The Usually Appalling Mainstream Reviews of Origin-of-Life Research

Imagine if all of your life you had read nothing but nonsense drivel about the American Civil War. Imagine, for example, that as a high-schooler you heard nothing but nonsense stories like this about such a war:

"It all started because of a disagreement over what kind of uniforms to wear. The soldiers in the North wanted to wear blue uniforms, but the soldiers in the South wanted to wear gray uniforms. They couldn't agree, so they fought a big long war to decide what type of uniforms the soldiers would end up wearing."

And imagine that you kept hearing such nonsense accounts of the American Civil War for decade after decade, so that a typical account of that war sounded like this:

"The American Civil War was fought because the Southern states refused to be led by Lincoln, a guy with hollow cheeks and a little beard. It was mainly because the guys in the South thought that Lincoln was just too ugly to be their leader. So they tried to start their own country led by another guy with hollow cheeks and a little beard (Jefferson Davis), because they thought he was a little less ugly than Lincoln."

If you had endured something like five decades of hearing stories this bad on this topic, you might finally get to the point when you feel like tearing your hair out whenever you read a new press account of the American Civil War. That's kind of like how I feel every time I read another mainstream press account reviewing research about the origin of life. I've been reading such accounts for more than 50 years and most of the accounts have been very low in quality. It's only been a fraction of this time that I've known enough about this topic to realize how appalling is the junk that typically appears on this topic in the mainstream press. 

Like someone listing the symptoms of a disease, I can list the general features that we typically find in mainstream reviews of origin of life research.

Feature #1: Titles That Are Misleading or Ridiculous

Below are some examples:

"Can We Recreate the Spark of Life on Earth?" This is the title of the latest appalling article on this topic, published by the BBC which so often presents very bad examples of science journalism. Even the simplest self-reproducing life would be an example of extremely high organization comparable to the amount of letter organization needed to write a book. You can no more "spark your way to life" than you can "spark your way" to a new technical manual. 

Feature #2: An Utter Failure to Describe the Organization and Functional Complexity of Even the Simplest Living Thing

Part of the reasons the imaginary stories I gave above are ridiculous is that they fail to mention the most basic and important facts about the American Civil War, such as the fact that it involved fighting in which about 500,000 people died. Similarly, reviews of origin-of-life research appearing in the mainstream will almost always fail to inform us of the most basic facts relevant to such a question: the fact that every form of living thing involves a very high state of organization and functional complexity. 

The relevant facts are these:

• Even the simplest self-reproducing cell requires hundreds of different types of protein molecules, each its own different very complex invention.
• Even in prokaryotic cells (simpler than human eukaryotic cells) the average protein molecule has hundreds of amino acids.  
• Scientists have attempted to strip microbes down to the smallest level in which they can still reproduce, and find that even when microbes are reduced to their smallest complexity, they still require several hundred different types of proteins, most requiring hundreds of well-arranged amino acids. 
• Within the possibility space of all possible amino acid arrangements, functional protein molecules are as rare as functional architectural instructions within the space of all possible letter combinations. 
• Evolutionary biologists lack any credible explanation for how we get so many protein molecules that are so vastly unlikely to appear through unguided processes. As four Harvard scientists stated in a scientific paper, "A wide variety of protein structures exist in nature, however the evolutionary origins of this panoply of proteins remain unknown." 

Number of letters in the English alphabet	Number of different types of amino acids used in proteins
26	20
How many well-arranged letters do you need to make a useful paragraph?	How many well-arranged amino acids do you need to make a useful protein?
About 500	About 500
How many different paragraphs (each with a different function) do you need to make a short book?	How many different types of proteins (each with a different function) do you need to make even the simplest self-reproducing cell?
Hundreds.	Hundreds.
How many well-arranged letter parts do you need to make a short book?	How many well-arranged amino acids do you need to make even the simplest self-reproducing cell?
At least tens of thousands.	At least tens of thousands.

Feature #3: Misleading Language About Amino Acids

The mainstream press keeps misleading us by referring to amino acids using the inappropriate phrase "building blocks of life." One reason the term is misleading is that blocks are simple one-part things, but the twenty  amino acids used by living things are particular arrangements of between 10 and 27 atoms. A bigger reason the term is misleading because the phrase "building blocks of life" suggests that life could be created by assembling an unordered set of building blocks, just like the walls of a house can be assembled using an unordered set of bricks. But even the simplest life requires hundreds of proteins, and each functional protein requires a very specially arranged sequence of amino acids, vastly unlikely to arise by chance. An accurate analogy would be one comparing a cell to a book, each page or chapter to a protein molecule, and each amino acid to a letter in the alphabet used to write the book. You don't get life by piling up building blocks, just as you don't get books by random typing or dumping a truck load of scrabble blocks. Getting life would require a purposeful arrangement of 50,000+ amino acids, just like writing a usable books requires a purposeful arrangement of something like 50,000 letters.

