From:    Simon Ewins
To:      Eddie Johnston                         Msg #72, 93-06-25 09:04:14
Subject: Creation failure

EJ> On the other hand, it is incumbent on those who say that life is simply
EJ> a combination of chemicals to create a living being from raw chemicals.
EJ> Has any scientist created a living being from chemicals? Until they do,
EJ> it is simply a wild speculation to say that life is just chemicals.

Yes.

Read up on the Urey-Miller experiments at the University of Chicago in
the 1950's and then follow it up with study of the more recent work of
Dr. Sidney Fox at the University of Miami.

Urey-Miller created amino acids by discharging electricity through an
atmospheric soup of chemicals. Much as lightning passing through a
primordial Earth's atmosphere would have done. Sidney Fox at the
University of Miami took those amino acids (created in the same way)
and then, by heating them (to less than 150 degrees F) in conjunction
with other aspartic and glutamic acids (also created through
simulation experiments) and was able to polymerize them into proteinoid
microspheres. Under a microscope, the microspheres look like primitive
cells. In fact, artificially fossilized microspheres are
indistinguishable from the earliest known microfossils that date back
to about 3.5 BYA.

Although hesitant to claim that these were alive Dr. Fox stated that
they were undeniably "protoalive". This is not an evasive answer. As
Tim M. Berra says in "Evolution and the Myth of Creationism" (pg.75):

   "For centuries, science knew nothing intermediate between
   non-living and living things, but today the distinction is
   not at all clear. Since life evolved from non-living matter,
   at some point we must arbitrarily draw a line and say that
   everything beyond that point is alive. Viruses, for example,
   appear to be alive when they infect a host, but seem to be
   non-living when outside a host."

Since a single cell would appear to be the smallest unit that can be
said to be alive, proteinoid microspheres may quite justifiably be
called protocells, or, life.

These are just the early stages of these types of experiments. There
is every likelihood that within the next couple hundred years man will
be able to create self-replicating life of varying forms from purely
chemical and natural elements under laboratory conditions.