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The Origin of Life and the Hidden Role of Quantum Criticality
KentuckyFC writes One of the great puzzles of biology is how the molecular machinery of life is so finely coordinated. Even the simplest cells are complex three dimensional biochemical factories in which a dazzling array of machines pump, push, copy, and compute in a dance of extraordinarily detailed complexity. Indeed, it is hard to imagine how the ordinary processes of electron transport allow this complexity to emerge given the losses that arise in much simpler circuits. Now a group of researchers led by Stuart Kauffmann have discovered that the electronic properties of biomolecules are entirely different to those of ordinary conductors. It turns out that most biomolecules exist in an exotic state called quantum criticality that sits on the knife edge between conduction and insulation. In other words, biomolecules belong to an entirely new class of conductor that is not bound by the ordinary rules of electron transport. Of course, organic molecules can be ordinary conductors or insulators and the team have found a few biomolecules that fall into these categories. But evolution seems to have mainly selected biomolecules that are quantum critical, implying that that this property must confer some evolutionary advantage. Exactly what this could be isn't yet clear but it must play an important role in the machinery of life and its origin.
"One of the great puzzles of timepieces is how the clockwork machinery is so finely coordinated. Even the simplest wristwatches are complex three dimensional assemblies in which a dazzling array of gears, springs, bearings and escapements spin, oscillate, tick and tock in a dance of extraordinarily detailed complexity. Indeed, it is hard to imagine how the ordinary processes of Newtonian mechanics allow this complexity to self-emerge from random bits of metal, glass and stone given the losses that arise in much simpler machines."
As an engineer and computer scientist, I can tell you that there will always be mysteries to understand, and to which the scientific method can be applied. But the mystery of the origin of life has, so far, resisted that method. In fact, we are getting further from a satisfactory materialistic explanation all the time. When cells were considered simple blobs of jelly, the complexity of life was barely conceivable as deriving from evolution. When DNA was discovered, and the existence of multiple digitally-encoded databases and programmed machines (my field) became apparent, the complexity was overwhelming for evolutionists. Epigentics -- the mathematical layering of information streams in DNA -- is completely unexplainable through evolution.
Atheists want to preclude the existence of God, as a prerequisite to the scientific method. But science is failing to explain the origin of life, and it's failing harder as time passes.