The Three Pillars of Evolution Demolished: Why Darwin Was Wrong

By Jerry Bergman Ph.D.

The three pillars of evolution, defined as progression from simple molecules to humans, are the origin of life and genetic damage called mutations selected by natural selection. Dr. Bergman documents that the peer reviewed scientific literature has demolished these central pillars of evolution, specifically the origin of life from non-life and the source of genetic variety called mutations honed by natural selection. As genetic research of life has been shown to be increasingly more complex, life from nonlife by natural means is now no longer feasible. Furthermore, most all mutations are partly or wholly deleterious and natural selection serves primarily to reduce the deterioration of life, not evolve life to greater levels of complexity as evolution postulates. In short. the naturalistic evolutionary theory first expounded by Charles Darwin has been falsified by scientific research.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Mar 29, 2022
• ISBN: 9781664257665

Jerry Bergman Ph.D.

Dr. Bergman is a multi-award winning professor and author. He has taught biology, biochemistry, anatomy and physiology, genetics, psychology and other courses for over 40 years at the University of Toledo, The Medical College of Ohio, Bowling Green State University, and other colleges. His 9 degrees include a Doctorate from Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. The 1,026 college credit hours he has earned is equivalent to almost 20 master’s degrees. Bergman thus fits in the website The 10 Most Educated People on the Planet ahead of several others. Bergman has spoken over 2,000 times to college, university, and church groups in America, Canada, Europe, Asia, and Africa. So far, over 80,000 copies of his 63 books and monographs are in print in 14 languages, most recently in Arabic. His books are in 2,400 college, university, and major libraries in 65 countries including Hungary, Israel, Mongolia, Montenegro, Namibia, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, and Viet Nam. He lives with his wife of 37 years, Dianne, in Montpelier, Ohio. They have 4 children and 10 grandchildren.

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Books by Jerry Bergman

Teaching About the Creation/Evolution Controversy. Bloomington, IN: Phi Delta Kappa Educational Foundation.

Understanding Educational Measurement and Evaluation. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Co.

The Criterion: Religious Discrimination in America. Richfield, MN: Onesimus Publishing Co.,

Vestigial Organs Are Fully Functional: A History and Evaluation of the Vestigial Organ Origins Concept. Terre Haute, IN: Creation Research Society Books, \

Ward’s Science Lab Safety Manual. Rochester, NY: Ward’s Natural Science Est., Inc.,

Persuaded by the Evidence. Green Forest, AR: Master Books.

Hitler and the Nazi Darwinian Worldview: How the Nazi Eugenic Crusade for a Superior Race Caused the Greatest Holocaust in World History. Kitchener, Ontario, Canada: Joshua Press.

Slaughter of the Dissidents: The Shocking Truth About Killing the Careers of Darwin Doubters. Southworth, WA: Leafcutter Press.

The Darwin Effect: Its Influence on Nazism, Eugenics, Racism, Communism, Capitalism & Sexism. Green Forest, AR: Master Books.

Transformed by the Evidence. Southworth, WA: Leafcutter Press.

The Dark Side of Darwin. Green Forest, AR: New Leaf Press.

C. S. Lewis: Anti-Darwinist: A Careful Examination of the Development of His Views on Darwinism. Eugene Oregon: Wipf & Stock Publishers.

Silencing the Darwin Skeptics: The War Against Theists. Southworth, WA: Leafcutter Press.

Evolution’s Blunders, Frauds and Forgeries. Atlanta, GA: CMI Publishing.

Fossil Forensics: Separating Fact from Fantasy in Paleontology. Tulsa, OK: Bartlett Publishing.

How Darwinism Corrodes Morality: Darwinism, Immorality, Abortion and the Sexual Revolution. Kitchener, Ontario, Canada: Joshua Press.

Censoring the Darwin Skeptics: How Belief in Evolution is Enforced by Eliminating Dissidents. Southworth, WA: Leafcutter Press.

Evolution is the Doorway to Atheism. Southworth, WA: Leafcutter Press.

