After some reading as well as thoughtful analysis on the subject, I’ve decided to become an Early Life Theorist. And why not? Little is known about it, lots of people are into it, there’s plenty of money available on grants, not to mention so much difference of opinion that I figured one more will hardly be noticed. There’s also glory, if I get it right, in addition to a fair chance of success, as there’s not one person with a view of the big picture, only lots of scientist with fancy degrees and a fanatical obsession with their own little world. Not me. I’m a big picture man (think Imax), my own man, actually, and having no particular discipline, thus, not subject to the pettiness of subscribing to and defending any specific one: geologist, biologist, chemical biologist, evolutionist, revolutionist, creationist, you name it, each with its own big and sure-fire formula of how life first arrived on earth.
Here’s a small recap of where we stand today: First, there’s the well-known and totally smitten (with their own theory) primordial soupers, who put their money into a broth (or pond) filled with chemicals and minerals plus ten jillion lightning strikes per second for a few hundred million years until presto, DNA. Then there’s the sulfur based first lifers, infatuated with deep and dark ocean vents spewing toxic chemicals plus enormous amounts of heat for millions of years until after a trillion-trillion random combinations, the lucky break and Zap! DNA. Then there’s the fascinating Readymade Life-to-go From Mars group that I also like, being as how Mars is far and the idea far-fetched—although fairly mainstream when compared to many others—who proclaim that life is the inevitable end-result of the right compounds, plus energy through time-space, and that it spreads around the Universe like an affliction, or an infestation, literally locust-like, arriving into habitable planets like ours, as a ball of fire, after being randomly sneezed out from its previous home.
The passionate Creationist, on the other hand, have a fun theory, and one where the Creator first creates light. According to them, there was still nothing, but you could see it a whole lot better. Then He quickly moves on to bigger and better things. I like this one because, all things considered, there’s humor in it, and it requires less faith to believe in it than any of the other ones, in addition to explaining everything all to once: No problem too big for a genuine Creator.
So, I’ve bought me a chemistry set and are currently running several experiments using my bathroom countertop as a lab. Since hydrogen is so common and methane (mainly hydrogen) explosive, I keep a candle burning in case I start producing small amounts of gas . . . instead of life. (At home, you have to think safety first, and explosions, even small ones, won’t do.) Also, while the different mixtures gently gurgle away, I’m learning to say “lipids”: they figure to be important in my research somewhere down the line, and not easy to say for a Latino who wants to pronounce the “d” as a “t.”
In short, there’s a theory for every taste, likewise for every budget, and if you don’t like one, I say, move to the next one. In my opinion, however, all equally wrong. How do I know this? you might ask. Well, being a friend of professor Vela, for one, and taking a page from the Creationist handbook, for two, I just do, and will reveal some of my visions and intuitions, plus all my early results, if any, to those that are really interested, during next Saturday’s not to be missed round table at: The same ol’ place . . .
mt