This one will thrill you, dear reader. Your guide will be Ken Ham (ol’ Hambo) — the ayatollah of Appalachia, the world’s holiest man who knows more about religion and science than everyone else. Look what he just posted at the website of Answers in Genesis (AIG), his creationist ministry: “Brussel Sprout” Meteorite: Source for Life on Earth? Here are some excerpts, with bold font added by us for emphasis, and occasional Curmudgeonly interjections that look [like this]:
If you’ve ever smelled a meteorite, it probably didn’t have much of an aroma. But that’s not the case with the newest addition [‘Cosmic Mudball Meteorite’ Smells Like Brussels Sprouts, Finds New Home at Museum] to the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. This four-pound visitor from outer space (a rare stony meteorite that is called a carbonaceous chondrite) crashed down in Costa Rica’s Alajuela province back in April. And when scientists received the sample, it smelled distinctly like Brussels sprouts! Why — and what does that have to do with creation and evolution?
Good questions! Hambo says:
Well, to answer that question, I’ll share some of the text from the article, answering the question as to why the meteorite smells like a vegetable:
[Hambo quotes from the article:] This odor comes from organic compounds such as amino acids. Billions of years ago, malodorous meteorites like this were likely what seeded Earth with the building blocks of life, and Field Museum scientists will study the smelly space rock for clues about the materials that shaped our solar system.
Hambo doesn’t like that. He tells us:
So, meteorites from outer space with organic compounds crashed into earth and seeded life on this planet? That shows how desperate evolutionists are [Hee hee!] to solve the bewildering question of the origin of life: they must appeal to rare meteorites with organic compounds as the start to life. But do organic compounds get evolutionists any closer to the origin of life? No!
Hambo’s answer is swift and authoritative. He explains:
Life requires information and a code system — and that’s DNA. The DNA molecule forms the building blocks of life. DNA is a complex language system that codes for an incredible amount of information. [Ooooooooooooh! Information! See Phlogiston, Vitalism, and Information.] Everything needed to make you “you” is encoded in your DNA from the moment of fertilization. And not only does life need information — it needs a code, a language, system to read that information. And neither information nor a language system can arise by naturalistic processes. [Gasp!] Information always comes from information and ultimately from a Mind.
Overwhelming, isn’t it? He continues:
Organic compounds don’t equal life. These compounds, including amino acids, will not spontaneously form a language system. It’s impossible! It has never been observed because life cannot arise by naturalistic processes. Life is more than just chemicals! It’s information based.
He’s really slamming the Darwinists! Let’s read on:
Just because one finds organic compounds does not mean that’s evidence of life. This meteorite might tell us about outer space and what’s out there. But it won’t tell us anything about the evolution of our solar system or the origin of life.
And those who think otherwise are Darwinist fools! Here’s how Hambo ends his post:
If we want to know that, look to God’s Word. It gives us the true history of the earth, life, and the universe.
Ooooooooooooh! Hambo is so wise!
Copyright © 2019. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.
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The Sensuous Curmudgeon 
Very sloppy article from Livescience. I can’t think of any origins of life scientist who thinks that life developed from amino acids delivered by meteorites. The argument tends to be more indirect; amino acids are not all that difficult to make; even meteorites have them.
Ken Ham’s response is, up to appoint, correct. As he says, the real problem with origins of life is not the production of this or that molecule, but the formation of a functioning system. But I thought everybody knew that anyway
Ol Hambo says “Life requires information and a code system — and that’s DNA. The DNA molecule forms the building blocks of life. DNA is a complex language system that codes for an incredible amount of information.”
I’ve checked very carefully Hambone. Theres nothing like that in either the Old or the New Testament. Is this information hidden in the same place in the Bible where you concluded dinosaurs and people co existed?? Just wondering.
Origin of life = God
Origin of death = sin
Origin of life after sin and death = Jesus
Then why Hell – shouldn’t you just be dead?
Then why death, when you can’t die?
@PaulB
So the raw materials are natural in origin, but the assembly — the functioning system — requires supernatural aid?
I realise Ham makes no distinction, of course — everything natural is supernaturally “gifted” from his god. But given the relative abundance of the basic chemical ingredients for life out there in the cosmos — in meteorites, and dust clouds, etc — you have to wonder why the god is so apparently profligate with his materials, but stingy when it comes to germinating the Gift outside of our locality.
@ chris schilling: “… you have to wonder why the god is so apparently profligate with his materials, but stingy when it comes to germinating the Gift outside of our locality.”
God is a kind of universal solvent. Any inquiry about Him that starts with the word “why” meets the same inevitable response, essentially, “Because He’s God”. That, at least, was what Job was told when he was misguided enough to ask why God had treated him so cruelly.
That is, the proposition of God is infinitely recursive in itself. Theists object to explanations of the cause of the Universe as this or that natural principle or effect because they merely give rise to a further need for explanation; that nature cannot be infinitely recursive; that there must be an ultimate cause. That cause is God, they say. But what caused God?
God needs no cause, they reply. Why does God need no cause? Because God is infinitely recursive. Why? Because He’s God.
See what I mean?
Ken Ham stole this “information and code system” idea from the ID crowd at the Discovery Institute. However, he didn’t sink as low as accepting their “millions of years”.
“If we want to know that, look to God’s Word. It gives us the true history of the earth, life, and the universe.”
No it doesn’t. It tells us nothing about galaxies, black holes, binaries, The Great Attractor and allmost all of the other phenomena studied bij astronomers and cosmologists.
Paris is the capital of France.
There you have it, the true history of France.
@Chris Schilling, you have correctly encapsulated Ham’s argument; we don’t know the natural explanation, therefore the explanation must be supernatural.
It is tempting to rebut this by claiming that we know more than we actually do, as in the excessive hype that for a while accompanied discussions of Ury-Miller.
Ham’s argument is applied very selectively. More than a century pased between the modern atomic theory, and the explanation of how atoms stick together to make molecules, but as far as I know no one went around saying that the hydrogen molecule held together because God.
“But do organic compounds get evolutionists any closer to the origin of life? No!”
Once again I agree with Ol’Hambo, albeit for entirely different reasons. No, DNA is not a language.
“Everything needed to make you “you” is encoded in your DNA from the moment of fertilization.”
Hey, wait a minute – everything? Like everything? DNA is completely, 100% material. So either Ol’Hambo is saying that “my” immaterial thoughts and soul are encoded in my DNA and hence are gone when I die and my body returns to dust-state or he’s saying that thoughts and mind are not immaterial at all! Given
“Life is more than just chemicals! It’s information based.”
my bet is the first option. That’s good news, very good. It means I neither have to fear heaven nor hell when I die. DNA gone, the “me” called FrankB becomes dust again.
“If we want to know that, look to God’s Word.”
For once Ol’Hambo’s wisdom comforts me. Thanks for releasing me from my fear for afterlife!
@Eddie Janssen
For example, consider life on Earth. The Bible doesn’t mention the majority of forms that life takes: the microbes.
Nor the majority of ordinary matter: hydrogen and helium.
And about origins, the Bible doesn’t tell us about the origins of water and the wind that are there at the beginning of Genesis.
I am just now reading
Thinking, Fast and Slow
Daniel Kahneman
Frarrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011
The first pages descrbe several experiments on the physical basis of thinking. Such as how hard thinking uses more thinking – as measured by comsumption of sugar – or this simple experiment: Go for a leisurely walk, and then try to solve a math problem – go will find that you have to slow down or even stop.