Be Very Wary of Astronomers Talking Of Prebiotic Molecules in Space

The scientists who call themselves SETI scientists use giant radio telescopes to search for radio signals coming from other planets. This method has been used for 60 years, and has not produced any promising results. The same scientists use optical telescopes to search for signs of optical radio beacons or signs of engineering by super-advanced civilizations. Such methods have also failed.  

Such methods have been used fruitlessly to a gigantic extent. An article in Scientific American has a headline of "Alien Supercivilizations Absent from 100,000 Nearby Galaxies."  Below are some of the failed searches:

• The SERENDIP project, surveying a large portion of the sky, the portion depicted in Figure 4 of the paper here, a project which a Sky and Telescope article tells us surveyed "many billions of Milky Way stars."
• The Southern SERENDIP project surveying a large portion of the sky, the portion depicted in Figure 2 of the paper here.
• A SETI project surveying a significant portion of the sky, the portion depicted in Figure 2 of the paper here. 
• The all-sky SETI survey discussed here, which operated continuously for more than four years. 
• The two-year southern sky SETI search discussed here, which observed for 9000 hours and "covered the sky almost two times."  
• A recent failed search of 10 million stars using the latest and greatest technology. 

Astronomers do not claim success in such searches. But astronomers often claim success in a different type of space search: a search for life-relevant molecules floating around in outer space.  Unfortunately these claims of success are generally unfounded. 

For example, in September 2021 there was a story on www.scitechdaily.com entitled "Astrophysicists Identify 'Significant Reservoirs' of Organic Molecules Necessary To Form the Basis of Life."  The story discussed University of Leeds observations of three chemicals (cyanoacetylene, acetonitrile, and cyclopropenylidene) that are neither the building blocks of life nor the building blocks of the building blocks of one-celled life. It is not at all true that these chemicals are "necessary to form the basis of life." I can find no mention of cyanoacetylene being present in any organism. Acetonitrile is a toxic substance.  A wikipedia.org article on cyclopropenylidene says, "On Earth, cyclopropenylidene is only seen in the laboratory due to its reactivity."

As I discuss in the post here, the densities of these molecules in the so-called "reservoirs" was something like  100,000,000,000,000,000,000 times less dense than an actual reservoir  (which contains about 10,000,000,000,000,000,000 water molecules per cubic centimeter). Both the press release and the scientific paper  have misled us greatly by referring to "reservoirs" of such chemicals, a falsehood about as bad as calling a sneeze a "gigantic flash flood thunderstorm downpour." 

The hogwash about prebiotic molecules in space continues to this day.  The latest misleading headline is one stating this: "Key Discovery in Search for Origin of Life – Astronomers Detect Largest Molecule Yet in a Cosmic 'Dust-Trap' ”.  The molecule found is dimethyl ether, with a formula of CH₃OCH₃.  Is this a building block of visible life? No. The building blocks of visible living things are cells, which are billions of time more complex. Is this chemical a building block of microscopic one-celled life? No. The building blocks of microscopic one-celled life are things such as protein molecules and nucleic acids. Is this dimethyl ether at least one of the building blocks of the building blocks of one-celled microscopic life? No. Such building blocks of the building blocks of one-celled microscopic life are things such as nucleotides and amino acids, which are more complex molecules containing carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen (the last of these is not in dimethyl ether).  Dimethyl ether is neither a building block of one-celled microscopic life nor a building block of the building blocks of one-celled microscopic life. 

How much of this dimethyl ether was found? We hear not a single word about that in the press release. We also hear no clear mention of how much of this dimethyl ether was found in the scientific paper.  But there is a way to find out about the density of such a molecule in the observed protoplanetary disk, by doing a little jumping through hoops:

(1) Figure 3 of the scientific paper tells us that the density of dimethly ether was about a tenth of the density of methanol (CH₃OH). 

(2)  Figure 1 of the paper here tells us that the density of methanol in protoplanetary disks is about a millionth of the density of gaseous hydrogen. 

(3) The source here tells us the hydrogen density in protoplanetary disks is about 10⁴  (10,000 molecules) per cubic centimeter. 

