The Mumbo Jumbo Magic of Evolution

To understand just what Evolution really is we need to go back to the very origin of life, that is, the origin of life according to the evolutionists.

As of 2017, microfossils (fossilised microorganisms) within hydrothermal-vent precipitates dated 3.77 to 4.28 Gya in rocks in Quebec may harbour the oldest record of life on Earth, suggesting life started soon after ocean formation 4.4 Gya during the Hadean Eon.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis

This gives us a timeline. For evolutionists they see the origin of life occurring some 4 billion years ago. And according to them, just how did life start?

In evolutionary biology, abiogenesis, or informally the origin of life (OoL), is the natural process by which life has arisen from non-living matter, such as simple organic compounds. While the details of this process are still unknown, the prevailing scientific hypothesis is that the transition from non-living to living entities was not a single event, but an evolutionary process of increasing complexity that involved molecular self-replication, self-assembly, autocatalysis, and the emergence of cell membranes.

An early concept, that life originated from non-living matter in slow stages, appeared in Herbert Spencer's 1864–1867 book Principles of Biology. In 1879 William Turner Thiselton-Dyer referred to this in a paper "On spontaneous generation and evolution". On 1 February 1871 Charles Darwin wrote about these publications to Joseph Hooker, and set out his own speculation...

"It is often said that all the conditions for the first production of a living organism are now present, which could ever have been present. But if (and oh! what a big if!) we could conceive in some warm little pond, with all sorts of ammonia and phosphoric salts, light, heat, electricity, &c., present, that a proteine compound was chemically formed ready to undergo still more complex changes, at the present day such matter would be instantly devoured or absorbed, which would not have been the case before living creatures were formed."
— Darwin, 1 February 1871.

More recent studies, in 2017, support the notion that life may have begun right after the Earth was formed as RNA molecules emerging from "warm little ponds".

Today, scientists agree that all current life descends from earlier life, which has become progressively more complex and diverse through Charles Darwin's mechanism of evolution by natural selection.
In On the Origin of Species, he had referred to life having been "created", by which he "really meant 'appeared' by some wholly unknown process", but had soon regretted using the Old Testament term "creation".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis

Even though Darwin himself said it was "a big if!" the thought was put forward that the very origin of life could have started in a pond of chemicals! Definitely the concept of life arising from non-living matter.

And note that we are told here that the details of the process of life arising from non-living matter are still unknown.

Also the thought that life could actually be generated from chemicals somehow seems akin to magical thinking:

Magical thinking
is the belief that unrelated events are causally connected despite the absence of any plausible causal link between them
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magical_thinking

The unrelated events here are life and chemicals. If we leave the chemicals alone long enough, and given the right conditions, life will be generated.

It does sound like magical thinking.

And there has actually been an attempt by scientists to produce life in a laboratory situation:

One of the most important pieces of experimental support for the "soup" theory came in 1952. Stanley Miller and Harold Urey performed an experiment that demonstrated how organic molecules could have spontaneously formed from inorganic precursors under conditions like those posited by the Oparin-Haldane hypothesis. The mixture of gases was cycled through an apparatus that delivered electrical sparks to the mixture. After one week, it was found that about 10% to 15% of the carbon in the system was then in the form of a racemic mixture of organic compounds, including amino acids, which are the building blocks of proteins.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis#Miller%E2%80%93Urey_experiment

A protocell is a self-organized, self-ordered, spherical collection of lipids proposed as a stepping-stone to the origin of life. A central question in evolution is how simple protocells first arose and differed in reproductive contribution to the following generation driving the evolution of life. Although a functional protocell has not yet been achieved in a laboratory setting, there are scientists who think the goal is well within reach.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis

"No compelling scenarios currently exist for the origin of replication and translation, the key processes that together comprise the core of biological systems and the apparent pre-requisite of biological evolution."

Though the Miller-Urey experiment looked like giving a promising start for the scientists it should be noted that to date "a functional protocell has not yet been achieved in a laboratory setting".

And what about the comment "an experiment that demonstrated how organic molecules could have spontaneously formed from inorganic precursors"?
There's a new one: "could have"

How is this different from the theory of spontaneous generation which has been disproven? There seems to be a very fine line here.

Also a lot of organic molecules are proposed for the beginning of life:

The early ocean and lakes themselves may have been a dilute solution of organic molecules.

The molecular apparatus ancillary to the operation of the genetic code—the rules that determine the linear order of amino acids in proteins from nucleotide base pairs in nucleic acids (i.e., the activating enzymes, transfer RNAs, messenger RNAs, ribosomes, and so on) —may be the product of a long evolutionary history ...
https://www.britannica.com/science/life/Production-of-polymers

The import of this statement should not be missed:

The origin of life and Evolution itself "may be the product of a long evolutionary history".

"may be"?

I'd say that's a pretty big may be.

Similarly for the ocean and lakes:

"The early ocean and lakes themselves may have been a dilute solution of organic molecules."

"may have been"?

I'd say that's also a pretty big may have been. A lot of speculation going on here!

"In an infinite multiverse with a finite number of distinct macroscopic histories (each repeated an infinite number of times), emergence of even highly complex systems by chance is not just possible but inevitable."

And a really fascinating quote:

Despite considerable experimental and theoretical effort, no compelling scenarios currently exist for the origin of replication and translation, the key processes that together comprise the core of biological systems and the apparent pre-requisite of biological evolution.

The MWO ["many worlds in one"] version of the cosmological model of eternal inflation could suggest a way out of this conundrum because, in an infinite multiverse with a finite number of distinct macroscopic histories (each repeated an infinite number of times), emergence of even highly complex systems by chance is not just possible but inevitable.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis

This is interesting. Here we are told that "Despite considerable experimental and theoretical effort, no compelling scenarios currently exist for the origin of replication" of the necessary processes that would lead to biological evolution!!

Even more interesting the next paragraph suggests if we take a science fiction multiverse approach Evolution should be inevitable!

So just how did life and the evolutionary process begin?

"the transition from non-living to living entities was" "an evolutionary process of increasing complexity" the details of which are still unknown, and "the product of a long evolutionary history".

Apart from some possible mumbo jumbo magic, this definitely sounds like circular reasoning!

It would appear that the beginning of life according to the evolutionists has comments like:

"the details of this process are still unknown"
"may have been"
"may be"
"could have"
"has not yet been achieved in a laboratory setting"
"no compelling scenarios currently exist"
"what a big if!"
"the natural process by which life has arisen from non-living matter"
"the product of a long evolutionary history"
"in an infinite multiverse ... (each repeated an infinite number of times) ... [Evolution] is not just possible but inevitable."
"in some warm little pond"
"by some wholly unknown process"
involving magical thinking and maybe with a little bit of science fiction tossed in!

So from all if this we can conclude that the theory of Evolution may well be based on mumbo jumbo magic, the details of which are still unknown, and requiring circular reasoning along with a fair bit of speculation such as "may have been" and "may be" etc. And don't forget the little bit of science fiction!

It may also be a pseudoscience.

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Stephen Buckley
E-mail: greatesthoax [at] duck.com
Last revised: 8 Jul 2021.
Construction started about 23 Oct 2020.

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Page design/construction Stephen Buckley 2020.