God in President Eisenhower’s Life, Military Career, and Presidency. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock Publishers.

The Poor Design Argument Against Intelligent Design Falsified. Tulsa, OK: Bartlett Publishing.

Science is the Doorway to Creation: Nobel Laureates and Other Eminent Scientists Who Reject Orthodox Darwinism. Southworth, WA: Leafcutter Press.

Useless Organs: The Rise and Fall of the Once Major Argument for Evolution. Tulsa, OK: Bartlett Publishing.

Apes as Ancestors: Examining the Claims About Human Evolution. Tulsa, OK: Bartlett Publishing, co-authored with Peter Line, Ph.D., and Jeffrey P. Tomkins, Ph.D.

Darwinian Eugenics and The Holocaust: American Industrial Involvement. Ontario, Canada: Involgo Press.

How Great Evil Birthed Great Good: The True Story of Two Families. HarperCollins Christian Publishing.

Endorsements

Like a Greek temple that its builders centuries ago thought would stand resolute forever by support from three pillars, but was subsequently ravaged by war, earthquakes, and eventually tumbled over, Dr. Bergman has very adeptly, and in his inimitable style, identified the three pillars of evolution and toppled all three of them into a heap. The fairytale of evolution thus has ended up in a heap of rubble and it has nothing left to stand on. This book will help to shine a spotlight on the bankruptcy of evolution and the affront it is to intelligence, reason, wisdom and, incidentally, science.

Bryce Gaudian, Hayward, Minnesota. Marketing and

Communications, Van Ladder Bucket Trucks.

This book is the most definitive refutation of Darwinism evolution in print. Professor Bergman demolishes the core evidence for evolution, abiogenesis, natural and sexual selection, and mutations. If any one of these pillars of evolution is demolished, the theory fails. In this book Bergman managed to demolish all three pillars. Many evolutionists recognize that problems exist with all of these major pillars but have not been able to find a satisfactorily naturalistic replacement. How do they deal with this conundrum? They recognize the only feasible alternative is theism, an alternative most leading Darwinists cannot accept, regardless of the evidence. This conclusion is supported by a recent survey of AAAS members that found 99 percent were evolutionists and 93 percent were atheists. The 6 percent fill in the holes in Darwinism with God, a very problematic solution. Bergman shows his conclusion is not based on a God-of-the-gaps explanation, but rather is based on clear scientific evidence.

Wayne Frair, Ph.D. Professor Emeritus of Biology, The King’s College, New York.

I look forward to every new book by Jerry Bergman, because he writes about critically important topics, and has a wealth of information from his nine college degrees (including two Ph.D.’s) and his decades of experience as a professor, author and speaker. What could be more momentous than collapsing the pillars of evolution? Our whole intellectual culture rests on this foundation of sand, supported by three basic ideas: life originated from unguided chemicals, natural selection caused the development of all higher organisms, and the raw material for natural selection is random mutations.

Challenge any one of these and evolutionism teeters and falls. Bergman challenges all three in a coup-de-grace that leaves secular materialists with nothing left to support their worldview, an ideology that has had devastating effects in all aspects of society, as he has documented in his previous books. This book deftly wields scientific evidence—not religious arguments—to expose the sham that is Darwinian evolution. I can’t think of anything more urgent for changing secular culture than demolishing the pillars that seem to give this hideous ideology an illusion of scientific respectability.

David Coppedge worked at JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) in Pasadena, CA as a system administrator for the Cassini Mission to Saturn from 1997 to 2011,and was Team Lead System Administrator for nine of those years.

As a peptide chemist, I carefully reviewed Dr. Jerry Bergman’s new book with much interest. He thoroughly reviews the history and status of the three core secular arguments for Darwinian macro-evolution with almost 1,000 references. His thorough review of the peer-reviewed literature shows every one of the three pillars to lack credibility. The presented conclusions are logical and should satisfy any person with an open mind, but will not impact others because Darwinism is based on a belief in a worldview that forces one to ignore or reject the clear evidence that falsifies it.