Feature #4: Misleading Descriptions of the Miller-Urey Experiment

Misleading language about the 1950's Miller-Urey experiment is a constant feature of mainstream reviews of origin-of-life research. For decades such reviews told us that the Miller-Urey experiment was some big step forward in origin-of-life research, something showing that it was easy for amino acids to form in the early Earth. Such claims were entirely untrue. For a variety of reasons, the Miller-Urey experiment did nothing to show that amino acids would have been common in the early Earth.  The reasons include: (1) the fact that the experiment used a mixture of gases that did not match the actual atmosphere of the early Earth; (2) the fact that the experiment relied on a very specially constructed glass apparatus unlike anything that would have existed on the early Earth; (3) the fact that the experiment used a week of continuous lightning bombardments, exposing some gas to a degree of lightning bombardment trillions of times greater than any area ever would have naturally received. The original paper by Stanley Miller had the title "A Production of Amino Acids Under Possible Primitive Earth Conditions," but that title was a lie. The continuous week-long lightning bombardment and the very special glass apparatus (unlike anything that would have existed billions of years ago) meant that the experiment never produced anything like "possible primitive earth conditions." 

            The Miller-Urey experiment

Even after scientists figured out that the Miller-Urey experiment was not using a correct measure of gases to simulate the early Earth, the misleading language about the experiment continued in the mainstream press. Mainstream reviews of origin-of-life research simply switched to language such as the claim that the experiment used gases "intended to simulate the early Earth's atmosphere," without telling us that the experimenters made a wrong guess about what such an atmosphere obtained. 

Almost never did the mainstream reviews of origin-of-life research correctly describe the degree of lightning exposure of the Miller-Urey experiment. The reality was easy to describe: in his original paper Miller had stated that his electrical bombardment had run for one full week, stating, "The discharge was run continuously for a week." Almost always the mainstream reviews of origin-of-life research would vaguely describe this as maybe "some electricity" or "a little simulated lightning" or some other phrase that tried to prevent the reader from knowing the fact that a  very unrealistic continuous week-long electrical bombardment was used.  In the latest mainstream review of origin-of-life research (an article on bbc.com), we have this very misleading description of the Miller-Urey experiment:

"They injected ammonia, methane and water vapour into an enclosed glass container, then passed an electrical spark through the beaker to simulate a lightning strike. Amazingly, amino acids spontaneously formed." 

Notice the untrue and extremely misleading language. The experiment actually involved one full week of continuous electrical sparks, but it is described as if it only used a single electrical spark. The experiment actually must have used something like a million electrical sparks. 

Feature #5: Misleading Talk About "Protocells"

The sleazy trick works like this: you get some description of a disorganized bubble, and try to call that a "protocell." A similar trick might be to find a little metal junk in a junkyard, and call that a "proto-jetliner." The difference in organization between the little bubbles labeled as "protocells" and self-reproducing cells is like the difference between a handful of junk parts and a modern 747 aircraft capable of carrying more than 100 passengers across the Atlantic ocean. The membranes of cells are actually extremely complex things requiring many different types of specialized protein molecules (each consisting of thousands of well-arranged atoms) in order for such membranes to act the way they do (rather like some intelligent gatekeeper). 

In the latest mainstream review of origin-of-life research (an article on bbc.com), we have this same silly trick once again used.  Writers can get away with this kind of nonsense because they never explain how complex a cell is. So if a reader does not know that even the simplest cell contains more than 50,000 amino acids that have to be arranged in just the right,  he might be fooled by attempts to call mere fatty bubbles "protocells."  Similarly if a child does not know that a car consists of thousands of well-arranged parts, you might be able to fool him by describing a handful of parts as a "protocar."

Feature #6: Irrelevant Talk About Hydrothermal Vents

A stock feature of the usually appalling mainstream reviews of origin-of-life research is some talk about hydrothermal vents, some areas in the ocean where water gets heated up. Usually what goes on is some trick language. In the latest mainstream review of origin-of-life research (an article on bbc.com), we have this example:

"The pores at the centre of hydrothermal vents could have played a vital role in catalysing the reaction between hydrogen and CO2. According to Lane, they have a structure almost like a cell, with a membrane containing iron sulphur minerals."

