Comedy Relief

I've been living with children all of my life. As a child, I grew up with six younger siblings, for whom I was often responsible. As an adult I have been raising my family for twenty-three years. Although these facts do not necessarily make me an expert on children, they do give ample proof that the ideas I have formed as a result of this association have not been formed over night. One in particular that I have wondered about is the idea of spontaneous life and growth.

Throughout my sixteen years as a student and subsequently as a connoisseur of current scientific research, I have been intrigued by the theory that life formed itself and grew from a disorganized to an organized to an extremely complex state without the aid of any outside guiding force or intelligence. This founding principle is key in establishing the remainder of this theory, which takes easy strides from spontaneous generation to spontaneous change of species, usually based on changes in weather and habitat. One of the premises for this theory is that time, (millions upon millions of years), would be enough to effect these changes and that we are now living here as a result of all of this spontaneous growth and change.

I said that I had lived around children all my life. I think this gives me a unique insight into the plausibility of the theory of spontaneous generation and change. Let me illustrate. On a daily basis, I remove from our home large piles of debris, the result of learning, work and play. These are relatively intelligent beings doing relatively intelligent things and the outcome is always riddled with trash. On days when I am gone for part of the day or if I happen to be sick and cannot clean up, the trash piles up and the debris waits for me. How long do you think I would have to wait for that trash to grow legs and walk away, or pick itself up, or grow wings and fly away? Is there any amount of time that would bring about this miracle?

The law of entropy states that all matter goes from a more organized to a less organized state. In other words, everything decays and dies. The theory of spontaneous generation assumes that at some point matter did not obey that law, but went opposite to it, going from a less organized to a more organized state, without aid. Basically, the house got clean without anyone cleaning it. I could wait until my whole house turned to dust and the trash in my house will never organize itself or become something else. I think my children must believe something like that because they will wait until there are no clean dishes in the cupboard, no empty space on the floor and no clean clothes left in the drawer before they will initiate a change, and even then, they might not. And my children have a measure of intelligence. The trash does not. It is beyond reasonable thought to assume that matter, any matter, if left alone long enough, or even thrown together with other types of matter for an infinite amount of time could ever result in the complex relationships we now witness and experience in nature on a daily basis.

I picture my children throwing things at one another, as a sort of game, just throwing and throwing and then turning to me and saying, “Why doesn't it make a castle or something?” They could throw that stuff together for centuries and it would still not form a castle or anything. LIFE DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY! Laundry will never do itself, castles do not build themselves and even children do not become more intelligent unless they are nurtured and taught to do so. Dirt thrown together forever, will still be dirt and cannot possibly ever just turn itself into something else. This is a magic and a superstition that is beyond belief and past reason. When you can show me garbage that magically turns itself into intelligent life, and children who magically become wise and good without the aid of other intelligent life then I might consider spontaneous generation as something besides comedy relief.