A growing number of scientists seek to explain how life began, but few appreciate the underlying philosophical and scientific challenges. A recently released Long Story Short video explains how these challenges can corrupt science to obfuscate reality. This video is supported by a recent series of Science and Culture articles where I addressed the topic: “When can I trust what scientists say?” (See here, here, here, and here.) I suggested six criteria that can be used to assess the level of confidence behind a scientific claim:
- Is the evidence repeatable?
- Can the evidence be directly measured or observed?
- Was the evidence obtained through prospective study?
- Was bias minimized?
- Were assumptions minimized and openly disclosed?
- Did they make reasonable claims?
For the first three criteria, it is difficult to imagine a field of study that is more uncooperative than the origin of life. Any direct evidence has been lost over eons of time and attempts to prospectively replicate the origin of life rely almost entirely upon assumptions and human intervention.
The latter three criteria speak more to the quality of the scientists. This is where origin-of-life scientists face the greatest peril, as detailed in the Long Story Short video.
Was Bias Minimized?
Although all scientists are biased to some degree, origin-of-life researchers are committed to an innate and potentially devastating bias, because they allow only natural explanations for a singular event in the very distant past. This bias covertly changes the question that researchers pursue, from “How did life begin?” to “How did natural processes begin life?” The change is covert because results are reported as if they are addressing the broader question. We need to recognize that the constraint of naturalism may block science from uncovering the truth.
Imagine if efforts to determine King Tut’s cause of death allowed consideration only of natural causes, thus excluding murder or suicide. Such artificially constrained research could miss the truth. Shouldn’t science be free to pursue the truth, no matter where the evidence leads? Some argue that science can only consider natural causes (aka methodological naturalism), but if science shows that natural processes would thwart the formation of life, the bias imposed by methodological naturalism becomes an impediment to truth.
Were Assumptions Minimized and Openly Disclosed?
As mentioned previously, origin-of-life research relies almost entirely on assumptions. Perhaps the most egregious assumptions involve nature’s ability to separate and concentrate the molecules needed for life, and nature’s assumed ability to accomplish the tasks performed by living organisms (including humans) in origin-of-life experiments. Although we have evidence that some of the simple molecules of life can be produced by natural processes (e.g., meteors1, asteroids2, water droplets3, and Miller-Urey experiments4), no one has demonstrated that a natural process can sufficiently separate and concentrate only those molecules needed for life. As molecules become more complex, there is a combinatorial explosion of the diversity of molecular structures, and life requires a vanishingly small subset. Origin-of-life researchers assume that nature found a way, thus justifying the use of relay synthesis where they purchase pure, concentrated reagents for the next experimental step (and these pure reagents are ironically produced only with the help of living organisms and human intellect). It is one thing to adopt assumptions without the ability to validate them, but origin-of-life researchers often follow this course by failing to openly disclose these assumptions as limitations to their work. Hidden assumptions are devastating to good science!
Did They Make Reasonable Claims?
Scientists are not, or should not be, tabloid headline writers. They should only make claims that are strongly supported by evidence, and hedging terms should be used to convey uncertainty when appropriate. Yet origin-of-life researchers routinely exaggerate the confidence of their findings, perhaps to compensate for results that can provide only very low confidence or perhaps as a result of their a priori commitment to naturalism. Here, we focus on the claims about self-replicating molecules, which are an absolute requirement for abiogenesis.
In 1967, Sol Spiegelman sparked the fervor over self-replicating molecules with his paper, “An extracellular Darwinian experiment with a self-duplicating nucleic acid molecule.”5 Unfortunately, the replication process required a complex protein enzyme borrowed from existing life (Qβ replicase). Gerald Joyce later admitted that this was not self-replication6 but then doubled down with his own stunningly exaggerated claim: “Chemists can benefit from reflecting on Spiegelman’s studies and the subsequent advances, which have taken the field to the brink of the generation of life itself in the laboratory.”6 Joyce also reported “Self-sustained replication of an RNA enzyme,”7 which sounds convincing but only involved a single ligation between pre-prepared halves of an RNA enzyme. The most recent report on self-replication, by Philipp Holliger’s group, “A small polymerase ribozyme that can synthesize itself and its complementary strand,”8 indeed sounds like self-replication, but as reviewed by James Tour and myself,9 this experiment required intense human intervention, required separate preparations to replicate each of the two strands, and provided no indication of yield and no demonstration of a resulting functional ribozyme.
With such exaggerated claims, it is no surprise that many are convinced that self-replication of RNA is a reality, and that scientists have already created life in the lab. Rather than making progress toward life, these experiments actually demonstrate that natural processes oppose abiogenesis, a conclusion that is inconceivable for those who are committed to naturalism.
Notes
- Schmitt-Kopplin P, et al. High molecular diversity of extraterrestrial organic matter in Murchison meteorite revealed forty years after its fall. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2010; 107: 2763–2768.
- Galvin DP et al. Abundant ammonia and nitrogen-rich soluble organic matter in samples from asteroid (101955) Bennu. Nature Astronomy 2025; 9: 199-210.
- Meng Y, et al. Spraying of water microdroplets forms luminescence and causes chemical reactions in surrounding gas. Sci Adv. 2025; 11: eadt8979.
- Miller, S. L., A production of amino acids under possible primitive earth conditions. Science, 1953. 117(3046): 528–529.
- Mills D R, et al. An extracellular Darwinian experiment with a self-duplicating nucleic acid molecule. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A, 1967; 58: 217–224.
- Joyce G. Forty years of in vitro evolution. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2007: 46; 6420-6436. DOI: 10.1002/anie.200701369.
- Lincoln TA, Joyce GF. Self-sustained replication of an RNA enzyme. Science 2009; 323: 1229-1232.
- Gianni E, et al. A small polymerase ribozyme that can synthesize itself and its complementary strand. Science 2006; 391:1022-1028.DOI:10.1126/science.adt2760
- https://youtu.be/BzkKPzCydhA?si=gKRDgMAuLctw5kXm