Wednesday, October 23, 2013

How Do the IDiots Explain the Origin of Life?

We don't know how life on Earth originated. We're not completely ignorant because we have a good idea of basic biochemistry and we know which enzymes and pathways had to be present in the earliest cells. We're pretty sure that the first life forms captured energy by oxidizing inorganic molecules. We're pretty sure that the first cells formed in the ocean.

We also know from the fossil record that the first organisms were single-celled organisms that resemble modern bacteria in size and shape. We know that they appear more than 3 billion years ago and there were no complex organisms for another billion years. We know that the idea of a primordial soup is nonsense and that speculations about an RNA world are not helpful.

Other than that, all we have is informed speculation. The correct answer to the question of how did life begin is "I don't know."

Denyse O'Leary asks: Origin of life: How are we doing?. She is shocked to learn that scientists have not figured out all the details of how life began. She acts like she knows the answer. She acts like she has an explanation that accounts for all of the data and for the subsequent history of life.

Why isn't she sharing that information? How do the IDiots explain the origin of the first primitive cells more than 3 billion years ago?