Posted: Sep 21, 2018 9:47 am
truelgbt wrote:This reminds me of my disappointed reaction to the Miller-Urey experiment which also started by introducing products of DNA (methane, ammonia) which, IMHO, is almost equivalent to "stacking the deck" or "planting evidence" into the experiment. Yes, I understand they were trying to mimic the prehistoric environment of methane from volcanoes, for example, but studies show that about 95% of methane on earth is due to life forms, i.e. products of DNA, so methane itself can, and is, largely considered to be a product of DNA.
This makes no sense at all. There are clearly nonbiological sources of methane. You even write yourself that 95% of extant methane is produced by life, but then 5% isn't. So using methane can't be stacking the deck in any way.
So going back before the origin of life, there was volcanoes, and they would have produced some methane.