Thought I'd add this pre-print to the conversation:
A Natural Origin-of-Life: Every Hypothetical Step Appears Thwarted by Abiogenetic Randomization (https://www.doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/p5nw3). (If that link isn't working right, try this one: https://osf.io/p5nw3/ ). Dr. George Matzko has a Ph.D. in chemistry, was chairman of the chemistry department at Bob Jones University for 20 years and then chairman of the science department for another 20 years. It makes the case that every proposed step in abiogenesis, the supposedly scientific study of the origin of life, fails due to a common root cause.
The argument is straightforward. A pre-life chemical process leading to life has three main variables: naturally appearing starting chemicals, naturally appearing energy sources, and a naturally appearing environment. The basic assumption of origin-of-life studies is that some combination of these variable first produced amino acids and/or nucleotides, the building block chemicals of life. These, then, were the starting chemicals for the next step: stringing the building blocks together to form proteins and/or nucleic acids. Eventually, some combination of building blocks appeared which was able to copy itself.
Eventually, the self-copying molecules turned into living cells.
There is a very big problem with this scenario. Every proposed step fails when tested experimentally. Furthermore—and this is the main issue which is the basis of the title—every one fails for the same reason: Millions of possible unique combinations of carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen, and oxygen are possible and have been catalogued with certain physical characteristics observed and reported. Naturally appearing energy sources modify existing chemicals into a random output of chemicals near its structure. The initial starting chemicals became more and more randomized over time. This has been observed experimentally. Life requires the initial chemicals to form reasonably pure sequences of specific amino acids or nucleotides so they can start stringing together. There has never been an observed case of starting chemicals doing this. At whatever stage one does an experiment, the same pattern appears. The output chemicals as a whole are further away from life at the end of the experiment than before it started.
Science gives clear evidence that natural processes work against a natural origin of life.
Abiogenesis is fake science. Results in this field are repeatable—but the repeats all confirm its impossibility.
This is an easy argument to understand. Anyone with even a slight knowledge of chemistry can follow it. Thousands of experiments have taken place since the Miller-Urey spark experiment in 1953, almost 70 years ago. Tens of thousands of articles have been written in the journals about this issue. I would encourage you and anyone else reading this thread to try to find a single article which reports of an experiment in abiogenesis which 1) starts with a given set of chemicals suitable for any hypothetical step of abiogenesis, 2) works on them with a reasonably plausible energy source suitable for a pre-life environment, 3) has no kind of interference or intervention by an intelligent being (tinkering by scientists not allowed), 4) produces new chemicals useful towards life, and 5) produces them in a form which can be used in the following step directly as produced .
The article claims that naturally appearing principles prevent this from happening. A successful spontaneous appearance of life would require the entire path to be traveled smoothly from one step into its successor and without a single impassable roadblock. Yet, there appears to be a common root cause which prevents any step from successfully advancing to the next.
