Teapot Agnosticism (General)

by dhw, Monday, February 04, 2008, 08:57 (6136 days ago) @ George Jelliss

Wikipedia lists well over a dozen hypotheses and models. One of them may be right. Maybe none of them are right. Leslie E. Orgel, a research professor of biology, discusses most of them. His account is full of comments like: "(we) still have to explain...", "this scenario is attractive but has proved hard to confirm", "it is not easy to see how...", "all these problems are worrisome". On the subject of RNA, he says: "It is harder to conceive of the steps by which RNA might have begun to replicate in the absence of proteins," and "after years of trying, we have been unable to achieve the second step of replication... without help from protein enzymes."
 Arthur V. Chadwick, a professor of geology and biology, also runs through the various models, with similar reservations. On the subject of RNA he writes: "In addition to the problems of synthesis of the precursors and the polymerization reactions, the whole scheme is dependent on the ability to synthesize an RNA molecule which is capable of making a copy of itself, a feat that has so far eluded strenuous efforts. The most devastating indictment of the scheme, however, is that it offers no clue as to how one gets from such a scheme to the DNA-RNA-Protein mechanism of all living cells."
 Professor Orgel, who died last year, was a Fellow of the Royal Society and a member of the National Academy of Sciences. The conclusion of his detailed scientific analysis reads: "As we have seen, investigators have proposed many hypotheses, but evidence in favor of each of them is fragmentary at best. The full details of how the RNA world, and life, emerged may not be revealed in the near future. Nevertheless, as chemists, biochemists and molecular biologists cooperate on ever more ingenious experiments, they are sure to fill in many missing parts of the puzzle." It's a pity, from your point of view, that he cannot bring himself to say "all the missing parts", but at least he shares some of your optimism. He does not mention a creator or chance, and this is as objective an article as I can find.
 Professor Chadwick, on the other hand, is a Creationist, and so not unexpectedly the conclusion of his detailed scientific analysis is that the whole thing is so complex that a spontaneous origin of life is impossible, and creation is the "only reasonable alternative".
 You, on the other hand, are an atheist, and so not unexpectedly you consider that the "relatively few elements being combined in a relatively few ways" make a spontaneous origin perfectly possible.
 Where does that leave the amateur sleuth? I agree with you that there is nothing in principle that makes it impossible for scientists to find sequences of events that could lead to the origin of life. No-one can deny that life originated or that there must have been a sequence of events that led to it. I am uncertain, though, as to why, if scientists do eventually work out how it all happened, that will prove that it happened by chance, but my mind remains open. If in my lifetime they do prove that unconscious matter COULD spontaneously take all these "not improbable" steps to assemble a self-replicating mechanism capable of infinite variations, then I will gladly jump down on your side of the fence. As I have made clear at the end of the passage you have quoted, I cannot subscribe to any of the design theories either. But at the moment, since specialist scientists themselves acknowledge so many gaps and uncertainties in the theories/models/ hypotheses you want me to believe (though I'm not quite sure which one you want me to believe), I am unable to take a decision based solely on your assurances that eventually it's going to happen. I realize that this must be extremely frustrating for someone like yourself who has already seen the light. I have the same problem with friends of mine who are devout Christians.