June 2, 2025 • 22 mins
Think evolution is a perfect theory? It does an amazing job explaining how species emerge, but where did the first life come from? In today's episode we discuss the modern theories which explain abiogenesis, or the emergence of life from non-life. Do you buy it?
Buy the book with this link: https://a.co/d/7CI89rv
Buy the Audiobook: https://www.audible.com/pd/Gods-Eye-View-Audiobook/B0F55K2GT1?source_code=ASSGB149080119000H&share_location=pdp
Want to publish a book? Check out my publisher https://hemisphericpress.com/
Check out our ad free substack: https://hemisphericpress.substack.com/
Check out the God's Eye View Podcast here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/gods-eye-view/id1818164606
Buy the book with this link: https://a.co/d/7CI89rv
Buy the Audiobook: https://www.audible.com/pd/Gods-Eye-View-Audiobook/B0F55K2GT1?source_code=ASSGB149080119000H&share_location=pdp
Want to publish a book? Check out my publisher https://hemisphericpress.com/
Check out our ad free substack: https://hemisphericpress.substack.com/
Check out the God's Eye View Podcast here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/gods-eye-view/id1818164606
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Welcome to the Gods I View Podcast, the companion podcast
for my book, God's I View. Check it out on
Amazon just search God's I View. We should pop up first.
There are a few other books with similar titles, but
God's I View by Trevor Lohman should pop up first.
(00:32):
You can't miss it. There's a big black hole in
the cover. All right, So what are we talking about tonight?
Actually not the book. The last three episodes, I've been
talking about the book. I love talking about the book,
the topics of the book, but I've been sitting down
(00:52):
and trying to come up with something new to write.
I have a serious case of writer's block. Bad. Can't
get more than a few words together. Work's been busy,
it's been tough, but I won't complain to you all.
Life's hard for everyone. Let's talk about some mystery, one
(01:15):
of life's great mysteries, maybe the greatest mystery. Where did
we come from? Where did the first life on Earth
come from? I've been playing around with this idea of
writing a book about biogenesis and a biogenesis. So if
(01:38):
you don't know, back in the days of Aristotle, people
thought that life came from non living matter and This
was basically based on the idea that if you left
a piece of meat out, bugs would appear from inside
the meat, or if you got torrential rain, all of
(02:02):
a sudden, there might be fish in a puddle. And
it actually took a really long time to realize that
those fish just came from a nearby pond that was
connected to this puddle during the heavy rain, and then
when it dried up a little bit, it appeared as
(02:22):
though a fish had just appeared in this puddle, and
that the bugs coming out of the meat were actually
larva hatching out of eggs. And so it really wasn't
until Louis Pastor and a few other people that they
were able to experimentally show that life cannot come from
(02:46):
non life, and then the theory of biogenesis was born.
This was Louis Pastor's theory that life must come from life.
It's a foundational principle of science except scientists. Most scientists
(03:06):
believe that the first life did come from non life.
They have to believe that there's really no other explanation
without invoking some type of intelligent design or supernatural force
or creator. So it's this weird catch twenty two. We
(03:27):
have this principle of biogenesis that says life must come
from life. Yet the mainstream scientific explanation for the origin
of life is that life came from non life, and
so what exactly is the theory? Well, we're going to
listen to a little two minute short clip from PBS.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
Where does life come from? This is one of the
most important questions humanity has ever posed, and the scientific
answer is we don't entirely know. You might think that
cracking DNA's genetic code should have explained life's origins, and
it definitely helped. Thanks to our understanding of DNA, we
can map out the history of evolution all the way
back to single celled life, but that's where we're stuck.
(04:18):
The problem is DNA is a great way to store information,
but it doesn't do much else. Cells rely on other
molecules like proteins to replicate, grow, and survive. Proteins, on
the other hand, work great as molecular machines to keep
cells alive and healthy, but they can't store information or
copy themselves. They need DNA for that. So we have
(04:39):
a chicken and egg problem. DNA needs proteins to function,
and proteins need DNA to exist. So which came first?
Which molecule made life possible? Well, there's a third type
of molecule that may hold the answer, RNA. Most scientists
think that RNA came first because RNA can do two jobs,
store information and perform various functions that keep cells alive.
