I wanted to address the use of a 2024 paper from Gerald Joyce’s lab by Annemarije de Boer in Gadget Review, and, to a lesser extent, the Daily Mail, to challenge my position on the Origin of Life (OoL) and imply that I am using a God-of-the-gaps argument.
Firstly, I have no beef with either journalist. Both articles were respectful and summarised my position succinctly and with moderate accuracy – although this is very hard when my position is expounded in a book comprising two hundred pages and the subject matter necessarily complex.
Having said that, here are the two quotes that I wish to address:
Daily Mail:
“A 2024 paper from Gerald Joyce’s laboratory, titled RNA-Catalyzed Evolution of Catalytic RNA, showed that an RNA enzyme could copy functional RNA in a way that might enable evolution at the molecular scale.
That work did not recreate the entire origin of life, but it provided experimental results relevant to a proposed natural pathway. Wedgwood’s dissatisfaction with such progress does not establish that the remaining steps require a designer.“
Gadget Review:
“RNA World research offers experimental footholds on the very steps Wedgwood calls impossible.
Researchers at the Salk Institute are not waiting for the philosophy to settle. In a 2024 paper published in PNAS, Gerald Joyce, Papastavrou, and Horning reported an RNA enzyme capable of copying functional RNA strands while allowing new molecular variants to emerge — evolution happening entirely within an RNA system.
Ribozymes — RNA molecules that act as their own enzymes — sit at the core of the RNA World hypothesis: the idea that simpler RNA-based chemistry preceded both DNA and proteins, addressing Wedgwood’s chicken-and-egg objection without requiring both systems to appear simultaneously….
This does not recreate the full origin of life. It demonstrates that one proposed natural step is testable in a real lab. That distinction matters — Wedgwood’s argument treats the remaining gaps as proof no natural pathway exists, but demonstrating one plausible step shifts that claim considerably.“
[I don’t wish to be rude, but I do wonder if the latter article relied heavily on AI, a tool that is currently inadequate for the purpose of drawing conclusions on this topic]
Since both articles are indirect representations of my position and writing, I will first of all state my position, as a scientist, on the origin of life, which, as you will see, is not challenged by Joyce’s findings despite both articles suggesting otherwise:
1.There is no direct evidence that life emerged by natural means
2. There are no viable theories as to how life might have emerged naturally
3. There is a mountain of evidence showing why life would not have emerged by natural means
4. There is no evidence that intelligence did not initiate life and
5. There is one piece of scientific evidence and other non-scientific evidence that life was initiated by intelligence.
The balance of scientific evidence relating to the hypothesis that life emerged by natural means is entirely against it whereas the balance of evidence relating to the hypothesis that life was the result of intelligent initiation is slightly in favour of it.
The table below summarises the totality of evidence:
| Natural origin | Intelligent initiation | |
| Evidence for | None | 2 pieces: DNA would be the only code out of millions without an intelligent source – Occam’s razor Historical religious claims going back over 3000 years |
| Evidence against | Oodles of: Chemical Statistical Conceptual Evidence | None |
Despite the Mail’s implication and Gadget Reviews assertion to the contrary, Joyce’s paper of 2024 does not change this situation, if anything it provides further support for the position I and many other scientists hold– something that de Boer alludes to, and to which I will circle back to later, but let us first look at what Joyce’s lab discovered, the claims made by the lab vs the journalists about its significance and the corresponding reality.
The key discovery – using directed evolution, under highly controlled laboratory conditions, the group produced a polymerase ribozyme (an RNA molecule that acts like an enzyme – a catalytic protein) that was able to replicate another ribozyme (the hammerhead ribozyme) with sufficient accuracy that the hammerhead enzymatic motif was preserved when copied, but with enough “inaccuracy” to allow for evolution and improvement.
The claim – this discovery provides evidence that an RNA molecule could have emerged in an RNA world system that enabled Darwinian evolution in the manner that DNA polymerase acts today.
