I think that's really their point. You start out with a sealed, lifeless environment - but one that contains lots of nutrients and would therefore theoretically be ideal for life. So the creationists ask, "why doesn't life evolve in here?"

As is typical of creationists however, it's really a straw man argument. No scientist would claim that life *should* evolve under those circumstances even if you did wait millions of years. So they are shooting down an argument that scientists don't make. Textbook straw man.

It turns out there is still a bit of mystery about exactly what it takes for life to get started. As a bare minimum though, you need "the stuff of life" like amino acids and such. We know what conditions are necessary to create amino acids; one of the constituents is electricity. Since peanut butter jars are no known for their electrostatic properties, it is just plain silly to expect life to ever spontaneously evolve in one, but that is what the creationists are trying to say.

As an addendum, you also apparently need water and motion such as from a river. The point is, you certainly need more than just peanut butter and privacy.

It seems like this would be the equivalent of saying that God doesn't exist because my prayers for a jar of peanut butter go unanswered every day.

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Hwæt! We Gardena in geardagum,
þeodcyninga, þrym gefrunon,
hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon.

No, it's just that God knows peanut butter is bad for you.

Has anyone tried any of the other nut butters, though? Cashew butter is almost too good for words.

And most important of all, has anyone ckecked the Vegemite jars? If life was going to evolve anywhere, it's there. And it would be NASTY.

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The Devil offered me power. I told him I preferred aperture.

Oh, I don't know; peanut butter, privacy & consenting adults might result in new life - but I think that's better left for another forum

Gosh yes! I tend to kill off the Marmite lifeforms by adding a few drops of Tabasco though

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N6MAA10816
Faber '62 ΔTX
Are you a Bright?

Though sterilized, the peanut butter still likely contains lots of living cells, so their experiment is fundamentally flawed from the start, just as their conclusions made from it.

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And the "driving on the freeway on a scooter" analogy still holds true because the pilots are sitting in 7 to 30 ton aircraft o' doom and you are running around them in your very own Meatbody, Mark I. Beep, beep.
Trying to make sense of computers, The Error Log.

Let's be fair, here. If it was an experiment, it was an experiment in rhetoric. The ONLY sad thing is those people who watch, nod sagely, and say to each other, "Well, THAT takes care of those loony evolutionists."

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The Devil offered me power. I told him I preferred aperture.