(05:03):
This idea that RNA came first is called the RNA
world hypothesis. RNA world suggests that billions of years ago,
in some primordial soup of molecules, a self replicating RNA formed.
This may have happened in volcanic vents deep on the
ocean floor, or perhaps clay clumps brought the necessary chemical
building blocks together. Some scientists have even speculated that early
(05:27):
RNAs formed on Mars and hitched a ride on an
asteroid to our planet. One way or another, self replicating
RNAs emerged, multiplied, and evolved. Over millions of years, they
developed into a legion of molecular machines. These microscopic proto
life forms blossomed and competed. The best collections of code
lived on and the weekly one died out. Survival of
(05:49):
the fittest was the name of the game. This competition
for survival eventually led RNAs to evolve the ability to
build strong, stable proteins, which excel at carrying out complex
biological processes, and somewhere along the line, some critical RNAs
mutated into the familiar double helix of DNA. DNA became
a stable archive of genetic information that stored blueprints for
(06:12):
the most successful RNA and protein molecules. Life became more
complex over trillions of tiny steps and happy accidents, and
all the while, the RNA lineup grew alongside lengthening genomes
of DNA and complex proteins, and it's all still happening
inside your body. RNAs have adapted to become the Swiss
(06:33):
army knive.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
All right, I think you get the idea. Are you convinced?
Does it make sense? If you're like me, you might
be scratching your head wondering what what was actually communicated
in that last minute. So let me let me do
(06:56):
my best to explain. You know, fast forward to the
beginning of I'm actually not sure how many billions of
years we're talking about here, but you know, we just
kind of call it this primordial soup, and basically there
was no life on Earth, but there was vast ocean
and within those vast oceans, there were many different types
(07:19):
of molecules, including amino acids and these you know molecules
that compose RNA called nucleotides. And basically, the idea is
that over vast amounts of time, molecules with high affinity.
Affinity just means they fit together well, happened to bump
(07:44):
into each other and fit together, and then you know,
they fit together with another molecule here and another molecule there,
until we have, like picture a string of molecules bound together.
In each of those molecules on that string, there's a
(08:06):
counter part out there somewhere in that ocean that fits
like a lock and key in a way that it's
able to copy itself. And the idea is the molecules
are floating along and things are bumping in and things
are connecting and sticking, and that's where iPhones come from.
(08:26):
Fast forward to many billions of years. Now you could
accuse me of being like, maybe hmm, trying to oversimplify it,
but actually I mean, let's let's listen again. Let's let's
hopefully I can find the right.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
Time RNA came first. Is called the RNA world hypothesis.
RNA world suggests that billions of years ago, in some
primordial soup of molecules, a self replicating RNA formed.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
That's it, that's the theory, no explanation, just it just happened.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
This may have happened in volcanic vents deep on the
ocean floor, or perhaps clay clumps brought the necessary chemical
building blocks together. Some scientists have even speculated that early
RNAs formed on Mars and hitched a ride on an asteroid.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Just to elaborate on this Mars thing. So Francis Crick
and Watson discovered DNA. They discovered the structure of DNA
in I think Oxford or King's College, I don't know,
summer in England. And they had help. There's another team
I forget, I forget the name. That's a female and
(09:39):
a male. Anyway, they discovered DNA, and Krick saw DNA
as direct evidence of divine creation. Let me rephrase that,
because that's not what I just said, is not exactly right.
He believed that Christians would see DNA as direct evidence
(10:01):
of creation. He was an atheist. And so the discovery
of really a code, an information transport system within our
cells that was coded as if we were programmed or
(10:22):
designed or created. He didn't like it. He didn't like
the idea that there was an information system at the
heart of ourselves, because information systems aren't natural. Information systems
don't tend to appear in nature in the absence of
an intelligent guiding hand. Alphabets, for example, don't tend to
(10:47):
appear through natural forces, like a wave crashing on a
beach or a wind consistently blowing through a canyon. Tends
not to create language or math. Intelligent minds do that. Now,
you could argue that nature creates intelligent minds, and then
(11:12):
intelligent minds create information systems, but the argument is the same.
