Volume 1, Number 5, September/October, 1996
A bimonthly newsletter of the Creation Research Society.
Contents
Was There Really Life on Mars?
The Martian Meteorite Aftermath in England
Was Mars "Infected" by Life from Earth?
Creation Calendar
Was There Really Life on Mars?
Todd Wood
I first heard the news at about 6:00 am, the morning of August 7, when my alarm clock woke me to NPR's Morning Edition. "NASA scientists will announce at a news conference today that evidence of past life on Mars has been discovered." The broadcast went on to briefly describe the evidence that these scientists had uncovered as well as reactions by other scientists and government officials. My initial reaction was very cynical. I found the whole scenario to be far-fetched, and I thought the evidence as I understood it at the time was flimsy. I think the thing that bothered me the most was that the Science article hadn't even been published yet. In the scientific realm, publication is a critical step to confirmation of the findings of any research group. Parading your conclusions in front of the press before that publication is complete is something of a breach of standard procedure.
For those of you who might have missed all the broadcasts and newspaper articles (although I don't know how), here's a quick synopsis: Scientists have discovered a meteorite in Antarctica that they believe came from Mars. Inside it they discovered
'globules' that look like fossil bacteria and a class of organic compounds called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). At the time, I thought my skepticism was justified since the whole idea of a piece of Mars being blown off and traveling to earth sounded like bad science fiction. The presence of PAHs was also unremarkable, since many meteorites are known to have these compounds present in them when they fall to earth. All in all, I thought it was unconvincing.
As soon as I could, I read the article that was published in the journal Science, and I changed my mind; but only a little. The authors of the article explained that there were several pieces of evidence that supported their conclusions regarding this past life on Mars, not just the structures that looked like bacteria and the presence of PAHs. First, they cited the conclusion that the meteorite was from Mars. Second, inside the meteorite, globules that were similar in appearance to fossil bacteria from earth were found. Third, these globules had substances in them called magnetite and iron sulfide, in addition to PAHs. The authors admitted that there were alternative explanations for any one of the phenomena they wrote about, but that taken together, these characteristics were difficult to explain without the presence of living organisms.
Is this Rock Really From Mars?
I was mildly surprised to see in the article that this particular meteorite, ALH84001, already had several articles published about it. In fact, this meteorite is onerepresentative of a class of rocks known as the Shergotty-Nakhla-Chassigny class of meteorites. The study that attempted to determine the origin of thesemeteorites was conducted and published elsewhere, so I was not able to evaluate the actual study. The authors did, however, describe the evidence for the Martian origin in an endnote. They explained that gasses trapped inside of "glassy inclusions" in these rocks have a composition very similar to the composition of the atmosphere on Mars, measured directly by the Viking landers. This was described by the authors as "remarkable." I also found this remarkable, since the rock was allegedly 4.5 billion years old. Evolutionists who study the origin of life on earth from lifeless chemicals tell us that the atmosphere of earth at the origin of life was very different than it is today. Why, then, should we expect that a rock formed on Mars at the same time should have a gas composition exactly the same as the atmosphere of Mars today? Why is it that we are told that the atmosphere of the earth has changed so drastically in those intervening "billions" of years, but the atmosphere of Mars has not? I do not believe that this is a fatal flaw to the argument of Martian origin, but I do think it is curious.
The Carbonate Globules
Many meteorites, Martian and otherwise, have carbon residues in them. One meteorite that fell in Australia, now known as the Murchison meteorite, is famous for that very reason. Studies of that meteorite have identified many organic compounds that apparently originated from chemical reactions in space. What makes this Martian meteorite special is the fact that the carbonates are clumped together into globules that look superficially like fossilized bacteria. These globules are observed by splitting the meteorite along fractures in the rock. As I mentioned before, the age of the meteorite was given as 4.5 billion years, and the age of the globules was given as 3.6 billion years. Since I really know very little about isotope chemistry and the dating method was not even identified in the Science paper, I won't comment on these dates. I was able to satisfy myself that the ÏrelativeÓ age of the globules to the meteorite was reasonable; that is, it is likely that the globules are younger than the meteorite itself. The globules were only found within existing fissures in the meteorite. Within those fissures, the globules themselves were not spherical but pancake-shaped, indicating that whatever caused them to form was limited spatially by the walls of the crevice.
