accidental formation of molecules of life is like accidentally completing a jigsaw

Tags: life
Categories: Comparisons

An example of an analogy used in popular science writing:

"To be sure, the complexity of living molecules [sic] makes the probability of their accidental formation extremely small, and we can compare it with the probability of putting together a jigsaw puzzle by simple shaking the separate pieces in their box with the hope that they will accidentally arrange themselves in the proper way."

George Gamow (1961) One, Two, Three…Infinity. Facts and speculations of science, Revised Edition, Dover Publications, Inc., New York.

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[For this analogy to work, one would need the jigsaw pieces shaken in a large enough box for the whole puzzle to be laid out – usually jigsaw puzzle boxes have a much smaller base surface area than the completed puzzle.]

Author: Keith

Former school and college science teacher, teacher educator, research supervisor, and research methods lecturer. Emeritus Professor of Science Education at the University of Cambridge.