HURDLE NUMBER 21. THE MINERAL ORIGIN HURDLE.
A theory has been proposed that life originated from minerals. According to scientific opinion, this idea is a non-starter. Unfortunately some evolutionists have latched onto this idea, so it is worth setting out the reasons why it totally lacks scientific merit. Here are some quotes from authoritative sources supportive of this above statement:-
This quote is from the book The Spark of Life – Darwin and The Primeval Soup, by Christopher Wills (Professor of Biology at The University of California) and Jeffrey Bada (Professor of Marine Chemistry), published by Oxford University Press, 2001, pages 101 to 102:-
“Graham Cairns Smith of The University of Glasgow first proposed - - - that - - - - - the surfaces of crystals with their aligned rows of molecules could have provided templates for organic materials to align - - - themselves (supposedly forming simple life-forms). - - - -Unfortunately for his idea, it quickly became apparent that minerals simply could not carry enough information to be the genetic material for even the most primitive life - - - - - Cairns Smith’s notions about clay genes have now been largely rejected by the scientific community.”
The next quote come from the interview:- From Primordial Soup to the Prebiotic Beach , an interview conducted in October, 1996 with Dr. Stanley L. Miller, University of California San Diego, By Sean Henahan, Access Excellence.
This interview is available on the internet on the following web page:-
http://www.accessexcellence.org/WN/NM/miller.html
(1n 1953, a University of Chicago graduate student named Stanley Miller working in Harold Urey's lab flipped a switch sending electric current through a chamber containing a combination of methane, ammonia, hydrogen and water. The experiment yielded organic compounds including amino acids, the building blocks of life, and catapulted a field of study known as exobiology into the headlines.)
Miller states:- “Minerals have been thought by some to play a role in the origin of life, but they really haven't done much for us so far. People talk about how minerals might have helped catalyze reactions, but there are few examples where the mineral makes any difference.”
The next quote is from the book The Origin of Life by John Maynard Smith (Emeritus Professor of Biology, University of Sussex) and E. Szathmary, published by Oxford University press, 1999, page 12:-
“In his - - - - - book What is Life? (1944), the physicist Erwin Schrodinger - - - - the book contains the famous remark that the gene, the information-carrying unit of the genetic material must be an “aperiodic crystal”. The genetic material must resemble a crystal in being stable and relatively inert, but it must also be “aperiodic”, in the sense of being composed of several different kinds of unit, and not just one kind of unit, like a crystal of salt. The reason is that a string of identical units – for example, AAAAAA – cannot convey information, whereas a string of dissimilar units can.”
(My comment:- The idea that life can originate from minerals founders on the fact that minerals do indeed crystallize into patterns that can be effectively represented by the letters – AAAAA – or similar arrangements. )
The next quote is from the book Genetic Takeover and The Mineral Origins of Life by A.G. Cairns Smith (Senior Lecturer in Chemistry at The University of Glasgow), published by Cambridge University Press, reprinted 1987, pages 130 to 131.
Cairns Smith (who is the originator of the Mineral Origins of Life hypothesis) admits objections to his own theory:- “I agree there is a whole nest of problems here - - - - The whole idea is speculative.”
The next quote is from pages 125 to 127 of the same book:-
The author discusses his hypothesis that life might have started as minerals, and then “handed over the reins” to biological life-forms. He discusses objections to this notion:-
One objection:- A transference of information between “radically different kinds of genetic material” would be impossible. “The reading equipment by which genetic messages are translated into an effective phenotype (ie:- body shape) would work with (only) one - - - (type) of genetic material. With a change to a new genetic material, all the information in the old one (ie:- in the old genetic material) would become illegible – it would be lost.” The author then raises a further objection:- Even if a mineral life-form could evolve, there would be no selection pressure to cause it to create nucleotides; and even if it did “polymerase substitute” (ie:-an enzyme) would be needed to join the nucleotide together and to copy pre-existing sequences. Also, even if the mineral life-form could produce a strand of DNA and various (monomer) nucleotides, “this strand would not by itself select the appropriate new monomers – single nucleotides do not bind at all well to nucleic acid strands.” The objection continues:- Even of you could get the DNA to replicate, “all you would have would be replicating nucleic acid strands, unable to do anything except replicate.”