Hi @Mercer, @nwrickert, @Faizal_Ali, @BenKissling, @Art, @John_Harshman, @CrisprCAS9, @RonSewell, @Rumraket and @AllenWitmerMiller,
I just came across a video titled, Challenge to Origin of Life: Replication (Long Story Short, Ep. 8), produced by the Center for Science and Culture. There’s a post about the latest video, over at evolutionnews.org, written by Rob Stadler, who received a PhD from the Harvard/MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology. Here’s the video.
I must say that the video is very well-put-together: it manages to communicate complex ideas in very simple language, which laypeople can readily digest. Clearly, the CSC is getting pretty media-savvy.
The video claims to have been produced in collaboration with a team of 5 Ph.D. scientists. What I’d like to know, however, is: are the scientific arguments and difficulties fairly presented, in the professional opinion of those who are biologists?
To me, the question of the origin of life is a scientific one, not a theological one. To say that God must have created the first life is a dogma. But it’s no less dogmatic to say that any God worth His salt could have made a universe capable of producing life naturally. Even if He could have, that doesn’t mean He did. The question of how life originated has to be settled empirically. If the obstacles to abiogenesis seem to grow over the course of time, I would say that’s a sign scientists are flogging a dead horse. If, on the other hand, they melt away little by little, that’s a sign of progress.
So I’d like to ask the scientists: how powerful a case do you think the authors of the CSC video have made, with regard to replication? Are there any major holes in their arguments? Is abiogenesis research as unpromising as they suggest? Over to you.