Researchers Solve Puzzle of Origin of Life on Earth

First cells on ancient Earth may have emerged because building blocks of proteins stabilized membranes.

Life on Earth arose about 4 billion years ago when the first cells formed within a primordial soup of complex, carbon-rich chemical compounds.

These cells faced a chemical conundrum. They needed particular ions from the soup in order to perform basic functions. But those charged ions would have disrupted the simple membranes that encapsulated the cells.

A team of researchers at the University of Washington has solved this puzzle using only molecules that would have been present on the early Earth. Using cell-sized, fluid-filled compartments surrounded by membranes made of fatty acid molecules, the team discovered that amino acids, the building blocks of proteins, can stabilize membranes against magnesium ions. Their results set the stage for the first cells to encode their genetic information in RNA, a molecule related to DNA that requires magnesium for its production, while maintaining the stability of the membrane.

Vesicles Serine

Images of membranes (circles) taken using transmission electron cryomicroscopy. Top: membranes in a solution that contains no amino acids. Bottom: membranes in a solution containing serine, an amino acid, which triggers membranes to form multiple layers of concentric membranes. Scale bars: 100 nanometers. Credit: Alex Mileant/Caitlin Cornell

The findings, published Aug. 12 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, go beyond explaining how amino acids could have stabilized membranes in unfavorable environments. They also demonstrate how the individual building blocks of cellular structures — membranes, proteins, and RNA — could have co-localized within watery environments on the ancient Earth.

“Cells are made up of very different types of structures with totally different types of building blocks, and it has never been clear why they would come together in a functional way,” said co-corresponding author Roy Black, a UW affiliate professor of chemistry and bioengineering. “The assumption was just that — somehow — they did come together.”

Black came to the UW after a career at Amgen for the opportunity to fill in the crucial, missing details behind that “somehow.” He teamed up with Sarah Keller, a UW professor of chemistry and an expert on membranes. Black had been inspired by the observation that fatty acid molecules can self-assemble to form membranes, and hypothesized that these membranes could act as a favorable surface to assemble the building blocks of RNA and proteins.

“You can imagine different types of molecules moving within the primordial soup as fuzzy tennis balls and hard squash balls bouncing around in a big box that is being shaken,” said Keller, who is also co-corresponding author on the paper. “If you line one surface inside the box with Velcro, then only the tennis balls will stick to that surface, and they will end up close together. Roy had the insight that local concentrations of molecules could be enhanced by a similar mechanism.”

The team previously showed that the building blocks of RNA preferentially attach to fatty acid membranes and, surprisingly, also stabilize the fragile membranes against detrimental effects of salt, a common compound on Earth past and present.

Vesicles Serine2

Images of membranes (circles) taken using transmission electron cryomicroscopy. Top: membranes in a solution of magnesium chloride, a salt that disrupts membranes, and no amino acids. Bottom: membranes in a solution of magnesium chloride and serine, an amino acid, which triggers membranes to form multiple layers of concentric membranes. Scale bars: 100 nanometers. Credit: Alex Mileant/Caitlin Cornell

The team hypothesized that amino acids might also stabilize membranes. They used a variety of experimental techniques — including light microscopy, electron microscopy and spectroscopy — to test how 10 different amino acids interacted with membranes. Their experiments revealed that certain amino acids bind to membranes and stabilize them. Some amino acids even triggered large structural changes in membranes, such as forming concentric spheres of membranes — much like layers of an onion.

“Amino acids were not just protecting vesicles from disruption by magnesium ions, but they also created multilayered vesicles — like nested membranes,” said lead author Caitlin Cornell, a UW doctoral student in the Department of Chemistry.

The researchers also discovered that amino acids stabilized membranes through changes in concentration. Some scientists have hypothesized that the first cells may have formed within shallow basins that went through cycles of high and low concentrations of amino acids as water evaporated and as new water washed in.

The new findings that amino acids protect membranes — as well as prior results showing that RNA building blocks can play a similar role — indicate that membranes may have been a site for these precursor molecules to co-localize, providing a potential mechanism to explain what brought together the ingredients for life.

Cell Origin Model

A model of how the building blocks of the first cells may have co-localized on membranes. Left: the building blocks of membranes, RNA and proteins in the primordial soup. Middle: membranes form (grey circle) and bind a subset of the building blocks, which in turn stabilize the membranes. Right: functional RNA and proteins encased by the membrane. Credit: Roy Black/Sarah Keller

Keller, Black and their team will turn their attention next to how co-localized building blocks did something even more remarkable: They bound to each other to form functional machines.

“That is the next step,” said Black.

Their ongoing efforts are also forging ties across disciplines at the UW.

“The University of Washington is an unusually good place to make discoveries because of the enthusiasm of the scientific community to work collaboratively to share equipment and ideas across departments and fields,” said Keller. “Our collaborations with the Drobny Lab and the Lee Lab were essential. No single laboratory could have done it all.”

Co-authors are Gary Drobny, UW professor of chemistry; Kelly Lee, UW associate professor of medicinal chemistry; UW postdoctoral researchers Mengjun Xue and Helen Litz in the Department of Chemistry, and James Williams in the Department of Medicinal Chemistry; UW graduate students Zachary Cohen in the Department of Chemistry and Alexander Mileant in the Biological Structure, Physics and Design Graduate Program; and UW undergraduate alumni Andrew Ramsay and Moshe Gordon. The research was funded by NASA, the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation.

158 Comments on "Researchers Solve Puzzle of Origin of Life on Earth"

  1. Please tell me where the cells etc came from to begin with. How do cells just materialize from nothing? As with the big bang, they tried for decades to convince us that two nothings came together, exploded and made everything in our universe and world. Do they really believe we’re that dim?

    • God has a used a mechanism for most everything by using “his” laws and forces of nature and physics. These don’t pop out of nothing. Like the 3.5 billion sequential, functional, bits of code found in the dna molecule. There is no material process to produce information, much less on that scale. Only an intelligent mind.

      • I couldn’t help but chuckle at the illustration. Amino acids clumped together and… boom RNA and proteins. I realize that these researchers are trying, but you would think from the title that it’s mystery solved. In reality it’s, “we discovered that tools seem to slightly favor metal walls, so we think this is how the self making robot formed itself… you know… because of tool clumping.”

        A little humility regarding the vastness of the problem is in order, at least on the part of this article’s author.

      • Evolution is a delusion, one of the biggest hoax of all the times. There is A God, who created everything, Who is not subected into our timeline since He is an Eternal been. The Bible is His record about everything and it contains irrefutable proof of His wisdow and Godhead. No matter how much you deny God, it won’t delivers you from the coming jugdment, but to surrender to God, throught His only begotten Son, the Lord Jesus, Yeshua, is the only way to salvation. God is real, as the Salvation He proposed to us in His Son Jesus Christ, as he Hell is also real and the final destiny for those who choose to deny God and His Salvation.

