Page 28 - The Origin of Life and the Universe - International Conference 2016

The Origin of Life and the Universe

and he saw that it demands a very special kind of explanation. The
only thing he got wrong was the explanation itself… The true explana-
tion…had to wait for…Charles Darwin.”
Dawkins goes on to add:
“Natural selection, the blind, unconscious, automatic process which we
now know is the explanation for the existence and apparently purposeful
form of all life, has no purpose in mind. It has no mind and no mind's
eye. It does not plan for the future. It has no vision, no foresight, no
sight at all. If it can be said to play the role of a watchmaker in nature,
it is the blind watchmaker.”
This brings me to the second point of my argument.

FAILURE: All attempts taken to explain the origin of life hence the
origin of biochemical systems through chemical evolution or a blind
watchmaker have resulted in failure.
In order to appreciate this point we must first have a very quick
review of the way and which biochemist categorizes biomolecules. We’ve
talked about information harboring molecules like DNA and proteins.
But there is another class of molecules in the cell. These are small
molecules that react with each other to form linear pathways, branched
pathways and circular pathways. These are all interconnected with each
other to form a vast network of chemical reactions in the cell. And these
reactions harvest energy for the cell to use to produce the cell’s building
blocks. These are referred to as intermediary metabolic pathways. And
finally the third category is cell membranes. These are boundaries that
separate the interior of the cell from the exterior environment. Or they
separate compartments inside the cell. And each category of biomolecules
has spurred different scenarios for the origin of life. They are called repli-
cator-first scenarios, metabolism-first scenarios and membrane-first
scenarios. According to replicator-first scenarios it was information-rich
molecules like DNA and RNA and proteins that emerged first and
metabolism and membranes are secondary features. Metabolism-first sce-
narios argue that metabolism emerged first. And then information-rich
molecules and membranes as secondary feature and finally membrane-
first scenarios argue it was a cell membrane that appeared first. It is