so perfectly designed that its limits are completely hidden from us.

But however perfectly it functions, a part cannot comprehend the whole. Our brain and its immense power are merely parts of the Universe. Our brain is wonderful. But it is only a part of the Almighty who governs the whole Universe.

How can a part grasp the whole? This will be like a snake putting its tail into its mouth and devouring itself. However strong a person maybe he cannot lift the platform on which he is standing.

Standing on the first cause of all the actions of our brain, we cannot grasp that first cause.

We meet this boundary of our knowledge in any scientific research or philosophical study. If we think about any matter or idea deeply enough, our thinking stops when we reach a certain limit. We touch God, so to speak, and we stop.

The unknowable is everywhere. Imagine a sphere of infinite dimensions. This is the complete knowledge of the Universe. What we can know is only a small part of the surface of this sphere. Saints, Rishis and Paramahamsas have seen a little of the inner parts of this mystery sphere and have told us about it.

The majority of scientists think that the Universe and everything that we see have come into being according to the Laws of Nature. This cannot be the complete Truth.

The evolutionary processes that happened on our Earth were not on a straight line towards progress. It is a tortuous path with many curves and back-turns. Many random changes. Many destructions and rebirths have made the evolutionary path into a rough one. Most of the changes have occurred like the results of throwing dice in a game. The world that we are enjoying now is a result of this game of dice-throwing played by Nature. This is the view of most of the scientists.

This wonderful human body and life, wonderful organs like the eye and the ear, above all, the wonder of wonders, the brain and its thoughts - can all these be formed from the random changes of Nature?

Reference

Dan Brown, Origin, Bantam Press, London (2017).