The intelligence is needed to create an information system, So
how could information systems be created at a time where
there were no intelligent minds? This is the catch twenty
two And Francis Kirk recognized that he was obviously a
smart man, and so his idea, and he believed it.
(11:36):
And Francis krik'still alive. I'm actually not sure I think
he is. He was alive at the time of the
writing of the book Codebreaker, I think, which came out
four or five years ago. I don't know, but he
he put this idea of pan spermia out there, and
we laugh at pan spermia today. It's actually a pretty
interesting theory. We'll have to do an episode on it.
(11:59):
It's not completely it's not a half baked theory. He's
got lots of interesting observations about the different h about
our biochemistry is odd given the crustal abundance of certain minerals.
And he argues that certain rare elements that are found
(12:21):
in humans are much more common on Mars, and so
maybe we evolved on Mars, or or our DNA evolved
on Mars. This is actually an interesting theory. It's now
Christians say, I would say, probably it's fair Christians say
that this man is so desperate, this man is so
(12:41):
desperate to deny the existence of a creator that he
invented the pseudo scientific insanity based on no evidence. And
I mean there's an element of that, but also there's
something there's something interesting about pants Burmi, but let's just
put that aside for a second. Let's for now just
dismiss it. Although I don't think that's quite fair, and
(13:03):
we'll come back to it, but these are your options
that RNA appeared whatever that means that's not an explanatory theory,
that's an inadequate it's a hypothesis sort of masquerading as
a theory, but it's not even really a hypothesis because
there's no hypothetical mechanism. I mean sort of is there's
(13:29):
different molecules have different affinities for one another, but you know,
there should be information systems appearing all the time. I
don't know. Anyway, The idea is that these molecules bumped
into each other and over millions and millions of years
because they were self replicating, somehow a type of evolution
(13:54):
or natural selection emerged. I mean, scientists kind of put
evolution out there as an explanation for the origin of life.
But remember, evolution explains speciation. It does not explain a biogenesis,
the emergence of life from non life, and no evolutionary
biologists would claim that it does, although in pop culture
(14:16):
it is kind of presented as an explanation even though
it is not an explanation for a biogenesis anyway. The
point is knowing this flaw in the theory of evolution.
It's not a flaw, it's just it was never meant
to explain a biogenesis. So knowing this, there's like this
insistence of quickly transitioning from RNA appeared in italics whatever
(14:45):
that means, right, quote it emerged. There's almost like a
spiritual reverence you have to have when you say these words,
RNA emerged over millions of years. Again, this is spiritual,
that's scientific anyway. And then there's a quick rush to
make it about evolution again, the idea that better types
(15:09):
of molecules out competed. But this is assigning a a
sort of life to these chemicals, which is totally irrational
to assign them. I mean, RNA is interesting. Its main
job is to basically transcribe genetic information from the nucleus
(15:37):
and then transport that information out into the cytoplasm. But
even that is to a it gives it too much agency.
It's as it we kind you kind of conceptualize it
as this little robot that goes into the nucleus and
sticks the USB stick in the DNA and downloads the
(15:57):
plans and goes out to the side of plasm to
make protein. That's not it at all. There are proteins
in the nucleus like RNA, plymmerace that bind to DNA
and they literally transcribe, They make a copy of the
DNA for a certain length of the gene, and the
(16:22):
byproduct is an RNA molecule. So it's it's like it's
like do you know, do you know when you like
you could go to like a cemetery or a monument
like in Washington, d c. With a crown and a
paper and you can rub the crown on the the Uh.
It's not an engraving. It'd be like a d graving.
(16:43):
They'd be like sticking out I guess, and you get
you get an image or a name, and then you leave.
That's kind of what transcription is. You're you're taking information
from like a monument, from a place where you can't
easily take that information home with you, same as a nucleus,
you can't. The DNA can't leave the nucleus. So you
(17:06):
go in and you transcribe the DNA. So you take
your little piece of paper with the image on it.
And that's basically what RNA is. It's a passive, lifeless molecule,
incapable of moving on its own. It just sort of
floats and diffuses out of a nuclear pore and it
(17:30):
happens to bump into a ribosome itself doesn't do anything.
It doesn't have a drive or ambition or consciousness. It's
less lifelike than some enzymes. It's nothing. It's a collection
of molecules that can be arranged in a certain way
(17:52):
to convey information. It's like an alphabet or a word.