Both the Mail and, to a greater extent, de Boer suggest that this fills a gap in the OoL pathway despite the original peer reviewed paper not making this claim. In fact, this quote from the paper points to the more humble reality of the significance of this discovery:
“Attempts to recreate RNA- based life in the laboratory must achieve further improvements in replication fidelity to enable the fully autonomous Darwinian evolution of RNA enzymes as complex as the polymerase itself.”
The words “fully autonomous” are the key words here, as I will explain, but it is really important to note that the original researcher never claimed that the discovery filled a gap in the OoL pathway, subsequent commentary by science journalists provided this embellishment. I have seen this many times before. I highlight a particularly egregious example in my book where one of the leading research chemists in OoL had made a very modest discovery, and then pointed out that we may be near the end of the beginning in understanding the first steps of how starting materials came into existence, but we are nowhere near solving the major conceptual problems. Scientific journalists for a leading popular science magazine turned this into “Scientists close to solving OoL puzzle.” Gadget Review and the Mail are guilty of something similar, albeit with less hyperbole and on a smaller scale. I don’t think it is necessarily a deliberate attempt to mislead, I just think it is a lack of understanding of science and the nuances of scientific language. Anyway, they do something worse as well…put words in my mouth.
After suggesting incorrectly that Joyce’s research had filled a gap in the OoL pathway, they implied that more gaps might be filled by future discoveries, and that this negates my “God of the Gaps” position – a term they do not explicitly use to describe my thinking but seem to imply, despite my addressing this exact accusation in my book. I am not angry with them, but I need to put the record straight.
On the first point – is Joyce being too modest, are the Mail and Gadget Review right to suggest that this molecule fills a gap in the pathway from inorganic starting materials to a fully functioning 20 amino acid protein/DNA based cell? No. For the cow analogy (later) it’s a bit like going to New Zealand via Pontypridd…not a great start.
Something both articles miss is that in my book, while discussing RNA world theory, I all but assume that this type of molecule and similar key molecules that form steps in the OoL pathway have been or will be produced in a lab at some point. It is inevitable that a lab focused on producing trillions of ribozymes will eventually produce one that can replicate other ribozymes, especially if they direct or force the process to achieve this outcome. This is proof of nothing other than the ability of intelligent beings to create ribozymes. The fact that they use directed evolution supports this further, but that is just the beginning. If analogous processes could occur in nature, then it might provide evidence that such a molecule could appear naturally, but this is not the case. In fact this paper highlights perfectly my central position – that the chemical, statistical and conceptual barriers to life emerging by natural means are insurmountable. How so?
- Chemical – an article on Science and Culture, an apologetics website, provides a good summary of some of the chemical problems. Moreover, I have my own experience of performing chemistry on these molecules during my Ph.D which focused on synthesizing drug candidates that disrupted RNA replication in HIV, HBV and HCV. Unless you use large amounts of extremely pure starting material and conduct each step of the experiment under precisely controlled conditions (solvent, gas, temperature and pressure), you will either have no reaction or create a complete mess. The idea that an open environment (or even a little chamber in a rock) could provide such conditions is, to use an apt cliche, for the birds. In the world as we know it now, these conditions have only ever existed as a result of intelligent men and women creating them in a lab, or within living cells, and there is no evidence to believe anything was ever different in this regard. Moreover, long chains of RNA would not persist for great lengths of time and would cross-react with other chemicals. I would argue that the formation of large RNA molecules of any kind, let alone ribozymes, in uncontrolled natural conditions is so chemically improbable as to be practically impossible.
