Described as “one of the world’s most respected microbiologists” on the jacket of his hardcover book in our local library, Professor Franklin Harold of Colorado State University has included some fascinating observations In his book The Way of the Cell on the topic of abiogenesis, or the scientific hypothesis about the origin of life.
If one cares about the mini-reviews on the back cover, they would seem to lend credibility to his claim of expertise on the subject, given the enthusiastic endorsement of his book by renowned biologist Lynn Margulis. Dr. Harold appears to be imminently qualified to write about the subject in question. In my opinion, his chapter titled “Searching for the beginning” is so remarkable we should start at its beginning. Professor Harold writes,
Of all the unsolved mysteries remaining in science, the most consequential may be the origin of life. This opinion is bound to strike many readers as overblown, to put it mildly. Should we not rank the Big Bang, life in the cosmos, and the nature of consciousness on at least an equal plane? My reason for placing the origin of life at the top of the agenda is that resolution of this question is required in order to anchor living organisms securely in the real world of matter and energy, and thus relieve the lingering anxiety as to whether we have read nature’s book correctly. Creation myths lie at the heart of all human cultures, and science is no exception; until we know where we come from, we do not know who we are Barrow in Furness . [emphasis added]”
Franklin Harold, The Way of the Cell
Many people who argue that genetics is evidence of common descent (as opposed to common design) get angry when simple questions are raised that challenge their Darwinian worldview. Even though biologists have never observed the origin of new species–because it cannot be observed due to the constraints of a human lifespan–they will simply refuse to entertain any other possible explanation under the pretext that the evidence cannot be interpreted any other way than evidence of common descent, which naturally would remove the need for a creator God.
The problem is, can you even get from t=0, the moment the Big Bang occurred, to a living organism capable of evolving without the need for God, too? To assume that abiogenesis occurred because life exists is a myopic view that suggests of a profound ignorance about the full scope of the existential problem at hand. Professor Harold continues,
The origin of life is a stubborn problem, with no solution in sight. There is indeed a large and growing literature of books and articles devoted to this subject, many with theories to propound. Biology textbooks often include a chapter on how life may have arisen from non-life, and while responsible authors do not fail to underscore the difficulties and uncertainties, readers still come away with the impression that the answer is almost within our grasp. My own reading is considerably more reserved. I suspect that the upbeat tone owes less to the advance of science than to the resurgence of primitive religiosity all around the globe, and particularly in the West. Scientists feel vulnerable to the onslaught of believer’s certitudes, and so we proclaim our own. In reality, we may not be much closer to understanding genesis than A.I. Oparin and J.B.S. Haldane were in the 1930s, and in the long run, science would be better if we said so buy Neurontin canadian pharmacy . After all, the unique claim of science is not that it has all the answers but that it knows the questions, and will not compromise its commitment to the rational search for truth.[emphasis added]
Franklin Harold, The Way of the Cell
Now if you only care about biology (in the professional sense) then you may not be worried about the Bigger Picture in regard to our existential questions because it’s not relevant for you to perform your duties on the job, just as it’s not critical to believe that life is designed in order to apply genetics to analysis of biological life forms, in spite of an expert in the field’s warning that biology books tend to gloss over the problem. It might only matter if you care about learning whether or not what you believe is true before you die. Much later in his book (on page 244 to be exact) Professor Harold wrote, “Prehistorians, with little more than scraps, shards, and analogy to go by, do not reconstruct the past so much as imagine a plausible version of it.”
Translation: Miller/Urey didn’t know the environment on Earth prior to life; they made an educated guess and tried to duplicate that environment in laboratory conditions, and had some success at creating amino acids from a pre-biotic chemical mix. However, as synthetic chemist Dr. James Tour explains in this very informative lecture, “we” (the royal “we”) aren’t even remotely close to understanding how the first cell formed.
While I have no right to claim authority on the subject of abiogenesis, I am not making any claims, either. I’m simply providing information anyone could find by reading Dr. Harold’s book and listening to Dr. Tour’s lectures. As for the credentials of Dr. Tour, they speak for themselves: James Tour has over 650 research publications and over 120 patents, with an H-index = 136 (107 by ISI Web of Science) and i10 index = 605 with total citations over 87,000 (Google Scholar). He was inducted into the National Academy of Inventors in 2015. Dr. Tour was named among “The 50 Most Influential Scientists in the World Today” by TheBestSchools.org in 2014; listed in “The World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds” by Thomson Reuters ScienceWatch.com in 2014; and he was the recipient of the Trotter Prize in “Information, Complexity and Inference” in 2014; and the Lady Davis Visiting Professor, Hebrew University, June, 2014. Dr. Tour was named “Scientist of the Year” by R&D Magazine, 2013.
The man knows his stuff, so I have no qualms about referring to him as a valuable source of useful information. While I cannot and would not claim to be any sort of an expert on abiogenesis, but I certainly do enjoy learning from them. Later in his book, Dr. Harold wrote:
Those who believe, as I do, that living organisms are autopoietic systems capable of evolution by variation and natural selection, must keep a foot in both camps [note: those seeking the origin of life through information versus those who look at energetics] and risk being scorned by both. But the definition really sharpens the issue: the question is not only how life arose on earth, but how nature generates organized material systems to which terms such as adaptation, function and purpose can be applied. Readers will have noted that this is still a free-wheeling inquiry, in which the few solid facts need not seriously impede the imagination; let me take advantage of what has, sadly, become a very rare privilege.
Franklin Harold, The Way of the Cell (page 250)
So, I’m not the only person who recognizes that facts don’t need to impede one’s imagination! Apparently anyone can believe just about anything they want, as long as they don’t have to worry about making things fit in the existential Big Picture catered to that person’s personal bias.
Professor Harold continued:
[W]e [cellular biologists] are compelled by our calling to insist at all times on strictly naturalistic explanations: life must, therefore, have emerged from chemistry. Granted also that simple organic molecules were present at the beginning, in uncertain locations, diversity and abundance. Leave room for contingency, some rare chemical fluctuation that may have played a seminal role in the inception of living systems, and remember you may be mistaken. With all that, I still cannot bring myself to believe that rudimentary organisms of any kind came about by the association of prefabricated organic molecules, born of purely chemical processes in their environment.”
Franklin Harold, The Way of the Cell (page 250)
Richard Dawkins may vehemently protest that Darwinian natural selection is not random and therefore does not involve luck, but life cannot evolve until it exists, and life cannot exist without a universe capable of supporting it, which physicists like to describe using terms such as “fine-tuned” and “Goldilocks universe” just right for life.
Professor Harold noted that Karl Popper said we must begin with a preconceived notion in order to know what questions to ask or what facts to observe. He quoted Popper to say, “The downside is that we will cling to an outworn hypothesis, well aware of its shortcomings, until a more credible alternative comes to hand.” He concluded his book with this observation: “It would be agreeable to conclude this book with a cheery fanfare about science closing in, slowly but surely, on the ultimate mystery; but the time for rosy rhetoric is not yet at hand. The origin of life appears to me as incomprehensible as ever, a matter for wonder but not for explication.”
It seems to me that if an idea cannot be adequately explained, it stands to reason that it also cannot simply be assumed true. The universe came to exist from nothing, created either serendipitously (and accidentally) by good luck, or on purpose by a form of intelligence. Likewise, life either emerged from inanimate matter because chemical processes created a living organism and we are the lucky beneficiaries of billions of years of remarkable good luck, or we might consider the possibility that we were actually created to serve some purpose and life exists for a reason.
How lucky do you really think you are? Are you sure you understand how much luck is necessary to explain existence by accident?
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