And, scientists are working feverishly to figure it out...
Experiments show that simple molecules can combine chemically rather than biologically to form the building blocks of DNA, the key component of all life forms. These processes might have taken place on primitive earth, but how they occur is an unsolved puzzle.
Chemists at the University of Georgia have now proposed the first detailed, feasible mechanism to explain how adenine, one of the four building blocks of DNA, might be built up from the combination of five cyanide molecules. The investigation is based on extensive quantum chemical computations over several years.
"Just where these biomolecules originated isn't known," said Paul von Ragué Schleyer, Graham Perdue Professor of Chemistry at the University of Georgia. "One can only speculate. They could have formed from smaller molecules present on primitive Earth, either very slowly over millions of years or rapidly before the Earth cooled down. Asteroids may have brought them from outer space, but how did biomolecules form there?"
They ought to sign up Dawkins to help them in their effort. He'll add a selfish gene here and a few memes there, and the next thing you know, the questions surrounding abiogensis will be a thing of the past!
I applaud their efforts in this area of research, and I look forward to the day when they finally realize that nature does indeed present more than the "illusion" of design.
