by Mark Harmony

Created on: October 02, 2008

The so-called "Primordial Soup" theory postulates that the first living organism developed on Earth's oceans within a milieu of nitrogen, ammonia, methane, carbon dioxide and water. Add some energy (say from lightening in a storm) to this "soup" of basic inorganic material and certain chemical reactions occur, yielding more complex organic compounds. In classic experiments, for example, Miller and Urrey showed that under some natural conditions resembling conditions of the early Earth, organic chemicals can be constructed from inorganic precursors.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /

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Thus, it has been shown that under certain conditions, organic stuff can be generated from inorganic ingredients. This finding has heralded the so-called "Primordial Soup" theory, which postulates that the first living organisms developed spontaneously from organic molecules which themselves developed spontaneously from inorganic precursors.

The following steps summarize the hypotheses of the Primordial Soup theory:
1. Within a young Earth, there were inorganic chemicals such as carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, ammonia, and cyanide. These inorganic substances were readily available in the oceans of the Earth.
2. These substances reacted chemically to produce organic molecules such as amino acids and nucleic acids.
3. Once organic molecules were available, the first living organisms developed from these constituents.

For the primordial soup theory to be valid, all 3 of the above hypotheses must be true. All three have to be demonstrated to be valid. ALL of the above hypotheses must be demonstrated in order to validate the Primordial Soup theory. Let us examine the data to see whether all the hypotheses inherent in this theory have in fact been demonstrated to be true:

Regarding the first hypothesis, it is of course difficult to know for sure what substance was or was not readily available a billion years ago when the first living organism is thought to have developed. Did the young Earth contain Ammonia? Did it have sufficient quantities of cyanide as is required for the classic Miller-Urrey experiments? The reality is that notions of what did or did not exist one billion years ago are speculative. We do not know was or was not present a billion years ago. But let us say that it is at least plausible that these precursors did exist. So, let us say that condition #1 outlined above is true.

The next hypothesis (#2) inherent in the Primordial Soup

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