Origin-of-Life Research Abandons Chemistry, Turns to Miracles
If a chance explosion created the universe out of nothing, maybe another ‘big bang’ created life, too.
A “radical new theory” for the origin of life, as presented by Michael Marshall at New Scientist, “rewrites the story of how life on Earth began.” It is so radical that it is nearly identical to a joke used by creationist speakers mocking evolution. One such speaker, showing the folly of evolution, would quip that a fully-assembled car was not designed; it just “oozed up out of the pavement.” He got a good laugh from the audience. Now, try to read what Marshall says without laughing – if you can:
Many ideas have been proposed to explain how it [life] began. Most are based on the assumption that cells are too complex to have formed all at once, so life must have started with just one component that survived and somehow created the others around it. When put into practice in the lab, however, these ideas don’t produce anything particularly lifelike. It is, some researchers are starting to realise, like trying to build a car by making a chassis and hoping wheels and an engine will spontaneously appear.
This car emerged from the pavement by an “everything-first” model of evolution.
Are you laughing yet? Keep reading. Remember, too, that the people claiming this are materialists: there was no God or intelligence behind how life got here:
The alternative – that life emerged fully formed – seems even more unlikely. Yet perhaps astoundingly, two lines of evidence are converging to suggest that this is exactly what happened.
OK, game over. No need to read further. This is absurd; enjoy your laugh fest. But if you really want to know how anybody calling himself a scientist can believe a car can emerge by itself, you might be curious to see what their reasoning process could be (if it could be called reasoning at all).
Everything First
What follows in the article is a tedious recounting of the history of failed origin-of-life theories: genetics-first, metabolism-first, container-first. Marshall and the evolutionists he marshals together know full well that any of the basic requirements for life – metabolism, a container and a code – are unlikely to spontaneously form separately, much less together at the same time and place.
But they must believe that it did somehow. The alternative is unmentionable: life was designed? Perish the thought! Don’t utter the C-word. That would be unscientific! We must stick to science. And so the latest model is: everything-first!
It turns out that all the key molecules of life can form from the same simple carbon-based chemistry. What’s more, they easily combine to make startlingly lifelike “protocells”. As well as explaining how life began, this “everything-first” idea of life’s origins also has implications for where it got started – and the most likely locations for extraterrestrial life, too.
This idea is no more credible than saying that skyscrapers “could” (Marshall uses that word 9 times) emerge on Mars because there is iron there (even though most of it is in the form of red iron oxide, or rust). Uh, Michael, life is far more than carbon. Morse Code is more than a pile of dots and dashes.
In fact, secular miracles must be so common, Marshall suggests, they must be happening on planets all over the universe! NASA, keep looking for life on Mars, Enceladus, Europa. It’s only a matter of time till science proves that the impossible is possible, the possible probable, and the probable virtually certain to make origin-of-life researchers look like atheist clowns.
The Real Lesson
The redeeming value in Marshall’s article is to show that origin of life research is a complete failure. We can compare it to the die-hards who believed in phlogiston, caloric and spontaneous generation till their dying days, never facing the facts that falsified those classic failures in the history of science.
It’s not that these secular materialists are unable to see the facts in front of them. It’s that they refuse to believe the implications. Read Marshall’s words with this in mind:
- The shortcomings of these simple models of life’s origin [protein-first, RNA world, and container-first] have led Deamer and others to explore the seemingly less plausible alternative that all three systems emerged together in a highly simplified form.
- So, until recently, biochemists had assumed that these three components of life were unlikely to form in the same place from the same starter chemicals. That assumption seems to be wrong.
- Of course, all this depends on the everything-first idea proving correct. Szostak’s protocells and the new biochemical insights have won over many researchers, but some pieces of the puzzle are still missing. Perhaps the most persuasive argument is that the simpler ideas don’t work. As is the case with many things in life, the beginning was probably more complicated than we had thought.
Any questions?
That snipe is out there somewhere! I know it! I’m going to keep holding this sack until I die!
Theologians, pastors and Darwin skeptics of all types, inscribe Romans 1:18-25 into the inside of your eyeballs: the real reason that these evolutionists never give up is not because of science. It is because of refusal to acknowledge the clear facts of God’s creation.
A century and a half of failure in secular origin-of-life research is not explained by shortcomings in the genetics-first model, or the metabolism-first model, or the container-first model, or even the everything-first model – or any other secular model, no matter how absurd, no matter the number of chance miracles it requires. The real explanation is unbelief-first.
18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.