In a paper to be published on Thursday in Nature, Dr. John D. Sutherland solved a puzzle about the origin of RNA, which is necessary for life. Dr. Sutherland was able to combine the constituent parts of RNA, thus demonstrating that these structures could arise naturally. The New York Times discusses it here.
This discovery is important for several reasons. First, it solves a major question in chemistry and will likely provide the basis for valuable future research. Second, it is yet another piece of evidence indicating that natural processes can give rise to life. Much to the dismay of the creationist intelligent design crowd, a process that was previously thought a “miracle,” and hence thought to be impossible through laws of nature, was recreated using these very laws of nature and only those organic substances that we have here on Earth. The foundation of the intelligent design argument is essentially that there are processes in life that are too difficult for us to understand which cannot have occurred naturally, so the only other possible explanation is that a supernatural being caused them. Dr. Sutherland’s research demonstrates that while we may not be able to explain certain things about our universe, we should not stop trying.
