Dr. S. L. Miller of Columbia University, USA, designed an experiment to test the primeval production of amino acids in an oceanic environment as a pointer to the alleged origin of life by non-creative methods.  His article, "Production of Amino Acids under Possible Primitive Earth Conditions", was published in Science, Vol. 117 (1953), pg. 528.  Another appears in the Journal of American Chemical Society, Vol. 77 (1955), pg. 2351.

    COMMENTS:

(A)  Amino acids are not "living" things in any sense at all.

(B)  Without the "trap" all the compounds would have been broken up again.

(C)  There is no possible environmental situation which could have protected these compounds from eventual breakdown chemically.

(D)  The chemical equations involved are outlined below:

     1)  Methane + Water + Ammonia + Energy ~ Amino Acids
          (This reaction is reversible, hence the need for a "trap" to remove the compounds formed from the spark discharge vessel.)

     2)  Amino Acid + Amino Acid ~ Peptide + Water
          (This Condensation/Hydrolysis reaction is also reversible and proceeds as a hydrolysis in the presence of excess water.)

(E)  If excess water prevents the accumulation of peptides, there is no possible pathway to polypeptides or proteins under these conditions.

(F)  Further chemical considerations involve the chirality of proteins:  this is the turning of polarised light when passed through a solution of the compound to the LEFT (laevo-rotatory) or to the RIGHT (dextro-rotatory); all life proteins in animals and plants are LAEVO - L for Life -, whereas Dextro - D for Death - are poisonous to living things.

(G)  All Miller's amino acids are racemate mixtures (50% L & 50% D), thus they could not have formed the basis of living cells; this fact precludes the experiment from having any significance in explaining the hypothetical evolutionary origin of life on earth.

(H)  The reducing atmosphere envisaged by Miller is contradicted by the geological evidence of free gaseous oxygen being present during the formation of all strata:  borates, carbonates, iodates, nitrates, phosphates, silicates and sulphates.

(I)  An example of a Dextro-rotatory protein is the toxin produced by Penicillium notatum which will kill bacteria in the bloodstream of organisms injected with this fungal extract called penicillin.