For starters, I too hold a BS in Chemistry and a Master's Degree in Organic chemistry. Like you and the author, I also have published in peer-reviewed literature.
Much of the discussion about chemical evolution was laid out by Miller and Orgel in 1974 in THE ORIGINS OF LIFE ON EARTH. Therein, they present experimental data (not biased conjecture like McCombs) regarding the possible origins of both amino acids and nucleotides. By sparking methane, ammonia, water, and hydrogen in a sealed vessel they were able to isolate residues of some twenty or more amino acids, nucleotides and small peptide chains. This clearly suggests that conditions in the primordial atmosphere were favorable for the possible synthesis of proteins and nucleotides.
Perhaps what is most interesting about McCombs's argument is his dismissal of chemical evolution due to its inherent lack of chemo- and regio-selectivity. What he fails to realize, however, is that this lack of selectivity is the very mechanism that makes chemical evolution a workable theory. The fact that you have the potetential to form thousands of isomers from a "primordial soup" (by the way, I hate that phrase) increases the potential of forming those sequences that could, upon replication possibly evolve into a living organism. Evidence suggests that the earth was formed 4.6 billion years ago, while the first fossil record of a living organism (like unto modern bacteria) is only about 3.5 billion years old. That leaves a difference of 1.1 billion years for these simple organisms to evolve from chemical evolution. The fact that the reactions would be nonselective is the very reason why chemical evolution is a plausible theory, not a reason to reject it.
Now, I am the first to admit that at this point, evidence for chemical evolution is sparse. There does, however, exist some evidence, unlike any peer-reviewed evidence arguing for a creationist version of the origins of life. Perhaps, it is not me, but the author who is making arguments based on emotion and not scientific evidence.
I will make one last comment. A simple search for Dr. McCombs in the US patent database at the US Patent Office's website reveals that none of his 20 patents has anything to do with peptide synthesis or nucleotide synthesis. It seems like ICR should recruit a legitimate biochemist to push its agenda. Perhaps they cannot find one willing to make such unsubstantiated claims.
I tried to look up Dr. McCombs as well, and couldn't find anything about his edcuation or accomplishments. I only found references to the ICR website that explain how he enjoys learning about God's love.
If he were a legitimate biochemist, I don't believe he would be at ICR.
Simple?
If they truly are, and we KNOW what chemical combinations are required to assemble them, then why haven't we made them by now?
Surely ADVANCED technology is NOT needed to do this. Surely ADVANCED techno
Small correction: I hold two full bachelors degrees (Virginia Commonwealth University) in Biology and Chemistry, together with a Masters in Biochemistry (New York Medical College) and an MBA -- which of course is not a science degree. You are correct to say we are both published.
Much of the discussion about chemical evolution was laid out by Miller and Orgel in 1974 in THE ORIGINS OF LIFE ON EARTH. Therein, they present experimental data (not biased conjecture like McCombs) regarding the possible origins of both amino acids and nucleotides. By sparking methane, ammonia, water, and hydrogen in a sealed vessel they were able to isolate residues of some twenty or more amino acids, nucleotides and small peptide chains. This clearly suggests that conditions in the primordial atmosphere were favorable for the possible synthesis of proteins and nucleotides.
Let's be clear, as we start this discussion, that your premise is that a primordial "soup" existed, though as a testable premise "primordial soup" remains an un-provable hypothesis. The controlled experiment you describe did yield primarily Glycine, the simplest of the building block biochemicals and an "Amino acid" in its own right, by combining formaldehyde, hydrogen cyanide, and ammonia. Other AAs were also said to have been formed. Some AAs can be synthesized through directed chemical pathways to yield some, though not all AAs from Glycine.
We know from the petroleum industry that synthesis of rudimentary cyclic structures from straight chain moieties can be forced in the presence of metal catalysts, and do so at temperatures approaching 500 degrees C. Glycine would vaporize at these temperatures. Still, let's consider a model suggesting a simpler starting molecule giving rise in an evolutionary sense to more complex and even ringed molecules.
Assume one can stumble their way through spontaneous halogenations and necessarily metal-assisted catalyzations (if that were even possible) to making cyclohexene without any direction to the experiment. It's fairly easy to make cyclohexane using cyclohexene at ~200 degrees 35 ATM, Pt and pure hydrogen this way. Easier if you start with Benzene, sure, but that molecule is where we’re trying to go in complexity, and it doesn’t exist without a sophisticated organic precursor anyway. Is pure hydrogen likely to be available in “primordial soup” which is largely ammonia liquid/vapor, water, and lightning? Purity of Ni and Pt catalysts are critical to effecting such reactions. Assuming free hydrogen is even available (highly unlikely in the structured "primordial" conditions created by Miller) do you assert that these metals existed in sufficient refined quantities to make them pure enough to function as catalysts for such reactions?
Formation of say, of cyclohexane, or even benzene and phenol for that matter result in molecules which yield inhospitable environments for forming biomolecules, agreed? That observation aside, as an organic chemist, yourself, could you propose a mechanism using only the materials and conditions described in Miller's work that would give rise to the cyclic structures which comprise AAs such as Phenylalanine, Tyrosine, Tryptophan, and Proline?
Perhaps what is most interesting about McCombs's argument is his dismissal of chemical evolution due to its inherent lack of chemo- and regio-selectivity. What he fails to realize, however, is that this lack of selectivity is the very mechanism that makes chemical evolution a workable theory. The fact that you have the potetential to form thousands of isomers from a "primordial soup" (by the way, I hate that phrase) increases the potential of forming those sequences that could, upon replication possibly evolve into a living organism.
