In a previous post I argued that chance cannot account for the origin of the first living cell because the odds are too low to have any reasonable chance of being met.  The odds of a single, functional protein forming by chance is 1 in 10164.  That’s 1 chance in 100 trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion.  But the simplest life form would need at least 250 different proteins, lowering the odds to 1 in 1041,000!

While the numbers appear staggering, many people will immediately raise the “lottery objection”: Just as the odds of winning the lottery are low, and yet people win the lottery all the time, so too the odds of forming life by chance may be low, but that doesn’t mean it is impossible.  While I understand the analogy, are the lottery and the OOL truly analogous?  No, not by a long shot.

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