- Statistical – the RNA ribozyme (or polymerase) that the group generated was 184 nucleotides long. Given that a polymerase is absolutely vital to reproducing new generations of ribozymes within the evolving system and also for Darwinian evolution leading to adaptation, this is one of the first ribozymes that would need to come into existence in the absence of proteins. Due to the fact that ribozymes often need to be larger than equivalent proteins to perform identical tasks, a 184mer is probably reasonably representative. The chances of this happening in an undirected (but chemically perfect) environment are 1 in 4184 or 1 in 6012269011901013063397070327780702790081747325202988690106648871245510429339761526706943586500787976175353856. This is so highly improbable as to be regarded as statistically impossible (akin to someone buying a single ticket for the Euromillions each draw and winning over 20 draws in a row with the same numbers). Now you might be able to reduce these odds by saying there could be thousands, maybe even millions of combinations of ribonucleotides that could be functional polymerase ribozymes, and that maybe you could have smaller molecules, but you would still be looking at a figure well over 100 numbers long (winning the Euromillions 11 times in a row). Others might say that combinations of smaller molecules could perform this task. There is no evidence this is the case, and you would still need to create the full form molecule at some point, creating the same insurmountable statistical hurdle.
- Conceptual – the fact is that in a parallel universe that ignores the laws of nature and in which the chemical and statistical impossibilities were overcome – the appearance of this molecule achieves nothing (this is what Joyce is effectively saying in the quote…more research needed)…it does not fill a gap in the pathway as claimed by the journalists, which is why I say the cow is in Pontypridd, rather than somewhere like Dover. Yes, it can replicate other ribozymes, but crucially it cannot replicate itself, it is not an autonomous self-replicating system which would almost certainly need a self-replicating molecule, and from my understanding a self-replicating molecule is conceptually impossible – something I will return to shortly.
Both articles referred to (and complemented) my cow analogy when it comes to understanding the nature of the barriers facing a natural solution to OoL:
The chemical and statistical barriers are like understanding the problem of a cow that is munching grass in a field in Surrey, England, finding its way, without any intelligent assistance, to a field in New Zealand and munching the greener grass there. You can imagine how a walker leaves the gate of the field in England open, and the cow wanders out onto the road and begins its journey. Now the fact is, in the real world, it would never get to New Zealand without intelligent assistance, but you could at least imagine a sequence of highly improbable circumstances by which it might happen…akin to one individual winning the Euromillions 20 weeks in a row using the same numbers each week…you can imagine it (I often do!), but it won’t ever happen. It is therefore conceptually possible, albeit so improbable that it would be practically impossible.
The conceptual barriers in OoL research, of which there are many, are like the cow jumping over the moon and arriving back in the field intact without intelligent assistance. Given our understanding of the laws of nature, this is conceptually impossible…we cannot conceive of how this might happen.
The Joyce lab puts the cow in Pontypridd, which isn’t very helpful when it comes to going from Surrey to New Zealand, and even then, provides no satisfactory explanation of how it even got to this landlocked Welsh town from the field except that it would most likely need to go via the moon!
Let’s return to the self-replicating molecule problem, and specifically a fully autonomous self-replicating RNA molecule. Firstly, why is this important? Consider Joyce’s “groundbreaking” paper. They created a molecule that can replicate other RNA molecules, but unless it can replicate itself, after a while this molecule would degrade and be lost forever – because it couldn’t replicate itself (there is only one copy that came into being by chance since this is the first molecule that can replicate with sufficient accuracy to kick start proto-Darwinian evolution). As a result, the system would die off since this is the only molecule that exists which is able replicate the system, but can’t also replicate itself. From my understanding, because of this, for the RNA world to ever be viable as a Darwinian genetic proto-system, a molecule that is able to replicate itself, as well as other ribozymes, with good but not perfect accuracy is a pre-requisite. This is the only way that the “superskill” – ribozyme replication – and the genetic information that contains that skill – the sequence of the RNA molecule – can emerge together at the same time in a new generation of the system. However, after thinking on this in recent years, I have concluded the emergence of a self-replicating molecule is conceptually impossible (this does not appear in my 2018 book). Why do I say that?
