Credentials establish a person's credibility. They don't necessarily mean the persons holding them are right, but it makes it more difficult to dismiss them out of hand.
"My friends with Ph. D.s" have examined the "empirical evidence" and found it adequate to the task of generating life, with no need to appeal to an Old Man and Harp Music.

I don't give your arguments any credibility. Do you have any mainstream scientific references which argue as unequivocally as you do that life can't spontaneously begin?

I was reading that lithium has some interesting properties. One, not much of it was created during the big bang. And since stars have more effective nuclear fusion reactions to destroy lithium than create it, the cosmic supply of lithium has steadily decreased and continues to do so.

It's a highly useful tool for astronomers for measuring the ages of stars. All stars begin with a proportionate share of lithium, left behind by the big bang--about one in every 100 billion nuclei. After that it is steadily consumed by the star. When astrophysists look at the youngest stars, they follow a simple rule: Look for the stars with the greatest abundane of lithium. Each star's number of lithium nuclei in proportionto, for example, hydrogen, will locate the star at some point along a graph that shows how stars' ages correlate with lighium in their outer layers. Since so little lithium remains as time goes on, this method only works well for stars under a few hundred million years old.

I guess this is the kind of analysis that goes on all the time, which makes astronomers concerned when the find disparities between the chemical composition of stars.

We can start here:

Chance and necessity do not explain the origin of life

and here:

Biological function and the genetic code are interdependent

and this one:

Three subsets of sequence complexity and their relevance to biopolymeric information

Nor do I.  If you review my responses you will see that I have corrected you on this point before.  I have said the odds point strongly against it. 

The articles provide an assessment of the available scientific evidence. But the conclusion follows from the assessment the articles provide.  At some point the odds become so overwhelmingly small that the reasoned person should suspend belief and adopt an alternative (at least until new evidence improves the odds).  At what point does your faith in chance and chemistry give out?

You talk of these discoveries in similar stars and planets as if they make a significant difference in the equation but you seem to ignore the magnitude of the odds.  Even if one were to calculate that there are a trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion suitable planets, one has not even made a dent in the odds of spontaneous life from chemical processes.  You don't need to discover planets to revive your faith in spontaneous life from non-life, you need someone to discover unknown chemical processes.

Why don't you disclose all the facts?  Why don't you also include an article that discusses the contradictory evidence and problems the findings?  Illy you claim to have a balanced and reasoned approach to science but you don't seem to exemplify your claim.  Search for the truth must be complete and well rounded.

Life on Mars? 

Fair enough, I stand corrected.  Please accept my apology.  Should I no longer presume that your tenets include presentation of both sides of an argument or balance or reason? 


Understood.

Well, a review of the presented literature does leave me a little more skeptical about the origin of the magnetite.

Most plausible is the proof that magnetite can be caused by shock as well as biological processes.

Certainly, the debate is not yet settled.


I would note though that the presenter's (Richard Cowen) view seems to be about as biased as I was accused me of being.

Kind of ironic, no?

# Third, the crackpot spin-offs (at least, that's my opinion of these ideas!).

Yes, terms like "crackpot spinoff" are the hallmark of unbiased science, as are sentences in all caps.

I would be interested to read where AND FINALLY, in 2004, Chris McKay gives up (without saying so)., but unfortunately, the link leads to an error page.

Ultimately, he does bring up some very good points, but I would hardly call him unbiased.