 |
| Good old Epicurus |
However, atheistic creation stories like these were not only to be found in what our generation would label as religious myths. In fact, the philosopher Epicurus posited that life (and everything else) arose from the random collisions of eternal particles.[3] These particles fell through space and somehow assimilated into the earth, the heavenly bodies, all kinds of plants and animals, and us.
Theists have always criticized stories like these for their entirely unjustifiable contradiction of both common sense and observed fact. And to this day, science (which in modern understanding is supposed to be a logical expansion on observed facts) agrees that it is physically impossible for order to arise from featureless chaos. If we take the term “featureless chaos” literally, we can equate it to a state of disorder or randomness, which an isolated system always produces more of and not less.[4] While chaos is by no means the same as disorder, the adjective “featureless” certainly indicates a lack of special regions or microstates, and therefore implies the randomness of entropy. The same would also be implied, of course, by random collisions of particles.
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| Entropy isn't very cooperative. |
Yet
regardless how speculative and completely irrational Epicurus’s model is, it was
held more-or-less as fact among Greek atheists at his time. Interestingly enough, it remains very similar
to most assertions by modern atheists about the origin of life and the
cosmos.
Meanwhile, theistic Greeks like Aristotle realized that cosmic
Meanwhile, theistic Greeks like Aristotle realized that cosmic
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| A "closed-minded" theist |
But the idea of life arising from non-life has been an obvious necessity for atheists of all generations, and the more academic ones have tried admirably hard to keep the claim up-to-date, at least by appearances, with our contemporary understanding of physical science. Not surprisingly, the claim itself has meanwhile taken on different names. A couple of centuries ago, it was called spontaneous generation, a very accurate and precise descriptor for life arising “naturally,” without any deliberate intervention. More recently, it is commonly dubbed abiogenesis—a term that is used only implicitly, and not precisely, to denote that no prior life was in any way needed for the process to occur. Since this represents an unnecessary ambiguity, I personally prefer the more accurate scientific synonym for spontaneous generation, autogenesis.[6]
Contrary to what many atheists and even non-atheistic scientists assert, the idea of autogenesis may be roughly categorized under “evolution,” or the “General Theory of Evolution.” This was defined in 1960 by Prof. Gerald Kerkut
 |
| Kerkut in a jolly mood |
So as of 1960, not only does Dr. Kerkut cede that the conglomeration of evolution, universal common descent, and autogenesis isn’t even scientific theory; he specifies that the reason is a lack of strong evidence. In my opinion, that is a humorous way of putting it. By the end of this article, it will be apparent that he made the understatement of the century.
Even calling autogenesis part of a “working hypothesis” is dubious. As the scientifically literate know, a hypothesis must be testable to be scientific; and when it consistently tests negative, it must be discarded. That in mind, it is no secret that autogenesis, when directly attempted, has always tested negative!
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| Too cool to need logic. |
a) untenable, and/or
b) not within the scope of contemporary science.
In simple, honest terms, it just doesn’t happen.
Commendably, numerous evolutionary experts have admitted the speculative, improbable, or even completely implausible nature of autogenesis. A few examples will suffice:
Francis Crick, co-discoverer of the DNA double-helix—
“An
honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that
in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a
miracle…”[8]
And further—
And further—
“Every time I write a paper on the origin of life, I determine I will never write another one, because there is too much speculation running after too few facts.”[9]
Dr. Hubert Yockey, in a peer-reviewed journal—
“Research
on the origin of life seems to be unique in that the conclusion has already been
authoritatively accepted…”[10]
And in his book 15 years later, regarding “primeval soup”—
And in his book 15 years later, regarding “primeval soup”—
“Although at the beginning the paradigm was worth consideration, now the entire effort in the primeval soup paradigm is self-deception on the ideology of its champions.”[11]
Microbiologist Dr. Martin Line, in a peer-reviewed journal—
“Hence the enigma: an origin of life on Earth appears highly improbable, an origin elsewhere is highly conjectural.”[12]
Sir Fred Hoyle—
“The notion that not only the biopolymers but the operating program of a living cell could be arrived at by chance in a primordial organic soup here on the Earth is evidently nonsense of a high order.”[13]
Antony Flew, famous atheist philosopher—
“It now seems to me that the finding of more than fifty years of DNA research have provided materials for a new and enormously powerful argument to design.”[14]
There are many more such instances, from peer-reviewed Journals and elsewhere. In fact, while some of these academics go on to explain that they firmly believe in autogenesis regardless of the clear evidence, others (such as Flew and Hoyle) have gone so far as to recant the idea, and subsequently atheism itself. The point of my citing them, of course, is to penetrate through the bias-driven myth that all educated people believe in what Kerkut called the General Theory of Evolution, or that you must do so to be “scientific.”
