ReligionNewsService.com, 9/9/13, “Scientist Suggests ‘We Are Actually All Martians’” [Excerpts]: Did life originate on Mars? During a keynote address at the 2013 Goldschmidt Geochemistry Conference in Florence, Italy, Steven Benner postulated that it did. Benner, from The Westheimer Institute for Science and Technology in Gainesville, Florida, works in the field of “applied molecular evolution” where he attempts to reconstruct conditions that may have led to the spontaneous generation of life’s biochemicals from inorganic compounds. In his address, he suggested life began on Mars then somehow migrated the more than 30 million miles to Earth.
Benner’s presentation abstract listed the following four paradoxes as challenges to the naturalistic origin of life he defends:
1. The “Tar Paradox” shows that adding energy to simple organic molecules—energy required to convert them into molecules of life—always converts them into black goo “better suited for paving roads than supporting Darwinian evolution” (Benner, S.A. 2013. Keynote: Planets, Minerals and Life’s Origin. Mineralogical Magazine . 77 (5): 686).
2. The “Water Paradox” describes the fact that on the one hand, water facilitates vital chemical reactions inside a cell, but on the other hand, water destroys raw biomolecules. Actual living cells use several tactics to control water’s potentially harmful impact on their vital biochemistry.
3. The “Single Biopolymer Paradox” notes that the hypothetical conditions that might build one required type of biopolymer, like DNA, are not the same as those envisioned to build another type, like protein. The problem is that all of life’s biopolymers need to form at the same time and place if they are going to move toward becoming the first functioning cell.
4. The “Probability Paradox” explains that RNA molecules tend to accelerate harmful chemical reactions despite their theoretical usefulness in accelerating reactions needed for biological life (Ibid.).
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http://www.icr.org/article/7698/)