But you don't look at a word written on a
bottle or on a coffee cup and attribute life to it.
It's just information. But for some reason, with the RNA
(18:13):
world hypothesis, we like we animate these chemicals with some
kind of divine energy, and we say they emerged, and
they competed in the oceans, and the strongest, best RNAs
emerged and formed DNA. It's guys, it's silly. It is silly.
(18:37):
And listen, there's lots of really smart scientists who have
come up with some really creative and interesting ideas, but
it just doesn't pass the sniff test. It doesn't make sense. Honestly,
pan spermia makes a whole lot more sense than RNA world.
(18:59):
The problem is you still don't really explain a biogenesis.
You just kick the can to a different planet. Now,
we got to figure out how life emerged on Mars,
and that would be an interesting story, I'm sure, or
there is some kind of creative force. I don't know.
(19:20):
This is the part of Christianity and the Bible that
I do struggle with because there is so much evidence
for evolution. Now listen, there are flaws. There are big
problems with the theory, and now even evolutionary biologists are
starting to admit that, you know, random mutation is the
(19:43):
driver of speciation is flawed, and that there's clearly some
other motive force. That's an interesting word force, but of
course they won't go as far to say that it's
(20:03):
guided by a guiding hand. Anyway, I'm kicking these ideas
around about a new book. God's Eye View was two
hundred years of physics that I think opens the door
for their being a god. I'm not claiming to have
proved his existence. I'm just pointing out the obvious, obvious
(20:28):
similarities between scientific concepts over the past two hundred years
and the certain aspects of the Biblical narrative. And I'm
pointing out the flaws and the religiosity of belief within science.
Science as a worldview asks you to believe in miracles.
(20:52):
Science has a method is perfect. We should use science
as a method. That's what it's always been until very recently.
All Right, guys, please check out the book God's I
View by Trevor Loman, PhD on Amazon. I'd love for
you to read it. I kind of wrote it with
(21:14):
an agnostic in mind. You know, someone out there wrestling
with faith, you know, maybe not wanting to seem silly
for believing. I'm trying to show you that it's not silly.
You know, to not believe is silly. To believe blindly
is silly. But everything in the middle is not silly.
(21:37):
None of us know. Certainty is it's foolish. Certainty is foolish.
All right, God's I View on Amazon. The link is
in the episode description. Also a special announcement, my publisher
and I and a few other authors are starting a
(21:59):
substack or My publisher's name is Hemispheric Press, so check
out hemispheric press dot com. Check out hemispheric Press dot
substack dot com. I will put those links in the
episode description. Thank you everybody,
Welcome to the Gods I View Podcast, the companion podcast
for my book, God's I View. Check it out on
Amazon just search God's I View. We should pop up first.
There are a few other books with similar titles, but
God's I View by Trevor Lohman should pop up first.
(00:32):
You can't miss it. There's a big black hole in
the cover. All right, So what are we talking about tonight?
Actually not the book. The last three episodes, I've been
talking about the book. I love talking about the book,
the topics of the book, but I've been sitting down
(00:52):
and trying to come up with something new to write.
I have a serious case of writer's block. Bad. Can't
get more than a few words together. Work's been busy,
it's been tough, but I won't complain to you all.
Life's hard for everyone. Let's talk about some mystery, one
(01:15):
of life's great mysteries, maybe the greatest mystery. Where did
we come from? Where did the first life on Earth
come from? I've been playing around with this idea of
writing a book about biogenesis and a biogenesis. So if
(01:38):
you don't know, back in the days of Aristotle, people
thought that life came from non living matter and This
was basically based on the idea that if you left
a piece of meat out, bugs would appear from inside
the meat, or if you got torrential rain, all of
(02:02):
a sudden, there might be fish in a puddle. And
it actually took a really long time to realize that
those fish just came from a nearby pond that was
connected to this puddle during the heavy rain, and then
when it dried up a little bit, it appeared as
(02:22):
though a fish had just appeared in this puddle, and
that the bugs coming out of the meat were actually
larva hatching out of eggs. And so it really wasn't
until Louis Pastor and a few other people that they
were able to experimentally show that life cannot come from
(02:46):
non life, and then the theory of biogenesis was born.
