Is this science?
Mar 29, 2001, Dov in biologicalEvolution forum.
I just finished a quick scan, in the April 2001 "Scientific American", of R M Hazen's "Life's Rocky Start", pp 62-71.
I have an uneasy feeling that I read an example of a scientifically corrupt article. Its approaches to the subject of Life's Start is like the approach of "developing" a patent medicine, and the whole presentation is amply pregnant with "must have"s and "may have"s and "probably"s and "suggests"s etc.,. This versus what I think would be a scientific approach - going backwards from present life forms and peeling off layers in back-tracking.
The opening statements irked me : "..the first living entity must have been crafted from air, water and rock". Now this is what I call a scientific statement.
I wonder if you folks out there saw this article and what your opinion is about it…and while we are at it what is your opinion about his "life being a product of…basic chemical reactions…"…
DH