MIT Physics Professor Advances Controversial Origin of Life Theory by Christine Horner


MIT Physics Professor Advances Controversial Origin of Life Theory

Even lay persons like you and I can derive a basic understanding of our Universe from the clues offered through direct observation. A perfect recipe, evidently our infinite Universe is a self-contained primordial soup of life.

Intelligent design or accidental biology? Physics?

Provocatively begging resolution, defenders within various camps continue humanity’s quest toward establishing a foundational understanding of the origin of life within a complex Universe.

The conundrum: creation by self-definition is infinite. Narrowing life down to fit a slim narrative is like the Blind Men and the Elephant parable—but worse.

Even world-renowned physicist, Dr. Stephen Hawking, famously ditched his prior position in his book, The Grand Design: ” . . . belief in a creator was not incompatible with science” now concluding that the Big Bang was as inevitable as gravity.

Dr. Hawking went on to say, “Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the Universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the Universe going.”

In 2013, rising star MIT biophysicist, Jeremy England, gained attention with a controversial new theory that life arises out of primordial soup via thermodynamics. Specifically, England posits his equation partially unlocks the door on how order is borne out of chaos.

According to a 2014 interview with Quanta Magazine, take chemistry, add energy, and you get life. “The first tests of Jeremy England’s provocative origin-of-life hypothesis are in, and they appear to show how order can arise from nothing.”

Since then, in a study published in 2017, the 35-year-old associate-professor and multi-disciplinarian’s computer simulations have shown when 25 interconnected chemicals are subjected to external energy, atoms gradually restructure themselves, dissipating the energy as heat.



Hailed as the next Charles Darwin, England calls the science, adaptation driven by dissipation. Multiple forces in play, “That doesn’t mean you’re guaranteed to acquire that structure,” England explains.

Some systems reached a balanced concentration of chemicals and reactions—equilibrium—while other chemical reactions continued to evolve, harvesting as much energy from the environment as possible before ending at final points far from equilibrium.

The reality is that in application, just as England and paper co-author, MIT postdoctoral fellow, Jordan Horowitz are unable to replicate the complexity and dynamism of the creative process in its entirety, neither can we adequately address the question of the origin of life partially informed.


Buried within the quest for life’s origin story are more questions than answers as science barely begins to scratch the surface of the nature of creation including the essence of life itself.

Hard science is based on what is testable and reproducible. The hard question is whether we can test facets of the elephant and ultimately come to understand what we have is an elephant in the room.

From What Is God? Rolling Back the Veil: “The conflict between science and religion originated from whether the laws of Creation are fixed. Science says if the laws of Creation are fixed, then an outside Creator is not necessary. Religion says if the laws of Creation are fixed, it does not allow for the mystery and miracles of a loving God that offer humanity redemption.”

In a 2010 interview with Great Britain’s Telegraph, Dr. Stephen Hawking shared: “The question is: is the way the universe began chosen by God for reasons we can’t understand, or was it determined by a law of science? I believe the second,” he stated. “If you like, you can call the laws of science ‘God,’ but it wouldn’t be a personal God that you could meet and ask questions.”

From physicist Dr. Michio Kaku: “The universe could have been random. It could have been ugly. It could have been a random collection of electrons and photons. No life, no vitality, nothing interesting at all. Just a random collection of a mist of electrons and photons. That could have been the universe, but it isn’t. Our universe is rich; it is beautiful, elegant.”

Our Universe is intelligent design. And science has proven life is evolving. Look to your parents and your children to see evolution is creation in process within time and space.


What if the answer to life’s riddle is “all of the above?”

When Dr. Hawking stated it wasn’t necessary to invoke God, was Hawking operating from the presumption of a separate God?

Has religion so thoroughly removed humanity from its source (except for a miraculous few who see through the illusion) through its primitive anthropomorphization of God that we’ve forgotten foundational truth?

In England’s computer simulation, the “external” forces jump-starting a chemical chain reaction, aren’t really external. Likewise, the sun would seem to externally jump-start photosynthesis in plants. But the sun and Earth operate within a symbiotic system called our solar system.

An acorn contains the entire DNA blueprint of its parent tree allowing for contiguous replication in synergy with the sun, rain, soil, its environment, etc. Previous generations are evidence of creation’s fractal self-organizational skills.

Jeremy England’s focus on the physics of life, we see that chemistry, biology—even non-linear forces outside our understanding inextricably intertwined within the total process.

Let’s call yet-to-be-human-discovered-mystery-forces and named/unnamed Laws of Creation—God. Why not?

If England’s work scales upward, we will have scientific proof the origin of life is neither intelligent design, biology, nor physics. The elegant elephant in the room infinite, the answer is “all of the above.”

Your brilliant future is here now when you see Creation as fixed/unfixed, knowable/mysterious, miraculous, and yes, divine. Exquisitely elegant, gorgeous, and divine . . .

God and science are but human interpretations of aspects of the cosmic ONE from an extremely limited point of view.  Conflict diminishes when we consciously upscale, observing life holistically—unity consciousness—rather than the parts of separation consciousness.


Hidden in plain sight for all to see, the Grand Designer of the Universe is . . . The Universe.

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Christine Horner

January 24, 2018

#originoflife #icreate #iamlife

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