by George Wald, Harvard biologist and Nobel laureate (Scientific American, Aug 1954, pp. 44, 49-50)

“In the vast majority of the processes in which we are interested the point of equilibrium lies far over toward the side of dissolution. That is to say, spontaneous dissolution is much more probable, and hence proceeds much more rapidly, than spontaneous synthesis. For example, the spontaneous union, step by step, of amino acid units to form a protein has a certain small probability, and hence might occur over a long stretch of time. But the dissolution of the protein or of an intermediate product into its component amino acids is much more probable, and hence will go ever so much more rapidly. The situation we must face is that of patient Penelope waiting for Odysseus, yet much worse: each night she undid the weaving of the preceding day, but here a night could readily undo the work of a year or a century.

“How do present-day organisms manage to synthesize organic compounds against the forces of dissolution? They do so by a continuous expenditure of energy. . . . A living organism is an intricate machine for performing exactly this function. When, for want of fuel or through some internal failure in its mechanism, an organism stops actively synthesizing itself in opposition to the processes which continuously decompose it, it dies and rapidly disintegrates.

“What we ask here is to synthesize organic molecules without such a machine. I believe this to be the most stubborn problem that confronts us—the weakest link at present in our argument. I do not think it by any means disastrous, but it calls for phenomena and forces some of which are as yet only partly understood and some probably still to be discovered.”

Cartoon by Sidney Harris (American Scientist 79:419 [Sept-Oct, 1991])

For further reading:

“Chemical Evolution: The Problem of Improbable Proteins” <http://www.creationbc.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=86>

Mike Riddle, “Can Natural Processes Explain the Origin of Life?” <http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/nab2/natural-processes-origin-of-life>