Hagen's discussions of theses on the origin of life, albeit based on intense scientific thought and research, sound like they could be examples taken from Teilhard de Chardin's "Phenomenon of Man." Consider in de Chardin's chapter three, entitled "The Earth in Its Early Stages" the following topics: The Crystallizing World, The Polymerizing World. As de Chardin states, "'In the world, nothing could ever burst forth as final across the different thresholds traversed by eveolution (however critical they may be) which has not already existed in an obscure and primordial way.' If the organic had not existed on the earth from the first moment at which it was possible, it would never have begun later."

When you strip away all the patriarchal, stern-old-Man-with-a-beard guff from religion you come up with a set of rules or laws, which are practical guides as to how to make life work. Not surprisingly this piece is about the inception of the process of illumination of the rules that guide the formation of life on earth.

Quite a few people have been there already or have at least stuck their oar in, James Hutton, late 18th C, the father of modern geology, said that the true study of the earth should be physiology. Hindu mythology seems to have had a more than passing stab at particle physics, (see Fritjof Capra) and I believe they also came pretty close to an understanding of the fundamental processes of the biosphere in Kali. Might not be pure orthodox science but it's an awesome analogy. See url above and tell me what you think.

LB

As a Ph.D. organic chemist, I must point out that someone noticing the phenomenon of flat molecules (PAH's are just one class of these) stacking into layers that are "exactly" 0.34 billionths of a meter apart, like DNA bases, has not made any new remarkable insight at all. Tons of flat molecules do that, as a consequence of the fact that their pi-electrons tend to interact at about that distance. It's called "pi-stacking", which if typed into Google will yield over 16,000 hits.

The backbone of DNA (i.e. the sugar phosphodiester part) happens to be flexible enough to permit the flat DNA bases to pi-stack, which is one of the factors that stabilizes the double helix. It is a beautiful thing to behold, nonetheless quite well-known, to say the least. Type both "pi-stacking" and "DNA" into Google and you will get over 600 hits.

I am not really sure what you mean by "small, flat amino-acid molecules". Amino acids are not flat. Some of them do have flat portions (e.g. tyrosine, phenylalanine, and tryptophan). Nor are amino acids chemically similar to DNA bases. People seem to think of DNA and proteins (comprised largely of amino acid chains) as related somehow because they work together in biological systems, however this is just a bias in thinking that really does not apply to abiotic or prebiotic systems. So having amino acids associated with PAH's somehow is awfully far from having DNA.

In any case, it would be simple to take various PAH's that tend to stack, mix them with various amino acids under varying conditions, and see if they get anything like an "information-rich" array. Some experiments along those lines would seem to be the thing to do LONG before one even whispers about possibly having "discovered how life began".

Where, exactly did Charles Darwin write, that "you and I and the hippos and all the rest were almost Calvinistically preordained once life (whatever that is exactly) got started in the first place"?

I'm no historian, but I never knew that Darwin believed in preordination. This article needs footnotes.