        • Donald Humbert | August 13, 2019 at 6:32 am | Reply

          Dude…you can’t argue science based on preaching faith. In principal I agree with you, but shouting this kind of argument for refutation is useless and not the point. There are tons of books on Intelligent Design by some truly brilliant people I highly encourage you to go read. Use that kind of position to argue…not like this. ID is science, no matter how much they want to deny even that, and they do an awesome job making very strong arguments. Meyer and Dembski (sp?) are the first 2 authors I would recommend.

        • Donald Humbert | August 13, 2019 at 7:00 am | Reply

          Suggested reading…

          Stephen Meyer
          Signature in the Cell
          Darwin’s Doubt
          William Dembski
          Design Revolution
          Michael Behe
          The Edge of Evolution
          Darwin Devolves

        • Here is a video of bacteria evolving. You can literally watch evolution through natural selection happen, yet you still deny it because it’s incompatibile with your centuries old superstitious beliefs:

        • I don’t have a suggested book to read but what I do suggest is for you is to stop a moment, look around you, take it all in and if you can put two and two together you’ll understand there’s no way that god story in the bible is true. When you realize this then you can do some research on why people made that story up

        • robert bristow-johnson | August 14, 2019 at 5:36 pm | Reply

          Erick, I am a Christian and what you said is both stupid and a lie.

          That makes it a Stupid Lie.

          You can pretend to be a Christian all you want but not all who say “Lord, Lord” really are with God.

          Because of your lying (and construing that lie as faith in Jesus), Jesus might say to you on Judgement Day “I don’t know you.”

      • You kind of people always think someone with a thinking mind had to create all we are and know. And since you think this way then answer this, who created the creator?

        • That’s like saying “what created the fundamental forces that science claims created the universe?”. And what created that which created that, etc. etc.? Infinite regress.

          Something must have been there all the time, nothing comes from nothing, and something eternal cannot have been created as it has no beginning.

          In science, the fundamental forces in physics are “the creator”. What science forgot is to include intelligence as a fundamental factor in the equation, when they eventually do that we have a set of fundamental forces which starts looking like a conscious mind – The Creator.

    • That’s partly what this study was looking at. They started from the observation that “fatty acid molecules can self-assemble to form membranes” and then looked times whether those membranes could attract/collect the basic materials found in cells (RNA and proteins, which are also thought to self-assemble). These membrane-material aggregates then further chemically react, including forming spheres (which is the basic cell geometry). So they’re showing a plausible first step into how cells may have formed from the environment. As for the big bang, the basic principle of something from ‘nothing’ is happening all the time – that’s one of the weirder confirmed predictions from quantum theory: that, even in a vacuum, you see spontaneous creation/destruction of particles. What we think of as ‘nothing’ is actually much more complex. In terms of how amazingly intricate and surprising the universe (& our limited understanding of it) appears to be, we are indeed that dim 😉

      • But that vacuum is not “nothing” – it’s a non-physical substance from which physical matter is created by polarizing this non-physical non-polarized substance.

        All manifestations of matter (atoms etc.) consist of positive and negative forces in a balanced state of motion which keeps it stable.

        And when these forces eventually lose their power the polarized substance (matter) will return to its non-polarized state, which is not detecable by physical instruments because it’s motionless. Matter seems to “disappears” but in reality it just returns to where it came from.

      • bestest and most to the ointed points of the article here. Luv the wink at the end. everyone relax and enjoy some science! science should not always = controversy nor conflict as religiosity often does.

    • I think this was a good,informative article.
      It is intended to shed light,scientifically,on the beginnings of biological functions.
      There is absolutely no reason for religious people to be commenting on it.

      All they can really say is, it’s so complicated it must be God,no need to inquire or try to understand the details,lol. That’s absolutely crazy 🙂.

      The title is not bait and switch. It’s about trying to look into and understand the beginnings of life,scientifically.

      Once these religious people actually start reading the article, they should realize that’s what it’s about,and not a forum for their religious views.
      Bizarre really that these fundamentalists are making inane,religious comments on the beginnings of cell
      Formations and developments.

      • The headline of the article is exactly bait and switch. Nothing has been solved. A hypothesis has been developed as to a possible mechanism for how life started. The headline gets people to read the article, only to find that the headline vastly overstates things. It’s clickbait.

        As for “religious people”, there are numerous scientists who hold religious beliefs that inquire every day and try to understand the details every day. Religious belief and science are not the either/or proposition you’re making it out to be.

        The origin of life and hypothetical ideas for how it happened are precisely topics for both scientists and theologians, as well as those who are interested in and study both.

        • Ethan, well said.
          I believe that God created life. I also believe that he could have created it in any way he chose.

    • Torbjörn Larsson | August 14, 2019 at 1:57 am | Reply

      Life evolved from the geology of early Earth, we know that from the observation that accreted planets are hot sterile and now life has evolved on Earth but we also know that from evolutionary phylogenies [ ]. The evolutionary observations is that live evolved from non-life over a half alive universal ancestor lineage (see the link) to modern independent, live cells.

      The idea that “something comes from nothing” is religious, so cannot be used for complaining about observations like the ones in the article – which we note you do not discuss at all. And the current cosmology has moved on from “big bang” to standard inflationary cosmology, where the initial observations is of a cold inflation era preceding the hot big bang of yore – an ear of indefinite duration.

    • Nothing in reality, is different from “nothing” in the layman term. Nothing is just a zero state of matter and energy and from scientific investigation, we determined it is very unstable and particles will just manifest in and out of existence (something from nothing and nothing from something as it were). We’ve literally observed this. So in reality as one physicist put it, something is nothing and nothing is something. The layman idea of what “nothing” is it would seem is simply not possible.

    • Nobody thinks that cells materialized from nothing, that’s a straw man argument. Instead, the scientific consensus is that things got started with very simple spontaneous chemical reactions; complexity increased gradually and slowly; even the simplest modern cells are a product of billions of years of small incremental improvements.

