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She asked where it came from, not what it is...

Indeed, tpanther, that was my very question, which exDemMom simply ignored.

I answered how DNA can form from the atoms that are already present. All it takes is presence of the atoms and an energy source, and the atoms will assemble into a large variety of molecules. The atoms already exist all over the earth, where they coalesced from space dust many billions of years ago. The energy comes from the sun and from radioactive decay on the earth.

According to physics, neither matter nor energy can be created or destroyed (although, to a limited extent, matter can be converted to energy). So, as for where the atoms came from in the first place, some 14 billion years ago, I'm not concerning myself with that. The big bang? I dunno.

Let me put the question another way: How does an inorganic molecule become an "organic" one in the first place?

An inorganic molecule does not contain the correct atoms to be an organic molecule, and will never become organic.

By scientific definition, organic molecules contain carbon and hydrogen. It is really that simple.

It was once thought that organic compounds were strictly associated with living organisms, and that is how they got their name. However, there is no need for the presence of living things in order for organic molecules to form: the only requirements are the presence of carbon, hydrogen, other elements, and an energy source. Carbon forms a highly diverse set of molecules according to the laws of physics.

Examples of organic molecules include benzene, DNA, methane, ethanol, isopropanol, ether, aldehydes, ketones, etc. As you can see, many of these aren't derived from living organisms, and in fact, are quite poisonous.

So, how does an inorganic molecule become an organic one? This transition would involve a non-living entity becoming a living entity. How does this happen?

I gather that since biochemistry has no answer to this question, exDemMom, Ha Ha Thats Very Logical, and allmendream simply dismiss it "by sleight of hand" as it were, and refuse to engage it.

As I just explained, organic molecules are not intrinsically alive. And there is no way to turn an inorganic molecule into an organic one. Sure, you can use an inorganic molecule in a chemical reaction which produces an organic molecule--but you destroy the inorganic molecule in the process. And by simply doing a chemical reaction, you do not cause a thing to be alive.

Here is an example of a chemical reaction involving organic and inorganic components:

CH₄ + Cl₂ + energy --> CH₃Cl + CH₂Cl₂ + CHCl₃ + CCl₄ + HCl

The Cl₂, CCl₄, and HCl are all inorganic molecules. The rest are organic.

But unfortunately, this means that biology can never be reached by physics — you can't get here from there. Instead of looking "forward" at what all the parts of an organism are converging upon — that is, the living organism — biology looks backward at that which the organism uses to express its functional wholeness, thus destroying the very thing — life — it is attempting to explain. This is odd, because it is not possible to even begin a discussion of life without an unstated intuition of the dynamic wholeness that is always manifested through it.

Biology is absolutely governed by physics. Within this universe, there is no escaping the invariant laws of physics. My own discipline, biochemistry, contains the subdiscipline of biophysics, which is devoted to studying the physics of biochemical processes. Not that I can escape studying the physics of the living processes that I study--but biophysicists go into far more depth than I do.

Now, as for what quality it is that imparts life to a conglomerate of chemical processes, I cannot answer that. In other discussions, where I attempt to describe prenatal humans, I always say that asking when human life begins is the wrong question, since the property of being alive is present in the egg and sperm before they fuse to become a zygote, as a result of their being formed by the mother and father. No one has ever seen something that is not alive become alive. Once life departs, it does not return.

The "organic molecule" DNA seems to have something to do with the expression of that "dynamic wholeness" in living organisms. But many if not most scientists today believe that "wholes" are merely the "sum of their parts," and nothing more.

DNA is not what makes us alive, although it is necessary for life to exist. It is only a molecule. It is not, itself, alive. If I want, I can make DNA through chemical reactions in the lab--but that is a rather tedious process, and a number of companies will gladly make any (small) DNA molecule that I specify, for a small fee. I can extract DNA from any kind of living organism. I can put DNA into many kinds of living organisms, and they will use it. There really is nothing all that special about it, in a chemical/physical sense.

In closing, it appears our biochemicist correspondents here believe that the electrical and chemical properties of atoms and molecules plus "chance" plus "evolution" gives us an explanation of life.

No, they do not give us an explanation of life. But they do give us a whole lot of information about the physical properties of living things.

But I believe that "chance remains a glorious cover-up for ignorance." I also note that strict determinism "is refuted by the very freedom whereby it is posited." As Godwin cites Barfield: "Chance, in fact = no hypothesis."

I don't know who Godwin or Barfield are, but that quote is just plain incorrect. If, instead of "chance", I use the term "probability", then it is an integral part of hypothesizing. It is necessary for interpretation of scientific data. Without accounting for "chance", there cannot be science.