Revelation, Rationality, Knowledge & Truth — Page 395
THE ESSENTIAL ROLE OF CLAY. AND PHOTOSYNTHESIS IN EVOLUTION scientists attempting to explain this have even been driven to believe that life must have come from the cosmos, because phosphorus and molybdenum are found in comparative abundance there. But they still cannot answer the question as to how life, having been shaped and designed in outer space, once transported to the planet. Earth could continue to be uniformly fed by phosphorus and molybdenum all over the globe. How could it continue to prosper unhindered in an unfriendly climate where phosphorus and molybdenum, the two essentials, were no longer freely available?. Another intriguing problem confronting the scientists relates to two coexisting phenomena responsible for the maintenance and continuity of life. A living cell has two central talents - a capacity for metabolism and a capacity for reproduction. But the problem is that the nucleic acid cannot replicate without enzymes and enzymes cannot be made without nucleic acid. According to Watson and Crick,. DNA cannot do its work, including forming more DNA, without catalytic proteins or enzymes. In short, proteins cannot form without DNA but neither can DNA form without proteins. To those pondering over the origin of life, it is another classic chicken and egg problem which came first the proteins or the DNA?. To wriggle out of this dilemma some propose that both DNA and proteins developed separately, in parallel, until somehow they started a new phase of interdependence. A brilliant stroke of genius it seems, to some, but when examined more closely they will find neither an element of brilliance nor a trace of genius in this proposition. They shut their eyes to the question of how they could have developed and run parallel to each other while at every step their survival depended on the other. 384