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Needless to say, no Darwinist would accept terms like "magic" | TWO FOR THE PRICE OF ONE or "miracle", which would be tantamount to agreeing with the The imposing edifice of Darwinian "origin of life" dogma rested Creationist argument that "God did it all". But in their heart-of- on a piece of incontrovertible bedrock: there could be only one hearts, even the most fanatical Darwinists had to suspect the rogenitor for all of life. When the fortuitous lightning bolt struck "warm pond" theory was absurd. the ideally concocted warm pond, it created only one entity. And as more and more was learned about the mind-boggling However, it was no ordinary entity. With it came the multiple complexity of cellular structure and chemistry, there could be no ability to take nourishment from its environment, create energy doubt. The trenchant Fred Hoyle analogy still stands: it was as from that nourishment, expel waste created by the use of that likely to be true as that a tornado could sweep through a junkyard energy and (almost as an afterthought) reproduce itself ad and correctly assemble a jetliner. infinitum until one of its millions of subsequent generations sits Unfortunately, the "warm pond" had become a counterbalance ere at this moment reading these words. Nothing miraculous to "God did it", so even when Darwinists knew past doubt that it about that; simply incalculable good fortune. was wrong, they clung to it, outwardly proclaimed it and taught it. This was Darwinist gospel—preached and believed—until the In many places in the world, including the USA, it's still taught. acteria fossils were found in the cratons. Their discovery was upsetting, but not a deathblow to the Darwinist theory. They had TOO HOT TO HANDLE to concede (among themselves, of course) that the first life-form The next jarring bump on the Darwinist road to embattlement didn't assemble itself in a warm pond, but it came together came when they learned that in certain places around the globe somehow because every ancient fossil it spawned was a single- there existed remnants of what had to be the very first pieces of the celled bacteria lacking a cell nucleus (prokaryotes). Prokaryotes Earth's crust. Those most ancient slabs of rock are called cratons, preceded the much later single-celled bacteria with a nucleus and the story of their survival for 4.0 billion [4,000,000,000] years (eukaryotes), so the post-craton situation stayed well within the is a miracle in itself. But what is most miraculous about them is Darwinian framework. No matter how the first life-form came that they contain fossils of "primitive" bacteria! Yes, bacteria, into existence, it was a single unit lacking a cell nucleus, which preserved in 4.0-billion-year-old was mandatory because even the cratonal rock. If that's not primitive, simplest nucleus would be much too what is? However, it presented "irreducibly complex" (a favourite Darwinists with an embarrassing Intelligent Design phrase) to be conundrum. . . created by a lightning bolt tearing If Earth began to coalesce out of But In their heart-of-hearts, through a warm pond's molecular the solar system's primordial cloud of even the most fanatical junkyard. So the Darwinists still held dust and gas around 4.5 billion years wo. half a loaf. ago (which by then was a well- Darwinists had to suspect In the mid-1980s, however, biolo- supported certainty), then at 4.0 the "warm pond" theory gist Carl Woese stunned his col- billion years ago the proto-planet leagues with a shattering discovery. was still a seething ball of cooling was absurd. There wasn't just the predicted (and magma. No warm ponds would essential) single source for all forms appear on Earth for at least a billion of life; there were two: two types of years or more. So how to reconcile prokaryotic bacteria as distinct as reality with the warm-pond fantasy? apples and oranges, dogs and cats, There was no way to reconcile it, horses and cows...two distinct forms so it was ignored by all but the specialists who had to work with it of life, alive and well on the planet at 4.0 billion years ago. on a daily basis. Every other Darwinist assumed a position as one Unmistakable. Irrefutable. Get over it. Deal with it. of the "see no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil" monkeys. To say But how? How to explain separate forms of life springing into they "withheld" the new, damaging information is not true; to say existence in an environment that would make hell seem like a sum- it was never emphasised in the popular media for public consump- mer resort? With nothing but cooling lava as far as an incipient tion is true. eye might have seen, how could it be explained in "natural" terms? That has become the way Darwinists handle any and all chal- Indeed, how could it be explained in any terms other than the total- lenges to their pet theories: if they can no longer defend one, they ly unacceptable? Life, with all its deepening mystery, had to have don't talk about it, or they talk about it as little as possible. If been seeded onto Earth. forced to talk about it, they invariably try to "kill the messenger" by challenging any critic's "credentials". If the critic lacks acade- | PANSPERMIA RAISES ITS UGLY HEAD mic credentials equal to their own, he or she is dismissed as little Panspermia is the idea that life came to be on Earth from some- more than a crackpot. If the critic has equal credentials, he or she where beyond the planet and possibly beyond the solar system. Its is labelled as a "closet Creationist" and dismissed. No career sci- means of delivery is separated into two possible avenues: directed entist can speak openly and vociferously against Darwinist dogma and undirected. without paying a heavy price. That is why and how people of nor- Undirected panspermia means that life came here entirely by mally good conscience can be and have been "kept in line" and accident and was delivered by a comet or meteor. Some scientists kept silent in the face of egregious distortions of truth. favour comets as the prime vector because they contain ice mixed If that system of merciless censure weren't so solidly in place, with dust (comets are often referred to as "dirty snowballs"), and then surely the next Darwinist stumble would have made headlines life is more likely to have originated in water and is more likely to around the world as the final and absolute end to the ridiculous survive an interstellar journey frozen. Other scientists favour notion that life could possibly have assembled itself "naturally". asteroids as the delivery mechanism because they are more likely They couldn't even be sure it happened on Earth. to have come from the body of a planet that would have contained Needless to say, no Darwinist would accept terms like "magic" or "miracle", which would be tantamount to agreeing with the Creationist argument that "God did it all". But in their heart-of- hearts, even the most fanatical Darwinists had to suspect the "warm pond" theory was absurd. And as more and more was learned about the mind-boggling complexity of cellular structure and chemistry, there could be no doubt. The trenchant Fred Hoyle analogy still stands: it was as likely to be true as that a tornado could sweep through a junkyard and correctly assemble a jetliner. Unfortunately, the "warm pond" had become a counterbalance to "God did it", so even when Darwinists knew past doubt that it was wrong, they clung to it, outwardly proclaimed it and taught it. In many places in the world, including the USA, it's still taught. But in their heart-of-hearts, _even the most fanatical the "warm pond" theory was absurd. PANSPERMIA RAISES ITS UGLY HEAD Panspermia is the idea that life came to be on Earth from some- where beyond the planet and possibly beyond the solar system. Its means of delivery is separated into two possible avenues: directed and undirected. Undirected panspermia means that life came here entirely by accident and was delivered by a comet or meteor. Some scientists favour comets as the prime vector because they contain ice mixed with dust (comets are often referred to as "dirty snowballs"), and life is more likely to have originated in water and is more likely to survive an interstellar journey frozen. Other scientists favour asteroids as the delivery mechanism because they are more likely to have come from the body of a planet that would have contained 50 = NEXUS Darwinists had to suspect www.nexusmagazine.com DECEMBER 2002 — JANUARY 2003