The Origin of Life - Where the Research Stands
When we die, the natural forces of physics and chemistry start to rip our bodies apart and break them down into their base components. It’s not a lengthy process, with the vast majority of cell death occuring within the first day, rendering the warm, malleable tissue and organs into a cold, stiff, corpse. A colorful description, but nonetheless very true.
Reversing that process is exceptionally hard, even just a few minutes after it begins. Once that first stage of death (Pallor Mortis) has set in, forget it. The amount of damage that has been done due to the lack of oxygen in the brain alone is irreversible.
Origin of life researchers face a far, far worse scenario. Bringing that corpse back to life is a far easier task than starting from scratch. And the notes from the research itself is indicative of just how lost humanity currently is at answering such questions. Even the formation of the amino acids, the basic building blocks of proteins, is still a mystery. Many of the proposed scenarios of how they arose naturally exceptionally improbable or impossible, yet scientists continue to press for them.
A recent article in Nature Communications brings up that very point:
It was 30 years before Orgel confronted the easy transformation of “prebiotically plausible” from a phrase supported by examinable premises to instead mean: “A molecule that I desire for my model”. In 2004, Orgel offered three criteria to adjudicate the prebiotic plausibility of individual molecules. The first was circular (its precursors must be prebiotically plausible). The second (reactions forming the molecule must occur in water) was rich in assumptions that excluded alternative solvents. The third was subjective (the yield of molecule must be “significant”).
Orgel concluded by suggesting that “it would not be wise to define too closely” the concept of “prebiotically plausible”. Aside from being another example of the endorsement of semantic and philosophical imprecision by heroes in this field, this does not offer the editors of journals guidance when evaluating manuscripts that purport to present investigator-managed chemistry, much done in Pyrex, as relevant to origins.
This brings us to today. A half-century after the widespread use of the concept, a Nature Communications editor has solicited comments to put substance behind the phrase..
A single example illustrates the challenge. Hydrogen cyanide (HCN) is on nearly every list of prebiotically plausible precursors for biomolecules. It is seen in planet-forming dust clouds. It is observed in the atmospheres of gas giant planets in our Solar System. It was made by Stanley Miller by electrical discharge through mixtures of methane (CH4), ammonia (NH3), and water (H2O). These are touchstones of “prebiotic plausibility”. HCN, as well as cyanamide (H2NCN), cyanogen (NCCN), and cyanoacetylene (HCCCN), are easy precursors of the nucleobases seen in RNA (including adenine), allowing these molecules to also appear on these lists.
Unfortunately, current theory holds that Earth’s native atmosphere was more oxidizing than the Miller atmosphere. Carbon was more likely present as carbon dioxide (CO2), not methane. Nitrogen was more likely present as dinitrogen (N2), not ammonia. This model is supported by detailed studies of rocks surviving from that time8. More unfortunately, such atmospheres are very bad sources of HCN, HCCCN, and the other reduced molecules on these lists of prebiotically plausible compounds, including those in popular models for the prebiotic synthesis of adenine. Thus, the prebiotic plausibility of HCN, the other molecules, and adenine long ago vanished as Earth-made species, even though literature too voluminous to cite here continues to assume otherwise.
This creates a paradox. If one premises that life originated via an RNA-First prebiotic process that used adenine as a precursor and that adenine was formed from HCN from a Hadean terran atmosphere, then the premises that view HCN as an impossible product of our early atmosphere force the conclusion that life could not have originated on Earth. An unacceptable conclusion follows by the force of logic from seemingly acceptable premises.
Ironically, after throwing all that criticism at his colleagues for pushing just-so stories with no evidence, the author then uses global heavy metal dispersion patterns to make a case for a collision between the Earth and a moon-sized object that happens to have had the composition, size, angle, force, fragmentation pattern, and timing to facilitate the spread of certain elements that create an extraordinary environment. One that counteracts the effects of Earth’s atmosphere and enables the natural formation of molecular precursors required to form a particular amino acid that is necessary for the RNA world to be “prebiotically possible”. Talk about the kettle calling the pot black.
That’s beside the point though. Did you notice where the research is? It’s still trying to find methods for the natural formation of the precursors for amino acids. That is light years away from life. From the precursors, we need amino acids to form. Then we need hundreds of homochiral protein chains to form, and each of those need to be specialized with the specific functional abilities to facilitate the many cellular processes we observe in life. We also need some to form into enzymes, we need specific arrangements of the base pairs in RNA/DNA to convey and establish functional information and meta-information needed. That information needs to instruct the cellular components on the proper sequences and requirements to facilitate cellular operation and reproduction. And we need the components to somehow arrive with the knowledge of how to read and execute that coded information and meta-information contained in the base pairs. All this is necessary just to get the parts and programming of a cell. We still need an energy source. All these parts and programming need to gather in the same place and be at the same time unharmed. It needs to assemble itself together. And there needs to be a method for the many metabolic processes to begin and bring the cell to life.
That’s just the beginning, and we’re light years from it. We haven’t progressed any farther than Miller-Urey. But we have learned that there are a whole lot more obstacles in the way of life forming on its own. I wouldn’t be surprised if we learn even more. From what we know now, life arising without God is well beyond the scientific threshold of being operationally impossible. The only rational conclusion is that God made us. The evolutionists have a long way to go to try to prove otherwise.
