It Only Gets Deeper

A Review of The Mystery of Life's Origin: The Continuing Controversy

In 1984, three scientists, chemist Charles Thaxton, physicist Walter Bradley, and geochemist Roger Olsen, published The Mystery of Life's Origin: Reassessing Current Theories. They examined then-current origin-of-life theories and argued in extensive detail that all scenarios thus far proposed had failed. Moreover, there was a shortcoming in any theory involving purely chemical processes acting on non-living materials, and the flaw was not merely ancillary but fundamental. The central problem, they said, was the problem of the origin of the biological information necessary to build the first living cell. They concluded that an adequate theory required a source of information capable of building substantial...