It is the origin of these globules that is the most critical to the argument for past Martian life. Are these globules the result of past life? Did that life originate on Mars? I don't believe the evidence is conclusive at this time. On one hand, the average terrestrial formations that are interpreted as fossil bacteria are ten times larger than these globules. Carbon isotope studies of these globules that look at the content of stable carbon-13 indicate that the globules are probably not terrestrial, and other meteorites recovered from the same area in Antarctica show no such globules. Taken together these observations would seem to indicate that the globules were not formed on earth. On the other hand, lack of proof of a terrestrial origin does not necessarily demonstrate conclusively that the globules formed on Mars. There are many factors in this scenario that could have caused some strange chemical reactions. Remember that the rock was supposed to have been ejected from the surface of Mars by some kind of impact event there in the distant past. To attain the speed necessary to escape Mars' gravitational pull, the impact event must have been colossal and could certainly have caused all kinds of chemical reactions. Upon entering our atmosphere, the rock would have been subjected to extreme heat as it plunged to the surface, a condition that would also be favorable for chemical reactions.
Magnetite, Iron Sulfide, and PAHs
These globules are not merely composed of carbonate. They also contain other substances that could be interpreted as indicating a biological origin. Iron sulfide and magnetite have been known to be formed by terrestrial bacteria. Magnetite has also been discovered in rock layers and has been interpreted as a sign of biological activity. The presence of both iron sulfide and magnetite is unusual since the conditions that cause these substances to form are unfavorable for the formation of carbonate, in which these substances are found. This apparent contradiction could be explained by a biological origin, but the authors also admit that more complex non-biological explanations could be devised.
The other substances discovered in these globules were the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). For those of you who might be wondering what a PAH is, an example of a PAH is naphthalene, the substance that makes up moth balls. Of course, there are many other kinds of PAHs in addition to just naphthalene, and many of these PAHs can be found in meteorites. What makes these particular PAHs special is that they are chemically simple. Other PAHs found in meteorites have complex chemical structures. Furthermore, the globules have only a very few specific PAHs, while other meteorites have diverse mixtures. Could these PAHs have come from terrestrial contamination? Possibly, but that option is not likely. Again, it is not merely the presence of the PAHs that makes them special, but their specific composition. In the globules, the concentrations of the PAHs are up to a million times greater than PAH pollution measured in Greenland ice cores. The composition and structures of the PAHs in the globules is also very different from typical terrestrial contamination. The authors still admit that it is possible for a non-biological origin to be devised to explain the presence of these particular PAHs.
Other Reactions
Not all scientists greeted this paper with open arms. J. William Schopf is a professor of paleobiology and director of the Center for the Study of Evolution and the Origin of Life at UCLA. He stated, in an article in the Omaha World Herald, that the evidences used by the NASA group to argue for Martian life would not be conclusive evidence even in an earth rock. Hubert Yockey, an information theorist, also criticized the study, pointing out that the carbon isotope ratios in the carbonate were no different from inorganic carbon. Finally, Jim Papike and Chip Shearer, researchers at the University of New Mexico, conducted a study of their own on the meteorite. Based on sulfur isotope ratios, they found no evidence for life in the same meteorite.
Many people have pointed out the fact that this discovery is an immense boost for the popularity of NASA and the Space Program. On August 7, President Clinton called the study a "vindication of America's space program and our continuing support for it." Two unmanned missions to Mars are already planned for the end of this year, and the President has called for a "bipartison space summit," led by the Vice President, to discuss the future of Mars exploration. It doesn't look like NASA will be running out of money any time soon.
A Creationist Response
What should we think of all of this? Was there life on Mars after all? It is possible, but I feel that the evidence is still difficult to accept. Of course, after reading the actual report in Science, I am much more open to the possibility of Martian life than I was while listening to reporters on TV and radio trying to say "polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons." None of the questions I have asked thus far have been truly damaging to the hypothesis of Martian life because the strength of this hypothesis is not in the individual evidences taken separately; rather, it is when we consider all the evidence together that the case is most persuasive. There are, however, still many unanswered questions. For instance, if we could say with more certainty where the meteorite originated, or if the globules were more obviously biologically-formed, I would be far more convinced than I am now. I think the best thing for us to do is to wait to see what the rest of the scientific community will do with this news. My suspicion is that many scientists will accept the evidence as it has been presented, particularly those who work in the space industry and are looking for ways to renew national interest in the space program. I also suspect that there will be a group of specialists that will reject this evidence on the basis of good counter-evidence. This is the nature of most controversial theories: There are as many good reasons to reject them as there are to accept them. We would do well to wait a while before making bold pronouncements on the validity of this research.