      The evidence for a beginning of life based on chemistry that increased in complexity is very compelling. Simple organic molecules that serve as biological building blocks, such as some amino acids (building blocks for proteins) and nucleotides (building blocks for DNA and RNA) can arise spontaneously in the lab. A famous example of this are the Miller-Urey experiments ( but many other similar experiments with similar observations and conclusions have been performed since. Organic molecules that are biological building blocks have also been found in meteorites
      Assemblies of nucleotides to create simple RNA and of amino acids to create small proteins (peptides) can also be done in the lab, without the use of biological machinery
      Modern complex proteins and RNAs are a product of millions of years of small incremental improvements. But simple ones could arise spontaneously, and then undergo those very small improvements.
      RNA can be replicated (make copies of) without the use of enzymes
      Vesicles that could have enclosed primordial organic molecules, and therefore increase their concentration and probability that they will find each other and react, can also be generated spontaneously
      This is just a small taste of some of the evidence, but there are tons.
      Of course there are many remaining questions but just because something is currently UNEXPLAINED doesn’t mean its UNEXPLAINABLE. Even if the exact answer to how life emerged on Earth is never found (because it happen so long ago, because of lack of tools of figure it out, because something missing, etc) it doesn’t mean that it did not occur through natural means and it doesn’t mean that supernatural explanations are more plausible.

    • Where did these cells come from to begin with? They came from the same place God did of course! Where did he come from again?

    • The big bang was not an explosion but was and is an expansion. I suggest to go back to basics and get rid of preconcevied notions of gods interfering.

  2. @S.R.Marks That’s exactly what the article discussed. Cells are not fundamental by their designs. They are composed of smaller bio-molecules like fat molecules called lipids, proteins, and other minerals. The cellmembranes, for example, that outline cells are formed of a structure called biphospholipid layer. The theory suggests that they had the tendency to join and form a closed structure. The reason for that is because those membrane layers have two parts; head and tail, which are hydrophilic and hydrophobic due to the different polarities in regards to water molecule. This is all happening in water btw. Hence, the theory of life originating from water. The first cells were formed when these cellmembranes happened to enclose RNA/DNA molecules. DNA/RNA became the blueprint to the functional and reproductive purpose of the cells and millions of years of further evolution have brought us here to a body made of amazingly sophisticated organization of those cells.

  3. Donald Humbert | August 13, 2019 at 2:19 am | Reply

    They’re so intent on removing purpose from the equation, it’s almost sad. You can’t avoid the inevitable utter complete inability to rationalize not just the introduction of order into the biological system with all the variables that are faced, let alone adding to that the true failure that the layered data storage mechanisms is biology that exist with the fully needed integrated systems that work so well together and hold the massive amounts of data…data…needed for life to work. 747s don’t just self actualize from a pile of metals and sand spinning around, and is 10^100s of times more improbable. Get some courage and flip the argument to…what would the conversation look like if it all were purposeful…and see how things emerge. You’ll be amazed. The failures of men to grow socially, to embrace universal brotherhood and compassion vs. confrontation on a base tribalism isn’t going to go away and get better or worse as you vainly try to use an failing approach to scientifically eliminate purposeful causes for life…that is a failing on us, not of beliefs. Faith can form into these concepts if we so choose…and as we need to…you don’t change that ultimate desire or goal by trying to artificially choke off purpose…it has to be embraced by men purposefully… period.

    • OK, stop taking you medications, they were developed using biological science. Stop eating food you purchased from a grocery store for the same reason. Science has giving you your comfortable home, safe drinking water, the healthy birth of your children, your car, your TV and the very device you use to navigate here and make your silly arguments. Give it all up then preach to us you hippocrite.

    • If you understood even the tiniest speck of scientific theory you’d understand why your “argument” is such complete nonsense… period. Enjoy your Harry Potter “reality.”

    • “747s don’t just self actualize from a pile of metals and sand spinning around”

      The argument from design is just bad. Think about this, how do we recognize design from non-design? By comparing it to the natural world. I know a 747 is designed by an intelligence because 747’s dont grow out of the ground. If a god created everything, then everything is designed, from a grain of sand, rocks etc. etc. It would mean nothing isn’t designed, so when ID proponents point to this and say “DESIGN!” compared to what? we have nothing non-designed to contrast to design…

      • God is apparently a highly intelligent guy. He must be far more complicated than a 747. Who is it that designed God? After all anything that complex was designed. Nothing isn’t designed.

    • Donald, your comparison between evolution and the spontaneous assembly of a 747 is flawed. This flawed argument has been clarified so many times by so many people (, that either you don’t understand evolution or you are being intellectually dishonest. Nobody thinks that the complexity that we observe today in modern biology (or even in primitive cells) could arise randomly in a single event (this is what your 747 spontaneous assembly vs. biology argument implies). Again, nobody thinks that the complexity seen in Nature could arise randomly. Evolution is not random, is DIRECTED by a selection process through many many many small incremental steps. Primordial biological molecules were much much simpler than modern biological molecules and increased in complexity because Nature SELECTED for those that were ‘better’ at their function. This has been written about many times; please stop spreading these misunderstandings.

  4. “Researchers solve puzzle of origin of life on earth”

    First line: “First cells on ancient Earth MAY have emerged because…”

    That some fine article writing. Clickbait for the win!

  5. Donald Humbert: “747s don’t just self actualize from a pile of metals and sand spinning around, and is 10^100s of times more improbable”
    This is the standard “reasoning” of religious folk, desperate to find some “meaning” in terms of discredited superstitions. Science doesn’t work from wishful thinking. It works by comparing theory with observation. If the theory conflicts with observation, the theory, not the observation, gets tossed. Cell membranes are more like soap bubbles than 747s. And yes, both membranes and bubbles are *observed* to self-assemble from trillions of separate molecules. If trillions of soap molecules are so unlikely to self-assemble as you seem to think, then God must be *very* busy making bubbles manually, by miracle. Likewise, genetic information is *observed* to increase spontaneously, via gene duplication, mutation, and selection.

    • Donald Humbert | August 13, 2019 at 6:47 am | Reply

      Ever heard of e Universal Probability Figure? It’s the statistical odds that a given thing could out of random chance happen given x amount of stuff, y tone, etc. There are b some thought experiments based on sounds logic that argue the statistical odds of even the most basic of bio structures happening on a random basis…just one…and that probability is many many many orders of magnitude higher than even the most favorable constant. And this neglects starting to consider how mutations and changes have to consistently, favorably accumulate with no crashes as they occur mmit neglects considering wtf the massive amount of data going into bio programming that has to be available, etc. Sorry, your Darwinian God is dead…he lost, and it wasn’t even close. Rather than trying to kill faith and stomp it out, come back to reality…and spend your energy understanding the implications of purposeful planning of life. You all are so worried about killing any kind of purposeful designer that you run right past the need and option for humanity to grow even in faith past choice of conflict and tribalism. Not all faith is misplaced. The evils in the world come from the same bad choices made every day, and faith can serve to steer those choices in a more positive direction…towards compassion, charity, etc. When steered toward evil and division, that arises from people making use of it towards selfish, controlling ends and people avocations individual accountability… Just like they do with race, culture, class, whatever. Killing faith walks toward elimination of a potential mitigating influence, not correcting the bad choices of humanity.


