Today there is an important posting at ENV that critiques one of the latest contributions to the study of life’s origin published in PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences).  This PNAS study is also discussed at a more popular level in this Nature article. Today’s ENV blog (and the earlier ENV blog that it cites) provides further support for Steve Meyer’s main points about life’s origin contained in TrueU.  As you may recall, Meyer makes the case that origin-of-life theorists must solve the "information sequence problem," but have failed to do so.

Here are a few highlights of the ENV analysis of the PNAS article on life’s origin. Near the beginning of the blog we find this:

The language of the [PNAS] paper is appropriately speculative because, as the authors admit, there is no geological evidence for their hypothesis. The article is extremely detailed in some parts while, in other respects, being disappointingly short on details.

Today’s ENV blog concludes:

In sum, the authors' argument hinges on two points:

1. The early Earth had a reducing environment (no oxygen was present).
2. The chemical environment within the cell is indicative of the surrounding early Earth environment in which the cell was formed. This is called the "conservation of chemistry principle."

Studies have shown and continue to show that the early Earth atmosphere likely DID include oxygen. … If the interior of the cell has a reducing environment, but the early Earth likely had an oxidizing environment, then the second point, the conservation of chemistry principle, is open to serious question. Indeed, the entire basis of the paper is on very shaky ground.

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