But there is a God in heaven that revealeth secrets,
Daniel 2:28
Though best known for discoveries in medicine, Pasteur was a chemist. One of his early discoveries still baffles evolutionists today. While studying crystals under polarized light, he found that certain molecules come in left– and right-handed forms that are mirror-images of each other, a phenomenon now known as chirality. Even more remarkable, he found that living things use entirely one hand. Most natural substances are composed of fifty-fifty “racemic” mixtures of both hands, the “stereoisomers” of a given chiral molecule, but for some reason living things were 100% pure of one hand. Pasteur recognized this as a defining characteristic of life, and it remains a mystery to this day.
We now know that proteins, which are made up of 100% pure left-handed amino acids, could not function if they were racemic (mixtures of both hands), but how did life get started with just one hand, when both are equally probable? This appears to be a clear evidence of intelligent design, because the probability of getting just one hand in a chain of amino acids is vanishingly small, like flipping a coin and getting heads a hundred times in a row. Pasteur certainly considered this an evidence of a Creator, but today evolutionists are continuing to struggle with this observational fact, looking for some natural process that would yield even a hopeful majority to one hand or the other. To this day, none has succeeded. They know that close enough is not good enough; only a 100% pure chain would work. The problem is compounded by the discovery that RNA and DNA contain sugar molecules that are 100% right–handed.
The other obstacle Pasteur raised to evolution was his law of biogenesis, the principle that only life begets life. Since the Greeks, and probably long before, philosophers and commoners believed that life could arise out of nonliving material. Is it not a common childhood observation that maggots and flies and all sorts of vermin seem to magically appear out of nowhere? The myth of spontaneous generation seems silly today, but was a common opinion throughout most of history. Leeuwenhoek opposed it with rigorous observations through his microscope, and the “macro” version of spontaneous generation eventually succumbed to the experiments of Redi and Spallanzani.
Which brings us to another of Pasteur’s monumental achievements, the germ theory of disease.
Anthrax was economically crippling to farmers and ranchers who could only look on in despair as their sheep weakened and died. Pasteur isolated the microbe that caused the disease. In a remarkable stroke of luck and insight, Pasteur learned that a weakened form of the bacteria provided the same immunity without killing the animal.
Rabies is a viral infection. The virus was too small to be seen by microscopes in Pasteur’s time. This lack of evidence threatened his germ theory, but Pasteur was convinced an unseen microbial agent caused the disease, and proceeded to follow his procedure of finding ways to weaken it. It was hard work, with many false starts and dead ends, but he eventually was successful inoculating dogs with a series of increasingly potent rabies shots that appeared to provide immunity. That’s when he had a knock at the door. A desperate mother with her son, Joseph Meister, who had been bitten by a mad dog, pleaded with Pasteur for help. He replied that he was not ready for human testing, but she and other doctors agreed that if nothing was done, Joseph would die. Rabies was always fatal. With nothing to lose, Joseph agreed to be a test patient, and the compassionate Pasteur, realizing there was only one chance, once again put his reputation on the line and began the sequence of inoculations. Pasteur was in anguish over his patient’s predicament and the fear of failure. After a month passed, Joseph Meister was healthy, with no symptoms—the first man in history to be cured of rabies. Patients, bitten by rapid animals, flocked to his lab, for the first time having hope to be spared an agonizing, painful, certain death. Pasteur was again a hero.
Remember this great scientist whenever you open your refrigerator and pour from a container that says, pasteurized." CEH
