Didn't they create life in a test tube?

Ah Miller and Urey... Simply put, no they didn't. They did get successful results, just not ones indicating life. To the left you see their experiment. To the right you see a diagram of it.

Miller and Urey's experiment starts out (1) with a sample of the 'primeval soup' - the stuff that was in the ocean before life arose. They added heat to vaporize it. This vapor rose up as the 'primeval atmosphere'. (2) An electric spark was added to simulate lightening and the matter created was condensed (3) and filtered out (4) to be tested.


Here's why it didn't do what you were told it did.

(1) There is no sample of this supposed 'primeval soup'. Its not even known if it existed little lone what it was made of. Why did he choose the ingredients he did? Not because of any proof, but to get the specific results he needed. You see, they knew that to even stand a chance of getting their desired results their 'atmosphere' (2) could contain no oxygen because oxygen immediately destroys the amino acids they were hoping to create. So whatever mixture they used for this 'soup' could not produce any oxygen.

To simplify this, take a standard box of 8 crayons. Now melt them all until what color is the result? The color you end up with is a result of the colors that were actually there. But that's not the color you wanted so you remove all the colors from the next box that do not fit your color scheme and change the amounts of the remaining colors so that when you melt the second batch, you get the color teal. The problem is, you didn't use what was actually there in the box. You took out what was actually there and only left exactly what you needed.

This is not scientifically valid. To have this be valid, the soup must be a valid recreation of what was actually here when they claim. NOT simply a mixture of the chemicals they need in order to produce the desired results they want.

"Maybe they early atmosphere didn't have oxygen."

A good thought. We don't know, right? Wrong. According to evolutionary scientists, many millions of years before life formed, rocks formed. Every rock ever studied contains oxygen. So without a doubt, the atmosphere had to have oxygen unlike that used in the experiment. Not to mention the Earth's ozone is made of oxygen. No oxygen means no ozone. No ozone and the sun's radiation kills everything on the Earth.

So the experiment started with the wrong solution, produced the wrong conditions and killed everything on earth. Anything else? Unfortunately, yes. You'll notice after the 'atmosphere' is zapped, it goes down another tube (3) where it condenses and continues into a water trap. Why? Because the amino acids dissolve in water. So Miller and Urey had to devise a way to remove them from the solution before they dissolved, hence the trap. The problem is, there is no such trap in nature. So without this trap, any amino acids created would also be destroyed.

Surely that's all the problems with the experiment, right? No. First, the experiment never claimed to have created life. What they created were amino acids which are used to build proteins which one part of what is required for life (with the above crayon example, its like saying you have blue dye and therefore have a crayon without having wax or any process to combine, refine and finish one). Now, in the amino acid world there are two types: Left handed and right handed. For there to be life, these all have to be left handed otherwise they cancel each other out. Think of it like a race track, if everyone goes left it is all fine. But even one driver going right would cause a catastrophe!

But in the Miller-Urey experiment, they were nearly equal parts left and right handed. Again a fatal flaw.

So the experiment:
1) Started with the wrong solution
2) Produced the wrong conditions
3) Created a fatally radioactive earth
4) Relied on a trap not found anywhere in nature
5) Got the wrong results

Scientifically speaking, the experiment was a success in that it proved that with their starting solution, following all their procedures, you could make a nearly equal amounts of left and right handed proteins. Unfortunately, that doesn't relate at all to how life started on this planet.

In His service...