Let’s move on from cows to snakes, which are not a problem in the UK, and don’t exist in NZ. (My friends and colleagues in Australia are perennially anxious gardeners). The reason that the idea of any molecule ever fully replicating itself is inconceivable is the same reason that a snake could never entirely eat itself. Enzymes and ribozymes are long chains that fold into 3-dimensional functional structures, with parts of those chains, often one area of the chain, or adjacent areas of the structure, forming the active site…in this instance the site that performs the core function of lengthening a chain of RNA. This is like the mouth of the snake. So, in the same way that a snake can start eating its tail but never eat its head, a ribozyme could start replicating one end of its chain but never replicate its own active site. This understanding is supported by the evidence that researchers have engineered ribozymes that can copy other RNA strands or assemble parts of themselves but have never created a fully autonomous fully self-replicating molecule, despite trying for over 30 years.
Snakes cannot fully eat themselves.
A molecule can never fully replicate itself.
Cows cannot jump over moons.
In my book, (which, despite what de Boer says, deals thoroughly with the RNA world theory in detail and shows that it is a red herring – a trip to Pontypridd – which does not in any way deal with the chicken and egg DNA – protein problem) I don’t really regard the emergence of a self-replicating molecule as a major hurdle, and yet from my current understanding, without this occurring there is no natural undirected route to OoL. It is possible I am missing something, but I don’t believe so.
In reality, there are many huge conceptual problems that I regard as insurmountable (cow jumping over the moon territory)…here are a few that I discuss in my book (not necessarily in order of OoL):
- The initial formation and encoding of a cell wall/membrane
- The emergence of an xNA system
- The transition from an RNA (or any xNA system) to a DNA system
- The appearance of proteins in a nucleoside world
- The transfer of RNA ribozyme functionality to protein enzyme functionality
- The encoding of amino acids in codons (nope aptamer condensation is not the answer)
- The coding of genes for unrelated 3-dimensional protein structures
- The expansion from a doublet system to a triplet system
- The expansion from a smaller amino acid system to a 20 amino acid system
Many of these problems and others revolve around the DNA–protein coding system. Despite false claims about the RNA world solving the chicken and egg problem, to date, no viable hypotheses for solving these problems have been proposed, let alone lab evidence provided. You will read books that say it happened via evolution, but never ever how it could happen viably. You might read something like “proteins took over the role of ribozymes” but never ever how…because there is no viable explanation of how. They rely on general scientific ignorance among all but a tiny percentage of the population, along with widespread indifference, agnosticism or atheism, an academic establishment that is hostile to religion, and scientism (a belief that only science has the answers) to do the heavy lifting. There is nothing rational or actually scientific about this position. If you can’t even conceive of a credible natural route after 60 years of knowing about the problem, then the chances are that such a solution is inconceivable and therefore conceptually impossible…like a cow jumping over the moon.
Unfortunately, as demonstrated by the Mail and Gadget Review, people without scientific expertise are not always able to grapple with the complex specialized nature of the problems. Today they might ask AI to provide answers, or analyse my argument, and while AI may appear more intelligent than it is due its access to endless amounts of information, commercially available AI is not actually yet more intelligent than a Ph.D. scientist and is only as good as the flawed data and commentary that forms the canon of literature on this subject. AI is just collating a consensus of opinions about research on the internet. It is not actually thinking. Whether it ever learns to truly think for itself – become conscious – is a question that is front and centre of current global angst on this subject. At the moment, in my experience, you just have a highly sophisticated search engine that creates language tying together the things it found, underpinned by algorithms that simulate intelligent language. It frequently gets things wrong, but states these falsehoods with such confidence that it will hoodwink those who don’t know any better.
Journalists will also naturally reach for the latest headline in a reputable journal stating that we are closer than ever to solving the OoL puzzle. In reality these papers are no more than placeholders by researchers in the field that sound sufficiently convincing to the uninitiated to embed a false impression that progress is being made while the researchers scrabble around for something that will withstand more rigorous scrutiny than that of a sympathetic scientific establishment. In this instance, they reached for the 2024 Joyce paper, which not only makes no claims about filling a gap in the OoL pathway, also, as I hope I have clearly shown, does not fill a gap in the OoL pathway. All it says is that humans can make ribozymes that are able to replicate other ribozymes with the right amount of accuracy to enable Darwinian evolution, but that for this to be applicable in the RNA world context, would require overcoming overwhelming chemical and statistical hurdles, with the ultimate conceptual hurdle of autonomous self-replication – or a snake eating itself.
