Origin of Life, Lives and Lies
Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive
In 2009 I was asked by a leading biochemistry journal to contribute an article as part of their celebration of two hundred years since the birth of Darwin. In this paper I explained the critical importance of Darwinian natural selection in determining the fate of inorganic elements in evolution and specifically my favourite elements aluminium and silicon. My inspiration were two seminal works by RJP Williams FRS, The Biological Chemistry of the Elements and The Natural Selection of the Chemical Elements. I have certainly stood on the shoulders of this giant, the father of bioinorganic chemistry, in furthering my understanding of the evolution of life on Earth. Darwin, of course, only really thought about natural selection from the point of view of the origin of species. He may not have been aware that his greatest achievement, perhaps the premier thought in the history of science, also applied to the processes, the chemical reactions, that produced life and determine the continuum that is biochemical evolution. In the proverbial nutshell, natural selection dictates which reaction predominates in which environment. The latter, the environment always being critical in the survival of the fittest. To my simple mind, natural selection is the most beautiful and telling of all the processes that together define life on Earth. But, I am going on a bit, so here’s the actual stimulus for this piece.
For my sins I am a regular follower of UK Column News. Recently I came across an interview on their homepage that had me intrigued. It was with a renowned synthetic organic chemist called Dr James Tour and concerned a favourite subject of mine the origin of life on Earth. I watched the video and listened intently to Dr Tour’s views on the subject and quite quickly I realised that this chemist apparently had no concept of how natural selection played a role in the origin of life. I decided to email the interviewer, David Scott, to ask why there had been absolutely no mention of natural selection in their hour long interview. Scott replied with the tone of a primary school teacher, ‘informing’ me that natural selection only applied to living things and so played no role in the origin of life. My further attempts to counter this perspective were met with, to me, surprising bigotry. The email exchange with Scott left a bad taste in my mouth and I pondered as to what agenda might be afoot here. I am not entirely naive and I surmised that something or someone even greater than Darwin might be at work here. A quick search of the name Dr James Tour revealed the nest of vipers that I had innocently uncovered. It is not surprising to find that world-leading scientists are God-fearing. What truly surprises me, an agnostic, is that creationists such as Tour, and seemingly David Scott, cannot find space for God in natural selection. If I had created life on Earth and the world we inhabit today I would be sure to take credit for Darwinian natural selection.
I enjoyed your article, and it was an interesting perspective. I am a devout Christian, and I know ,not think, I know that God created the heavens and the Earth, that he is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. However, let me hasten to add that while I know that God created the heavens and the Earth, and all there in, including mankind, that does not preclude the possibility, or perhaps likelihood, that his creative talents included natural selection.
Frankly, it’s nothing that I’ve ever been perturbed about when someone wants to discuss Darwinian natural selection. I know what I know and I again enjoyed your article.
God bless even if your dubious of His existence.
I'm glad you brought this topic up.
Natural selection has long gone for humans. When we intervened first with plants/herbs, then surgery, then drugs, then the creation of all things unnatural (ie man-made), we also created that decisive step away from the traditional Darwinian path (perhaps in your books the environment was ripe for the rise of technology!).
If we were to apply natural selection today, anyone with appendicitis, major trauma, major bacterial infections, major cardiac/endocrine etc problems, inability to survive giving birth or being born, major organ problems, cancer; none of them would make it. The population of today would be far, far less than half of what we currently have. No antibiotics. No computers. Just natural selection.
Instead, we have selected what we wish to make happen, and I'm not sure that we're very good masters at that!! We're poisoning almost everything in our path, ourselves included, and we don't seem to care.
Honestly, believing in God or not believing in God has very little to do with natural selection, at least IMO. But to be a true scientist, I don't think that a belief in God goes exactly hand-in-hand with it. For the most part, one must compartmentalise one's scientific abilities with one's belief system. The two rarely go hand-in hand unless you are perhaps a Gaian! :-D
I have to say, though, the run-ins I've had with people on substack have invariably been with god-botherers. Their thought processes seem to get 'stuck' due to their belief in God. Maybe people need to believe in themselves a bit more instead of passing the buck to a higher power. Because by practicing that buck-passing on a daily basis, unwittingly people also seem to pass the buck when it comes to politics, education, health and all sorts of other important topics. At least that's my observation.