Unfortunately, most people are not content to wait when presented with such an audacious hypothesis. As I expected, evolutionists have already claimed this as a victory for those researchers interested in explaining the origin of life by natural mechanisms. Their reasoning? If life happened on Mars just like it happened here on earth, then it must not be that uncommon after all. Scientists who attempt to study the origin of life have long asserted that we simply haven't found the right conditions for the formation of life yet. Once we find the right conditions, then making living organisms will be easy. The existence of life on Mars reassures them that this idea is correct. After all, if life is easy to make under the right conditions, then life must be fairly common in the universe. But does the existence of Martian life really verify this claim? Is life really easy to make? I have to answer no to both of these questions. Even if I accept the idea that life once existed on Mars, this does nothing to verify the ease or difficulty of "making" life.
Creationists have a long history of calculating the probabilities of making a living organism from non-living chemicals by chance alone. You can find these calculations in just about any general overview of creationism. Those probabilities have been shown time and again to be astronomically small. If life is found on Mars, those probabilities remain unchanged. For example, suppose you have a bag of marbles. Ninety-nine of your marbles are white, and one marble is red. What is the probability that you will draw the red marble, without looking, on the first draw? The probability is 1/100. Now, if you drew a red marble on your first try, you would be pretty amazed, and rightly so. If you drew the red marble twice in a row, you would be really surprised! Would you suddenly think, "Oh, I must have calculated those probabilities incorrectly"? Of course not, so long as chance is the only thing governing your draws, the probability of drawing the red marble is the same no matter how many times you draw. You might think that you counted the marbles wrong, but this is something you could check by a quick examination of the contents of the bag. So why are we surprised to draw the red marble twice in a row? If chance is the only thing governing our draws, then the probability of drawing the red marble twice in a row would be the product of drawing the red marble once, or 1/10,000. From these basic statistics, we can see that the probability of life originating by chance on two planets would be the square of the probability of life originating by chance on just one planet. Since we already know that the probability of life arising by chance on earth is infinitesimally small, then finding life on Mars only makes the problem worse, not better.
In fact, if I did have such a bag of marbles (I seem to have lost mine), and I did draw two red marbles in a row, then I might think that some other outside agent was interfering with my draws. That would be perfectly reasonable, considering that the collected probability of doing this is 1/10,000. I believe this leads us to the correct reaction to finding life on Mars: Some outside force must be influencing the origin of life. Someone is fixing the outcome. One improbable event (the origin of life) is strong evidence for a Creator. Having that event happen twice, each time independently of the other, is even stronger evidence for a Creator. (For another theological perspective, see David Tyler's accompanying article.)
There is yet one more question that I am sure most of you have. What does the Bible say about life on Mars? As far as I can tell, it doesn't say a thing, positive or negative, about biological life anywhere but here on earth. Because of this silence, I believe that extraterrestrial biological life is a possibility. Why, then, would God have made other biological life but not tell us about it? For that answer, I turn to the Gospels. When the disciples questioned Jesus about the cause of a man's blindness, Jesus said that the man was blind so that God's glory would be made manifest. If there is life on Mars, it exists for one reason: To bring glory to God.
For Further Research
There is already an immense amount of information, speculation, and pure drivel available for further study. The article that was published in Science, "Search for Past Life on Mars: Possible Relic Biogenic Activity in Martian Meteorite ALH84001," by David S. McKay et al., can be found in the August 16 issue, volume 273, pp. 924-930. If you have access to the internet, a great starting point is the web site at the Federation of American Scientists' homepage. The URL is http://www.fas.org/mars/. NASA information and pictures can be downloaded from NASA's official "Life on Mars?" site at http://cu-ames.arc.nasa.gov/marslife/. For a Christian perspective, I recommend the ChristianAnswers.Net web page at http://www.christiananswers.net/ac030.html.
The Martian Meteorite Aftermath in EnglandDavid J. Tyler, Ph.D.
The flurry of excitement surrounding the NASA announcement of possible fossil microorganisms in a meteorite provided Christians with media opportunities here in England. No sooner than the first headlines appeared, Christians were being asked to comment on whether the new "find" was a challenge to their faith. In an editorial in The Times (London), it was suggested that if the discovery is of fossil life from Mars, the implication is that life is not special and that it could have arisen anywhere.
"Once the idea of a benevolent Creator is abandoned, such conclusions are mathematically inevitable. If life emerged from the primaeval soup by a series of steps that turned chemistry into biology, molecules into proteins, and single-celled amoebas into Einstein, there is no reason to suppose that the process was unique to our planet." (8th August 1996, page 17).
Dr. John Peet, Travelling Secretary of the Biblical Creation Society (BCS), and Geoff Chapman, of the Creation Resources Trust, were both given space to present their views in a piece entitled "In the beginning, did God also create aliens?" (The Times, 8/8/96, page 3).
The following Sunday, I am aware of there being three radio opportunities - and there may have been more. Peter Butterfield of BCS was interviewed on radio Nottingham, and I appeared on Radio 4's "Sunday" programme, also representing BCS; the above mentioned Geoff Chapman appeared on Radio Bristol.