This was Louis Pastor's theory that life must come from life.
It's a foundational principle of science except scientists. Most scientists
(03:06):
believe that the first life did come from non life.
They have to believe that there's really no other explanation
without invoking some type of intelligent design or supernatural force
or creator. So it's this weird catch twenty two. We
(03:27):
have this principle of biogenesis that says life must come
from life. Yet the mainstream scientific explanation for the origin
of life is that life came from non life, and
so what exactly is the theory? Well, we're going to
listen to a little two minute short clip from PBS.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
Where does life come from? This is one of the
most important questions humanity has ever posed, and the scientific
answer is we don't entirely know. You might think that
cracking DNA's genetic code should have explained life's origins, and
it definitely helped. Thanks to our understanding of DNA, we
can map out the history of evolution all the way
back to single celled life, but that's where we're stuck.
(04:18):
The problem is DNA is a great way to store information,
but it doesn't do much else. Cells rely on other
molecules like proteins to replicate, grow, and survive. Proteins, on
the other hand, work great as molecular machines to keep
cells alive and healthy, but they can't store information or
copy themselves. They need DNA for that. So we have
(04:39):
a chicken and egg problem. DNA needs proteins to function,
and proteins need DNA to exist. So which came first?
Which molecule made life possible? Well, there's a third type
of molecule that may hold the answer, RNA. Most scientists
think that RNA came first because RNA can do two jobs,
store information and perform various functions that keep cells alive.
(05:03):
This idea that RNA came first is called the RNA
world hypothesis. RNA world suggests that billions of years ago,
in some primordial soup of molecules, a self replicating RNA formed.
This may have happened in volcanic vents deep on the
ocean floor, or perhaps clay clumps brought the necessary chemical
building blocks together. Some scientists have even speculated that early
(05:27):
RNAs formed on Mars and hitched a ride on an
asteroid to our planet. One way or another, self replicating
RNAs emerged, multiplied, and evolved. Over millions of years, they
developed into a legion of molecular machines. These microscopic proto
life forms blossomed and competed. The best collections of code
lived on and the weekly one died out. Survival of
(05:49):
the fittest was the name of the game. This competition
for survival eventually led RNAs to evolve the ability to
build strong, stable proteins, which excel at carrying out complex
biological processes, and somewhere along the line, some critical RNAs
mutated into the familiar double helix of DNA. DNA became
a stable archive of genetic information that stored blueprints for
(06:12):
the most successful RNA and protein molecules. Life became more
complex over trillions of tiny steps and happy accidents, and
all the while, the RNA lineup grew alongside lengthening genomes
of DNA and complex proteins, and it's all still happening
inside your body. RNAs have adapted to become the Swiss
(06:33):
army knive.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
All right, I think you get the idea. Are you convinced?
Does it make sense? If you're like me, you might
be scratching your head wondering what what was actually communicated
in that last minute. So let me let me do
(06:56):
my best to explain. You know, fast forward to the
beginning of I'm actually not sure how many billions of
years we're talking about here, but you know, we just
kind of call it this primordial soup, and basically there
was no life on Earth, but there was vast ocean
and within those vast oceans, there were many different types
(07:19):
of molecules, including amino acids and these you know molecules
that compose RNA called nucleotides. And basically, the idea is
that over vast amounts of time, molecules with high affinity.
Affinity just means they fit together well, happened to bump
(07:44):
into each other and fit together, and then you know,
they fit together with another molecule here and another molecule there,
until we have, like picture a string of molecules bound together.
In each of those molecules on that string, there's a
(08:06):
counter part out there somewhere in that ocean that fits
like a lock and key in a way that it's
able to copy itself. And the idea is the molecules
are floating along and things are bumping in and things
are connecting and sticking, and that's where iPhones come from.
(08:26):
Fast forward to many billions of years. Now you could
accuse me of being like, maybe hmm, trying to oversimplify it,
but actually I mean, let's let's listen again. Let's let's
hopefully I can find the right.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
Time RNA came first. Is called the RNA world hypothesis.
