Still a Great Mystery
The August 8, 2015 edition of The Economist began a series on scientific mysteries that are still unsolved. The Economist is a London-based business magazine. What scientific mysteries have to do with economics, I do not know. Anyway, the author is beginning a short series of six articles on unsolved scientific mysteries.
He begins, of all places, with the origin of life itself. Theoretically, it is easy to explain life coming from nothing. “Filling in the biological parts of the equation is much harder. Science has but a single example – that of life on Earth – to extrapolate from. But if researchers can work out how life gets going, they will acquire an idea of how likely or unlikely that process is, and what sorts of conditions might be needed for it to happen” (quotations come from the website edition).
First, the author discusses the chemistry of the primordial soup and spends a paragraph describing the famous Miller-Urey experiment, which “has since fallen from favour.” It fell from favor a very long time ago. It is nice in theory, impossible in reality.
“With no fossils left over from the earliest era of life, such theories are ultimately arguments about plausibility.” Then the author writes of “proto-cells.” Without getting into details, these hardly constitute either life or the building blocks of life.
To briefly summarize the first half of the author’s article, finding the origin of life in chemistry has proven fruitless.
So, where else do we look? “Elsewhere.” The author gives a hint at why he chose to begin his series with the origin of life. Fifty years ago (last week), James Lovelock from Great Britain, first proposed the idea that perhaps life began somewhere else.
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It is incredible that the author of a well-respected world-wide magazine would report, with seriousness, that some “researchers continue to hope Martian life” will “turn up.” Really? And believing in a Supreme Being is supposed to be irrational? He goes on: “[I]t is hard to see how the idea of reclusive Martian bugs could ever be comprehensively refuted.” Seriously?
According to NASA, the average time it takes to travel from Mars to Earth is 1.6 years (260 days), in high tech space craft! How did “Martian bugs” get from Mars to Earth by themselves!? The author just stated “liquid water is essential for every known form of life.” How did these Martian bugs live for 1.6 years without liquid water? Is he so blinded by evolutionary theory that he can’t listen to himself talk and reason? I think we just refuted comprehensively, with less than a grammar school logic, the “idea of reclusive Martian bugs.”
The author spends a little more time on the possibility of life in other solar systems but that is pure speculation and is better fit for Highlights magazine than a serious publication.
He concludes: “Conclusive proof, though – as opposed to highly suggestive evidence from atmospheres – will be hard to come by. The only definitive demonstration of life’s existence would be to see it in the flesh (as might happen with microbial Martians) or, if it is intelligent, to detect any deliberate communications…” (emph. mine). Well, The Economist just made our argument for us, didn’t it? The original source of life on earth has made Himself known in the flesh and He has given us deliberate communications.
Thank you, The Economist!
–Paul Holland
