Moonwatcher wrote:The latest canard I've heard is: We have silica and traces of dirt in our bodies therefore this proves God because he made Adam out of dirt.
Okay, admittedly this is way out of my areas of knowledge and so obscure I so far haven't found any websites about it but I'm assuming it's just another Creationist misrepresentation because, well, the odds.
This actually sounds like something that would be put out by Landover Baptist (which is a spoof on the excesses of fundamentalist lunacy), but that doesn't mean that a real creationist wouldn't try and peddle a notion this stupid, of course.
First of all, if anyone
did seriously peddle this tripe in my direction, my first question would be "Citation?" Only my understanding is that silicon is an element that doesn't see much action in animal tissues outside of the sponges, though it is more important for organisms such as diatoms and grasses, which secrete silica for structural purposes.
The mere fact that the entire med chem research and development environment has been pretty unenthusiastic about incorporating even
single silicon atoms into potential drug candidate molecules, courtesy of the fact that silicon chemistry exhibits well-documented substantive differences from carbon chemistry, and is of more importance to geologists than the average molecular biologist (save for those working with diatoms, for example), on its own tells you much that you need to know. If the big med-chem research money spenders (a.k.a, the big drug companies) were using silicon to any notable extent, this would have appeared in the literature a long time ago.
This post from someone in the industry (and the following comments) should give you an idea of the state of the art research wise there, and note that the author explicitly states the following:
That brings up what I mentioned in my past last year, though: perhaps it would be better for silicon-containing drugs if there were something unusual about them. Admittedly, that could also be “unusually bad”, but overall, it’s harder to make the case for moving to silicon if the effects of doing so are (a) not huge and (b) not all that predictable. You’re already in that zone with carbon analogs, most likely, so why bother? The paper itself has this to say:
This lack of success in the pharmaceutical industry may be attributed to two key factors: (1) an absence of general and accessible synthetic methods for the construction of appropriately functionalized silicon-containing molecules and (2) ineffective approaches to the utilization of silicon, of which the “carbon/silicon switch” is the most common.
I think that second point is what we’re talking about. “Ineffective approaches to the utilization of silicon”, from another angle, means “lack of a good reason to use it at all”. If some effective uses for it can be found – and they may well be out there, who knows? – then things will change. But not until then. If the late-stage silicon switch doesn’t necessarily get you anything, it’s true that you’re going to have to look earlier (good activity in a silicon-containing compound that isn’t replicated by its carbon analog), and this work is an attempt to provide a host of new Si-containing chemical matter towards that end.
In short, silicon containing organic molecules are usually tricky to synthesise, there are relatively few them known, and amongst those that are known, the typical use tends to be to poison things classified as "vermin" by humans. The examples cited in that blog post of silicon containing organics include flusilazone (fungicide), simeconazole (another fungicide), the various unusual silatranes (some of which were tested as possible rat poisons), silafluofen (pyrethroid insecticide) - you get the picture.
Furthermore, as mentioned there, the Material Safety Data Sheets on many silanes mentions cataract formation in the eye as a risk factor to exposure thereupon. Many of the simple silanes are also fairly strong reducing agents chemically, and a good number of silane compounds are pyrophoric (i.e., spontanously combust in air). Indeed, the principal use for many organosilicon compounds in the organic chemistry laboratory, is as fairly potent reagents for a range of reactions that are otherwise difficult to perform, and the requisite reactions are generally conducted in an inert argon atmosphere, in order to avoid those silicon-containing reagents starting major fires in the lab.

Admittedly, they're not as bad as the serious favourite compounds of pyromaniac chemists, such as trimethylaluminium or the dialkyl zincs, both of which are flamethrowers
par excellence that
have to be stored and used in an inert atmosphere. But silane-type reagents are dangerous enough outside of skilled hands - just as you wouldn't want amateurs messing about with Grignard reagents, you also wouldn't want them engaging in horseplay with various trimethylsilyl compounds, though the results would probably be less lethal than an accident involving, say, tertiary butyllithium.
Now, of course, there's another question that needs to be asked at this juncture if some idiot tries pulling this one, namely "er, exactly what do you
mean by 'dirt'?" Which takes us into the wonderful world of soil chemistry, and in turn rapidly opens up an
expansive vista, that even specialists in the field have not explored as much to their liking as they would wish. Quite simply, even after you sweep aside the whole soil ecology issue (which means removing all the living organisms from your soil - not an easy task), you're still looking at some fairly intricate chemistry being pressed into service, to work out what's actually contained in your soil sample.
Of course, the typical uneducated sort that gravitates toward fundamentalist religion, and who reaches to clutch desperately at apologetic straws, in order to continue clinging to made up shit mythology, will not bother with the tedious business of paying attention in classes for over a decade to acquire even a tiny percentage of the available knowledge I've hinted at above. This on its own tells you something important. Namely, that whilst apologetics can be troublesome to deal with
in detail, as one reaches for that available knowledge, you can be pretty sure that the moment apologetics is ever introduced into discourse, whoever is guilty of this heinous affront to proper discourse will have engaged in precious little diligent thought on the matter. Said pedlar of apologetics generally restricts his effort to "what shit can I make up to make my mythology sound like something other than bad fiction?" Recognition of this basic fact is useful in saving much wasted effort dealing with apologetics, because instead of wasting time filling in the vast knowledge gaps inherent therein, the best way of dealing with apologetics is to demonstrate instead how little actual thought went into them, probing step by step how much said pedlar of apologetics lacks even
elementary knowledge of the entities and interactions he's trying to press into service. This, along with demands for proper citations from actual scientific literature instead of more made up shit from apologetics websites, is an effective prophylactic against the apologetics disease.