Kenneth W. Funk, Ph.D. Organic Chemist

"I am convinced that a proper training in science requires that undergraduates are confronted by the problems of contemporary science. Only then can they see science as an activity, and not as a body of received doctrine."

-John Maynard Smith. Oxford University Press Evolutionary Genetics. 1989. p. v.

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Chapter Summaries

Introduction By Theodore J. Siek, Ph.d.

Foreword By Professor Norman Geisler

Author’s Introduction

1           Darwin was Wrong—Natural Selection of Mutations Cannot Explain Evolution

2           The Demise of the Spontaneous Generation Belief and Modern Attempts to Resurrect It

3           Research Falsifies Abiogenesis

4           The Exobiogenesis and Panspermia Theories of Life’s Origins

5           Evolution: Progressive or Degenerative? The Mutation Problem

6           Natural Selection Personified

7           Some Biological Problems of Natural Selection Theory

8           Attempts to Rank Animals by an Evolutionary Scale

9           Sexual Selection and Neo-Darwinism

10         The Problem of Extinction and Natural Selection

11         Do Only the Fittest or Strongest Survive in Nature?

12         The Importance of Chance and Cooperation in Survival

13         Some Conclusions

About The Author

References

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Dave Decker; Roger Lovell; Frank Vosler; Ken Funk, Ph.D.; Tim Wallace, Bryce Gaudian; M.A., Bert Thompson, Ph.D.; Wayne Frair, Ph.D.; Clifford Lillo, M.A.; John Woodmorappe, M.A., and Kirk Toth, MA for their comments on earlier drafts of this book.

CHAPTER SUMMARIES

Chapter 1 Introduction: Darwin was Wrong. Natural Selection of Mutations Cannot Explain Evolution

The major problem with reliance on natural selection for evolution is that while it may help to explain the survival-of-the-fittest, it cannot explain the arrival-of-the-fittest. Natural selection cannot create, it can only eliminate. Several scientific studies in peer-reviewed journals were summarized that support this conclusion. Darwin’s natural selection theory is limited to a conserving effect of the genome and cannot account for what is commonly called macroevolution. The postulated source of variation, mutations, fails because the vast majority of mutations, up to 99 percent, are either slightly deleterious or lethal. As a result, if evolution is actually occurring, it is going backwards, a process called devolution.

Chapter 2 The Demise of the Spontaneous Generation Belief and Modern Attempts to Resurrect It

The belief in spontaneous generation of life is traced from the early Greeks to today. Until fairly recently this idea was almost universally accepted in the West, at least for so-called lower life-forms. The experiments of Pasteur, Redi, and others were critical in demonstrating that spontaneous generation cannot occur. Nonetheless, Darwinists today assume that some form of spontaneous generation must have occurred in the far distant past, even though they agree that it does not occur today. A review of this history is important in understanding how critical values and belief structures are in influencing what is accepted as scientific or true. Even though there exists no empirical evidence that spontaneous generation can occur today, or could have ever occurred, the debate still continues today, albeit in a different form.

Chapter 3. Research Falsifies Abiogenesis

Abiogenesis is the theory that, under the proper conditions, life can arise spontaneously from non-living molecules. One of the most widely cited research studies used to support this conclusion is the now-famous Miller-Urey experiments. Textbook surveys reveal that these studies are the major research cited to prove abiogenesis. Although widely heralded for decades in textbooks and the popular press, proving that life originated on the early Earth solely by natural conditions, it is now documented that the 1953 Miller-Urey experiments provide compelling evidence for exactly the opposite conclusion. This research has done more to document that abiogenesis on Earth is not possible than to indicate how it could be possible. This chapter reviews some of the many major problems with this and other research that has attempted to demonstrate a feasible abiogenesis method on the early Earth.

