Jeremy England, a 31-year-old physicist at MIT, thinks he has found the underlying physics driving the origin and evolution of life.
Quanta editor, Natalie Wolchover, writes:
Why does life exist?
Popular hypotheses credit a primordial soup, a bolt of lightning and a colossal stroke of luck. But if a provocative new theory is correct, luck may have little to do with it. Instead, according to the physicist proposing the idea, the origin and subsequent evolution of life follow from the fundamental laws of nature and “should be as unsurprising as rocks rolling downhill.”
From the standpoint of physics, there is one essential difference between living things and inanimate clumps of carbon atoms: The former tend to be much better at capturing energy from their environment and dissipating that energy as heat.
As a physicist, I’ll point out that an inanimate clump of carbon atoms, known as a lump of coal, is nearly ideal at capturing sunlight and dissipating that energy as heat.
Jeremy England, a 31-year-old assistant professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has derived a mathematical formula that he believes explains this capacity. The formula, based on established physics, indicates that when a group of atoms is driven by an external source of energy (like the sun or chemical fuel) and surrounded by a heat bath (like the ocean or atmosphere), it will often gradually restructure itself in order to dissipate increasingly more energy. This could mean that under certain conditions, matter inexorably acquires the key physical attribute associated with life.
“You start with a random clump of atoms, and if you shine light on it for long enough, it should not be so surprising that you get a plant,” England said.
Quanta
From one physicist to another, I would like to ask Dr. England to explain the mechanism that can not just cause atoms to dissipate heat, but to use electromagnetic radiation to bring about the fantastically high level of functional organization required for even the simplest living organism. Apart from speculations promoting abiogenesis, claims that a physics formula demonstrates something remarkable typically require mathematical consistency with established laws of physics. One should be able to use the formula to computationally verify the predicted outcome (“a random clump of atoms” turning into a living plant). Localized reductions in entropy do not equate with living organisms. My refrigerator does that, and it’s hardly alive. Can natural forces even produce a refrigerator? Let’s not suggest that localized reductions in entropy amount to solving the origin of life problem. Surely we know better than that.
A few notes from Dr. Brian Miller’s run in with Jeremy England
Supplemental notes:
Not being picky but how long is JE to remain 31? I make him 40 or thereabouts.
Also he works in Israel now, not MIT.
Surely this is taken from the pages of the Babylon Bee.
It seems to me that a solar cell is good at “capturing energy from their environment and dissipating that energy as heat.” When will one of them “give birth” as they have light shining upon them all the time making this birthing event as predictable as “as rocks rolling downhill.”
What inanity! We’re witnessing the ‘death of science.’ And all of us will suffer because of it.
A major conference on this mumbo jumbo is ending today in Prague.
https://templetonideaslab.umbc.edu/
Doug Axe should comment on this guy since he supposedly is an expert on protein folding.
It’s an interesting hypothesis. England may be wrong, of course, but at least he’s trying and that makes it living science. I don’t see ID proponents attempting anything like that in terms of explaining in detail how their preferred designer accomplished its designs.
LoL! @ seversky! Evolutionism is all about the how and yet no one has a clue how blind and mindless processes produced the diversity of life. Evos are such clueless hypocrites.
ID’s science and details are in the determination of intelligent design (or not).
Jeremy England clearly doesn’t understand biology.
It’s called synthetic biology.
Discussed here several times. Don’t you read this site for the latest information?
England uses all the right buzz words such as self-organization and emergent.
Has Jeremy found religion?
He’s now a rabbi in Israel and has a blog.
Was also at Georgia Tech till recently.
https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/author/jeremy-england/
Seversky at 5,
Being annoying is not a good thing. As you may know, talking about a “preferred designer” is frowned upon here.
Jerry at 8,
Someone can send me a ‘synthetic biology’ kit so I can find out how shining a light on something can grow a plant.
13 1/2 years ago I made what I call a sarcastic remark about people asking how the designer created life.
I referred them to the concept of synthetic biology which amongst many things is creating a cell from scratch. Granted they are no where near doing it but 13 years ago they were hopeful.
Here is my sarcastic response on how the “designer” did it?
https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/complex-specified-information-you-be-the-judge/#comment-305339
I guess this means I won’t be building a lab for synthetic biologists with all the chemicals and atmosphere chambers they might need.
Ah, more of this recycled garbage. Get some cool weird idea, and work it up into an explanation for the origin of life. Publish (because it’s publishable.)
Just a couple of examples from the recent past:
“Natural Selection for Least Action”, Ville R. I. Kaila and Arto Annila, Proceedings of the Royal Society A (2008) 464, 3055-3070. Just speculated relationships among equations; no empirical tests of any kind made, and no testable predictions. (JVL, here there could be some, but aren’t.)
“Towards an evolutionary theory of the origin of life based on kinetics and thermodynamics”, Pascal, Pross and Sutherland, 2013. Royal Society Publishing.
Great science fantasy speculating.
I want to know where the author got the atoms and the light? Get your own, man. No stealing.