WLC on why theory of biological evolution is better evidence for theism than atheism

   It remains true that the steps in the original assembly of life observed in the lab are rather simple.  They also depend on being set up in ways that are not explained in terms of a history of natural conditions.  It's always "if" these natural conditions existed then this simple step could occur.

   One of my favorites is the phospholipid bilayer.  It is the beginning of the protective environment necessary for RNA replication to avoid the ravages of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, to play a sort of "Maxwell's Demon" role (stretching terms a bit) in the advancement of the system of molecules.  Experiments with the early stages of RNA replication typically avoid using a phospholipid bilayer.

   Perhaps among the reasons are that although the conditions to develop a phospholipid bilayer are easily set up in a lab, and the conditions to get a set of amino acids are easily set up in a lab, trying to do both at once proves to be most difficult.  How do you get not just amino acids but the beginnings of chains of RNA to form inside the phospholipid bilayer?  Then you have another problem.  Although you've reduced the agencies of disassembly, you've also reduced the agencies of forward assembly.  If the chains were sitting there doing nothing before, they're even more determined to do nothing now.  The great philosophical question then becomes which came first, the long "smart" RNA chain or the phospholipid bilayer?