http://apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=12&article=1127
Are Diamonds “Life’s Best Friend”?
| by | Kyle Butt, M.Div. |
The theory of organic evolution is fraught with irreconcilable errors. One of the foremost is the fact that evolution demands that living organisms arose from non-living, inorganic chemicals. As all origin-of-life researchers are well aware, this idea flies in the face of the Law of Biogenesis, the most experimentally substantiated biological law in the history of science. Be that as it may, evolutionists continue their futile efforts to explain how life could have arisen from primitive, non-living substances.
According to three German scientists from the University of Ulm, diamonds most likely helped get life off the ground. In an article reporting on the work, Robert Britt stated:
Diamonds are crystallized forms of carbon that predate the oldest known life on the planet. In lab experiments aimed to confirm work done more than three decades ago, researchers found that when treated with hydrogen, natural diamonds formed crystalline layers of water on the surface. Water is essential for life as we know it. Also, the tests found electrical conductivity that could have been key to forcing chemical reactions needed to generate the first birth (2008).
Those who read Britt’s article are struck by the numerous qualifying statements such as “diamondsmay have been,” “the resulting reaction may have been,” and “the new research does not conclusively determine how life began” (emp. added). Such qualifying statements are certainly needed in light of the “evidence” that is presented. Supposedly diamonds would have made a good platform for life because they can form layers of water and can possess electrical conductivity. Yet, in labs all across the globe for the past 50 years, scientists have been able to work with an endless supply of water and electricity and still have not produced life from non-life—as if water and conductivity are equivalent to life production.
Furthermore, diamonds supposedly “predate the oldest known life forms” on Earth. The ancient age of diamonds, however, has fallen upon very hard times. In 2005, Donald DeYoung published results from a team research project referred to as RATE. The name RATE is an acronym for Radioisotopes and the Age of The Earth. This team of scientists studied 12 diamond samples, each about 50 milligrams in weight. If diamonds are as old as suggested, they certainly would not contain any traces of Carbon-14, since C-14 should have escaped from the samples billions of years ago. After closely analyzing the samples, however, Carbon-14 was present in every one. DeYoung wrote: “The presence of C-14 in ‘very old’ fossils, rocks, coal, and diamond samples is clearly a major conflict with the long-age time scale” (2005, p. 56, emp. added).
Britt appropriately included in his brief article the fact that some scientists postulate the idea of panspermia, in which aliens allegedly seeded planet Earth with life. In truth, there is as much evidence for little green men dropping off packets of bacteria as there is that life spontaneously generated on the surface of a diamond. All such concepts are devoid of experimental verification. The presence of life on this Earth is not a scientific mystery that remains to be solved. It is a historic occurrence that most elementary school children can explain: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth” (Genesis 1:1), including all kinds of living organisms.
REFERENCES
Britt, Robert Roy (2008), “Diamonds May Have Jumpstarted Life on Earth,” LiveScience.com, [On-line], URL: http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20080726/sc_livescience/ diamondsmayhavejumpstartedlifeonearth.
DeYoung, Don (2005), Thousands...Not Billions (Green Forest, AR: Master Books).