<![CDATA[A Bigger Deal than Ida]]>While the “missing link” guys are generating and getting all the attention, a quieter development in abiogenesis research may have made a giant step toward understanding how life on earth got started. Steve Novella writes:

The chemical details are spelled out in the paper, for those who are interested (there is no link to the full paper, as you need a subscription to download it, but I will give the full reference below).

What this all means is that it is plausible that RNA could have arisen in a prebiotic environment  – without the machinery of life already in place.

Researchers are slowly putting the pieces of life origins together – mainly by exploring what plausibly could have happened. The argument from creationists that life arising from non-life is not possible was never credible – it was nothing more than confusing unexplained with unexplainable. They would have thrown up their hands and given up on this question, so that they could just assume a supernatural explanation.

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