RNA world suggests that billions of years ago, in some
primordial soup of molecules, a self replicating RNA formed.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
That's it, that's the theory, no explanation, just it just happened.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
This may have happened in volcanic vents deep on the
ocean floor, or perhaps clay clumps brought the necessary chemical
building blocks together. Some scientists have even speculated that early
RNAs formed on Mars and hitched a ride on an asteroid.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Just to elaborate on this Mars thing. So Francis Crick
and Watson discovered DNA. They discovered the structure of DNA
in I think Oxford or King's College, I don't know,
summer in England. And they had help. There's another team
I forget, I forget the name. That's a female and
(09:39):
a male. Anyway, they discovered DNA, and Krick saw DNA
as direct evidence of divine creation. Let me rephrase that,
because that's not what I just said, is not exactly right.
He believed that Christians would see DNA as direct evidence
(10:01):
of creation. He was an atheist. And so the discovery
of really a code, an information transport system within our
cells that was coded as if we were programmed or
(10:22):
designed or created. He didn't like it. He didn't like
the idea that there was an information system at the
heart of ourselves, because information systems aren't natural. Information systems
don't tend to appear in nature in the absence of
an intelligent guiding hand. Alphabets, for example, don't tend to
(10:47):
appear through natural forces, like a wave crashing on a
beach or a wind consistently blowing through a canyon. Tends
not to create language or math. Intelligent minds do that. Now,
you could argue that nature creates intelligent minds, and then
(11:12):
intelligent minds create information systems, but the argument is the same.
The intelligence is needed to create an information system, So
how could information systems be created at a time where
there were no intelligent minds? This is the catch twenty
two And Francis Kirk recognized that he was obviously a
smart man, and so his idea, and he believed it.
(11:36):
And Francis krik'still alive. I'm actually not sure I think
he is. He was alive at the time of the
writing of the book Codebreaker, I think, which came out
four or five years ago. I don't know, but he
he put this idea of pan spermia out there, and
we laugh at pan spermia today. It's actually a pretty
interesting theory. We'll have to do an episode on it.
(11:59):
It's not completely it's not a half baked theory. He's
got lots of interesting observations about the different h about
our biochemistry is odd given the crustal abundance of certain minerals.
And he argues that certain rare elements that are found
(12:21):
in humans are much more common on Mars, and so
maybe we evolved on Mars, or or our DNA evolved
on Mars. This is actually an interesting theory. It's now
Christians say, I would say, probably it's fair Christians say
that this man is so desperate, this man is so
(12:41):
desperate to deny the existence of a creator that he
invented the pseudo scientific insanity based on no evidence. And
I mean there's an element of that, but also there's
something there's something interesting about pants Burmi, but let's just
put that aside for a second. Let's for now just
dismiss it. Although I don't think that's quite fair, and
(13:03):
we'll come back to it, but these are your options
that RNA appeared whatever that means that's not an explanatory theory,
that's an inadequate it's a hypothesis sort of masquerading as
a theory, but it's not even really a hypothesis because
there's no hypothetical mechanism. I mean sort of is there's
(13:29):
different molecules have different affinities for one another, but you know,
there should be information systems appearing all the time. I
don't know. Anyway, The idea is that these molecules bumped
into each other and over millions and millions of years
because they were self replicating, somehow a type of evolution
(13:54):
or natural selection emerged. I mean, scientists kind of put
evolution out there as an explanation for the origin of life.
But remember, evolution explains speciation. It does not explain a biogenesis,
the emergence of life from non life, and no evolutionary
biologists would claim that it does, although in pop culture
(14:16):
it is kind of presented as an explanation even though
it is not an explanation for a biogenesis anyway. The
point is knowing this flaw in the theory of evolution.
It's not a flaw, it's just it was never meant
to explain a biogenesis. So knowing this, there's like this
insistence of quickly transitioning from RNA appeared in italics whatever
(14:45):
that means, right, quote it emerged. There's almost like a
spiritual reverence you have to have when you say these words,
RNA emerged over millions of years. Again, this is spiritual,
that's scientific anyway. And then there's a quick rush to
make it about evolution again, the idea that better types
(15:09):
of molecules out competed. But this is assigning a a
sort of life to these chemicals, which is totally irrational
to assign them. I mean, RNA is interesting. Its main
job is to basically transcribe genetic information from the nucleus
(15:37):
and then transport that information out into the cytoplasm. But
even that is to a it gives it too much agency.
