Question:

When debating with an atheist about the origins of life I used your statement (see below)

In order for life to come about by a chemical accident, as atheists and scientists committed to materialist explanations assume, several things must have happened which simply can not happen. First of all, a genetic code, capable of storing information would have had to have been created by accident. Second, molecules capable of storing that coded information would have had to have been created by chemical accident. Third, millions of pieces of information, capable of creating an actual living thing would have to have been created. Fourth, thousands of protein molecules, capable of building these molecules and being synthesized by these coded DNA molecules, would have to have been created at the same time. All these tens of thousands of molecules would have to have come together inside a non-polar cell membrane bilayer–all this by accident.

The reply I got was about your fouth point, they said this was False! Nowhere in evolution or abiogeneses theories does it state ‘They spontaneously appeared’ that this is actually a long discredited principle of ‘spontaneously generation’ put fourth by aristotle and disproved in the 19th century by Louis Pasteur. I have been apparently given some REAL links about how self replicating chemicals may have come into existence by purely natural means…They state we are talking about step by step increases in complexity in open systems the initally exhibit life like functions and as complexity increase take on all the characteristics of that we consider to be life…Allow me to show these links. Journal of Cosmology journalofcosmology.com 1. Why Does Life Start, What Does It Do, Where Will It Be, And How Might We Find It? Michael J. Russell, Ph.D., and Isik Kanik, Ph.D., Planetary Science, Section 3220, MS: 183-601, JPL, California Institute of Technology, 4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, CA, and Department of Physics, California… Any feedback on this and basically what you state on your website as being false and discredited a long time ago?

Response:

First of all, the person you are talking to is definitely not very sophisiticated or knowledgeable on this topic. Of course, this alone does not make him wrong, but it is worth bearing in mind. When he says that abiogenesis was disproved by Pasteur, he is saying that his own theory was disproved in the 19th century!!! He is theorizing abiogenesis, and quoting Pasteur who proved his theory is wrong. Clearly, he is a bit confused. Again, this does not make him wrong, but it should catch your attention.

I agree with Pasteur and disagree with Aristotle. Life could not come about by spontaneous generation. Therefore, it was the creation of God. About self-replicating molecules, there are some extremely simple molecules which have been replicated, not by themselves, but by other molecules. Therefore, they are not self-replicating molecules. Even if there were extremely simple self-replicating molecules, they definitely could not create information. They certainly could not create extremely complex macromolecules, capable of biological action. The difference between the extremely simple synthetic molecular replication with absolutely no usable information and the creation of tens of millions of pieces of information through a natural replication process is many, many orders of magnitude. Theories of abiogenesis or immensely inadequate. I absolutely will stand by every one of the comments I made above.

In any case, your friend’s statement that what I said was false should be taken for what it is worth, given his/her lack of understanding of the question of abiogenesis and the implications of Pasteur’s work. The fact is that, by definition, your friend believes that these molecules appeared spontaneously and that life occurs spontaneously. He "disproved" his own theory! Let me suggest two books which discuss the issue of spontaneous generation in detail. They are "Is There a God?" by me (www.ipibooks.com) and "Signature in the Cell" by Stephen Meyer.

John Oakes