Abiogenesis

Can you calculate odds, for a start,
DNA would by chance life impart?
It's a big leap to say,
That it's just nature's way —
Is this abiogenesis smart?

It's too much, it just beggars belief,
Such farfetched ideas cause grief.
To have faith is perverse
When there's evidence scarce.
There's not been time enough, to be brief.

Abiogenesis (A-bi-o-GEN-e-sis) is the supposed development of living organisms from nonliving matter (also called autogenesis or spontaneous generation). It is the consensus opinion amongst mainstream science that life first developed between 4.4 billion years (since isotopes of molecules required by biochemistry became stable) and 4 billion years ago (with the likely first microbial algaes).

What is being said is that within some 400 million years, the essential components necessary for evolution of species by DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) replication developed from scratch — the subsequent 4 billion years of evolution being footnotes in the "playing-out" of this mechanism (autopoiesis).

However, the hypothetical random-process based models, put forward to explain how the DNA's mechanisms might originate within this time frame, are based on assumptions that have limited credible supporting evidence at this time (April 2008). This does not mean that these hypotheses are thus proven untrue, just that significant further study is required to support their viability.

But to accept that they are likely to be true is merely an article of faith. That said it's important not to "leap from the frying pan into the fire", i.e., not all faith-based hypotheses are equally valid — rather we need to be humble as to what we do and do not know and continue searching for truth.