Talk:Graham Cairns-Smith

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Molecular Biology: Genetics

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Clay theory[edit]

Untitled[edit]

Is there a name for it, and should we not have an article on the subject? Richard001 07:34, 11 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

review tagging of books[edit]

Don't handpick reviewers (like Daniel Dennett) and include their evaluations of an author's book, in an encyclopedia article about the author. You don't need to qualify that, although the author wrote the book, some people disagreed with it. Stating that they wrote it does not imply that it's assertions are unquestioned. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.215.181.127 (talk) 00:38, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Big Claim[edit]

It says: "He was disenchanted with the other ideas about chemical evolution including the Miller-Urey experiment and the RNA World." That's a big claim that needs to be verified. 70.90.198.172 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 02:12, 15 August 2009 (UTC).[reply]

from page 34 of "Seven Clues to the Origin of Life": "There are many thoughtful and knowledgable people, nowadays, who don't understand the origin of life. This in spite of a 'big picture' provided by a theory known as 'chemical evolution' looks good from a distance, and there is a common-sense about it. But, to my mind, like the phlogiston theory, it fails to carry through an initial promise: it fails at the more detailed explanations." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.90.198.172 (talk) 02:39, 15 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

earth>plants>human>water>earth>plants>humans117.120.18.131 (talk) 06:17, 1 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Misleading implications re alien ancestors[edit]

"Smith suggests that the ancestors of humans might have had alien biochemistries"

I suggest that either a) this one line section is completely removed, or b) it is expanded sufficiently to explain what this really means.

As it currently reads I think it makes Cairns-Smith sound like a von Däniken-style crack-pot (i.e. that he has written than humans are descended from aliens). This is nowhere close to the truth. First, 'ancestors of humans' here is correct but misleading; it should say 'ancestors of humans -and- all other life on Earth'. That is, give or take any, purely hypothetical, still extant, 'alien' biologies still alive on Earth (very likely, there are none). Second, 'alien biologies' here does not mean alien in the sense of extra-terrestrial. It means biologies/biochemistries different than the ubiquitous DNA-based, 20 amino acid kind that is the basis of all studied life on Earth. I think what Cairns-Smith suggested is that the first life on Earth may have had a different form of biochemistry than that of its eventual descendents, life as we know it now. 86.148.209.191 (talk) 14:23, 13 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]