LIFE AND THE ABANDONMENT OF THE NATURALISTIC HYPOTHESIS

Is the evolution of life inevitable when the right circumstances collaborate? Astronomer Hugh Ross has warned us to not expect it, anywhere in the universe:

·       The probability of life originating naturalistically on a habitable planet is mathematically indistinguishable from zero. Since zero times any other factor or set of factors equals zero, then, from a naturalistic perspective, the number of civilizations besides our own that exist in the universe is zero. (Salvo Magazine, Winter 2016, 35)

Why might Ross have calculated that the chances of life occurring naturalistically as zero? Here are several considerations:

Biologist Michael Denton points out the immensity of the machinery involved in even the simplest forms of life:

·       “If a cell were magnified a thousand million times…in every direction we looked, we would see all sorts of robot-like machines…the task of designing even one such molecular machine would be completely beyond our capacity.”

Richard Kleiss observes that:

·       “The mathematical probability that the precisely designed molecules needed for the simplest bacteria could form by chance arrangements of amino acids is far less than 1 in 10 followed by 450 zeroes.”

This is just a matter of the building blocks and not even the cellular machinery. He adds that:

·       “The coded instructions contained in the DNA of a human cell would fill 4,000 encyclopedia-sized books.”       

Interestingly, there is no evidence whatsoever that a single protein or segment of DNA has ever been found to occur naturally. Kleiss maintains that these products need to be produced within a living cell, but the cell first needs these building blocks:

·       “To make DNA, you have to have DNA in the first place…This leads to the conclusion that cells could never have evolved, they simply had to have been created with the DNA code already in them!”

Consequently, the naturalistic hypothesis might have to be abandoned.