Some years ago I read a book called “Lying for God”. It was a systematic emotionally laden deconstruction of YEC. I wondered with disbelief at the time, whether people who are YECs really would knowingly lie to promote their understanding of the world. That was a long time ago, and since then I have frequently come across many people who spout what seem to me to be lies to uphold all sorts of worldviews.
It was with this background that I was intrigued by a headline in New Scientist “Biologists create self replicating RNA molecule“. This piece of writing is unashamedly designed to promote the RNA world wishful thinking hypothesis of the spontaneous generation of life.
The post describes how biologists using their minds and equipment and the raw materials they purchased, intelligently designed and build an RNA polymerase (joiner of ribonucleic acids) around 200 bases long.
What shocked me most was the outright lie in the title. “Self Replicating RNA molecule”. Does the sensationalalist headline writer not read his own text?
“A prominent theory of how life started involves the appearance of a self-replicator – some kind of simple molecule that was capable of making copies of itself without relying on other molecules.”
“tC19Z can copy pieces of RNA that are almost half as long (48 per cent) as itself.”
Clearly tC19Z is NOT a self replicating RNA molecule as claimed in the headline.
But wait. It is not only New Scientist which propagates this simple RNA self replicating deception, the famous self correcting encyclopaedia Wikipedia states “Investigators studying the origin of life have produced ribozymes in the laboratory that are capable of catalyzing their own synthesis under very specific conditions.” Now this is worded to imply that there are not just one, but a number of individual ribozymes that can perform this self replicating task.
Is there even one simple self replicating RNA molecule? Not that I know of. Please enlighten me.