FOUR billion years ago, the Earth's interior was superheated by nuclear and gravitational energy and its exterior battered by asteroids - not, you would think, a promising nursery for life. Yet here it began. Most researchers trying to explain this extraordinary event have taken the "vivocentric" approach, retracing the steps from today's life forms back to the origin of organic building materials. I believe this approach is doomed to fail because it neglects the primary cause of life and disregards the geochemistry of the early Earth.
It is 50 years since the University of Chicago's Stanley Miller created amino acids, the building blocks of proteins, by heating methane, hydrogen and ammonia in an enclosed glass apparatus and adding a spark of electricity. His lab experiments were taken as evidence that life could have started on a scorching Earth struck by lightning and ultraviolet radiation. But these days not many people ...
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