In 1953, the field of abiogenesis took a large step forward when Stanley Miller and Harold Urey reported that a collection of five simple amino acids could be formed from placing a combination of chemicals in a jar and subjecting the jar to energy in the form of electricity (10, 11). This experiment continues to be used in high school and college texts as the unquestioned fundamental explanation for the origin of life based on a purely natural process (12). Unfortunately, the experimental conditions of a low-oxygen, nitrogen-rich reducing environment have been refuted by many (13–15). The experiment actually produces a racemic mixture of amino acids that would inhibit the production of useful proteins. After Watson and Crick unveiled the double helix nature of DNA in 1953, the origin-of-life research began to focus on the nucleotides and the complex chemical processes that might create the energy for the primitive cell. Modern textbooks expand on the largely debunked Miller-Urey experiment and further propose that the nucleotides form together in a primitive environment with explanations that include the RNA world hypothesis (16), thermogenesis (17), and hypercycles (18). Unfortunately, the student is not taught that those theories still require complex and specified information contained in functioning proteins, which cannot be explained or self-generated (19). Furthermore, the student is not taught that the four nucleotides do not spontaneously form in nature (20). There is no self-organizing principle that would guide or facilitate alignment of nucleotides (21, 22). Any experimentally manufactured nucleotides are mixtures of L (left-oriented) and D (right-oriented) isomers. Since DNA is composed of only D isomers, the probability of alignment of thousands of specified D isomers becomes even more remote (23, 24). Even if there was a self-organizing pattern, the probability of even a short strand of nucleotides occurring in a precisely specified linear pattern that would code for even the smallest single-celled organism with approximately 250 genes has been calculated to be 1 in 10150—1 in 1070 less than the chance of finding a particular electron in the entire universe (25).
Posted on: Fri, 28 Feb 2014 02:24:45 +0000
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