From the numbers above it seems that the density of dimethly ether is only about 1 molecule per 1000 cubic centimeters, a ten-millionth of 10⁴  (10,000 molecules) per cubic centimeter.  That is a density of about 1 molecule for each cubic volume that is 10 centimeters or 4 inches across. Since a dimethly ether molecule is way, way too small to see, this is a negligible amount. 

So it's not true at all that astronomers made a "key discovery in [the] search for [the] origin of life."  The only discovery was a biologically irrelevant molecule found in the tiniest trace amount. 

Astronomers have been making extremely false statements about the abundance of prebiotic molecules for a very long time. Perhaps the first major astronomer to start shoveling baloney on this topic was Carl Sagan. At about the 2:15 minute mark in the interview here,  Sagan began to tell a great big falsehood related to extraterrestrial life.  He stated the following:

"The carbon-rich complex molecules that are essential for the kind of life we know about, are fantastically abundant. They litter the universe. We see them in asteroids, and comets, and the moons and the outer solar system, and even in the cool dark spaces between the stars. So the stuff of life is everywhere."

He thereby led his listeners to think that “stuff of life” has been discovered in outer space. No such thing has occurred. The “stuff of life” would be things such as nucleic acids and functional proteins, and they have never been discovered in outer space. There are virtually no signs of the building blocks of life in outer space. None of the twenty amino acids used by living things has been discovered in space, other than the two simplest amino acids, glycine and alanine (which were not found in space while Sagan lived). The claimed detections of glycine and alanine are "tiniest trace amount" things that are rather dubious, and we cannot be sure that such things were really found. Sagan frequently repeated this "stuff of life is everywhere" falsehood in a variety of places. 

Sagan's misstatement on this topic have been repeated by many astronomers. A NASA press announcement states, "Massive Stars Are Factories for Ingredients to Life."  The headline and story are misleading in two respects. The use of the term "factories" implies that something complex is being created.  That is not correct, because the report merely refers to very simple things: water (H₂0), ammonia (NH₃), methane (CH₄), and acetylene (C₂H₂).  All of these have chemical formulas much simpler than the amino acids that are the simplest things that could be called building blocks of life.  And neither ammonia nor methane nor acetylene is actually an ingredient of life, in the sense of being any kind of building block of life. 

Doing calculations like the one I did above, and using Figure 1 of the paper here, a calculation of the abundance of ammonia and methane and acetylene in protostars (such as found in environments like the Orion Nebula) give you an abundance of about 10 molecules for each fist-sized volume of matter. That's hardly an abundance comparable to a factory's production. 

      Much less dense that it looks: Orion Nebula (Credit: NASA)

What astronomers keep doing again and again is reporting the detection in space of biologically irrelevant molecules that are neither building blocks of life nor the building blocks of the building blocks of life; and the observation of such molecules is described as something relevant to the question of the origin of life or the likelihood of extraterrestrial life, even though the molecules were detected in such extremely sparse amounts that no such claim should be made.  Using obfuscation or information hiding tactics, such astronomers will avoid telling us in plain English that the molecules were detected merely in the tiniest trace amounts.  If you want to find out the density per square meter of the molecules reported, it will be as hard as  pulling teeth.  

In the NASA announcement here, it was announced that scientists had discovered the "largest and farthest reservoir of water ever detected in the universe," with an amount equal to 140 trillion times the amount of water on Earth. That sounds impressive, until you keep reading the announcement, and find that this amount is spread over hundreds of cubic light-years, meaning that the density of water in this so-called "reservoir" probably doesn't even equal the water vapor at the 2-meter-level in the driest part of the Sahara Desert. 

Often the astronomers will make a claim such as stating that the "column density" of the molecules was something like a trillion molecules, failing to tell us that this "column density" is the total amount of molecules in a vast volume of outer space.  So some tiniest trace amount such as a few molecules per square meter may be described using some "column density" figure giving a layman the impression the molecules exist in some density 1,000,000,000,000,000 times greater than the actual density.  Getting no plain English in regard to molecular density, press release writers will describe such observations in enormously misleading terms, sometimes referring to "reservoirs" of the molecules, even though the observed density may be 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 times less dense than the molecular density in a reservoir of water. 

