Materialists predict they will create “artificial life” in a test tube in the next 3 to 10 years. I have a counter-prediction: They will succeed only by re-defining “artificial” and “life.” For example, “artificial” will cover any human manipulation of an existing organism — so replacing a few genes or enzymes in an already-living cell will count as creating “artificial life.” And “life” will be anything that can undergo “Darwinian evolution” — such as an artificially engineered system of molecules — even though it can be sustained only in a carefully controlled laboratory environment.

But a free-living cell? I don’t think so. We are still many years and many discoveries away from understanding the nature of life even in prokaryotes. And Darwinists — with their attitude that they already know all the important things there are to know about life — will not be the ones to make the necessary discoveries.

That’s my prediction.