        So what? Given infinite time and opportunity the odds don’t really matter.

    • Donald Humbert | August 13, 2019 at 6:58 am | Reply

      Stephen Meyer
      Signature in the Cell
      Darwin’s Doubt
      William Dembski
      Design Revolution
      Michael Behe
      The Edge of Evolution
      Darwin Devolves

      There’s a good start…Dembski is one of the great minds of our time. Darwin loses…he loses big. The die hards try convolutions of every sort, but the refutations presented funny enough now are starting to build where they can be applied into these new remix hypothesis that all try to ignore the underpinning failures and they start to sound every more shallow in their repeated failures.

      • Hey Don, are you putting your replies through Google translate several times? Because it’s barely English. I want to make responses to the logic you’re using, but… I’m having a hard time following that logic.

      • Torbjörn Larsson | August 14, 2019 at 2:01 am | Reply

        Those anti-scientific texts has nothing to do with biology. It is Biology 101 observation that evolution works, while those religious texts claim they don’t.

        If you want us to consider your opinion on science, make a scientific argument.

  6. Chances of being a human … 700,000 to 1… Now, I believe that there is a higher power.. but let it be known that your God created the earth and the heavens 2000 years ago… They said this has been happening for over 4 billion years.. again, I’m not saying he isn’t real.. I’m just saying he got to the party a little late; that’s all.

  7. Love how titles say it all”may have” the escape clause, they also may not have but you don’t get grant money for may not, a cell is more complicated than a factory making Teslas,if just one part of the equation is not there nothing works,design is so plainly shown in a cell that to propose that it just magically came together is nothing short of ignorance or deception

    • Right, so a scientific hypothesis is a cop out but magical Creationism isn’t. I think you’re doing pretty well on the ignorant and self-deception scale.

    • “Love how titles say it all”may have” the escape clause”

      Would you rather they not be honest and claim it as a fact like religion does all the time with zero evidence?

  8. The only question that matters in all of this…. Where did DNA/RNA come from? Also for everyone saying “fatty acids clumped clumped together”…. Where did fatty acids come from?

    • Donald Humbert | August 13, 2019 at 7:02 am | Reply

      No…where did all the data come from, let alone the layered data surprise system present in biological system…that’s the even larger one that gets choked on…

      • Torbjörn Larsson | August 14, 2019 at 2:04 am | Reply

        What is “the data” you discuss? Biology concerns itself with an observed physical process, not a data problem.

        • It’s a matter of misunderstanding on their part. Everything is data and we interpret it into information. It isn’t information first. These people think because humans can interpret DNA into information…it is information to begin with and place an intelligence behind it.

          Leaves can fall off a tree, I can take that data translate it into information and derive a pattern. However, it does not mean there is an intelligence behind the pattern.

  9. Larry McClure | August 13, 2019 at 4:54 am | Reply

    Y’all are wrong again GOD made everything


      Read…argue facts…

      Stephen Meyer
      Signature in the Cell
      Darwin’s Doubt
      William Dembski
      Design Revolution
      Michael Behe
      The Edge of Evolution
      Darwin Devolves

    • Or read and become further deluded. Try some actual science as opposed to Creationist fiction.

  10. You all know so you will not listen or learn anything. I read your replies and you are the reason we are held back. Stop being afraid that you don’t know. You are as you allow yourself to be. We are limitless potential limited by your fear.

    We have an idea, gather supporting thoughts, formulate a desired out come and create. We succeed in learning the way until our desire is fulfilled.

    The article sounds legit. You need ingredients, law of attraction and shazam the outcome is a product.

    I enjoyed the article. All is a process

  11. God’s not real lol

  12. Among the remaining problems is the formation of the peptide and nucleotide bonds necessary for proteins and nucleic acids. These bonds require the input of energy and the removal of water. Difficult to do underwater and even more difficult to do out of water where the damaging UV from the young Sun would have been the biggest hurdle. Moving on to polypeptides and oligonucleotides also needs attention. Plenty left to solve.

  13. The title of this article is a gross overstatement lol

  14. Check out some of Dr James Tour’s work and his youtube lectures. If you walk away believing that a cell, or life, created itself, you are a fool.

    • Torbjörn Larsson | August 14, 2019 at 2:45 am | Reply

      Biologists do not think “life [was created] by itself”, but by evolution – we can see that it has happened for 4 billion years. Tour is not a biologist, and he is religious [ ].

      Since you have nothing to say on the science, why do you comment?

      • In the spirit of clarity, Evolution has nothing to do with the origin of life. It explains the diversity of life.

        • Alkyl Dimethyl Benzyl Ammonium Chloride | August 21, 2019 at 6:03 am | Reply

          That’s not completely true. Origin of Life Research is the Synthetic Organic Chemistry realm of Evolutionary Biology. There’s an entire field dedicated to the evolution of amino acids, proteins, RNA and DNA, starting with the backbone of ionized fullerene molecules. Since James Tour is a synthetic organic chemist, this is why he feels he has the right to comment on the subject, but this is not his specialization. It’s like an electrician who installs industrial equipment at a plant but has no idea how to wire a school.

    READ :GENESIS CH.1 vs 1-31
    That explains it all

  16. Yes people, god did it! Now let us stop studying this and move on, nothing to see here. Your “god” explanation does not explain anything. These scientists are hero’s pushing back the veil of ignorance. One day your “god of the gaps” will disappear and you will have no place to hide.

    • Donald Humbert | August 13, 2019 at 7:04 am | Reply

      Sorry Rich…Dawkins choked up a hair ball in all his arguments…

      Stephen Meyer
      Signature in the Cell
      Darwin’s Doubt
      William Dembski
      Design Revolution
      Michael Behe
      The Edge of Evolution
      Darwin Devolves

      • I’ve read those books. And arguing with a dead guy doesn’t actually give us new information or enlighten anyone. Those books are literally arguing with Darwin. That ain’t fair. That fucker can’t argue back! He dead!!!

        The Great Courses: The Origin and Evolution of Earth by Professor Robert Hazen

        (Since u wanna argue with him)
        The Origin of Species, 1st Edition by Charles Darwin

        Here’s two source that DON’T argue at dead people.

        • Torbjörn Larsson | August 14, 2019 at 2:47 am | Reply

          Worse than that, the texts of Humbert’s comment are religious – besides being personal attacks (?), they have nothing to say on the science either.

    • “One day your “god of the gaps” will disappear and you will have no place to hide.”

      They will always have a place to hide. They will either retreat to “thats just how god did it” or simply reject the science as a satanic conspiracy.

