COULD CHEMICAL EVOLUTION PRODUCE DNA?
Could chemical evolution produce DNA? Some of my readers are punch drunk and tired trying to make sense of the world. Here is a good reason to take heart and rejoice that God is who He says He is. Please make sure you are plugged in to Creation magazine, subscribe here: https://creation.com/en/creation-magazine Gibber! Gibber! Chugley An inquirer asks about recent hype concerning claims that DNA building blocks could be produced by random, undirected chemistry. Ph.D. chemist Dr Jonathan Sarfati responds with both general advice about chemical evolution claims, and some specifics about this latest one. Erin C. writes: These atheists are at it again. They think they have discovered a new route to a Godless abiogenesis. Please show a good refutation of it. [Link deleted as per feedback rules.] Thanks Dr Sarfati replies: Dear Erin Thank you for writing to CMI. As a rule, we can’t normally grant requests to respond to articles or YouTube videos online, otherwise we would have no time for anything else! But as it turns out, CMI scientists had already come across this paper and discussed it informally. Note that every ostensibly new chemical evolution paper is a tacit admission that other scenarios don’t work. We have an article advising how we should assess any new paper.1 But let’s look at this latest one anyway. “The essential feature of the new pathway, as Trapp explains, is that the sugar is not linked to the base in a single step. Instead, it is built up on the preformed base by a short sequence of reaction steps involving simple organic molecules such as acetaldehyde and glyceraldehyde.”2,3 Every ostensibly new chemical evolution paper is a tacit admission that other scenarios don’t work. That is, they did not synthesise any of the four DNA bases, but presupposed them. Not surprising, since there is no good prebiotic route to…