> One route to that conclusion is the famous Miller and Urey
> experiments of the
> late 1950's in which a flask was given a presumedly
> primordial atmosphere and
> ocean, and a source of energy (simulated lightning). Fatty
> and amino acids
> readily formed, as did purines and pyrimidines, the basic
> cross-linking
> molecules of DNA (and the information-bearing coding structure). The
> Miller-Urey experiments have been repeated a hundred times
> since, in every
> imaginable variation, and the results have always been
> approximately the
> same. It seems to be simply a matter of shaking a box full of
> dice and being
> predestined by the physicochemical rules of coming up with the same
> particular numbers. The molecules that do form are the "low-energy,
> low-entropy" states, states that are apparently -- more or
> less -- inevitable.

Except that those "dice" are loaded: the "presumedly primordial
atmosphere" Miller used is OUR presumption of what OUR atmosphere
looked like a couple of billion years ago: water (H2O), methane (CH4),
ammonia (NH3), H2. Is it really that surprising that when you start
out with "CHON" ingredients (and only those ingredients) you get
"CHON"-based products? "Gee, when I shake a random collection of coins
out of this box containing quarters, dimes, and nickels, I always get
a money total that is evenly divisible by 5!"


Steve Dirickson   WestWin Consulting
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