Absolutely! After all, we only need to follow the science to come to this, now obvious, conclusion. Right?
Except that, in what might seem like a paradox, the more science advances, the more difficult it is to make the case for naturalistic, undirected processes.
(If your reaction to that statement is to denounce it as false, you have not been keeping up. If this is the paradigm you are committing to, you owe it to yourself to make sure you know the facts. Do not stop with this site, the few items brought up here are only intended to prime the pump on your well of critical thinking.)
Your origin is arguably the most important personal question (as it may well have serious long-term consequences), so it is imperative that you keep up with these advances. You need to be certain that your decision is based on the best available evidence right now, not a hundred years ago. That evidence should then be parsed in a non-prejudicial manner to see what logical conclusions it best supports.
Could life have even started by chance? Knowing what we know now, it would appear overwhelmingly unlikely (see the links to synthetic organic chemist James Tour, below). The odds of the simplest replicating protein molecule that could be imagined happening by chance is 1 in 10 to the power of 450 (1, with 450 zeros behind it). That’s a really, really, really big number... To put it into perspective, astrophysicists estimate that there are no more than 10 to the power of 90 particles in the universe.
To put it in terms we might think of more often, the odds of winning a 6 number lottery are 1.4 in 10 to the power of 7. Winning the lottery, which is less likely than being struck by lightning, carries a probability with 7 zeros, whereas the chances of accidental life carries one with 450 zeros.
Can you continue to believe this? Absolutely, but it is important to understand that you may be betting on the ultimate long shot.
Research has now shown that there is a vast amount of biological order which is not, and has never been, adaptive. This poses a major challenge to Darwinian theory, where every move 'forward' must have adaptive value to the organism.
Further, the Darwinian mutative / adaptive process itself has been called into question by mathematicians, engineers and computer scientists alike. Citing the combinatorial problem of creating new protein forms by random changes, scientists at MIT proposed (still unmet), challenges to the neo-Darwinian viewpoint over fifty years ago. At the time, the numerical probabilities were not quantifiable, but recent research has proven that it was exponentially worse than they suspected. That research has shown that for every DNA sequence that generates a functional protein of just 150 amino acids in length, there are 1 in 10 to the power of 77 sequences that will not fold into a stable three dimensional protein structure capable of performing that biological function. (Again, we are approaching numbers not unlike the estimated particles in the universe.)
The idea of undirected processes was very much easier to support in Darwin's day, when the cell was just thought of as a tiny bag of slime. We now know that a single cell is more complex than any factory ever built by man. (See the inner life of a cell video link, below.)
Then, add the chicken vs egg problem of the origin of life. You need biological, molecular machines to build proteins, but you need proteins to build biological, molecular machines.
Also consider another chicken vs egg problem: Information. Where did the information to build these machines come from? Information is distinct from matter and has never been observed to arise from it.
The reality is that we are steadily closing the gaps that allow us this option. We have made amazing scientific advances since Darwin. These advances are showing an ever diminishing probability that we are the products of accident.
Synthetic organic chemists tell us that spontaneous life is virtually impossible. Biologists must be instructed to ignore the 'appearance of design' in living structures.
Archaeologists must attempt to reconcile our 'primitive' past with earthquake-resistant megalithic structures, some constructed to amazing tolerances and/or oriented with astounding precision. (The Great Pyramid at Giza, Stonehenge and Gobekli Tepe spring to mind as just a few examples.)
Then, cosmologists must postulate an infinite number of unobserved universes to attempt to explain the extreme mathematical improbability of our finely tuned one.
If a naturalistic and materialistic boundary had not been arbitrarily drawn for scientists, the most obvious explanations would posit a designer or engineer. After all, to arbitrarily substitute randomness for causality is not somehow more 'scientific'. It goes squarely against our empirical observations regarding cause and effect. It also creates an artificial and unnecessary firewall against following the evidence where it leads. And for what purpose? Some of the greatest advances in science were accomplished by men and women who were powerfully intrigued to know 'how God did it'.
You need to access the latest research and make up your own mind. Do not let 'consensus' or 'mainstream science' make it up for you. Scientists have been forced to accept a naturalistic basis for life (despite the severe statistical hurdles involved), and any theories that contradict the narrative are promptly labelled as pseudoscience. Unlike most scientists (who must concern themselves with conflicting issues such as keeping their job, funding or tenure), you have the intellectual freedom to follow the evidence wherever it leads.
We continue to build complex theories attempting to explain away the appearance of design. However, if there appears to be an elephant in the room, what would be the most pragmatic response? Should we continue to contend (against increasingly astronomical odds), that it's not really there... or should we make a serious attempt to find out why?
science explains everything...the big bang explains the origin of lifeyoutube: synthetic organic chemist james tourDeep Dive: synthetic organic chemist james touryoutube: information enigmayoutube: inner life of a cell
The myth of 'junk DNA' has now been shattered. The resulting phenomenal increase in the complexity of the effective genome is a serious statistical hurdle for macro-evolutionary theory.
Despite more than a hundred years of intensive research, the fossil record continues to (at best), inconclusively support the macro-evolutionary model. Fossils are still shown to appear suddenly in the record, without transitional forms... and they exhibit stasis. Science has clear cut the evolutionary trees and replaced them with an evolutionary thicket.
Information is distinct from matter and has never been observed to arise from it. How did all this information originate?
There are some complex explanatory theories for these and other issues currently facing macro-evolution. The purpose of pointing out the issues here is not to try to discredit evolution as a whole. It's just to point out that belief in macro-evolution (especially as an origin theory), does require its own (very large), leap of faith.