Chapter 4: The Exobiogenesis and Panspermia Theories of Life’s Origins

Many evolutionists have concluded that all existing naturalistic origin-of-life theories on Earth are untenable. Consequently, some prominent evolutionists have hypothesized an alternate origin-of-life theory called panspermia or exobiogenesis. This theory postulates that life first evolved elsewhere in the universe and was somehow transported to Earth. Those who reject both the theistic worldview, and the possibility of abiogenesis on the ancient Earth, must assume that a set of conditions existed elsewhere in the solar system, or the universe, that were more favorable for life’s origin, or at least the origin of complex biological molecules.

Recognizing that conditions on Earth historically precluded the spontaneous origin of life necessitates exploring exobiogenesis in order to maintain a naturalistic worldview. This view has also motivated the reintroduction of an intelligent design theory called directed panspermia. Nowhere does the literature reveal as vividly the impossibility of a naturalistic origin of life on the Earth than in this field. The fact that an entirely hypothetical scenario has been proposed that is supported by virtually no empirical evidence forces a review of the major exobiogenesis theories.

Chapter 5: Evolution: Progressive or Degenerative? The Mutation Problem

The published literature on the evidence for a mutational meltdown of life is reviewed. Although only a relatively small percent of all mutations are detrimental enough to cause disease, the total number occurring in each generation is significant. It was once concluded that the vast majority of all mutations were neutral, but evidence now exists that indicates very few mutations are truly neutral, most are near neutral. Clearly negative or harmful mutations are often effectively eliminated from the gene pool, and consequently it is the near-neutral mutations that are causing mutational meltdown and death. Depending on the specific set of mutations, near-neutral mutations must accumulate to a certain level before they are collectively lethal.

The accumulation of mutations is a major problem for Darwinism because the large number of near-neutral mutations that are not readily selected out of the gene pool accumulate in each generation, eventually causing extinction. Mutations, rather than being the engine that drives evolution upward, are, instead, causing degeneration of the genome. As predicted by the Creation model, what genetic variation is occurring is causing change the wrong way. The evidence and the reasons why mutations are accumulating in the human genome are discussed in some detail in this chapter.

Chapter 6: Natural Selection Personified

The term natural selection is used by Darwinists to describe what genes, individual organisms, or groups of organisms, are able, or unable, to succeed through the influences of chance and unforeseen circumstances. Some animals survive to reproduce, others do not. Many reasons besides survival skills explain why this is, including genes, chance, and especially luck. As some naturalists argue, a more accurate term for survival-of-the-fittest may be survival-of-the-luckiest.

Chapter 7: Biological Problems of Natural Selection Theory

The many difficulties with natural selection as a force for progressive evolution are reviewed, including the problem of extrapolating generalizations from research on artificial selection to the macroevolution postulated by Darwinism. Using evolutionary criteria, the existing hierarchy of life is frequently the reverse of that expected by evolution theory; many animals that are lower on the evolutionary scale often reproduce in greater numbers, and, as a whole, were more resistant to environmental variations. Individual survival after birth tends to be the result of good genes and chance, although survival of the fittest will reduce the mutation accumulation by eliminating primarily the sick and deformed.

Environmental variations believed to cause evolution—temperature, other animal populations, and the surrounding plant life, all of which in most locations have been fairly stable for eons—can effect only a very limited degree and type of change. The natural selection hypothesis also involves circular reasoning; an extant species survived because it was more fit than its competitors, and must be more fit because it has out-survived its competitors. The commonality of overdesign, or the existence of complex mechanisms that have very little, if any, effect on survival, but may add to the quality of life, also creates severe problems for the natural selection explanation for evolution.

Chapter 8: Attempts to Rank Animals by an Evolutionary Scale

All attempts to rank life by evolution from highest, such as the primates, to the lowest, such as worms or bacteria, have failed. Many animals at the high end are threatened with extinction, and those at the low end are, from an evolutionary standpoint, doing very well. Modern extinction and threatened extinction trends reveal a pattern that tends to be the opposite of that predicted by evolution. Evolution predicts that natural selection would evolve higher, more complex, better-adapted organisms that would be less likely to become extinct. Furthermore, natural selection would not predict the enormous variety of living organisms existing today. Instead, evolution would favor simple organisms, such as bacteria, that are able to produce large numbers of offspring and can adapt to an enormously wide variety of environments. It would not favor so-called higher organisms such as mammals, that produce comparatively little variety, and many of which are now extinct or threatened with extinction.

