There is currently no single, generally accepted theory for the origin of life (OoL) though research teams often make the news. News in this area, while fascinating, warrants considerable caution.

Stories are written according to a formula, and that formula can sometimes help us understand - but sometimes get in the way of understanding.

Here are two examples:

"Life On Earth May Have Originated As The Organic Filling In A Multilayer Sandwich Of Mica Sheets" reads a ScienceDaily story (December 5, 2007). Biophysicist Helen Hansma hypothesizes that life might have got started between thin sheets of mica where cells might have been able to exist without membranes, and the separate layers would provide the isolation required for Darwinian evolution.

According to ScienceDaily,

Besides providing a more plausible hypothesis than the prebiotic oceanic "soup" model, Hansma said her new hypothesis also explains more than the so-called "pizza" hypothesis. That model proposes that biomolecules originated on the surfaces of minerals from the Earth's crust. The "pizza" hypothesis cannot explain how the earliest biomolecules obtained the right amount of water to form stable biopolymers.

The information tossed in about prebiotic soup and pizza underlines a useful guideline: We may not hear what is wrong with a given theory until a new one is proposed.

For example, Hansma explains,

"As I was looking at the organic crud on the mica, it occurred to me that this would be a good place for life to originate ---- between these sheets that can move up and down in response to water currents which would have provided the mechanical energy for making and breaking bonds"

So water currents are expected to vibrate the mica layers with enough energy to make and break bonds, but without destroying the nascent life forms? The article gives no hint of any problem that idea might present.

Hansma herself might well consider that aspect of her hypothesis a problem but neither she or anyone else is asked to comment on it. Instead, we further read,

She summed up her hypothesis of the origin of life by saying, "I picture all the molecules of early life evolving and rearranging among mica sheets in a communal fashion for eons before budding off with cell membranes and spreading out to populate the world."

That sounds nice, especially the "communal" part. But if that's the best we can say ...

And how different are the science journals in this area?

Here's something to watch for in science journals, as well as popular science media: Editors sometimes give more credence to a hypothesis than it may strictly merit. For example, a report in Nature about "Structure of a tyrosyl-tRNA synthetase splicing factor bound to a group I intron RNA" by Paul J. Paukstelis, Jui-Hui Chen, Elaine Chase, Alan M. Lambowitz & Barbara L. Golden (Nature 451, 94-97 (3 January 2008) | doi:10.1038/nature06413) begins by announcing, "Life on Earth is believed to have evolved from an 'RNA world' where RNA molecules both catalysed essential chemical reactions and carried genetic information."

But actually, this "RNA world" hypothesis, while fashionable, has come under serious criticism. (Also see British physicist David Tyler's comments and The Design of Life, pp. 238-40)

When a scrap of evidence supports any one of the competing theories of the origin of life, doubts about that theory itself are often not discussed in the article. That practice distorts the overall picture.

To see why, suppose for example that the police are trying to determine which of three suspects stole a car. None of the suspects is considered a truthful witness, so asking for a confession isn't an option. We hear about - and focus on - information that apparently places one of them at the scene of the crime. However, what if - on the balance of the evidence - the police believe that that particular suspect was out of the country at the time? If our discussion of the new evidence omits that fact, we are not providing a full account of the information. And that is what a lot of reports on origin of life research in science media sound like.

In any event, most of the OoL research is avoiding the main problem - the staggering complexity of even the simplest known life. William Dembski and Jonathan Wells say in The Design of Life,

Most of origin-of-life research is as relevant to the real problem of life's origin as rubber-band powered propeller model planes are to the military's most sophisticated stealth aircraft. Real life is so much more sophisticated than any of the supposed precursors to life posited in conventional origin-of-life research that there is no reason to think that this research provides any substantive insight into life's actual origin. (p. 207)

But you won't read that in the popular science media.

Note: If you found this story interesting,  you may also enjoy "Can animals do math? How much should we believe of what we read? See especially the final section, "Mythbusters: Learning to read the popular science press critically"