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To: cacoethes_resipisco

Please be specific. What “things” in relation to homochirality are you claiming that the author says is impossible? A direct quote would be nice.


141 posted on 01/12/2009 12:10:17 PM PST by GodGunsGuts
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To: GodGunsGuts

“One of the most famous examples is homochirality. Many carbon-based molecules have a property called ‘chirality’—they can exist in two forms that are mirror images of each other (like our left and right hands) called ‘enantiomers’. Living organisms generally use only one of these enantiomers (e.g. left-handed amino acids and right-handed sugars). In contrast, naturalistic experiments that produce amino acids and sugars always produce an approximately 50:50 mixture (called a ‘racemic’ mixture) of the left-and right-handed forms. The horrors of the thalidomide drug disaster resulted from this problem of chirality. The homochiral form of one kind had therapeutic benefits for pregnant women, but the other form caused shocking fetal abnormalities.”

The experiment noted above shows the “always” in the above paragraph is wrong.


146 posted on 01/12/2009 12:16:09 PM PST by cacoethes_resipisco
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