What did we say? In my own case, I wanted to get across the message that life does not just "pop up" when conditions are "right." Life exists only because of the purpose and will of God. The Bible goes to some length to show that the earth is a planet which has been designed to be filled with life. Life makes sense on earth - but it would be a mystery why God should create life on Mars, which has such an inhospitable environment. Finding microbes on Mars would require some rethinking by Christians, but there are no insuperable problems.
More importantly, something must be said about finding intelligent life. Why are humans self-conscious? Why are we intelligent? It is because we are imaging God: we are intelligent because God is intelligent; we are creative because He is creative. Since the Bible presents the creation of man as something unique in the Cosmos, we can be confident that there are no other non-human intelligent life forms. It follows that the search for extra- terrestrial intelligence is a waste of resources. On the radio programme with me was Rev. Dr. John Polkinghorne of Cambridge University. He contributed the thought that no finds, either of intelligent life or non-intelligent life, are challenging to Christianity. Indeed, the Bible does not say that we are the only creatures made in God's image. If there are intelligent life forms "out there," and if they are in need of redemption, it is to be expected that the Word would take their flesh and die for them as He has died for us. However, the interview was terminated then, and there was no opportunity to give a biblical response. Such is the nature of media interviews!
Was Mars "Infected" by Life from Earth?
by D. Russell Humphreys, Ph.D.
In light of the recent Martian meteorite findings, some have suggested that bacterial life forms could be carried to Mars from earth via the solar wind. Is this really feasible? Is there a scientific basis for such musings?
In the early part of this century, Swedish physicist and chemist Svante August Arrhenius (1859 - 1927) showed that photon (light wave) pressure from the Sun would carry bacterial spores from earth's upper atmosphere to outer planets in a matter of years to centuries. Arrhenius pointed out that some bacterial spores are extremely tough and could easily survive the rigors of space.
As far as I know, Arrhenius' calculations were never discredited. They seem about right to me. Moreover, the solar wind (particles from the Sun), which Arrhenius didn't know about, would be much more efficient at doing the transportation than photons alone. If just a few spores arrived on Mars of a type of bacterium which could survive and thrive there, then the Martian dust storms would probably transport them all over the whole planet. Thus, the alleged fossils of alleged bacteria in the allegedly Martian meteorite might actually be descendants of bacteria from earth. Maybe earth did infect Mars!
What about the habitability of Mars for bacteria? I understand the Martian summer can be quite "balmy", even above freezing near the equator. There would be a low-pressure CO2 atmosphere, lots of UV rays, but probably some water or permafrost under the surface. I have a healthy respect for bacteria, having heard that some of them can live in boiling water, others in sulfuric acid, and yet others thrive on jet fuel!
Creation Calendar
The events below are for information only; the listing of an event does not necessarily imply endorsement by the Creation Research Society.
1996
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October 13, 14, 15, 16
Unlocking the Mysteries of Creation
A four-evening Creation Seminar with Dennis R. Petersen
Allison Park Assembly of God
Dick Norchi / Mark Szymanski, (412)487-7220
October 14
Genesis and Geology and
Biblical Creationism and Scientific Advances
Dr. Donald Chittick
Hollandale Christian School,
Hollandale, MN, 12:30-1:45 pm.
So. Minn. Assoc. for Creation, (507)256-7211
October 19
Evidences for a Young Earth and Biological Design
Bolton Davidheiser, Ph.D.
Our SaviorÌs Lutheran Church, 7:00 p.m.
16603 San Fernando Mission, Granada Hills, CA
Mark Armitage, (805)498-3940
or Dave Coppedge, (805)298-3685
October 19, 21
Ozark Cave Safari
Creation Science Assoc. for Mid-America, Cleveland, MO
Tom Willis, (816)658-3610
November 23
Squaw Creek Wildlife Refuge Safari
Creation Science Assoc. for Mid-America, Cleveland, MO
Tom Willis, (816)658-3610
November 23
TeachersÌ Workshop on Creation Science
Registration required
Creation Education Resources
P.O. Box 1853, Orange Park, FL 32097-1853
William Overn, (904)269-9007 (voice/fax)
1997
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April 5
Creation Seminar, 7:00-9:30 pm.
Dr. Henry Morris and Dr. John Whitcomb
Albert Lea Sr. High School Auditorium, Albert Lea, MN
So. Minn. Assoc. for Creation, (507)256-7211
April 11
Creation Seminar
Cosponsored by the Creation Research Society
and the Creation Science Fellowship of New Mexico
Albuquerque, NM
Mark DeSpain, (505)828-1205