Unfortunately, for people like me it is like playing Whack-a-mole as there are constant efforts by some scientists and more commonly, the popular science press, to claim they have found a missing step in the pathway, when after thorough analysis (as demonstrated here), these claims prove false or are at least massively inflated in their significance…every…single…time. That is my experience of all such claims of the past 60 years, and a materialistic establishment will sail across these mirages as though they are a passage of reason creating a false narrative swallowed by the general public.
To summarise this bit…the articles suggest that a gap in the OoL pathway has been filled by Joyce’s work and science will fill the rest. Neither Joyce himself or the evidence support those assertions. There is still a singular giant gap from starting materials to the first eukaryote cell.
Finally, to the second objection I have to what are otherwise reasonable and balanced articles by good journalists. Both the Mail and Gadget Review infer – albeit politely – that my position is based on the God of the gaps argument. It is not. I am not merely saying because we don’t know how it happened “God must have done it.” I am specifically saying that there is quantifiable evidence that intelligence initiated life – the DNA code. The word code when applied to DNA is not a simile, or metaphor or analogy, it is a precise description. It is both an abstract and arbitrary highly sophisticated yet elegant code. There is no chemical or physical relationship between codons and the amino acids they code for that aids translation. They need specific translation machinery to decipher and translate the code (20 aminoacyl tRNA synthetase enzymes). Moreover, the shape and functionality of the final products, proteins, are so far removed from the physical qualities of a gene, it strongly implies oversight and foresight to generate such a system, so much so that it all but screams intelligence (that is an intelligent design (ID) argument, which is not my central argument). ID aside, and solely on the basis that DNA is a code, and that all other codes, of which there are millions, are the result of intelligence, this is measurable scientific evidence of intelligence (not of intelligent design). To say otherwise, is to say, purely on the basis of assumptive scientism with no supporting evidence, that despite every other code in existence being the result of intelligence, this one emerged naturally -we just don’t know how – we just assume it. That would be the opposite of Occam’s razor:
Occam’s razor: When you have two competing theories that explain the same thing, you should prefer the one with the fewest assumptions.
There is also evidence of a very different kind from texts going back thousands of years which claim that life was initiated by an intelligent being. Belief in intelligence being responsible for life is not just filling a gap with something we made up when we realised the science was hard, it is a claim that pre-existed our understanding of a cell but has not been disproven by that understanding or any other science. There is no scientific evidence at all against life being the result of intelligent initiation. Darwinian evolution is post-OoL, and while Darwin’s theory may or may not provide evidence that contradicts parts of the Biblical account of how species developed, there is absolutely zero evidence contradicting the core declaration of an intelligent OoL, something that has been in existence for all prior recorded time. Modern belief in a natural emergence of life from inorganic starting materials is based solely on an assumption, nothing else.
Moreover, as I show in my book, DNA: The Elephant in the Lab, not only is there zero evidence that life could emerge by natural means, but there is an insurmountable mountain of statistical, chemical and conceptual evidence against such a scenario…over and over again. When people say that science will find the answer, there is no evidence of this being the case since it has failed to produce any serious answers to significant steps, and therefore this assertion amounts to nothing more than a “science of the gaps” argument based on fanatical scientism practised by equally fanatical atheists.
As a result of this situation, believing that life was the result of intelligent initiation is the most logical position for an unbiased scientist to take. What or who that intelligence is cannot be answered from this area of research and is a subject of philosophical discussion. For what it’s worth, my money (and soul) is on the God of the Bible.
Orson Wedgwood 