Ebook: Origins of Life: Biblical and Evolutionary Models Face Off

First life--what did it look like? When did it appear? And how did it get here?

Imagine primordial Earth, a churning cauldron of liquefied rock. Steaming, seething--a vast wasteland, inhospitable to life. Yet somehow first life appeared. Maybe chemicals in a primordial soup spontaneously spawned a single-celled creature that continued to evolve. Or, perhaps a transcedent Creator formed and nurtured the initial life-forms.

To determine what really happened requires a framework to evaluate the evidence. Dr. Rana and Dr. Ross present a scientific model for the creation of first life on Earth--a model based on the Biblbe. They present testable predictions for this life origins scenario and for the competing naturalistic scenarios. Which model withstands the rigorous scrutiny of science and the tests of time?

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From Publishers Weekly

Convinced that "creation is a testable idea that can fall within the domain of science," biochemist Rana and astrophysicist Ross do not shrink from scientific findings about the long and tumultuous history of the earth. Conceding that "the beginning of life (relative to cosmic history) under hellacious conditions poses initial problems for creationists and evolutionists alike," the authors argue that the origin and survival of life on earth over the past 3.8 billion yearsâ€"now seen by most researchers as an awesomely improbable set of eventsâ€"parallels biblical models of God "hover[ing] over early earth like a mother eagle brooding over her young." Although Rana and Ross are Christian apologists with the "Reasons to Believe" organization, their forays into theology are generally modest and brief. Their primary focus is compiling results from biology, chemistry and geology that illustrate how deeply puzzling the origin of life has become. Discussions of the "primordial soup" of prebiotic chemistry, the enigmatic origin of cell membranes and homochirality (the unexplained preponderance of left-handed amino acids and right-handed sugars essential to life) all take readers further than is typical in the creation/evolution literature. Whether or not Rana and Ross quite prove a creation modelâ€"proof being in the eye of the beholderâ€"they certainly tell a compelling story of the early history of life that inspires curiosity and a sense of wonder at what is still, for all we know, a unique habitable and inhabited world.

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About the Author

FAZALE RANA has published more than fifteen articles in scientific journals and delivered more than twenty presentations at international scientific meetings. He worked for seven years in product development for Procter & Gamble before joining Reasons To Believe, where he serves as vice president for science apologetics. He and his wife, Amy, have four daughters and a son. They live in southern California.

HUGH ROSS serves as president of Reasons to Believe and has written many books, including The Creator and the Cosmos, The Genesis Question, and Lights in the Sky and Little Green Men (coauthored with Kenneth Samples and Mark Clark). He has been a guest on numerous media programs such as Coast to Coast, The Barry Farber Show, Sirius Satellite Radio, 700 Club, and The Keith Rush Show. He lives in southern California with his wife, Kathy, and two sons.