If I had all the components of a car (not assembled) I would not have a car until they were placed in the right order, with the right alignment, and the right torque applied to them.
This is a slightly misleading analogy, as the components of a car cannot "automatically" assemble themselves in the right order, alignment, and torque. Molecules can, just by being placed near each other.
No, the car analogy is right on target. If molecules could assemble themselves properly by just being near each other, it would have taken me 6 days instead of 6 years in graduate school to get a Ph.D. in synthetic organic chemistry...and we'd have a cure for just about every disease known to man. The challenge of drug discovery and basic organic chemistry is getting those molecules and atoms to connect the way we want them to. We not only 'just place them near each other' but we control the conditions to opitimize the environment to give us a preferred outcome...and a lot of the time that still doesn't work. You may want to look at the Journal of Organic Chemistry or the Journal of the American Chemical Society sometime and see how often those molecules just don't assemble the way we want them to!
Stanley Miller's experiments proved that having the right component materials in 'ideal'circumstances doesn't even give the building blocks of life.
No. At best, his experiments proved that the building blocks of life do not appear (relatively) instantaneously. No one ever said they did. Give him a few billion years, and a beaker as big as the Earth, and I think you would see different results.
No, Dr. Stanley Miller's experiments were erroneously touted by newspapers across the country as 'proof' of Darwinian evolution (just like cold fusion in the 1980's). Here's the clincher...he did this in the 1950's before Watson & Crick discovered DNA. DNA, which we in the scientific community know as the major required component of all living matter, doesn't even fit into Miller's theory of gases creating amino acids to create proteins. At best, Miller's experiments showed that a racemic amino acid can be created in one of the random combinations of mixing it's elements....but do note that it was created racemic (amino acids are all chiral in nature) and it was created as one type of molecule along with a plethora of other types of molecules. No matter how much time and how big of a beaker, Miller's experiments would result in the same muck...only a lot more of it!
By the way, if you're questioning my expertise in this area, I have a Ph.D. in synthetic organic chemistry from a top 10 university and have been a practicing synthetic organic chemist for over 10 years. I have authored several professional papers which have been published in leading scientific journals and am currently a research scientist at the largest and most prestigious biochemical research institute in the world...and I also happen to know Dr. Stanley Miller personally as I was a student of during my graduate training.
Here's an alternative theory that fits in with all the scientific data....maybe God had something to do with putting those molecules in just the right order to create life. We are merely human and limited in our ability; God is the infinite, omnipotent intelligent designer of our universe...and not only can He assemble those molecules in just the right order but He can make them chiral too!
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If I had all the components of a car (not assembled) I would not have a car until they were placed in the right order, with the right alignment, and the right torque applied to them.
This is a slightly misleading analogy, as the components of a car cannot "automatically" assemble themselves in the right order, alignment, and torque. Molecules can, just by being placed near each other.
No, the car analogy is right on target. If molecules could assemble themselves properly by just being near each other, it would have taken me 6 days instead of 6 years in graduate school to get a Ph.D. in synthetic organic chemistry...and we'd have a cure for just about every disease known to man. The challenge of drug discovery and basic organic chemistry is getting those molecules and atoms to connect the way we want them to. We not only 'just place them near each other' but we control the conditions to opitimize the environment to give us a preferred outcome...and a lot of the time that still doesn't work. You may want to look at the Journal of Organic Chemistry or the Journal of the American Chemical Society sometime and see how often those molecules just don't assemble the way we want them to!
Stanley Miller's experiments proved that having the right component materials in 'ideal'circumstances doesn't even give the building blocks of life.
No. At best, his experiments proved that the building blocks of life do not appear (relatively) instantaneously. No one ever said they did. Give him a few billion years, and a beaker as big as the Earth, and I think you would see different results.
No, Dr. Stanley Miller's experiments were erroneously touted by newspapers across the country as 'proof' of Darwinian evolution (just like cold fusion in the 1980's). Here's the clincher...he did this in the 1950's before Watson & Crick discovered DNA. DNA, which we in the scientific community know as the major required component of all living matter, doesn't even fit into Miller's theory of gases creating amino acids to create proteins. At best, Miller's experiments showed that a racemic amino acid can be created in one of the random combinations of mixing it's elements....but do note that it was created racemic (amino acids are all chiral in nature) and it was created as one type of molecule along with a plethora of other types of molecules. No matter how much time and how big of a beaker, Miller's experiments would result in the same muck...only a lot more of it!
By the way, if you're questioning my expertise in this area, I have a Ph.D. in synthetic organic chemistry from a top 10 university and have been a practicing synthetic organic chemist for over 10 years. I have authored several professional papers which have been published in leading scientific journals and am currently a research scientist at the largest and most prestigious biochemical research institute in the world...and I also happen to know Dr. Stanley Miller personally as I was a student of during my graduate training.
Here's an alternative theory that fits in with all the scientific data....maybe God had something to do with putting those molecules in just the right order to create life. We are merely human and limited in our ability; God is the infinite, omnipotent intelligent designer of our universe...and not only can He assemble those molecules in just the right order but He can make them chiral too!