Mount Rushmore National Memorial, in South Dakota
(Wikimedia Commons)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
The question of abiogenesis, the emergence of life from non-life, continues to be a major challenge for scientists and, in a different sense, for secular naturalists.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
When I was a kid, we were still talking about the classic 1952 Miller-Urey experiments \u2014 conducted by the chemists Stanley Miller and Harold Urey at the University of Chicago and then by Miller at the University of California at San Diego \u2014 which famously demonstrated that amino acids could form under laboratory conditions thought to simulate those of the early Earth.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Subsequently, there have been other famous experiments and theories relating to the origins of life on earth. \u00a0Leslie Orgel and Walter Gilbert, for example, have proposed theories involving RNA (and something called an \u201cRNA world\u201d). \u00a0Gunter von Kiedrowski has worked with \u201ccatalytic closure\u201d and Reza Ghadiri has gone even further with von Kiedrowski\u2019s work. \u00a0I don\u2019t pretend to follow all of it.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
But life hasn\u2019t appeared. \u00a0And the Miller-Urey experiments may have lost at least a bit of their luster with the realization that Earth\u2019s early atmosphere was most likely\u00a0rather different from what they presupposed.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Moreover, there seem to be a fair number of ad hoc<\/em> assumptions involved in such experiments and theories and, anyhow, they plainly involve intelligent agency, not mere random chance.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Thus far, at least, abiogenesis remains elusive. \u00a0After a very great deal of theorizing and experimentation. \u00a0Perhaps scientists will eventually achieve it. \u00a0(Even though, again \u2014 and rather ironically \u2014 they may only be demonstrating that it can occur under expertly controlled conditions.)<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
That\u2019s not my actual concern, though. \u00a0Here\u2019s what\u2019s really on my mind:<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
At what point does confidence that life can arise from inanimate matter via undirected natural causes become a kind of faith \u2014 a faith not all that different from religious belief or an ideological commitment? \u00a0At what point might we plausibly begin to speak of a \u201cgodlessness of the gaps\u201d? \u00a0Will it ever be appropriate, here or with regard to analogous questions, to consider at least the possibility of an intelligent agent? \u00a0If so, when will that time come? \u00a0When might we be able to say \u2014 and, mind you, I\u2019m not necessarily saying it now, with regard to abiogenesis \u2014 that scientific openness has become ideological rigidity?<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Imagine a hypothetical scenario in which people and historical memory and all signs of human habitation have vanished from North America. \u00a0Along come some intrepid explorers, though, and they discover a set of four huge granite faces appearing in\u00a0what we now call the Black Hills of South Dakota. \u00a0The place is Mount Rushmore, but these explorers know nothing of Gutzon Borglum, nor even of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Roosevelt.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
They\u2019ve been collecting natural specimens and mapping out the geological features and landscapes of this, to them, totally new land.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
An argument breaks out among them.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Some see the faces as manifest evidence of previous human civilization on a rather advanced level, upsetting all of their expectations and prior theories.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Others, however, are committed to the prevailing scientific view that no humans have ever lived in the area before. \u00a0Accordingly, they insist that, astonishing as they are, the four faces are merely the result of natural erosion by wind and water. \u00a0Given enough time, they say, literally almost anything can happen. \u00a0And, remarkably, it plainly did<\/em> happen here. \u00a0These \u201cfaces\u201d are the result of entirely random chance, and anybody who invokes intelligent agency as a causal explanation for them is thereby leaving genuine science behind.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Plainly, this second faction\u00a0would be wrong. \u00a0But when does that become indisputably obvious? \u00a0And how do we decide?<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Some argue that the apparent life-friendly cosmic fine-tuning that characterizes our universe is simply a result of chance. \u00a0After all, we\u2019re here to notice it, and we wouldn\u2019t be here if things were different. \u00a0Perhaps there are an infinite number of universes, the vast majority of them hostile to life, and we just happen to have won the cosmic lottery. \u00a0Is that view science, or ideology?<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 \u00a0 The question of abiogenesis, the emergence of life from non-life, continues to be a major challenge for scientists and, in a different sense, for secular naturalists. \u00a0 When I was a kid, we were still talking about the classic 1952 Miller-Urey experiments \u2014 conducted by the chemists Stanley Miller and Harold Urey at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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<\/a>