The chemical origin of life?

John Peet  |  Features
Date posted:  1 Feb 1996
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Just what are chances of life beginning by chance? Dr. John Peet of the Biblical Creation Society leads us through the arguments.

Professor Sidney Fox, a chemist researching for a mechanistic explanation for the origin of life, entitled a paper 'In the beginning, life assembled itself ...' This is clearly in contrast to the biblical claim that 'In the beginning, God created ...' Is there any reason for believing Sidney Fox? Another scientist said that the origin of life 'can never be repeated by us, but we could ask proper questions, knowing the problem.' So, let's ask the questions.

There are many chemicals involved in a living system, but to keep the problem reasonably simple, we will concentrate on the simplest group of chemicals, the amino acids. 20 of these occur in nature and they combine to form proteins. From these, we get many of our bodies' structural materials (muscles, skin, hair, etc.) and they also form a constituent part of enzymes. Without enzymes, no metabolic process can occur in a living organism. They are vital to life. There are many different enzymes in the body, facilitating processes such as the digestion of food. Without them, reactions would be, at best, excessively slow. The amino acids combine in large numbers (hundreds or thousands of units). The choice of the units and sequence of their combination is critical to the structure and so the activity of the protein.

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