A new theory that explains how life emerged from non-life has disproved God.
Richard Dawkins' foundation website's writer has claimed that the theory, which proposes that life did not emerge by accident or luck from a primordial soup and a bolt of lightning, has put God "on the ropes" and has "terrified" Christians, the Independent reported.
Researcher Jeremy England of MIT proposes that when a group of atoms is exposed for a long time to a source of energy, it will restructure itself to dissipate more energy.
The emergence of life might not be the luck of atoms arranging themselves in the right way, it says, but an inevitable event if the conditions are correct.
England added that you start with a random clump of atoms and if you shine light on it for long enough, it should not be so surprising that you get a plant.
Paul Rosenberg, writing this week on Richard Dawkins' site, said that the theory could make things "a whole lot worse for creationists."
As Rosenberg notes, the idea that life could have evolved from non-living things is one that has been held for some time, and was described by the pre-Socratic philosophers, but England's theory marks the first time that has been convincingly proposed since Darwin, and is backed by mathematical research and a proposal that can be put to the test.