For by Him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible,...For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, ...so that THEY ARE WITHOUT EXCUSE: Col 1:16 / Rom.1:20

Saturday, September 20, 2025

Those “formidable entropic and informational barriers”

 "A recent popular science article begins with the words, “A new study published in July 2025 tackles one of science’s most profound mysteries – how did life first emerge from non-living matter on early Earth?” 
As is so typical in such articles, the author simply assumes that lifedid naturally arise from nonliving chemicals. 
It is almost as if he is attempting to frame the debate by excluding from the outset even the possibility of supernatural creation. Instead of asking how life naturally arose, scientists (and thinking people everywhere) would do well to ask the question: Did life naturally arise, or was it created?

As described in both popular and technical papers, systems biology professor Robert G. Endres attempted to estimate the requirements for the spontaneous generation of a hypothetical protocell from a primordial soup on early Earth. 
*He concluded that such a protocell, with an information content of about a billion bits, could, in principle, spontaneously arise from primordial soup in 500 million years—but only if a small fraction of the interactions leading to the protocell are consistently preserved over “vast stretches of time.” Endres acknowledged the “formidable entropic and informational barriers” to the formation of such a protocell. 
In spite of these barriers, Endres stated that “abiotic evolution, however slow and strange, remains a viable (if mind-bending) explanation.” 
Q: But if abiotic (or chemical) evolution really is viable, why is it “strange” and “mind-bending”?

Apparently, Endres is not terribly confident in life’s ability to naturally arise from nonliving chemicals, because he throws out “directed panspermia” as a fallback option. Directed panspermia, the idea that intelligent extraterrestrials in the distant past “seeded” Earth with life, is nothing new; it was suggested by molecular biologist Francis Crick, chemist Leslie Orgel, and astronomers Carl Sagan and Iosif Shklovskii in the mid-1960s and early 1970s.

A little thought, however, quickly reveals that directed panspermia doesn’t really explain life’s origin. 
Q: If life on Earth were seeded here by intelligent extraterrestrials from outer space, how did the extraterrestrials themselves come to be? 
Claiming that they, too, are the result of abiogenesis on their planet only pushes the problem further back in time, as does claiming that they are the result of another directed panspermia experiment performed by an even older civilization.

But in 2011, Scientific American, despite its strong pro-evolution bias, had already conceded this point, acknowledging that scientists “don’t have a clue how life began.” 

A supernatural creator is the only rational explanation for our existence. That Creator is also the Savior of the world and its coming King: “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. (John 1:4)” 
ICR
Entropy Simplified: Things break down with TIME. 
So in other words what they are pointing out is that over the eons of TIME required for evolution to take place (assuming life could even start randomly at all on it's own--and that evolutionary forces could proceed) Entropy would set in and reverse/destroy any progress with TIME.
Simply Put: Entropy would counter evolutionary forces on a grand scale of time.
--But--
Q: If Creation were to be true, then why does the Creation break down in a perfectly Designed/Created system from the beginning?
A: Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned: For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. 
Romans 5:22/8:22