The Origin of Life in Clay Physics

[muon200]

I wrote a science fiction short story about the physics and chemistry of the first living beings: The Clay People. It is a kindle book at amazon dot com. It is based on the non-fiction ideas of A. G. Cairns-Smith. The technical content includes following ideas:

A long time ago, entropy had not made a mess of things. There were pure elements and molecules without mud.

Clay can reproduce its crystals and its layered structures.

Radioactivity caused carbon and other elements to run experiments in survival.

Random configurations caused channeling and control structures to appear in the clay.

Water flow brought nutrients into the clay to feed its growth and reproduction.

Evolution caused clay scientists to arise.

The clay scientists saw that their genes were fragile, so they created something like DNA to allow better survival rates. But the DNA based life ate the clay scientists. That removed evidence of the origins.

More details are in the book by A.G. Cairns-Smith - Seven Clues to the Origin of Life. In that book, that author discusses the complexity of modern cells and how removing any one feature, like protein production, would cause the end of life. He says that is similar to building a stone arch. If any one stone is removed, the arch will collapse. Romans built an arch using a scaffolding. Then they removed the scaffolding and the arch remained with no clue of how it can be built with stones being added sequentially. A naiive person may look at an arch and fail to see how a new arch can be built with all pieces in place. It looks like it will fall if any one component is missing. Life is similar. We cannot see the scaffolding that was removed.

[Q-reeus]

I will likely remain an agnostic for life. Having said that, find much of the pro-ID arguments marshalled by the likes of William Denbski to be far more robust than the hand-waving speculation of Cairn-Smith et. al. Every time I watch an Attenborough nature doco, just keep thinking 'no way can one rationally argue that (particular adaptation etc.) could have evolved through long stages', notwithstanding Dave's blithe commentary to the contrary. He and the multitude of fellow pure evolutionists just may be right in the end, but it will take far more than what's so far been actually confirmed (basically just the fossil record + certain genetic drift data + limited adaptation) to convince me. life's origin remains a deep mystery despite monumental sustained efforts to crack it.

[muon200]

The early universe had low entropy. Things were simpler back then. It was easier to make a living.

Billions of years ago, entropy had not had time to make a mess of the elements and compounds. There were large planets and dust lanes of pure elements, especially even numbered nuclei like carbon and iron. The streets were paved with gold. There was not much mixing or diffusion of compounds, so the situation when Life arose was different from today. It was easier to make a living.

[Q-reeus]

The early universe had low entropy. Things were simpler back then. It was easier to make a living.

Billions of years ago, entropy had not had time to make a mess of the elements and compounds. There were large planets and dust lanes of pure elements, especially even numbered nuclei like carbon and iron. The streets were paved with gold. There was not much mixing or diffusion of compounds, so the situation when Life arose was different from today. It was easier to make a living.

Well muon200, all I will say to that is good luck in trying to verify and meaningfully quantify those thoughts (apart from the trivially true observation entropy of universe as a whole was less in the past). While not quite 'my hero', have a real rapore with this gent and what he has to say as a general synopsis of current evolutionist vs ID debate/ideological struggle: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_q ... +berlinski
Take your pick - they are all thought provoking in a sensible way.