Dogma: A principle or set of principles laid down by an authority as incontrovertibly true.

In 1953, Stanley Miller performed an experiment that (he believed) demonstrated how life could have evolved. The experiment has since been shown to have been flawed in some of the basic assumptions. Yet, it remains a foundational premise of western education in the natural sciences. My own B&M college experience spanned the years 2009 – 2013. One of the Biology texts I studies from spent four pages defending the Miller experiment (AKA Miller-Urey), and suggesting alternate assumptions to get past the objections raised by the flaws of the original.

In case you don’t recall the details, Miller showed that (under tightly controlled conditions) certain amino acids can form. Amino acids are the building blocks of protein molecules. Protein molecules – very specific protein molecules in incredibly precise combinations – form cells in living things.

May I ask you to google Saccharomyces cerevisiae? This little fellow is considered among the more simple of all of the cellular organisms. Yet, “simple” is very misleading. The cell is comprised of more than 6,000 different kinds of proteins (each with a specific task in the cell), and forty-two MILLION protein molecules in all.

The biology text I talked about a moment ago spent four pages defending the Miller experiment. At the end of that desperate defense comes these three sentences:

“Today’s cell is able to carry on protein synthesis in order to produce the enzymes that allow DNA to replicate. The central dogma of genetics states that DNA directs protein synthesis and that information flows from DNA to RNA to protein. It is possible that this sequence developed in stages.”

Dogma: “It is possible that this sequence developed in stages.”

Immediately thereafter comes fifteen pages on the history of life…

Regardless whether amino acids could form on their own, it’s a very, very long way from an amino acid to a protein, and even longer to the precise combination of proteins necessary to form a self-replicating living cell. Defending that particular materialistic dogma in western texts is even more preposterous than noting that iron compounds precipitate around a swamp and then declaring that the 1970 Plymouth Barracuda (with the 426 hemi!) formed from that swamp.

Really. It is every bit as preposterous.

Yet: “It is possible that this sequence developed in stages.”

That sentence, and many like it, is the modern day magic wand of materialism. When encountering an inexplicable impasse to the dogma, the wand of time and chance is waved to make it all seem real.

Six thousand different TYPES of proteins. Forty-two MILLION proteins in all. And that’s among the more “simple” of all cells.

Do you accept the dogma of materialism that dominates western scientific thought today?