  17. Kinda like the rest of science, they couldn’t explain something so the best and most popular argument for why it happened will become fact and truth. Being able to do something in a lab and with lab materials does not mean it could have happened on earth naturally. God created life not chance.

    • Torbjörn Larsson | August 14, 2019 at 2:49 am | Reply

      Of course lab experiments mean it could happen in the rest of nature as well – the lab is part of nature.

  18. Saying “problem solved” in headline was click-bait. This goes nowhere near conclusively solving the mystery of the origin of life. Please avoid such hyperbole in the future.

  19. I agree with comment that Dr. James Tour (top-tier scientist in synthetic organic chemistry and nano technology) seems to have the best grip on all this. His YouTube videos are stunning (some very technical).
    I also agree that the title stinks. It implies that they’ve solved the puzzle and we now know all about how life evolved. We are light years away. Just one aspect – there are 40,000 different lipids involved in a single cell wall (each side of wall is different as well). Did they find and put those together just right? Current models including protocell work I think uses ONE.

  20. John Campbell | August 13, 2019 at 6:50 am | Reply

    Those who believe in religious fairy tales cannot resist hurling their faith-based ignorance against wondrous scientific findings like this. Possible scientific explanations for the dauntingly complex process of the origin of life are progressing nicely and it is wonderful to follow this unfolding, truly cosmic understanding. As Einstein told us – the purpose of science is to awaken cosmic religiosity in us. This blog post may be of interest:

    • Donald Humbert | August 13, 2019 at 7:06 am | Reply

      Fairy tales… uh-huh…

      Stephen Meyer
      Signature in the Cell
      Darwin’s Doubt
      William Dembski
      Design Revolution
      Michael Behe
      The Edge of Evolution
      Darwin Devolves

      Read Dembski first…Darwin LOST…

      • Torbjörn Larsson | August 14, 2019 at 2:54 am | Reply

        You like that list, but those texts are religious. They have nothing to say on the science (or Darwin’s and Wallace’s founding of biology).

      • I’ve heard all the ID arguments, none are backed up by actual evidence. They all appeal to “common sense”, which is deceptive in many cases. This sort of reasoning is why there are flat earthers.

  21. Scientists can also tell you what the Earth had for breakfast on June,10, 10,253 B.C. (And no, I didn’t say B.C.E. which is ludicrous because the year is still based on the birth of Christ.)

    Scientists don’t know why we dream or even sleep. We don’t fully understand triboluminescence, which was discovered over 400. We don’t understand the placebo effect. We actually observed the formation of the canyon created by the Mount Saint Helens eruption, the layered structure of which is identical to The Grand Canyon. Yet most scientists look at it dismissively and think, “Wow, what a coincidence”.

    Even with the lack of understanding of these things and so much more, most scientists are sure beyond sure exactly how we got here and exactly how long it took. I don’t have a problem with the data. But I do have a problem with the arrogance and lack of the necessary observations with which the data is interpreted.

    • BC is based on the death of the king who was around during Christ’s alleged lifetime. If you gonna be wrong, at least be right about your own beliefs.

      Also “over 400” X D

    • Shannon: “We actually observed the formation of the canyon created by the Mount Saint Helens eruption, the layered structure of which is identical to The Grand Canyon.”
      Wow! Huh? I just rafted the Grand Canyon (7 days), and the layers of sandstone there are a mile deep – and look nothing like Mt. St. Helens lava.
      And if Earth is merely 10k years old, how do you explain this?
      Apparently nobody told our planet to hide the thousands of miles of extinct volcanos in the Hawaiian Island chain! Science has uncovered more knowledge than you suspect:

      Wow! Huh? I just rafted the Grand Canyon (7 days), and the layers of sandstone there are a mile deep – and look nothing like Mt. St. Helens lava. Embedded fossils show this sandstone was laid down at the bottom of an inland sea over hundreds of millions of years, before the Colorado River cut through it.
      And if Earth is merely 10k years old, how do you explain the long chain of extinct underwater volcanos in the North Pacific Ocean, ending at the Hawaiian Islands? (See Google Earth, or Google Maps – satellite view) Science has uncovered a deeper understanding of our universe than you suspect. A search on “Hawaii hotspot” shows how Hawaiiiii actually formed.

  22. He is surely no less stupid then previous others. Just trying to catch attention. So many missing links in his stupid theory. Sadly for biologist evolution has become some kind of religion. There is no life without God and you will never find the answer of life ever.

    • Torbjörn Larsson | August 14, 2019 at 2:57 am | Reply

      Biology is accepted science – your opinion has no impact on the area. You may want to educate yourself on the subject, why not take a course in biology at your nearest school?

  23. Why are the anti-intellectual religious twits trolling here?
    Seriously you mentally lazy numbskulls, if you’re already settled on your “it’s a magic sky daddy” explanation for everything (so you don’t have to exercise your brain for answers deeper than “because RELIGION”), then why the fuck are you on a science page??
    Science has no interest in your personal tender-ego goal of validating your pre-conceived religuous assumptions.
    Go chant somewhere else.

  24. What I would like to understand is if this is a naturally occurring process that has happened before, why don’t we observe it happening now?

    • Oh that’s no biggy to explain. Further evolved life probably eats nascent life or kills it with excretions. I call this the Parking Lot Is Full Theory.

    • Torbjörn Larsson | August 14, 2019 at 3:03 am | Reply

      We observe it now and the quickest way is to observationally test evolutionary trees from your laptop, it takes a few minutes if you know how. And if you don’t it is because you are perversely set against doing it yourself.

      You can go to the NCBI website and blast align a protein gene of your choice, then go to the MAFFT website and tree it, the databases and websites are open for anyone. If you get a tree, and it is hard not to, it has tested evolution as a scientific observation. A good tree (depends on genes and species you select) can have less than 1 % uncertainty on the nodes; less than 5 % uncertainty is a biological observation.

    • “why don’t we observe it happening now?”

      1. If you are referring to life from non-life. The conditions on primordial earth were vastly different from today. It may not be possible given the current conditions. Furthermore, there are somethings we currently debate if they are alive or not. i.e. viruses.

      2. If you are referring to evolution. We have observed it happening today.

  25. Soup

  26. Clickb8, search results from this site blocked going forward

  27. I don’t understand how life started on Earth, therefore God !

  28. What a bunch of hogwash. There is a God, he is the creator. Call upon the name of Jesus and you shall spend eternity in his presence.

  29. This “science” is full of conjecture. You simply cannot prove origin of life when you must first create the environment in this way.
    Dr. James Tour speaks on this with authority and evidence. Please do more comprehensive research before writing pieces like this.

  30. I do agree that the title is kind of exaggerating the contents of the article, but hey, almost every media outlet does these kinds of things.

