The latest posting on Uncommon Descent tries to undermine the concept of a natural origin of life [Life From Chiral Crystals . . . Really?]. Maybe one of these days they'll actually put up some evidence to support Intelligent Design Creationism instead of always attacking science.1
Patrick is worried about the chirality problem, which can be pretty well explained by just applying a bit of common sense [Amino Acids and the Racemization "Problem"]. Unfortunately, it's not just the IDiots who are confused about the chirality problem. Many chemists and biologist also seem to have weird ideas about the requirement for 20 L-amino acids when life began.
Patrick quotes Timothy Standish who says,
Much as the Miller-Urey experiment demonstrated that it is possible to produce insignificant yields of a very few biologically important monomers in a laboratory device, Noorduin et al. demonstrated that chemists are capable of producing enantiomerically pure crystals under laboratory conditions. This laboratory technique fails to show a mechanism by which enatiomerically pure solutions of all 20 amino acids used in protein construction may have existed before the advent of life, not to mention the other chiral molecules found in living things. As a consequence, the chirality problem for chemical evolution remains unresolved by this technique.How many things are wrong with this paragraph?
1. Not holding my breath.