Comment Problem Solved (Score 1) 145
In fact it has been solved for some time. The basic process involved are well understood. But most people can't or don't think large enough to consider the entire contents of the solar system, or the huge number of different processes and resultants involved. Harold Morowitz has been doing so for years. His Energy Flow In Biology is a deceptively small book describing how life could have arisen (in fact probably had to) from the elements and energy available in this region of the solar system, which became this planet. All the specifics of the physical chemistry involved are in there, formulae and all. Anyone with a serious interest in the subject has either read this or needs to. Anyone who intends to argue the points should be given this book and asked to point out just where it's wrong, because it's far more a collection of known facts than any speculation. As if to prove his point prior to criticism, the back of the book contains a list of biochemicals that should be expected to arise given the conditions and contents.
This is not to say TFA is entirely wrong. A hydrothermal vent could serve as an energy source/sink and chemical environment every bit as well as the entire planet. The complex dynamics could just as easily give rise to compounds and emergent properties just as Morowitz describes. And heavy metals may be involved. But they don't *need* to be. Morowitz's book happens to describe a general principle that applies by its own nature. It can get applied to any similar situation or collection of chemicals capable of ectothermic complexification. It works for this planet, almost certainly does for hydrothermal vents, can be used to project whether of what should happen on any other planet or moon or even deep space itself. When one sees how results can be obtained from such a wide range of environments and can guess from the results what characteristics are likely to apply, one can get a realistic assessment of how narrow our definition of life is and how broad it ought to be when our arbitrary, unnecessary, Earth-centric specifics are removed.
Of all the people who've tried to argue this with me, only 4 have ever taken up the challenge to read the book. Of those, there have been exactly zero to come back with any criticism of the specifics in the book, including the conclusions drawn. One of them then went to study at George Mason, not directly under Morowitz, but in the same department.
Sure, I've seen criticisms of his stuff. I've also seen that he doesn't respond to them, and I know why: they don't understand what he said or the basic science behind it, they pay him lip service in an effort to 'respond' with their own unrelated agenda, or they don't bother to try and simply attack his publication with formulaic restrictions they think are requirements. Morowitz writes books. People make whiny noises about a lack of "peer review". They fail to grasp that this requires peers. Morowitz has a few peers, but mostly in his understanding of complex dynamic systems, not in his erstwhile 'field'. Those peers have little to say, and those with the most to say can't think large enough to enter the same realm. Nor do they seem to notice that the actual science being used is undergrad textbook level so well accepted that few reference the origin (except in historical background) and nobody dare criticize for fear of ridicule. Laws of thermodynamics, ideal gas law, that sort of stuff. They can't, won't or don't read and understand what he wrote. I wouldn't respond to that either.
Get the book and try it. It's not that difficult to follow. Check his material against textbook contents. He's not making up anything except how its put to use, and his one example -- the whole Earth -- is obviously not the only one it can apply to.