    Aside from the religious people in the comment sections who publicly refuses to acknowledge scientific discoveries, I think this article and study is interesting and pretty relevant, although I do think further research is needed.

    • Anne Wyckoff, writer | August 13, 2019 at 2:33 pm | Reply

      Someone (George Russert) quoted C.S. Lewis, to the effect that if life depends on a “meaningless flux if atoms,”then our lives don’t have meaning. As much as I like C.S. Lewis (as a great writer), he was merely a fallible human being aND he wasn’t a scientist. His mistake was seeing the matter of the universe as a “meaningless flux of atoms.” Science does not explain “meaning” or consciousness. Science is not even in the business of disproving God, (as one would think from the more intolerant comments here). On the other hand, religion should not be in the business of disproving science either! God does not need to create instantly, out of “nothing” in order to be powerful. In fact, read your Bible. It poetically agrees with what science has discovered about life: In the beginning, the earth was covered with water–where life began in a “Genesis event,” long ago. The apex of that creation was humanity. Life was created “from the soil” and water of the earth. See? No problem!

  31. The amount of magical thinking in these comments is disheartening.

    On the one hand we have the scientific community working to discover how things happen making a breakthrough discovery.

    On the other hand we have a magical belief in an omnipotent invisible friend that willed it all into existence because the Bible says so.


    • Yes, and what’s even scarier is, they each have one vote – the same as you and me!
      If only “Critical Thinking” was considered just as important to learn in early grades as the “3 Rs”.

  32. Donald Humbert: “Ever heard of e Universal Probability Figure?”
    Here, try this. Throw 100 pennies up in the air. What chance that they all come up heads? One chance in 2^100. That’s less than one chance in 10^30 (a one followed by 30 zeroes) – impossible!
    Now I’ll tell you how to get all 100 heads in just 10 throws. After the first throw, set aside all the heads and re-throw only the tails (usually around 50). All heads usually takes about 8 throws, with 2 more in case of bad luck.
    What you call “the most basic structures” didn’t start out the way we see them now. Did not even have the same function. Why do we use the same opening (the mouth) for breathing, eating, and talking? Because evolution found new uses for organs that already exist – for a different purpose. Your mistake is thinking that a complex structure had to assemble from scratch. In fact you already know a lot about natural selection, since you select only the “fittest” books. The ones that ignore observable evidence from modern biology and bioinformatics.

  33. Bible Thumpers: “This is bullshit! God did it! It won’t even humor the idea that God did it!!!!”

    If y’all really think that, get to work on your doctorate, become a researcher, devise experiments, and perform them. If you can successfully demonstrate God, great, whatever. Until then, keep your thumping to yourself, or go to EvolutionNews and get your ideas reaffirmed.

    • Darwin thumpers are all “it happened by itself for no reason because Science says so. Dont you idiots even science bro? Its all random coming from nothing all by chance and unguided processes. If that seems far fetched simply sprinkle in a few billion years or so and it goes from implausible and unlikely to scientific fact”

      • Torbjörn Larsson | August 14, 2019 at 3:09 am | Reply

        “Coming from nothing” and “all random” et cetera are religious claims – in science we see lawful processes and evolution has certainly deterministic elements (selection). You may want to educate yourself on science, why not take a course in it at your nearest school?

      • In an infinite universe all possibilities, no matter how remote they are, will eventually happen.

  34. First off, 4 billion years ago the earth was a, well, a hell on earth, not sutible for life. Second, they may have found the answer for ONE part of the whole cells created themself theory. However, the numbers still speak otherwise. There are 20 different amino acids that make up a functioning protein chain. Protein chains a cell range from 150 to 30,000 amino acid ‘links’. If even 1 link has an incorrect amino acid, the chain will not function. If you assume the typical chain has 200 links, this works out to a 1 in 10 164. While this is an unimaginably large number, let me try to put it in some perspective. There have been 1016 seconds since the big bang, and scientists estimate there are 1080 ATOMS in the known universe. Statisticians generally consider anything greater than 1 in 1050 to be statistically impossible or what scientists refer to as ‘Operationally impossible’.

    • Torbjörn Larsson | August 14, 2019 at 3:21 am | Reply

      Earth was, conservatively, likely habitable 4.4 Ga (billion years ago) [ ]. The first integrated genomic and fossil evidence concur by having the joint 95% credibility intervals reject a heavy bombardment and observe an emergence of LUCA 4.519–4.477 Ga [ ].

      Evolutionary observation is that life evolved from non-life over a half alive universal ancestor lineage (see the link) to modern independent, live cells [ ]. Such a process happens in populations over cell generations, not individual cells – the rest of your comment is religious, erroneous opinion on non-evolutionary ideas (evolution is observed).

    • @John Doherty. I’m sorry John, but your arguments are flawed. First of all, it is not true that “If even 1 link has an incorrect amino acid, the chain will not function”; proteins have variations in sequence, and proteins can be functional even with multiple mutations. Any biochemist can confirm that. Some mutations are very ‘tolerable’ and may have no effect on protein function; others mutations can have greater effects on function (for example if the mutation is of an amino acid that is part of the active site of an enzyme; i.e. if the amino acid mutated plays a very important role in function). More importantly, function is not a yes/no matter; instead function is a ‘range’; one mutant protein may be 85% as active as the non-mutant protein and still be functional.; other mutant can be 10% as active than the non-mutants but still be functional. Again, any biochemist can confirm this. So again, from a biological perspective your arguments are flawed.
      MOST importantly, in the context of this article and discussion, your arguments are flawed from statistical and logical perspectives. You are asking, what is the probability that a protein of 200 amino acids with a specific functional sequence will arise randomly; or alternatively, what is the probability that a MODERN functional protein will arise randomly. No sane scientist thinks this is possible. This is not how modern proteins arose. So you are asking the wrong questions. The first proteins were probably very small and non specific in sequence, and could have been assembled by chance. These ‘primordial’ proteins may have had a very simple function, and this function was not in the context of a modern cell, as modern cells did not exist yet. The functions of this ‘primordial’ proteins may have been as simple as stabilizing the structure of other primordial functional molecules such as RNA through electrostatic interactions. RNA molecules are negatively charged, some amino acids are positively charged; and therefore proteins and RNA can interact through electrostatic interactions. With the pass of time, very simple RNA and protein molecules that were better at performing their very simple functions were selected by natural selection; functions became more complex, sequences more complex, proteins larger and more specific; etc. Until we arrived, after millions of years, to the complex functional proteins and RNAs that we see today. You see, there was a very slow increase in complexity that was facilitated by natural selection and was NOT RANDOM. Saying how unlikely it is to assemble a modern protein randomly is misleading and does nothing for the arguments presented in this article. I hope this has clarified things.

