Evolutionists use the concept of self-organization to claim that inanimate matter can so organize itself as to produce a living entity. This belief flagrantly ignores all experiments and observations that have shown that matter possesses no such ability. Sir Fred Hoyle, the famous British astronomer and mathematician, describes how matter cannot spontaneously give rise to life with an example:
To press the matter further, if there were a basic principle of matter which somehow drove organic systems toward life, its existence should easily be demonstrable in the laboratory. One could, for instance, take a swimming [pool] to represent the primordial soup. Fill it with any chemicals of a non-biological nature you please. Pump any gases over it, or through it, you please, and shine any kind of radiation on it that takes your fancy. Let the experiment proceed for a year and see how many of those [vital] 2,000 enzymes have appeared … I will give the answer, and so save the time and trouble and expense of actually doing the experiment. You would find nothing at all, except possibly for a tarry sludge composed of amino acids and other simple organic chemicals.219
The evolutionist biologist Andrew Scott admits the same thing:
Take some matter, heat while stirring and wait. That is the modern version of Genesis. The "fundamental" forces of gravity, electromagnetism and the strong and weak nuclear forces are presumed to have done the rest . . . But how much of this neat tale is firmly established, and how much remains hopeful speculation? In truth, the mechanism of almost every major step, from chemical precursors up to the first recognizable cells, is the subject of either controversy or complete bewilderment. 220
Yet evolutionists insist on advocating such an unscientific scenario as the self-organization of matter. Their motive for this lies hidden in materialist philosophy, the basis of the theory of evolution. Materialist philosophy, accepting only the existence of matter, therefore must produce an explanation for life based on matter alone. The theory of evolution was born of that need and, no matter how much it may violate scientific findings, it is advocated solely for the sake of that requirement.
Robert Shapiro, a professor of chemistry and DNA expert from New York University, describes the materialist dogma underpinning evolutionists' belief in matter organizing itself it:
Another evolutionary principle is therefore needed to take us across the gap from mixtures of simple natural chemicals to the first effective replicator [DNA or RNA]. This principle has not yet been described in detail or demonstrated, but it is anticipated, and given names such as "chemical evolution" and "self-organization of matter." The existence of the principle is taken for granted in the philosophy of dialectical materialism, as applied to the origin of life by Alexander Oparin. 221
219. Fred Hoyle, The Intelligent Universe, London: Michael Joseph, 1983, pp. 20-21.
220. Andrew Scott, "Update on Genesis," New Scientist, Vol. 106, May 2, 1985, p. 30.
221. Robert Shapiro, Origins: A Sceptics Guide to the Creation of Life on Earth, New York:, Summit Books, 1986, p. 207.
