Claims which have traditionally been put forward to argue a connection between natural petroleum and biological matter have been subjected to scientific scrutiny and have been established to be baseless.

The outcome of such scrutiny comes hardly as a surprise, given recognition of the constraints of thermodynamics upon the genesis of hydrocarbons.

If liquid hydrocarbons might evolve from biological detritus in the thermodynamic regime of the crust of the Earth, we could all expect to go to bed at night in our dotage, with white hair (or, at least, whatever might remain of same), a spreading waistline, and all the undesirable decrepitude of age, and to awake in the morning, clear eyed, with our hair returned of the color of our youth, with a slim waistline, a strong, flexible body, and with our sexual vigor restored.

Alas, such is not to be. The merciless laws of thermodynamics do not accommodate folklore fables. Natural petroleum has no connection with biological matter.