  35. Sorry, my exponants did not translate. Let me try again.
    First off, 4 billion years ago the earth was a, well, a hell on earth, not sutible for life. Second, they may have found the answer for ONE part of the whole cells created themself theory. However, the numbers still speak otherwise. There are 20 different amino acids that make up a functioning protein chain. Protein chains in a cell range from 150 to 30,000 amino acid ‘links’. If even 1 link has an incorrect amino acid, the chain will not function. If you assume the typical chain has 200 links, this works out to a 1 in 10 to the 164th power. While this is an unimaginably large number, let me try to put it in some perspective. There have been 10 to the 16th power seconds since the big bang, and scientists estimate there are 10 to the 80th power ATOMS in the known universe. Statisticians generally consider anything greater than 1 in 10 to the 50th power to be statistically impossible or what scientists refer to as ‘Operationally impossible’.

  36. Jacobus Lamprecht | August 13, 2019 at 10:04 am | Reply


    Watch “Dr Jim Tour Faith and Science at August Apologetics” on YouTube

  37. Fake News. Bunch of NERDS!!!

  38. For people who have followed the religious meme invented over the last few years that intelligence (whatever that is) per se, is needed for the requisite complexity to arise. Well, this notion can be demonstrably falsified by any number of simple tests in Conway’s game of Life.

    Conway’s game of Life is a cellular space where interaction between cells can stepwise iterate through a series of states completely determined by a small set of very simple rules with no intelligence involved.

    What is interesting is that starting with any one of a huge number of initial patterns each of whuch contain only a small integer number of cell states, the patterns can cycle completely determined by the very simple rules to produce resulting patterns of forever increasing complexity in an unbounded way.

    These patterns, over infinite time will become infinitely complex, in spite of the fact that the initial pattern may have stared with a simple pattern consisting of a dozen or so cells in a cellular space otherwise empty of any other complexity. The complexity that arises is in no way explicitly present in any of the possible simple initial pattern.

    In other words, unbounded complexity of structure can arise spontaneously in complete absence of initial complexity without the need for intelligence.

  39. I do believe there is a truth behind that question. Unfortunately we’re far away and not ready to know it. Probably will never

    • Torbjörn Larsson | August 14, 2019 at 3:24 am | Reply

      ? We know the answer already 3 years ago, see my other comments on evolution of the universal common ancestor lineage.

  40. George Russert | August 13, 2019 at 12:48 pm | Reply

    If minds are wholly dependent on brains, and brains on biochemistry, and biochemistry (in the long run) on the meaningless flux of the atoms, I cannot understand how the thought of those minds should have any more significance than the sound of the wind in the trees. —C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory, page 139

  41. If the process is that easy then new life must still be “popping” up or why not?

    • Torbjörn Larsson | August 14, 2019 at 3:26 am | Reply

      Yes, in the rest of the universe it likely is. If you mean here on Earth, the conditions changes when life evolved, already Darwin commented on that. Life use biochemicals as nutrients (and now it has poisoned the atmosphere with oxygen which means less abiotic biochemical production).

    • Why do you think when they are doing these experience they are recreating the conditions on primordial earth? Certain events require certain conditions. It’s sunny out where I live today. I’m not like, if it was raining here before why isn’t it raining here today? Because I understand certain conditions need to be met for rain. Rain wont just fall out of a cloudless sunny sky and non-life may not form life without certain conditions being met.

  42. Robert Clifton Robinson | August 13, 2019 at 12:54 pm | Reply

    Just one principle missing in this article: how did the first cell form in the primordial soup, since science has never proven this is possible? In fact, science has proven it could not have taken place.

    • Torbjörn Larsson | August 14, 2019 at 3:28 am | Reply

      ? Not only has science never “proved” that (or anything really, since that term is philosophy/religion – science tests). It has shown the reverse, life evolved from geology (see my comments on that above).

  43. Ryan F Mercer | August 13, 2019 at 1:16 pm | Reply

    I find it telling that evolution deniers always show up in backwater internet publications where they argue with each other in a debate that doesn’t recognize facts or the scientific method. It makes for rather useless conversation, doesn’t it? That’s the problem when everyone is making up their own rules based on what they feel.

  44. Anne Wyckof, writer on Quora | August 13, 2019 at 1:48 pm | Reply

    Even if scientists eventually explain how some primitive cells came together(and this isn’t the explanation–at least not yet), it need not upset religious people, like the ones who commented earlier. Science merely explains the “how” of things. Philosophy and religion still explain the “why” (of existence). There are plenty of physicists who believe the universe is comprised of Information–in need of a Consciousness to make sense of it. Many of these physicists feel that the laws of the universe were intended to produce life. If this is how it happened, I see nothing wrong with that.

    For those who quote the Bible: Remember that it merely says man was made from the earth. This can simply be seen as one way that came about. Let’s stop having a false dichotomy between faith and science!

    • Torbjörn Larsson | August 14, 2019 at 3:32 am | Reply

      That scientists can be religious has nothing to do with the purported need or existence of magic. (We don’t need it, witness Scandinavia; nature is 100 % mechanistic, witness Planck cosmology on an observed flat space.) I find it curious that someone interested in science can even entertain such an empty analysis.

      And while we can argue the worth of Martin et al phylogeny, the find that the universal ancestor lineage likely evolved from geology and was half alive seems robust [ ].

    • ” it need not upset religious people”
      If you are a biblical literalist, it will upset you. To them, the earth/universe/life was created exactly as stated in genesis. It isn’t allegory, it isn’t metaphor. So when science doesn’t confirm genesis…their jimmies get rustled.

  45. Enlightened Atheist | August 13, 2019 at 2:11 pm | Reply

    To all you people quoting scripture, your bible is not proof of anything other than the mythology, cultural beliefs and rituals of a particular group of people from 2,000 years ago. Your arguments have nothing to do with science and do not disprove anything. You waste your time trying to evangelize people who think for themselves instead of believing what others say or think is the “right way” to believe. Believe what you want but don’t try to push your beliefs onto others. Life and the Universe is amazing with or without a god and there is nothing wrong with the search for meaning through science or faith as long as there is mutual respect. Interesting article. Blessings to the Unbelievers and Believers.

  46. It was the Protomolecule all along!

  47. Here’s something that ALL SCIENTIST!!! Trying to solve our lives beginnings should try to study…

    Something had to be created for it to exist to begin with!!! So who or what created things for them to exist to begin with. I’m placing my answer with God!!! Amen!!!

    • Torbjörn Larsson | August 14, 2019 at 3:34 am | Reply

      Nothing has been ‘created’. As for prerequisites for life, a habitable Earth was needed (and apparently available).