Chapter 9: Sexual Selection Theory and Neo-Darwinism

Sexual selection is a process whereby organisms can directly influence each other’s evolution by selecting certain traits in their mates. As a result, these traits will be more likely to be passed on to their offspring. Darwin concluded that sexual selection played a major role in evolution and cited numerous examples. A review of this theory, and especially Darwin’s examples, indicates that it has a limited and, at most, minor role in altering gene frequencies. Evolution theory also has failed to explain the origin of sexual dimorphism. The Creationist model proposes that the sexes were designed to be different, but also designed to be physically and mentally compatible. For humans, a more harmonious physical and mental relationship will result if the couple lives in harmony with the physical and mental constraints existing in the design of the sexes.

Chapter 10: The Problem of Extinction and Natural Selection

The problem of animal extinction is reviewed, finding that the literature shows little evidence to conclude that extinction occurs because of Darwinian evolution, i.e., the least fit are more apt to become extinct than the more fit life-forms. Researchers have been able to document few consistent differences in the biological fitness of animals that have become extinct compared to those that have not. A clear tendency exists for the so-called higher organisms to become extinct, as shown by endangered species lists and a study of animals that have become extinct in recent history. As far as is known, most animal types that have become extinct in the past are generally not less fit than the surviving types, and are very similar to many extant types. Most differences found are often irrelevant to survival. The reasons for extinction are either chance or unknown, and not a pruning of inferior species as natural selection predicts.

Chapter 11: Do Only the Fittest and Strongest Survive in Nature?

Numerous examples are listed to document the fact that chance is critically important in survival. It is often not the fastest or strongest animals that survive so-called natural selection, but more often the luckiest ones. Those that perish were often living in the wrong place in the wrong time, and those that survive were at the right place at the right time.

Chapter 12: The Importance of Chance and Cooperation in Survival

Studies have confirmed that by far the most important factor that determines if a specific animal is eaten (or eats) is chance, not superiority as Darwin and modern evolutionary theory teaches. An anteater throws his sticky tongue out to catch a few ants. Those that do not escape its tongue are usually not the ones that run the fastest or can hide the most effectively, or are stronger, bigger, or have the worst taste, but those who happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. The same is true of the antelope that is not eaten by the lion or the rabbit that is not eaten by the wolf.

Chapter13 : Some Conclusions

This brief chapter attempts to tie all the 12 previous chapters together and document the fact that the three pillars of evolution not only fail to support the theory, but actually falsify it. The theory not only lacks evidence, but clear scientific evidence exists against the theory.

The separation of state and church must be complemented by the separation of state and science, that most recent, most aggressive, and most dogmatic religious institution.

— PAUL K. FEYERABEND

Against Method: Outline of an Anarchistic

Theory of Knowledge (1975), 295.

INTRODUCTION

BY THEODORE J. SIEK, PH.D.

For over forty years, Dr. Jerry Bergman has chronicled the weakness and absence of evidence supporting the theory of evolution, commonly called Darwinism, Neo-Darwinism or simply evolution. Today, when professors, teachers, and the general public refer to evolution, they generally imply a process starting from simple chemicals which then formed amino acids, the building blocks of proteins, and eventually—through a long chain of random, fortuitous events—humans arrived on Earth. Evolution theory on Earth today depends heavily on three pillars: 1) chemical evolution or abiogenesis, 2) mutations to provide the raw material of evolution, and 3) natural selection to select advantageous traits provided by random mutations. This book documents that these three pillars of evolution are not based on empirical scientific evidence, rather they are disproved by scientific evidence.

