“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Within that temporal framework investigators have recently discovered great biochemical differences among human beings at the molecular level: The genetic structures of numerous proteins [see Note 5] have been shown to be much more varied than was suspected. Even more pronounced are the differences among proteins between species. Each of us is seen to be truly unique — but at the same time those studying biological evolution express concern about whether their discoveries will challenge Darwinistic beliefs. Instead, I think that what has been learned so far offers only possible variations within the idea of evolution, for the talk is still about the origin of life out of nonlife, followed by the climb up the scale of living complexity; most evolutionists think that natural selection, or the survival of the fittest, still applies.

(Now we read late surveys that show an increase in religious faith, and statements to the effect that science does not claim to reveal absolute truth, that any scientific theory is valid only until a variance is shown. Jane and I certainly aren’t turned on to realize that a major religion, for instance, teaches the “facts” of man’s basically corrupt and sinful nature; surely a religion in the best sense can offer beliefs superior to those! At the same time, we take note of the latest efforts of biological researchers to explain how, millions of years ago, a primitive DNA molecule could begin to manufacture the protein upon which life “rides,” and thus get around the contradiction posed in Note 8: What made the protein that sustains the processes of life, before that life was present to make the protein? The scientists involved hope the new hypothesis will survive further tests and become “fact,” thus giving clues to the riddles of origins and evolution. But to briefly paraphrase material Jane came through with not long ago [and which, again, will eventually be published]: “How does one deal with new facts that undermine old facts, in whatever field of endeavor? Do you say that reality has changed? Upon examination, facts give.”

5. According to my interpretation of this sentence, Seth stops short of telling us that in our reality all species — man, animals, and plant life (and viruses and bacteria too, for that matter) — developed from a single primordial living source. Evolutionary theory maintains that such a source spontaneously came into being, riding upon various protein molecules (or certain other kinds of molecules) that had themselves chemically — and miraculously — evolved out of nonliving matter, then demonstrated the ability to duplicate themselves. (When Seth came through with this 44th session, neither Jane nor I had enough background information about theories of evolution to ask him to be more specific. Proteins, for instance, are very complex chains of amino acids, and consist of nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, and/or certain other elements. They exist in great variety in all animal and vegetable matter; in the body each protein supports a very definite function.) But the view that all life had a common origin, that by pure chance it originated on the earth — just once — without the aid of God, or any sort of designer, is today accepted by most scientists in biology and related disciplines. Such thinking stems from the work done in the 19th century by the English naturalists Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace.

8. Very briefly, for those who are interested: It’s often been shown mathematically that contrary to Darwinistic belief, enormous time spans (in the millions of years, say) will not aid in the chance formation of even the chemical precursors to life — the protein or nucleic acid molecules — but will instead make their creation even less likely. For with time, the even distribution or equilibrium of matter increases, moving it away from the ordered sequences necessary to support life. Scientifically, in the closed system of our universe, the second law of thermodynamics and entropy eventually conquer all. (See Note 6.)

Nor can solar energy be thought of as the agent that directly turned nonliving matter into its living counterpart; in those terms, life required its intermediate molecules, which sunlight is not able to construct. Life needs protein in order to “be,” and to sustain it through metabolism — then it can use solar energy! Darwin’s theory that life arose by chance poses a basic contradiction: What made the protein that sustains the processes of life, before that life was present to make the protein?

Many times in laboratory studies, substances called proteinoids (often misleadingly defined in dictionaries as “primitive proteins”) have been observed forming from amino acids, which are subunits of proteins. Some researchers think of proteinoids as the forerunners of the protein that life needs to ride upon, but for quite complex scientific reasons, proteinoids are far from being true biological proteins and do not lead to life. Jane and I strongly object to being told that dead matter turns itself into living matter. Just how does this transformation come about?

Evolutionary thinking is challenged not only by questions of protein synthesis, and energy/entropy (see Note 5), however. Equally insistent are the puzzles posed by the missing intermediate forms in the fossil record: Where are all the remnants of those creatures that linked birds, reptiles, cats, monkeys, and human beings? The hypothetical evolutionary tree of life demands that such in-between forms existed; it seems that by now paleontologists should have unearthed enough signs of them to make at least a modest case for their belief systems; the lack of scientific evidence is embarrassing. Since my mind works that way, I could make minutely detailed drawings of a graduated series of such entities (gradualism being a basic premise in Charles Darwin’s theory), but would the creatures shown have been viable? Could they actually have existed for the necessary millennia while evolving into the species whose fossil remains have been discovered, or that live today? As indicated in Note 5, evolutionists are serving goodly portions of speculation along with inadequate theory — or, really, hypothesis.