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Origin of Life

James Tour
Jeremy England
Image: James Tour, via University of Waterloo/YouTube.

On Origin of Life, Synthetic Chemist James Tour Delivers Chastisement to Jeremy England

“[U]nder certain conditions, matter inexorably acquires the key physical attribute associated with life.” Oh, really, does it? Read More ›
Jeremy-England-1

Hailed as the “Next Darwin,” MIT’s Jeremy England Sheds Little Light on Life’s Origins

England’s research is focused on the wrong question. Origin-of-life theories are not helped by identifying processes that efficiently dissipate energy. Read More ›
slime mold
evolve
Photo: Tubifera dudkae, a slime mold, by Дмитро Леонтьєв (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0], via Wikimedia Commons.

Must Life Evolve?

In redefining life to make its origin easier to explain, origin-of-life researchers are now increasingly emphasizing the ability of life to evolve. Read More ›
Long road to LUCA
origin
Photo credit: Pictography, via Pexels.

Origin-of-Life Researcher Admits, It’s “A Long, Long Way to LUCA”

Without intelligent design, how the "the last universal common ancestor of all living organisms" arose remains frustratingly elusive to theorists. Read More ›
free lunch
free lunch
Photo credit: © thinglass — stock.adobe.com.

Materialist Origin-of-Life Solutions All Depend on a “Free Lunch”

This from Nature Reviews Chemistry caught our eye – an unexpectedly candid admission of how far origin-of-life research is from shedding real light on its subject. Read More ›
oracle soup
theistic evolution
Photo credit: © ra2 studio — stock.adobe.com.

Oracle Soup – Dialogue with a Theistic Evolutionist, Continued

We have no trouble rattling off any number of “conditions” that are relevant to the process of boiling alphabet soup. Read More ›
Scrabble

Origin of Life and Information — Some Common Myths

A common attempt to overcome the need for information in the first cell is to equate information to a reduction in entropy. Read More ›
Blue Ice, South Greenland
thermodynamics
Photo credit: Visit Greenland from Nuuk, Greenland (Blue ice in South Greenland) [CC BY 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons.

Tornadoes, Ice, and Cells: The Challenge from Thermodynamics to Origin-of-Life Scenarios

This is a subject on which materialists are largely silent, and with good reason. Read More ›
Eifuku chimneys
engine
White chimneys, Eifuku volcano, by NOAA, via Wikimedia Commons.

Free Energy and the Origin of Life: Natural Engines to the Rescue

A fundamental hurdle facing all origin-of-life theories is the fact that the first cell must have had a free energy far greater than its chemical precursors. Read More ›
tornado-funnel-cloud
origin of life
Photo credit: Jean Beaufort, via PublicDomainPictures.net.

The Origin of Life, Self-Organization, and Information

In an article here yesterday, I described the thermodynamic challenges to any purely materialistic theory for the origin of life. Read More ›

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