From wood to boy...

Pinocchio, was Carlo Callodi's mythological story of an animated marionette, and his poor father, a woodcarver named Geppetto. It is considered a classic of children's literature and has spawned many derivative works of art, such as Disney's classic 1940 animated movie of the same name, and commonplace ideas, such as a liar's long nose. Today's evolutionary argument of Abiogenesis reminds us of Pinocchio, the wooden boy, carved by Geppetto, who wished to come to life.  Obviously, we understand that a mythological story can produce anything that our imagination allows us and so has natural evolution done with their amino acids to a functional self-replicating life form.  Of course, Pinocchio had an advantage on being carved by his own father Geppetto, a woodcarver, and a designer, something abiogenesis paradigm doesn’t even have. Yet, reality will dictate that in real life circumstances, Geppetto would simply be an individual full of hopeful wishes that will never come to life (pun intended). Only a fictional story can make Pinocchio come to life. If miracles were a common thing, they would not be called miracles. Only God, is the God of miracles.

This week, as I watched the History Channel, an announcement of a program caught my attention by stating, "If we don't know where we came from, we don't know who we are."  It is important to point out that "Origin of life studies is a limited field of research despite its profound impact on biology and human understanding of the natural world. Progress in this field is generally slow and sporadic, though it still draws the attention of many due to the eminence of the question being investigated."  One can build a house on the rock or on the sand. A good foundation will determine the solidity of the edification. Natural evolution, continues to fail to provide their own foundation by providing us a Pinocchio/Frankenstein syndrome mentality, a story built on the sand of imagination and hopeful thinking.  

Professor Hubert P. Yockey, PhD, is a physicist and information theorist and an ardent evolutionist. He worked under Robert Oppenheimer on the Manhattan Project, and at the University of California, Berkeley. He has studied the application of information theory to problems in biology and published his conclusions in the Journal of Theoretical Biology from 1974 onwards. He is very critical of the primordial soup theory of the origin of life, and believes that "the origin of life is unsolvable as a scientific problem."  This is what he had to say about abiogenesis, the failed paradigm:

"Although at the beginning the paradigm was worth consideration, now the entire effort in the primeval soup paradigm is self-deception on the ideology of its champions. … The history of science shows that a paradigm, once it has achieved the status of acceptance (and is incorporated in textbooks) and regardless of its failures, is declared invalid only when a new paradigm is available to replace it. Nevertheless, in order to make progress in science, it is necessary to clear the decks, so to speak, of failed paradigms. This must be done even if this leaves the decks entirely clear and no paradigms survive. It is a characteristic of the true believer in religion, philosophy and ideology that he must have a set of beliefs, come what may (Hoffer, 1951). Belief in a primeval soup on the grounds that no other paradigm is available is an example of the logical fallacy of the false alternative. In science it is a virtue to acknowledge ignorance. This has been universally the case in the history of science as Kuhn (1970) has discussed in detail. There is no reason that this should be different in the research on the origin of life." -- Yockey, 1992. Information Theory and Molecular Biology, p. 336, Cambridge University Press, UK, ISBN 0-521-80293-8.

  

Have you been affected by the Pinocchio syndrome?  Use logic of thought, be renewed in the spirit of your mind.

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Author: Rey Torres