A recent press article is entitled, "New Clues on Origins of Life As Peptides Produced in Space-Like Conditions." The article refers to a laboratory experiment that claims to be simulating conditions in interstellar clouds.  We should be very skeptical that the experiment realistically simulated any conditions in outer space, because origin-of-life researchers have a long history of creating unrealistic experiments that do not realistically simulate any natural conditions, and then claiming such experiments as simulations of natural conditions.  In the Methods section of the scientific paper, we read this:

"The background pressure inside the vacuum chamber (1 × 10−10 mbar) and the temperature of the substrate (10 K) allowed us to mimic the chemistry under dense molecular cloud conditions. We used approximately equal amounts of CO and NH3 molecules, while the number of C atoms was at least ten times smaller."

But according to Figure 1 of the scientific paper here, ammonia (NH3 ) is a thousand times less common than CO (carbon monoxide) in molecular clouds, and ammonia (NH3 ) is a ten times less common than CO (carbon monoxide) in high-mass protostars.  So clearly the experiment did not realistically simulate molecular  clouds. And what density of NH3 and ammonia was used? The methods section of the paper does not tell us. We may presume that the density of such chemicals was some density very much greater than we find in molecular clouds in space, where NH3 is a millionth as common as hydrogen, according to Figure 1 of the scientific paper here. It seems the experiment was not at all a realistic simulation of any conditions in outer space. 

As discussed above,  astronomers make misleading claims about a discovery of "reservoirs" of "building blocks of life" when they are talking about chemicals which are not building blocks of life and which have been found only in amounts 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 times less dense than the molecular density in a reservoir of water. This is only one type of outrageously misleading speech trying to warm you up to the dea of life accidentally appearing on other planets.  Another example of such speech comes from the chemists.  An example was a recent full-of-falsehoods story with this headline:

"Scientists Create RNA That Evolves on Its Own. This Could Be How Life on Earth Started."

The beginning of the enormously misleading news story told us this untrue tale that contains several untruths: 

"We just received more evidence that life on Earth may have started with RNA, with scientists in Japan creating RNA that can replicate, diversify, and develop complexity all on its own. Long before Earth had its first budding cells of primordial ooze, it was awash with a churning organic soup that sat on the brink of something profound. That thin line between complex chemistry and the evolution of life represents a pivotal moment in the emergence of biology."

The study refers to some result produced through the most ridiculously artificial and high-tech manipulations, meaning that the claim about RNA doing something "all on its own" was very much untrue. The claim in the second sentence about Earth being "awash with a churning organic soup" is groundless.  The idea of a "primordial soup" filled with "building blocks of life" has no basis in fact.  Such claims are based on appeals to irrelevant experiments such as the Miller-Urey experiment, which failed in multiple ways to realistically simulate the early Earth (as discussed here).  Far from there being a "thin line" between complex chemistry and the evolution of life, there is a barrier like the barrier between the assorted metal scraps in a junkyard and a very large 10-story skyscraper equipped with working electricity and plumbling. 

The story is based on the paper here. The paper has a misleading title referring to "evolutionary transitions." The experiment produced results through extremely elaborate and hi-tech manual manipulations that were nothing like natural evolution. Nothing was done to simulate any natural conditions on the early Earth. To the contrary, a close examination of the "Methods" section of the paper reveals that at every step what is going on is labor-intensive manual manipulations by the experimenters, much of which involved high-tech equipment. The researchers started out with some concoction that had been produced through extensive manual manipulation and high-tech interventions by previous researchers, and then added many rounds of their own extensive manual manipulations and high-tech interventions. Below is a quote giving you a little idea of how utterly unnatural these proceedings were, with phrases such as "16000 rpm" and words such as "centrifugation" referring to very advanced high-tech equipment:

"All RNA clones were prepared from the plasmids by in vitro transcription with T7 RNA polymerase (Takara) after digestion with Sma I (Takara). The remaining plasmids were treated with DNase I (Takara), and the transcribed RNAs were purified using the RNeasy Mini kit (Qiagen)...164 rounds of replication were performed, started with the RNA population in round 74 of the main experiment (total 240 rounds). In round 1, 10 μl of reaction mixture containing 1 nM HL0–0 and the translation system was vigorously mixed with 1 ml of buffer-saturated oil using a homogenizer (POLYTRON PT-1300D, KINEMATICA) at 16,000 rpm for 1 min on ice to prepare water-in-oil droplets....Next, the droplets were incubated at 37 °C for 5 h to induce RNA replication through protein translation. From round 2 to 240, 200 μl of water-in-oil droplets in the previous round, 10 μl of the translation system, and 800 μl of buffer-saturated oil were homogenized by the same method to prepare a new droplet population, followed by incubation under the same condition (at 37 °C for 5 h) to induce RNA replication....The recovered solution was mixed with four volumes of diethyl ether, centrifuged (11,000 × g, 1 min) to remove the diethyl ether phase, and purified using RNeasy Mini kit (Qiagen). Obtained RNA samples were then subjected to 8% polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis in 1× TBE buffer."

There were many other further manual manipulations and high-tech interventions to produce the uninteresting results reported in the paper, which our hugely false news story has told us involves RNA that can "replicate, diversify, and develop complexity all on its own."  That's as misleading as describing a printing plant and saying it shows that books can make copies of themselves "all on their own." No actual functional complexity was produced through all this complex manual and hi-tech manipulation. No natural replication of RNA was observed. There is no truth to claims that the paper does something to support the "RNA World" hypothesis about life's origin. 

A spacecraft gathered a mere 5 grams of material from an asteroid, and the material was brought back to Earth. A recent article on www.space.com says, "Pristine asteroid Ryugu contains amino acids that are building blocks of life."  Amino acids are not actually buiding blocks of life, but merely the building blocks of the building blocks of one-celled life. The building blocks of microscopic life are functional protein molecules, which have never been detected in space. 

The scientific paper says that only two of the twenty amino acids used by earthly proteins were found in the asteroid: the two simplest amino acids, glycine and alanine. In what abundance were such amino acids found? The paper does not say, and we therefore cannot have much confidence in such claims.  We may presume that any traces of such amino acids were merely the tiniest traces, such as I part in a billion. If the authors had found any higher abundance, they no doubt would have mentioned the abundance found. Unfortunately, when something is detected in only the tiniest trace amounts, or when paper authors decline to mention in what abundance something was found, we should always doubt the claim that a detection was made. It's too easy to misidentify (or get something from trace earthly contamination) when you are dealing with the tiniest trace amounts. 

An example of the "give you the wrong idea" news coverage about prebiotic molecules in space is a recent NASA page asking the rhetorical question "Could the blueprint for life have been generated in asteroids?" The idea that DNA is a blueprint for making living things is a mythical claim that scientists have long advanced for ideological reasons. Having only low-level chemical information, DNA does not have any blueprint or recipe or algorithm for making an organism or any of its organs or any of its cells.  

The article refers to some new analysis of old meteorites, one that reports finding two prebiotic molecules that were not previously found when such meteorites were analyzed.  This reported discovery is very questionable. If such molecules were there, why would they have not shown up in previous investigations of the meteorites?  The NASA page conveniently fails to mention the abundances reported. When we look at the scientific paper, we find that we have a mere claim that the tiniest trace abundances were found. The paper says, 'Other pyrimidine nucleobases, such as cytosine and thymine, as well as their analogs containing a pyrimidine ring, were identified by their chromatographic retention times, accurate mass measurements of their parent masses, and mass fragmentation patterns in the MS/MS measurements (Supplementary Table 1), with concentrations ranging from 0.02 to 6 ppb (Table 2)." That is an abundance of less than 7 parts per billion (ppb means parts per billion). We should not have great confidence in such detections, since the reported abundances are so very small. 

Like the NASA page, a press release news story on this paper totally fails to mention the trivial abundances reported (less than 7 parts per billion), and incorrectly states this:

"We still don't know just how the first life emerged on Earth. One suggestion is that the building blocks arrived here from space; now, a new study of several carbon-rich meteorites has added weight to this idea." 

No, since the study reports only negligible abundances of less than 7 parts per billion, it does not add weight to the idea that life arose by building blocks arising from space.