As you know, a random cocktail of molecules of disparate polarities, pK's, etc., doesn't enhance functional selectivity of specific molecules needed to assure successful reactions in the refined senses that we as chemist know they must be favored to drive a successful and complete reaction. If anything selectivity is compromised by multiple and random interferences. For instance,. try making your cyclohexane in a saturated ionic and highly polar environment, with an assortment of unknown organic molecules of no specific composition chugging around the reaction, possibly at varying and random temperatures, as well. Predict your success.
Evidence suggests that the earth was formed 4.6 billion years ago,…
Correction. What "evidence?" Your premise believes it needs 4.6 billion years to make happen on earth events you want to believe happened. However, no evidence exists for this assumption at all. Premises yield more premises based on this completely unsupported assumption, but no scientifically testable evidence exists at all to support this premise. None.
Sadly, the more complex everything is being discovered to be on a daily basis, evolutionist’s are now even questioning whether they have shorted themselves on the amount of time they think is necessary to account for the observed complexity. Instead of proving they have the time, they merely assume they have the time, and they peddle that uninformed assumption as fact in texts and news sources in a way that would make Goebbles envious. That’s no longer science there. That is straight premise based on faith. On that basis, it is nothing more than another religion, where Time is god, and “primordial soup”+ random bolts of electricity, the creator.
Even the late Francis Crick, credited discoverer of the DNA helix with James Watson, was an Intelligent Design advocate! That’s right. Chemical and statistically impossible biological evolution explanations held no place for him. In his mind it was I.D. all the way. Of course being an atheist, by his own admission, someone or something more intelligent than mankind down here had to have brought the complexity into being that he saw. He concluded the only reasonable explanation was “panspermia,” meaning that Earth was populated by super intelligent space aliens from some unknown superior galaxy somewhere, out there. It was a position, he for one would never have to prove. It’s funny how no one questioned his science, but when a Creationist promotes the notion of I.D., he has strayed too far from evolutionary orthodoxy to be given any credibility.
Today’s scientific community is populated by too many evolutionary “papists” who derive their power and esteem in the community simply by towing the political lock-step party line and singing the evolutionist’s version of the “doxology”.
…while the first fossil record of a living organism (like unto modern bacteria) is only about 3.5 billion years old.
Again this is premise, not fact. Noted Harvard anthropologist (now deceased), Stephan Jay Gould, could make no rational sense of what he found in fossil discoveries to demonstrate any record of transitions necessary to support evolutionary premise. He then devised his own take -- since the evidence didn't exist, evolution must be "punctuated," (i.e., multiple organisms making instant multiple changes in their morphology without any attributable, catalyzing event that would have directed what in his evolutionist’s mind supposedly happened). He was married to evolutionary premise whether or not it could be demonstrated by scientific observation to be true, and his weak explanation only gives rise to more questions.
That leaves a difference of 1.1 billion years for these simple organisms to evolve from chemical evolution. The fact that the reactions would be nonselective is the very reason why chemical evolution is a plausible theory, not a reason to reject it.
In spite of chemical matters about which you were questioned above, how is it that even in directed experiments by intelligent scientists, what was supposed to have happened by random chance cannot even be replicated in directed applications of science? You make a leap from chemicals to organisms to "life" itself, yet any intellectually honest scientist knows that there is far more to “life” than mere chemicals or electrical synapses. Why can’t I just be perpetually charging hearts and brains of men back to life by plugging them into 120 VAC? Forget the plug-in outlet, as chemically elegant a machine as a physical body is, why don't the chemicals and electrical charges of the ATP, ADP+P, AMP+P+P, NADP, NAD + P, and cytochrome energy exchanges, etc. just keep it going in perpetuity? Why is there "death" at all if it’s all just chemicals and electricity? Account for the mind and emotions of man with as complex a chemical equation as you care to structure it. Can you do it?
Now, I am the first to admit that at this point, evidence for chemical evolution is sparse.
It is non-existent, never mind sparse.
There does, however, exist some evidence, unlike any peer-reviewed evidence arguing for a creationist version of the origins of life. Perhaps, it is not me, but the author who is making arguments based on emotion and not scientific evidence.
Back up the "emotion" allegation, please. Creationists readily recognize that they rely on premises. Sadly, the premises that evolutionists rely upon, they too often mistake as proven "fact" -- even as you have done in this post. What peer-reviewed journals do you know would ever allow a challenge to the fundamental evolutionary premise: their central and defining “dogma,” if you will? Evolutionary premise is nothing more that of unquestioned self-validation, promoting an inbred, sycophantic orthodoxy which disallows challenge of their “religious” dogma, peddled as it is today under the color of "scientific" thought. Too many in the scientific community are sucked into the premise-as-supposedly-demonstrated-fact treadmill of intellectual laziness. Sure it all sounds scientific, but too often when I ask for proof, I just get more tautologies and premise.
I will make one last comment. A simple search for Dr. McCombs in the US patent database at the US Patent Office's website reveals that none of his 20 patents has anything to do with peptide synthesis or nucleotide synthesis. It seems like ICR should recruit a legitimate biochemist to push its agenda. Perhaps they cannot find one willing to make such unsubstantiated claims.
Kind of pissing in your own shoe when you say such things, aren't you? Based on what you are saying, why as a biochemist myself, should I care what you as an organic chemist have to say about anything of a biochemical nature? I'll tell you why. Because no amount of feigned self-importance of any biochemist out there allows them to make light of your ability to think as a cogent, accomplished scientist about commonplace chemical processes. The science isn’t that difficult for goodness’ sake. These are well-characterized pathways and reaction schemes, that any freshman chemist with half a brain can comprehend. The science is not sooooo difficult for you, me, or the author -- an organic chemist like yourself -- to master and comment upon lucidly. I see you as a thinking scientist. Don’t be taken in by pomposity reminiscent of academic has-been self-anointed, specialized beyond all usefulness “geniuses,” who are masters of pondering their bellybutton lint.