The first book assembled to challenge the prebiotic or chemical evolution paradigm for the origins of life on earth. In the 1950's, Stanley Miller built an electric discharge apparatus and identified several (racemic) protein-forming amino acids. Subsequent work to find plausible uniformitarian mechanisms for gradual spontaneous generation of living matter has convinced many scientists that a naturalistic explanation for the origin of life will be found. In this work, a chemist, a materials scientist, and a geochemist conclude that it is fundamentally implausible that unassisted matter and energy organized themselves into living systems. [viii]

In 1953 two monumental reports appeared. James Watson and Francis Crick proposed a double helix model for deoxyribonsenucleic acid (DNA). Hereditary information is transmitted from one generation to the next by means of a code resident the DNA molecule. The structure was itself a code. The second report was by the young Stanley Miller. He used electrical stimulation of a "primordial soup" to create new amino acids. The authors present these milestones as contradictions of each other, creating a crisis for science. ( )