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Show l75 dating methods. Eyring's reply was that unless a significant body of new scientific facts was produced, he could not accept Cook's views.4] Cook's position involved questions about the reliability of radioactive time clocks such as radiocarbon. He argued that carbon dating is valid only if it is in equilibrium in the earth as a whole but for such an equilibrium it would take 30,000 years before an overall unbalance could be detected experimentally. of continental drift. Also important in Cook's view is the theory Using this theory and his literal interpretation of scripture, he accounts for Biblical events like Noah's flood and the dividing of the earth in the days of Peleg.42 It is difficult to judge what effect Eyring's feelings had, but by the next spring, the Church had, at least privately, expressed the view that the Church had no official position on the matter of evolution and related questions and that Man, His Origin and Destiny was only the personal views of its author.43 It is interesting that it was during this period of controversy that Eyring and Johnson wrote a paper on evolution and rate theory, "The Critical Complex Theory of Biogenesis." biological evolution. This paper outlines a theory of pre- One of the principal questions addressed is why living things are optically active. Even in different species, the amino acids are configurationally related, all being of the l-configuration (left-handed). Using absolute rate theory and estimates of reactant concentrations a reasonable rate of appearance of optically active templates is arrived at. These templates, capable of self-replication, began the era of biological evolution. But the chemistry is the same for the d-configurations (right-handed) and the likelihood of a world with d- rather than l-type optical isomers in living things is just as great. If analogous events occurred in nuclear evolution, it is possible |