In 1963, after completing my Ph.D. thesis in biochemistry at Oregon State University (OSU), I experienced pressure to conform to evolutionary explanations for everything in the material universe. I wrote an unpublished paper in which I documented some of the evidence against chemical evolution from the view of an organic chemist and biochemist. A few years earlier, I had obtained my M.S. degree in organic chemistry from Washington State University and relied on my academic studies in making my case. I had also heard both Francis Crick, famous for his DNA structure discovery, lecture on-campus and biochemist Sydney Fox, who experimented on protein synthesis under natural environments speak at OSU.

Since I was a member of the Lutheran Church, and my pastor accepted an historical Genesis, I was motivated to investigate the neo-Darwinian view of mutations and natural selection as the explanation for all life. After hearing these notable speakers and some of my accomplished and knowledgeable professors tout the validity of Neo-Darwinism, I realized an intellectual conflict existed, and would need to investigate origins-based science. Although I met individual Christians who found the Scriptures (especially Genesis) and Neo-Darwinism compatible, I was unable because these two explanations of the origin of species are very different, and I could not logically blend them into one worldview.

About that time, Dr. Everett C. Olsen, a geologist and editor of the journal Evolution, wrote:

There are still some among biologists who feel that much of the fabric of theory accepted by the majority today is actually false and say so....For the most part, the opinions of the dissenters have been given little credence. ...There exists as well, a generally silent group of students who tend to disagree with much of the current thought but say little. Right or wrong as such opinion may be, its existence is important and cannot be ignored or eliminated as a force in the study of evolution.¹

Part of the silent group undoubtedly includes many Christians as well as those in science who intuitively realize that mutations aren’t what they must be (namely mostly positive), that natural selection is nothing but a magic wand, and that evolution is statistically impossible.

Jerry Bergman begins this book with a close look at abiogenesis (also called chemical evolution), an obligatory part of a completely materialistic worldview. Chemistry must first become biology before mutations and natural selection could occur since chemistry could not have beneficial traits until it became life that could come under the pressure of natural selection. Without life, natural selection is a meaningless term. Charles Darwin could theorize about evolution only after life had begun. This new layer of speculation about evolution before life appeared especially attracted academia due to a 1936 book by Russian communist, A. I. Oparin, The Origin of Life.²

In the 1960s, after the much-publicized Stanley Miller and Harold Urey experiments on the possibilities of chemical evolution, many biologists and biochemists added to the speculation. Howard Pattee began an article in Biophysics by noting that the

order found in biological macromolecules is not adequately explained solely as an accumulation of genetic restriction acquired through natural selection from otherwise unrestricted primeval sequences capable of self-replication, since the number of sequences that could have been tested by selection on Earth is an insignificant fraction of the number of sequences which would be possible. Therefore, the hypothesis is considered that replication and selection began from well-ordered sequences.³

Translation: Evolution by natural selection doesn’t work, so Professor Howard Pattee proposed a stacked deck, a pre-arranged order, in order to get chemical evolution underway.⁴ Individuals and laboratory groups ignored the obvious impossibility of chemical evolution and proposed ways to work around the obvious barriers to this necessary segment of a godless theory of evolution. Theistic evolution would soon be making more concessions to a completely atheistic explanation of just about everything. As noted evolutionist the late Cornell Professor William Provine wrote, "One can have a religious view that is compatible with [Darwinian] evolution only if the religious view is indistinguishable from atheism."⁵ In order to make evolution universally complete and comprehensive, the transition of life from non-life must first have occurred.

In my study from an organic chemist/biochemist perspective, I recognized major barriers to comprehensive evolution, particularly chemical evolution. In graduate school, another student synthesized a simple four amino acid peptide in a specific order that required several months. His synthetic organic chemistry required purified chemicals from chemical supply houses, specially designed glassware, active isolation of the reactants, and control of the temperature of reaction and the recovery of the desired product.

