I have just started working my way through the new publication “The Origin of Life – 5 Questions worth asking”. It is completely appalling. It is at the very most six grade level and just the first references I verified (which most dubs don’t do) have been taken out of context, are completely misquoted or in the example of using the Encyclopedia Britannica – a dated version is used rather than the most recent one, to align with what they want to write, rather than aligned with the newest research.
Here is one example, taken from page 12, which quotes Microbiologist Ruda Popa: “The Complexity of the mechanisms required for the functioning of a living cell is so large that simultaneous emergence by chance seems impossible.” Here is where the quote ends.
However looking up the reference in the book “Between Necessity and Probability: Searching for the Definition and Origin of Life, page 126-127, the full quote reads:
“The Complexity of the mechanisms required for the functioning of a living cell is so large that simultaneous emergence by chance seems impossible. Most scientists now believe that life originated in a number of smaller and probabilistically likelier steps. Instead of being one big chance like event, life might actually be an accretion of a series of events emerging at different moments in time.”
Sounds rather different to me!
Then scientists are portrayed as not believing that life is created, but that they believe that life arose by chance in a fashion not yet fully understood. Where as the Bible simply states: Of course, every house is constructed by someone, but he that constructed all things is God. (Hebrews 3:4).
The brochure starts out with a completely stupid introduction illustration. It talks about parents hesitating to tell young children where babies come from…then says: “Just as many parents feel awkward…some scientists seem reluctant to discuss an even more fundamental question – Where did life come from?
It is going to be painful and embarrassing to go through this brochure, but I want to get all misquotes and inaccuracies listed properly, so that once it is released over here, I have my information ready at hand to wipe the brochure totally out.