Evolution

Press, 24 October 1989, Page 12

Evolution

Sir,—Louis Pasteur was a great benefactor to mankind, but he did not earn this reputation with his “scientific" experiments on the origin of life. These experiments consisted essentially of placing sterilised material in sealed jars. These were later opened and checked to see if any microscopic life forms had appeared. Not surprisingly (and luckily for today’s canning industry!), nothing was found. More recent experimenters, simulating the assumed atmosphere of the primitive Earth, claim to have formed amino acids out of nonorganic material. These results have been challenged by some people, although on scientific, not religious, grounds. I believe that life not only can come, and has come, from non-life, but that scientists will be able to dupliA,

cate the process in the laboratory within the next half-century. .. Yours, etc., lAN HOOD. October 18, 1989. Sir,—Dr Viney (October 19) states that “no known facts ... provide a possible mechanism for spontaneous formation of life.” “Known” refers to five senses on this planet. These give us no conception of temperature and pressure in our own interior — a tiny pea revolving around a monster 93M miles away — a system which could fit twice inside Antares. Can “our” senses imagine a new colour? Peas in a pod unanimously conclude the whole world is green. Later, the whole world is yellow. There may be some kind of electrical intelligence at super temperatures. Spontaneous chance of life has been estimated at a billion billions to one; quite ample, there is no end to time. Are we capable of imagining no end? Creationists refer to “God;” mathematicians call an unknown “X.”—Yours, etc., H. J. HART. October 18, 1989.

Sir,—ln a facetious attempt to take the mickey out of evolutionists, R. D. Heinz (October 18) unwittingly hits on the difference between the evolved and ■ the created. The self-propagating species, the horse, the result of sexual union between the male and female of the species, has been domesticated by man, who, using dimly perceived principles of evolution, has exploited the evolutionary potential of the living creature to evolve the different kinds of horses that have accompanied man throughout his history. There has been the warhorse, the pack-horse, the plough-horse, the draught-horse, the hunter, the show jumper, the race-horse in its varieties, all evolved from the original wild stock. The motor-car, a created object, is quite unable to propagate itself and, therefore, to evolve—Yours, etc., M. CREEL October 18, 1989.