It's as it we kind you kind of conceptualize it
as this little robot that goes into the nucleus and
sticks the USB stick in the DNA and downloads the
(15:57):
plans and goes out to the side of plasm to
make protein. That's not it at all. There are proteins
in the nucleus like RNA, plymmerace that bind to DNA
and they literally transcribe, They make a copy of the
DNA for a certain length of the gene, and the
(16:22):
byproduct is an RNA molecule. So it's it's like it's
like do you know, do you know when you like
you could go to like a cemetery or a monument
like in Washington, d c. With a crown and a
paper and you can rub the crown on the the Uh.
It's not an engraving. It'd be like a d graving.
(16:43):
They'd be like sticking out I guess, and you get
you get an image or a name, and then you leave.
That's kind of what transcription is. You're you're taking information
from like a monument, from a place where you can't
easily take that information home with you, same as a nucleus,
you can't. The DNA can't leave the nucleus. So you
(17:06):
go in and you transcribe the DNA. So you take
your little piece of paper with the image on it.
And that's basically what RNA is. It's a passive, lifeless molecule,
incapable of moving on its own. It just sort of
floats and diffuses out of a nuclear pore and it
(17:30):
happens to bump into a ribosome itself doesn't do anything.
It doesn't have a drive or ambition or consciousness. It's
less lifelike than some enzymes. It's nothing. It's a collection
of molecules that can be arranged in a certain way
(17:52):
to convey information. It's like an alphabet or a word.
But you don't look at a word written on a
bottle or on a coffee cup and attribute life to it.
It's just information. But for some reason, with the RNA
(18:13):
world hypothesis, we like we animate these chemicals with some
kind of divine energy, and we say they emerged, and
they competed in the oceans, and the strongest, best RNAs
emerged and formed DNA. It's guys, it's silly. It is silly.
(18:37):
And listen, there's lots of really smart scientists who have
come up with some really creative and interesting ideas, but
it just doesn't pass the sniff test. It doesn't make sense. Honestly,
pan spermia makes a whole lot more sense than RNA world.
(18:59):
The problem is you still don't really explain a biogenesis.
You just kick the can to a different planet. Now,
we got to figure out how life emerged on Mars,
and that would be an interesting story, I'm sure, or
there is some kind of creative force. I don't know.
(19:20):
This is the part of Christianity and the Bible that
I do struggle with because there is so much evidence
for evolution. Now listen, there are flaws. There are big
problems with the theory, and now even evolutionary biologists are
starting to admit that, you know, random mutation is the
(19:43):
driver of speciation is flawed, and that there's clearly some
other motive force. That's an interesting word force, but of
course they won't go as far to say that it's
(20:03):
guided by a guiding hand. Anyway, I'm kicking these ideas
around about a new book. God's Eye View was two
hundred years of physics that I think opens the door
for their being a god. I'm not claiming to have
proved his existence. I'm just pointing out the obvious, obvious
(20:28):
similarities between scientific concepts over the past two hundred years
and the certain aspects of the Biblical narrative. And I'm
pointing out the flaws and the religiosity of belief within science.
Science as a worldview asks you to believe in miracles.
(20:52):
Science has a method is perfect. We should use science
as a method. That's what it's always been until very recently.
All Right, guys, please check out the book God's I
View by Trevor Loman, PhD on Amazon. I'd love for
you to read it. I kind of wrote it with
(21:14):
an agnostic in mind. You know, someone out there wrestling
with faith, you know, maybe not wanting to seem silly
for believing. I'm trying to show you that it's not silly.
You know, to not believe is silly. To believe blindly
is silly. But everything in the middle is not silly.
(21:37):
None of us know. Certainty is it's foolish. Certainty is foolish.
All right, God's I View on Amazon. The link is
in the episode description. Also a special announcement, my publisher
and I and a few other authors are starting a
(21:59):
substack or My publisher's name is Hemispheric Press, so check
out hemispheric press dot com. Check out hemispheric Press dot
substack dot com. I will put those links in the
episode description. Thank you everybody,
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