The argument that sufficient time makes anything possible or even probable sounds plausible only if it is not analyzed carefully. It starts with the admission that, since even the simplest living organisms are exceedingly complicated, the beginning of life by accidental chemical reactions is very improbable.
The probability is very, very low that just the right molecules would form, come together, and spontaneously fit together to start life. But if a very unlikely thing is tried many times, the probability increases that success will finally be achieved. If there is enough time to make a large enough number of tries, the mathematical probability that it will finally occur becomes almost certainty.
Mathematically, this argument is correct. But to see if the mathematical theory really proves that life could have started accidentally, it is necessary to apply the theory to a reasonable model of the real world.
Begin with very generous assumptions about the beginning of life. Then, we assume that for a billion years the surface of the earth was covered each year with a fresh layer one foot deep of protein molecules. This would be 260 trillion tons each year, a fantastic number of molecules.
Yet, at the end of the billion years, the probability that just one protein molecule required to start life had been formed is only one chance in about 100 billion. This means that it is really mathematically impossible for life to start by accident, even if the beginning would require only a single suitable enzyme molecule.
Dr. H.P. Yockey made a similar but much more thorough calculation based on the information content of the cytochrome c molecule and obtained a probability 100,000 times smaller than ours.11
Some workers have claimed evidence that certain origin-of-life experiments have produced chains of amino acids which were non-random in order. Supposedly certain sequences of amino acids tend to form, and reportedly these sequences are similar to those found in true proteins.12 On the other hand, Miller and Orgel challenge such claims and say, "There is no evidence to show whether the amino acids within a chain are highly ordered or not."13
In any event it is quite certain that life could not start with a single protein molecule. It has been estimated by Harold Morowitz that the simplest possible living cell would require not just one, but at least 124 different proteins to carry out necessary life functions.14
Writing in his book, Energy Flow in Biology, Prof. Morowitz also estimates the probability for the chance formation of the smallest, simplest form of living organism known today.15 He comes up with the unimaginably small probability of one chance in 1,340,000,000.
This means one chance in the number one followed by 340 million zeros. This is about the same as the probability of tossing a coin 1,129,000,000 times and getting all heads.
Sure, that could happen, couldn't it Phizzy?
This means one chance in the number one followed by 340 million zeros.
No, it doesn't mean that at all. You might want to do a more careful job of plagiarism in the future.
But all of these numbers are irrelevant, because A) nobody has ever seriously claimed that all of this just fell together one day, which is all you are even attempting to refute and B) we can observe very large molecules spontaneously assembling which would similarly be "ruled out" by such a calculation, so clearly the entire calculation scheme is fundamentally flawed.