Then again, why spend time on these scientists when we can get down to more hard evidence of modern science against autogenesis? That which is perhaps the most basic scientific problem with autogenesis is not difficult to grasp. We needn’t assess all the chemical blocks, the self-replication difficulties, or that the earth had the wrong atmosphere for it at the supposed time.[15] There’s no need to quibble interminably about entropy and localization and open systems, either. In fact, we can pretend the laws of thermodynamics don’t even exist! For the basic problem with abiogenesis is simple probability.
Now some atheists have made the “mistake” of assuming that since life exists in the universe, the probability of abiogenesis occurring must be 1/1. This is a disgusting abuse of the science of probability. It is circular reasoning making abiogenesis an implicit premise, and is too intellectually insulting a claim to be addressed any further, even by a complete amateur like me.
As Hoyle indicated, for autogenesis to occur we not only require all the correct polymers, but the correct program, in which the bits must spontaneously assemble in the absolute correct order for life to be possible. Thus, even ignoring all chemical problems, the maximum probability for the simplest biological life arising spontaneously can be calculated from an estimate of the minimum known required simultaneous factors which must be in the correct order. These are:
20 amino acids,[16]
387 proteins,[17]
and on average, ~10 conserved amino acids.
No honest biologist will object to these factors as being too numerous; again, this is about the most generously small estimate contemporary science can possibly allow. Other processes aside, the probability for these factors converging in the correct order is:
20^(-3870) = 10^(-3870*log20) = 10-5035
Thus the probability of autogenesis occurring is a maximum of one in 105035. That is, one over one followed by 5035 zeros.
There is not nearly enough space on this page to write that out the long way.
To remove all doubt whatsoever that these odds are actually insurmountable within the known universe, let us compare them to the theoretical number of reactions possible in this cosmos. There are approximately:
1080 atoms in the known universe,
1012 atomic interactions per second,
and 1018 seconds, according to the standard big bang model.
Which gives us 1080 * 1012 * 1018 = 10110 possible interactions in the history of the cosmos. That’s quite a lot, but divided out over the odds against abiogenesis, we still get 1/10-4925. And again, it would take multiple pages to write that without scientific notation.
Some may still speculate that the input factors for autogenesis are too great, based on an extreme misunderstanding of science. In fact, while many papers defending autogenesis attempt to mitigate the distinct, chemical problems, others attempt to reduce one or more of the factors above by the collusion of some other process, which is of dubious enough value in reducing the odds. But even if the inputs are significantly reduced, we still get astronomically poor odds.
Those who teach autogenesis, or “abiogenesis” as they prefer, carry a burden of proof to demonstrate that it is statistically plausible in this universe. Until such time as they do, it is literally insane to believe in it. And until such time as they show that it is not only plausible, but somehow likely, they have absolutely no excuse to teach it in our classrooms or anywhere else. Autogenesis is, and always has been, nothing but a dogmatic agenda of atheism.
Footnotes:
[10] Yockey, 1977. A calculation of the probability
of spontaneous biogenesis by information theory, Journal of Theoretical Biology
67:377–398.
[12] http://mic.microbiologyresearch.org/content/journal/micro/10.1099/00221287-148-1-21?crawler=true&mimetype=application/pdf
[15] Flowers, C., A Science Odyssey 100
Years of Discovery, William Morrow and Company, New York, p.173, 1998.
