Are the Odds Against the Origin of Life Too Great to Accept? {Richard Carrier, The Philosophical Scientist, 2000)
All too frequently we hear statistics being offered to "prove" that the odds against the origin of life are so great that we must posit a Creator to explain the event. David Foster, for example, whose book I critique through the link at the bottom of this essay, uses the odds of spontaneously assembling the genome of the T4 bacteriophage, and also the human hemoglobin molecule, as proof of the impossibility of life, even though no one thinks the T4 genome or hemoglobin has ever been assembled at random (for more on these statistics, see Chapter 9 of my review). I have encountered many such references, and since they are always obscure, and often antiquated, it is rarely possible to know how they were derived and thus whether they have any merit. It is helpful to have a summary analysis of all known examples, to be used to check these claims whenever they are brought up in conversations, debates, books, or articles. This essay is an attempt to fill that need (another good place for information is Ian Musgrave's excellent page on this topic). Although I cover a wide range of sources, I am certain that I have not found all of them. If you ever encounter a statistic being cited from a source which is not discussed here, please let me know and I will investigate and expand this essay accordingly. [in response to creationist criticisms of what I am doing in this essay, I have composed a more theoretical discussion of ten typical errors in creationist approaches to and uses of cosmology, biology, statistics, and logical argument.]
Do we know how difficult it would be for the initial chemical building blocks of life to form? Not precisely, but there is strong evidence that those building blocks are not that difficult to come by:
Study Offers Insights Into Evolutionary Origins Of Life -- Life Created in a Test Tube (2001-05-18)
In some of the strongest evidence yet to support the RNA world—an era in early evolution when life forms depended on RNA—scientists at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research have created an RNA catalyst, or a ribozyme, that possesses some of the key properties needed to sustain life in such a world.
Hard Evidence Shows Life Could Have Evolved Naturally (2000-08-26)
The kind of primitive biochemistry that may well have jump-started the emergence of life on Earth occurred naturally, according to hard evidence found by geophysicists.
Possible Key Step In The Origin Of Life Identified [Thread 1] (2001-05-01)
Possible Key Step In The Origin Of Life Identified [Thread 2] (2001-05-02)
For a transition to occur from the pre-biological world of 4 billion years ago to the world we know today, amino acids--the building blocks of proteins in all living systems--had to link into chainlike molecules. Now Robert Hazen and Timothy Filley of the Geophysical Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, and Glenn Goodfriend of George Washington University have discovered what may be a key step in this process -- a step that has baffled researchers for more than a half a century.
And there is also strong evidence that it didn't take life long to form, indicating it may be a fairly common occurrence throughout the universe:
Life on Earth Began at Least 3.85 Billion Years Ago, 400 Million Years Earlier Than Previously Thought, Scientists Say {NASA, November 6, 1996}
Life on Earth began at least 3.85 billion years ago, an international team of scientists reports in the cover story of the Nov. 7 issue of the journal Nature. The scientists, from UC San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UCLA's Department of Earth and Space Sciences, the Australian National University and England's Oxford Brookes University, present evidence that pushes back the emergence of life on Earth by 400 million years.
Now do you understand why I consider arguments from statistics to not be worth the paper they are scribbled on? Especially statistics that are derived from incomplete data sets, which is precisely the problem with working the odds on life forming naturally.