Arsenic-Based Biochemistry: Turning Poison Into Wine

Being an evolutionist means there is no bad news. If new species appear abruptly in the fossil record, that just means evolution operates in spurts. If species then persist for eons with little modification, that just means evolution takes long breaks. If clever mechanisms are discovered in biology, that just means evolution is smarter than we imagined. If strikingly similar designs are found in distant species, that just means evolution repeats itself. If significant differences are found in allied species, that just means evolution sometimes introduces new designs rapidly. If no likely mechanism can be found for the large-scale change evolution requires, that just means evolution is mysterious. If adaptation responds to environmental signals, that just means evolution has more foresight than was thought. If major predictions of evolution are found to be false, that just means evolution is more complex than we thought. So today’s falsification, though it falsifies one of evolution’s most treasured predictions, will be no different. Once again, evolutionists have great news.

According to evolutionists, one of the most powerful evidences for their notion that the world just happened to arise somehow on its own, is the underlying unity of biology’s fundamental biochemistry. From information storage in the DNA macromolecule to basic metabolism, the same designs are found across biology’s wide spectrum. As Niles Eldredge put it:

The basic notion that life has evolved passes its severest test with flying colors: the underlying chemical uniformity of life, and the myriad patterns of special similarities shared by smaller groups of more closely related organisms, all point to a grand pattern of descent with modification.

Likewise, Christian de Duve triumphantly declared:

Life is one. This fact, implicitly recognized by the use of a single word to encompass objects as different as trees, mushrooms, fish, and humans, has now been established beyond doubt. Each advance in the resolving power of our tools, from the hesitant beginnings of microscopy little more than three centuries ago to the incisive techniques of molecular biology, has further strengthened the view that all extant living organisms are constructed of the same materials, function according to the same principles, and, indeed, are actually related. All are descendants of a single ancestral form of life. This fact is now established thanks to the comparative sequencing of proteins and nucleic acids.

“The essential macromolecules of life,” explained philosopher Michael Ruse, “speak no less eloquently about the past than does any other level of the biological world.”

With these high accolades, one might think that counter indications would pose major problems for evolutionists. If an observation is such powerful evidence in favor of a theory, then isn’t its falsification a powerful argument against the theory?

Not at all, for this is no ordinary theory.

When the DNA replication apparatus—a rather fundamental biochemical process—was found to be significantly different across different species, evolutionists didn’t miss a beat. Those different versions of DNA replication, we were told, probably evolved independently. Or maybe they diverged. Anyway they evolved, that was for certain.

Next in line is the fundamental unit of energy, the ATP (adenosine triphosphate) molecule, which provides the chemical power for everything from thinking to muscle movement. Would you believe it isn’t universal as you were taught in your high school biology class?

If instead of phosphorus, what if some species turn out to use arsenic? That’s right, arsenic—the poison. It would not exactly be a minor design adjustment. In fact, it would be another major falsification of one of evolution’s most vaunted predictions.

And what would be the evolutionary spin? That’s easy: we would be told that such a monumental finding tells us more about how evolution works. In fact, does it not tell us how incredibly flexible are evolution’s designs, and therefore how much more variety we should expect in the evidence of extraterrestrial life?

That’s right. A falsification of a major evolutionary prediction would be, in a brilliant stroke, turned on its head. With ease it would be converted into evidence for extraterrestrial life. Evolution turns poison into wine.