Origin of Life and Species

The formulas given in this section are those often used by Prof. Wilder-Smith when lecturing on the differences
between the creationist’s and the evolutionist’s views about the origin of life and species.

The Origin of Life

Evolution:        M + T + E = L (Matter + Time + Energy = Life)
This formula expresses the chemical-evolution view described in the preceding section. In no way could it ever
result in the production of an organism capable of diagnosing, repairing, and reproducing itself simply because
creative power does not reside in matter and energy in chemistry and physics. Chemical evolution is “an attempt
to explain the origin of life from matter and energy without the aid of know-how, concept, teleonomy, or
exogenous (extra-material) information. It represents an attempt to explain the formation of the genetic code
from the chemical components of DNA without the aid of a genetic concept (information) originating outside the
molecules of the chromosomes. This is comparable to the assumption that the text of a book originates from the
paper molecules on which the sentences appear, and not from any external source of information (external, that
is, to the paper molecules).” 1

Creation:        M + T + E + I = L (Matter + Time + Energy + Intelligence/Information = Life)
This formula does lead to the creation of life because it contains the ingredient which is absolutely essential,
namely, intelligence/information which comes from a source outside of matter. Initially, at the beginning of the
world, this was a divine Being — God, the Creator. It was He Who designed the DNA molecule and imposed
upon it all the information necessary for cells and organisms to do what they do.
Genetic information does not reside in matter by nature; it is something which must be imposed upon matter by
an outside intelligence. Just as a computer must be built and programmed by someone for it to do what it does,
so the biological program or information present chemically on the genes of organisms had to have been
composed by some intelligence, namely, the Creator. It is the presence or absence of the “I” factor which deter
mines whether matter becomes living or remains inanimate. The cell, like a machine, is a thought expressed in
matter.

It is to be understood that in the two formulas given above, the “T” or time factor is not identical in meaning. In
the case of the evolution formula, time is understood as a period of millions of years. In the creation formula —
as in Genesis 1 — time is practically instantaneous. An all-knowing, highly intelligent, all-powerful God is
capable of accomplishing His purposes instantly, as, for example, when Christ suddenly multiplied bread and fish
to feed thousands of people.

The Origin of Species

The origin of species as it is used here has reference to the origin of the various kinds of organisms which
existed in the past and those which exist at present. Biblically, living things exist according to created “kinds,”
that is, according to certain types or categories. In terms of evolutionary theory, however, all forms of life are
said to have evolved from common ancestors, ultimately from some primitive biological cell.

Evolution:        PC + T + E + M/NS = S (Primitive cell + Time + Energy + Mutation/Natural selection =
Speciation)

This formula, like the previous evolutionary one, is unworkable for two reasons. On the basis of evolutionary
mechanisms, there could never have been a “primitive cell” in the first place for reasons mentioned earlier.
Secondly, there is no provision for the intelligence/information factor.

To obtain new types of organisms, it is necessary to pre-program the genes so that organisms possessing
multiple specific features will be produced.

It is the information on the DNA molecule which determines whether a crocodile, cauliflower, or person will come
into existence; and that information is imposed by an intelligence external to the chemicals constituting the DNA.
“Information theory requires a programmer to account for the increasing complexity of the whole program of
evolution. The theory as it stands provides for no information source to account for the increasing complexity.
Yet it is perfectly clear today that life shows the most complex programs conceivable.” 2

The findings of molecular biology militate against the origin of species from a common ancestor. “It is now well
established that the pattern of diversity at a molecular level conforms to a highly ordered hierarchic system.
Each class at a molecular level is unique, isolated and unlinked by intermediates. Thus molecules, like fossils,
have failed to provide the elusive intermediates so long sought by evolutionary biology. Again, the only relation
ships identified by this new technique are sisterly. At a molecular level, no organism is ‘ancestral’ or ‘primitive’ or
‘advanced’ compared with its relatives. Nature seems to conform to the same non-evolutionary and intensely
circumferential pattern that was long ago perceived by the great comparative anatomists of the nineteenth
century.” 3

Creation:        BC + T + E + I = S (Biological cell + Time + Energy + Intelligence/Information = Speciation)
According to the biblical view of origins, the various categories of living things are what they are because an
intelligent Creator not only designed them as distinct beings, but also because He built into their genetic
structure — their cells — the specific information which causes each particular kind of organism to reproduce
according to its kind. Speciation, like life, requires a Creator.

Information: A Product of Intelligence

That information is generated by intelligence can be seen by comparing a camera with an eye. A camera has
the capability of making pictures because intelligent people build that capability into it; its internally stored
information, such as a properly ground lens, is imposed upon matter externally. The information in the lens of an
eye, however, is much greater than that in the lens of a camera, since its lens has the capability of changing
form in focusing. The eye’s capability of focusing automatically — generation after generation — is an internal
feature which resides, in the last analysis, in genes. Genetic information, just like the information imposed
externally by people on the matter which comprises a camera, also must come from a source external to the
genes themselves. Just as the project-making ability of a camera (that of making pictures) is rooted in human
intelligence, so the project-making ability of genes (that of making eyes and vision) is grounded in a
supernatural intelligence.

Information presupposes intelligence, and it always arises out of intelligence — human in the case of a camera,
supernatural in the case of the genes. Information never arises by chance spontaneously. Thus, in terms of
logic alone, the information in genes points to the existence of an intelligent Being Who transcends our
time/mass/space dimension of reality.

“The information on the camera is vastly less in degree than the information residing on a gene, so that an
origin in chance for the gene information is far less likely than for the camera. Cameras could arise by chance
far more easily than genes, but do they?” 4 LSI

References

1. Wilder-Smith, A. E., The Natural Sciences Know Nothing of Evolution (Master Books, 1981), p. 4.
2. Wilder-Smith, A., The Creation of Life (Master Books, 1970), p. 244.
3. Denton, Michael. Evolution: A Theory in Crisis (Adler & Adler, 1985) p. 290.
4. Wilder-Smith, A. E., God: To Be or Not To Be? (Tekis-International, Stuttgart, 1975), p. 71.