None of these requirements would be present at the proposed chemical evolution event without numerous experimental controls. Stanley Miller did not just throw some chemicals into a pond, but rather carefully orchestrated the reactants, the vessel for the reaction, and the time and temperatures at which to stop and isolate the products—a completely artificial and designed experiment. At that time, knowing that oxygen would consume any organics formed, evolutionists speculated that oxygen gas could not be close to 21 percent of the atmosphere, as is true today, rather it was almost completely absent.

4[C3H5O2 NH2 + 3.75 O2] 40003.png 4[3CO2 + 0.5N2 + 3.5H2O]

Oxidation of the amino acid, alanine.

For the Miller experiment to work, oxygen must be excluded. However, Florkin and Mason in Unity and Diversity in Biochemistry noted that the study of geological rocks does not show any marked variation in the oxide content of the geological layers.⁶ A particular objection to an oxygen-free atmosphere is that, without atmospheric oxygen, an ozone layer to absorb the high energy cosmic radiation sufficient to photolyze water would also not exist. The presence of an oxygen atmosphere was thus inescapable in the early Earth.

Cosmic Radiation + 2H2O 42402.png 2H2 + O2

and also

Cosmic Radiation + CO2 + H2O 42405.png HCHO + O2

The cosmic radiation from the sun would not be blocked by ozone, and thus would break chemical bonds including C – C bonds, C – N bonds, and C – O bonds, preventing the formation of even the simplest amino acids. Miller’s experiment (discussed in chapters 3 and 4) was not realistic however although it has now been abandoned by those in the field, it still featured in biochemistry and biology textbooks. Miller and Urey’s acclaimed experiment has also been attempted with other gases. In 1960 Sydney Fox⁷ reported experiments heating L-glutamic acid (note that he starts with a synthetic chiral amino acid) with D, L-aspartic acid at 180o C. By careful timing of the length of the reaction, he was able to recover 0.1% to 3% proteinoids which were unlike naturally-produced proteins that contain up to 60 or more linked amino acids.⁷

Abiogenesis comes down to the question, What is life? Definitions differ but usually list basic properties of life without defining life. Some examples include: Life is to be understood in the terms of the coordinated interaction of large and small molecules. Other definitions⁸ are: Life is the ability to reverse and keep entropy in check for a limited time (Schroedinger); Life is a network of feedback mechanisms (B. Korzeniewski); Life is a self-sustaining chemical system capable of Darwinian evolution (G. Joyce of NASA). These are not really definitions of life, but statements of the attributes of life and convictions in a process of evolution starting with no life and just the right conditions for life to emerge. Accepting these materialistic characterizations of life leads to the definition of life by atheist Paul J. Sartre: Life is the pleasant temporary interruption of endless non-existence.

Biologists are very adept at noting the abilities of all life-forms but have been unable to produce in the laboratory (in vitro) even a single gene. Craig Venter succeeded in synthesizing a short RNA chain and inserting it into a micro-organism which successfully added this short piece of RNA to the in vivo RNA. In other words, one of the thousands of in vivo reactions was in some sense synthetically duplicated.

My 1963 paper was very useful to help me come to the realization that biochemistry, biology, and all the sciences do not depend on evolutionary theory being true. No scientist needs to accept comprehensive evolution to make discoveries in any field touching on biology. The one exception today is teaching biology, as professors are generally compelled to adhere to consensus science to retain teaching positions in public education. This is the shameful situation now existing in the United States and most of Europe—only materialistic explanations are allowed regarding origins. In this book, Dr. Bergman discusses barriers to evolution and that even those committed to materialism know that their theory is a house of cards that will not hold up to close scrutiny.

Nevertheless, for the most part, academics today will not tolerate challenges to evolution. It is acceptable to have many kinds of variations in explaining mutations and natural selection, but not acceptable to have a view on the origin of life other than a dogmatic materialist one. Origin-of-life chemistry proposals continue to be offered because the dedication to 100 percent material causes cannot allow a divine foot in the door.

A common approach in papers on biology, biochemistry, and medicine is to present the details of how something happens, and then conjure up some imagined connection of how the finding supports,