It would help if you would share the link to that, Kate. I do know that some scientists believe such but not on scientific grounds.
From such findings we can infer that our last common ancestor stored genetic information in nucleic acids that specified the composition of all needed proteins. It also relied on proteins to direct many of the reactions required for self-perpetuation. Hence, the central problem of origin-of-life research can be refined to ask, By what series of chemical reactions did this interdependent system of nucleic acids and proteins come into being?
Anyone trying to solve this puzzle immediately encounters a paradox. Nowadays nucleic acids are synthesized only with the help of proteins, and proteins are synthesized only if their corresponding nucleotide sequence is present. It is extremely improbable that proteins and nucleic acids, both of which are structurally complex, arose spontaneously in the same place at the same time. Yet it also seems impossible to have one
without the other. And so, at first glance, one might have to conclude that life could never, in fact, have originated by chemical means.
geocities.com
This particular scientist whose credentials you can read at the link is not himself in the ID camp. I'm posting this only because it explains somewhat the RNA/DNA paradox that others who are in the ID camp have adopted to make their case.
The case being, I suppose, that it is too cavalier to presume that a pure evolutionary process is behind life on this planet.
I haven't read enough yet to have much of an opinion. As I said last night, I'm only at the point of thinking there's perhaps more to the argument than I had assumed.
However, I agree that high school is not the place. The biochemistry of RNA is too complex, for example. And the principles of evolution must be taught, I think. There's valid science there. As to where it fits....philosophy class or science class...I don't know and maybe it's irrelevant anyway.
Right now the push is being mounted by scientists, not all of whom are people of faith, so I expect it will be continued within the scientific community. Plus the study of RNA has no fit within a traditional philosophy class that I can see. |
