Young Frankenstein is one of my very favorite funny films. I’m far from being alone since the AFI has it number 13 on its list of the 100 funniest American movies ever made. From insisting he be called “Fronkensteen” and calling his grandfather a nutcase, the grandson is led to read the book “How I Did It” and exclaims “It could work!” For those who know the history of the original Mary Shelley Frankenstein and how the mysterious forces of electricity and magnetism were being used in both science and quackery of the times, Gene Wilder’s “It could work!” is something still believed by quite a few people.

In many ways both electricity and magnetism continue to be the mysterious forces they were at the time of the original Frankenstein story, and some of the theories of how life began require the electricity of lightning. It can be supposed this was the “breath of God” in the Genesis account, something very much like the Frankenstein story. Even after heeding the wise dictum that once you have exhausted all the possibilities of the probable in seeking an answer there remains the improbable as the only remaining solution, there are improbabilities beyond human ability to entertain. There is a very good reason some scientists say there are things “unknowable” about our universe, that there are things beyond even our capacity to imagine.

The beginning of our universe is difficult enough to imagine, but what of the instrumentality preceding our universe responsible for the original material; where did that come from? Far beyond our science; and even far beyond our imagination, things not requiring atomic structure for their existence for example.

But the Genesis story might not only be alluding to electricity, lightning, as the breath of God, but also may credit his using the “dust of the earth” for life forms. It may be no accident that our bodies are often referred to as “clay.”

The following points are made by Eörs Szathmary (Nature 2005 433:469): In investigating the origin of life and the simplest possible life forms, one needs to enquire about the composition and working of a minimal cell that has some form of metabolism, genetic replication from a template, and boundary (membrane) production. Identifying the necessary and sufficient features of life has a long tradition in theoretical biology. But living systems are products of evolution, and an answer in very general terms, even if possible, is likely to remain purely phenomenological. Going deeper into mechanisms means having to account for the organization of various processes, and such organization has been realized in several different ways by evolution. Eukaryotic cells (such as those from which we are made) are much more complicated than prokaryotes (such as bacteria), and eukaryotes harbor organelles that were once free-living bacteria. A further complication is that multicellular organisms consist of building blocks—cells—that are also alive. So aiming for a general model of all kinds of living beings would be fruitless; instead, such models have to be tied to particular levels of biological organization. Two recent workshops reviewed the state of the art in artificial cell research, much of which focuses on self-replicating lipid vesicles. David Deamer (Univ. of California, Santa Cruz) and Pier Luigi Luisi (ETH Zurich) each described the production of lipids using light energy, and the template-directed self-replication of RNA within a lipid vesicle. In addition, Luisi demonstrated the polymerization of amino acids into proteins on the vesicle surface, which acts as a catalyst for the polymerization process. The principal hurdle remains the synthesis of efficient RNA replicases and related enzymes entirely within an artificial cell. Martin Hanczyc (Harvard Univ.) showed how the formation of lipid vesicles can be catalyzed by encapsulated clay particles with RNA adsorbed on their surfaces. This suggests that encapsulated clay could catalyze both the formation of lipid vesicles and the polymerization of RNA...

So, the story in Genesis and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein may have scientific validity in the use of clay and electricity. But it would serve well to keep this caveat in mind when attempting to force some simplistic view of evolution on people: “Identifying the necessary and sufficient features of life has a long tradition in theoretical biology. But living systems are products of evolution, and an answer in very general terms, even if possible, is likely to remain purely phenomenological.”

Please note the doublespeak of attempting to be “scientific” while at the same time using phrases like “theoretical biology” and “an answer in very general terms, even if possible, is likely to remain purely phenomenological.” If possible? Purely phenomenological? It won’t do; these are not answers, only labels in lieu of understanding. In my opinion the story in Genesis is a far better abstract of what comes closest to the truth of the matter. I may not be satisfied with the errors of Creation, but both benevolent and malevolent gods at war resulting in the chaos and confusion to be found in good vs. evil, a universe hostile to life and Nature red in tooth and claw at least makes some sense of things. And it remains intelligent life, self-aware and cognitive as represented in human beings continues to hold the distinction of being the longest shot in the universal lottery.

Take this for example: World’s smallest life form discovered. Shasta County mine yields mini-microbe. New York Times, Saturday, December 23, 2006: The smallest form of life known to science just got smaller. Four million of the newly discovered microbe—assuming the discovery, reported Friday in the journal Science, is confirmed—could fit into the period at the end of this sentence. Scientists found the microbes living in a remarkably inhospitable environment, drainage water as caustic as battery acid from a mine in Northern California. The microbes, members of an ancient family of organisms known as archaea, formed a pink scum on green pools of hot mine water laden with toxic metals, including arsenic. “It was amazing,” said Jillian Banfield of UC Berkeley, a member of the discovery team. “These were totally new.” In their paper, the scientists call the microbes “smaller than any other known cellular life form.” Scientists say the discovery could bear on estimates of the pervasiveness of exotic microbial life, which some experts suspect forms a hidden biosphere extending miles underground whose total mass may exceed that of all surface life...

While some are attempting to extrapolate this to the possibility of life on other planets throughout the universe, there is simply no evidence to suggest our planet with its possibly unique structure of “a hidden biosphere extending miles underground whose total mass may exceed that of all surface life” exists elsewhere. Just to place life here on our planet into the phenomenological is to say science does not have an answer to the mystery of the origin of life or an answer to what, exactly, life is. And without an answer to these questions, in my opinion the story in Genesis remains the standard, and the simplistic catch-all term “evolution” does not answer the greater questions of life, our solar system or the universe. But then I agree with those who say some things are “unknowable,” at least while we are confined to these mortal bodies of clay.