The writer has used the word "cell" and "membrane" to create some impression of biological relevance, but the item she is talking about is something as dead as a stone. The claim about something being "almost like a cell" is a claim about a mere hollow cavity in a rock. Having no order or organization, such a lifeless geological feature is not at all "almost like a cell," which is a fantastically complex arrangement of matter. And no one thinks that living cells arose from the dead hard cavities of hydrothermal vents. 

A scientific paper discusses a difficulty rarely mentioned in mainstream reviews of origin-of-life research:

"Oparin reasoned that increasingly complex particles were formed, culminating in carbohydrates and proteins: what he called  'the foundation of life'. However, there is a fundamental problem with this idea: life’s cornerstone molecules break down in the water. This is because proteins, and nucleic acids such as DNA and RNA, are vulnerable at their joints. Proteins are made of chains of amino acids, and nucleic acids are chains of nucleotides. If the chains are placed in water, it attacks the links and eventually breaks them due to hydrolysis. In carbon chemistry, 'water is an enemy to be excluded as rigorously as possible' (Shapiro, R. in 1986), which critiqued the primordial ocean hypothesis. This is called 'the water paradox.' "

The same paper discusses a huge problem ignored by most mainstream reviews of origin-of-life research: the chirality problem, that proteins use only left-handed amino acids, even though naturally forming amino acids are left-handed and right-handed in equal amounts.  

Feature #7: The Boasts About Achievements That Never Occurred

In the latest mainstream review of origin-of-life research (an article on bbc.com), we have this example of a writer telling us nonsense that cannot possibly be true: 

"In shallow pools, however, heat from the Sun would evaporate water, which would concentrate chemicals like hydrogen cyanide together, allowing them to encounter each other more frequently. Researchers have recreated such a process in the lab, successfully creating the three main molecular building blocks of life – DNA, proteins, and lipids – from hydrogen cyanide."

No, no such thing ever occurred. The chemical formula for hydrogen cyanide is HCN, so the molecule consists of hydrogen, carbon and nitrogen. DNA and proteins are chemicals hundreds of times more complicated than hydrogen cyanide, and DNA, proteins and lipids also use oxygen all over the place. Not even the most deliberate and careful manufacturing techniques could create DNA or proteins or lipids from hydrogen cyanide. 

What went wrong in this place of the BBC article? It seems to have been a mistake of the author simply ignoring the word "precursors." In the article the phrase "DNA, proteins and lipids" has a link to a Science magazine article (behind a paywall) that covers the 2015 Patel study "Common origins of RNA, protein and lipid precursors in a cyanosulfidic protometabolism," which is not behind a paywall and can be read here. Our BBC author has conveniently ignored the word "precursors" in that paper, which refers to manual human-labor-intensive work which merely created fragments of RNA, fragments of protein molecules, and fragments of lipids. It's kind of like someone reading the statement "trees are the precursors of books," and then ignoring the word "precursors" and claiming trees can grow novels and textbooks and New York Times bestsellers in your backyard garden.

Apparently because our author conveniently ignored the word "precursors," the BBC article contains this false-as-false-can-be nonsensical claim: "Researchers have recreated such a process in the lab, successfully creating the three main molecular building blocks of life – DNA, proteins, and lipids – from hydrogen cyanide." Very conveniently, such a claim gives the impression that it's real easy to make DNA and proteins -- just jiggle some hydrogen cyanide. Such an idea is about as wrong an idea as you could possibly get. 

Two days ago we had another example of the endless misstatements that appear in the press about origin of life research. A press release from Oberlin College tells us, "While these so-called 'prebiotic chemistry' experiments have successfully demonstrated how life may have originated, they cannot tell us how life actually did originate." The "have successfully demonstrated" part of that statement is a glaring falsehood. Nothing like that ever happened. Alas, our origins scientists have got addicted to boasting about accomplishments that were never actually achieved. 

Feature #8: References to Labor-Intensive Manual Lab Work Done in Labs Stocked With Hi-Tech Equipment

Again and again in the usually appalling mainstream reviews of origin-of-life research, we have irrelevant references to labor-intensive lab work that involved a great deal of purposeful intervention by scientists using modern hi-tech laboratory equipment. The problem with such references is that they refer to work that is irrelevant when considering a natural origin of life from non-life. You do nothing to show that life could have arisen accidentally by referring to some work requiring very many purposeful manipulations performed by scientists with an intention to produce some particular result.  An example of this is the reference I just quoted, which referred to a Patel paper mentioning all kinds of manual purposeful interventions by scientists aiming to produce a particular result. An article on that paper quotes someone saying,  "It is beyond the pale to pretend that anything in this paper represents undirected pre-biotic chemistry."