    • “Something had to be created for it to exist to begin with”

      God is something. What created him? I always found this argument funny. Because it always exempts god from the rules, well, just because.

  48. Scooter Scoots | August 13, 2019 at 2:52 pm | Reply

    Just tell me how DNA is a product of evolution. Show me the lesser complex molecules that eventually evolved into DNA.

    • Torbjörn Larsson | August 14, 2019 at 3:36 am | Reply

      ? Biologists have long known DNA evolved from RNA cell machinery: RNA is the metabolic precursor to DNA, and RNA is the key ribozyme in ribosome protein production. (The latter discovery netted two Nobel Prizes, IIRC.)

  49. Something from nothing? “Impossible” cry the Theists. And then they try to tell you that god just appeared (something from nothing). All without a shred of evidence or an ounce of logic. And now they will bleat like the sheep they are when they read this. Stupid is as stupid does.

  50. Funny how Theists will believe anything, except science. Want proof, Christians believe in a zombie savior, turning wine into blood and drinking it, life after death, worldwide floods, 2 of every animal on a tiny boat, and a book filled with inconsistencies and violent solutions (stoning), etc. Stupid is as stupid does.

  51. james shannon | August 13, 2019 at 4:48 pm | Reply

    Click bate it is all speculation, no real discovery.

  52. No matter the explanation of creation the last question is so where did that, he, it or whatever come from. There is no single satisfactory answer for our being. Believe what gives you the most comfort or what you feel is most rational. Don’t judge others because they believe something different. If there is more, we will all find out soon enough. It’s inevitable.

    • “Don’t judge others because they believe something different.”

      I judge them because they try to enact laws I have to abide by based on their stupid beliefs. If everyone just believed dumb crap and kept it to themselves, fine. However, they don’t. If they have to follow their stupid books rules they want everyone to be forced to follow it whether they believe or not.

  53. In the beginning was the WORD.

    • Well Said, “IN THE BEGINING”. There was no Organic life, but only inorganic matter.
      God transferred the energy(what ever form), so that a perpetual machine ie: organic life started.
      creation means putting it in more organized form, functional, self reliant, evolving, defensive, self organizing, Intelligent etc

  54. You can’t deny God as we can’t science.
    Why we need to prove that either God or science exists where both are facts.
    Science fails badly many times, I wonder that how the dead believer of science then agrees to the absurd idea of “happened itself” of super complicated phenomenons. If we need to believe only In science, then we can’t believe in “happened itself”. How a believer of science can be so rediclous that would agree that an explosion occurred and the super super complicated, extremely desciplined, and super organised universe came into existence. Is this science,?? This is even beyond logic but when some one object to it he is declared a hypocrite, and bla bla… Some one said, we shoulnt use the mobile, and cars created by science, firstly we never deny science, secondly how would science create mobile, cars. Etc if there was no iron, alluminiin, petrol, and all the raw materials created by God. Stop using these,and make a mobile.
    So the point is we can’t deny either. You are giving a Nobel prize (very rightly) to some One who created a bulb that hardly lighten a room, but you deny some one who created the Sun which lighten the whole world for ever, you say it just came into existence, and the blame of absurdity is me then.
    Similallry absurd is this concept of life coming into existence. Cell is a magically complicated structure, simply coming close of its constituents and developing in a functional unit, which then continued to bring the whole life on earth is absultely non sense.
    Science should continue to explore God more and more. ALLAH (the only God) invites repeatedly (rather directs) in Holy Quran to ponder and research :in this universe, on your bodies, on skies, on plants etc to find signs of my existence. So science is helping me explore God. I believe in both. They are not separate.

    • “Science fails badly many times,”

      Science is a method. The best method we have for reaching truth. Science doesn’t “fail”. Scientists may get something wrong, but that isn’t a failure in the scientific method, its a deficiency in how someone applies the process, the data input or lack thereof. This is why science generally doesn’t deal in absolutes. You can always potentially get new information that will change a current understanding using the SAME scientific method. i.e. science didn’t fail, the scientist was using an insufficient set of data.

  55. thomas lino deconcini | August 14, 2019 at 12:18 am | Reply


  56. Wayne Spletstoser | August 14, 2019 at 2:39 pm | Reply

    For those of the affective domain. How does something from nothing differ from someone from nothing?
    The first requires one miracle, the second requires two. In short, please tell me what your god was made from
    with all that power over every particle in the universe? How was he/she created. Or is that question off limits?

    I will go with the one miracle which we are trying to understand. The same task as if was done by a miraculous god.
    The evidence in rocks is the same.

  57. God said” My thoughts are higher than your thoughts and my ways are higher than your ways. If God want us to know about anything through discovery he will permit it but if it not even As many invention , discovery, research and study we will make still we come up to norhing.
    That why we said if it unknown to you let it remain unknown. There are something that God really hidden from us. And he will not permit To reveal it to us unless it is by his own will.

  58. Cue the chorus of infantile, ignorant, delusional religious people.

  59. I love religious panic. It’s so hilarious to watch them run around moving the goalposts. “You can’t explain how life could form! Therefore god!” (aka Argument from Ignorance fallacy).
    But then science does. So they run to move the goalposts, while pretending they knew it the whole time. “See! That means god!”
    But the most hilarious thing of all is how much lower the standard of evidence for their own god is compared to the standard of evidence for natural processes. You’d have to have actual video footage from billions of years ago before they’d accept simple, natural processes. Meanwhile, their god, who nobody can show, demonstrate or even agree upon is “definitely” “really” “real.”
    In the race to find truth, they never made it over the first hurdle, and yet are pretending to have lapped science.

  60. So non-living +/- elements randomly combined to form non-living molecules that randomly combined to form 100,000 lb male and female pro-creating dinosaurs?

  61. WILEY GREENE | May 12, 2020 at 8:27 am | Reply

    “I build molecules for a living, I can’t begin to tell you how difficult that job is. I stand in awe of God because of what he has done through his creation. Only a rookie who knows nothing about science would say science takes away from faith. If you really study science, it will bring you closer to God.” James Tour. Larsson repeatedly denigrates those who are religious as though they are anti-science and so obviously ignorant. A growing body of scientists disagree, including Tour.

  62. Just to set the record straight. They didn’t do anything amazing. As famed chemist James Tour points out, you can buy a kit for this. They simply purchase the parts to a cell, including extracted DNA from current compounds and put it into another manufactured product which are the pourous capsules. Tour goes on to state that this whole thing is simply a diffusion process hyped up to seem like something more than it actually is.

  63. E.J.Armstrong | August 15, 2021 at 6:08 am | Reply

    The interesting thing is that not a single theist can produce an a self-consistent description of what their preferred deity is and what it can do because such a description does not exist.

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