How A Chemist, An Engineer, And A Geologist Destroyed Darwin’s Warm Soup Theory

Charles Thaxton was awarded an honorary degree “D” He was in high school biology but was about to give up chemistry. After a semester of staring at a chalkboard full of gibberish, he still couldn’t balance an equation. And then, the night before the final exam, it all became clear to him in a dream. Literally. His mother prayed and he fell asleep. He awoke the next morning able to balance equations. The dream set off a reaction that eventually changed the course in origin-of life science.

Thaxton was a great scientist, but also a troublemaker for the establishment. He asked questions few others dared — like whether the scientific evidence we’ve gained about the origin of life supports popular theories, and where the boundaries of science really lie. Thaxton broke down the scientific establishment’s sacred assumptions and laid the foundation for an open-minded community of scientists ready to make changes. Thaxton and the others he mentored and encouraged continue to challenge us decades later. “the science” With the Evidence.

His recent memoir “A Leg to Stand On,” Thaxton tells us about his troubled youth and the surprising adventures of his life. He does so with honesty, gratitude and a bit of self-deprecating humor. His motivation to pursue academic success was, he says, to avoid the life of cotton picking in Texas. He found a love for teaching and the desire to share knowledge and understanding.  

It began in a vague way. Then what? He had never considered going to college until his senior year of high school. He didn’t expect to, not even his teachers. But he knew he’d wasted time and that he wanted to get serious about learning. Fortunately, the local junior college required only that he be breathing, so that’s where he went. It was his only option and he made good use of it. Not too many years later, he earned a Ph.D. in chemistry from Iowa State University and followed that with post-doctoral work in the history of science — at Harvard, no less.

Thaxton’s interest turned specifically toward chemical evolution and the origin of life after he read Michael Polanyi’s 1967 article “Life Transcending Physics and Chemistry” Chemical and Engineering News. Polanyi, a physical chemist, argued life is not reducible only to chemistry or physics. Thaxton may have forgotten the paper had he not, soon after reading it, happened to hear an analysis of it by Francis Schaeffer, who called Polanyi’s assertion “one of the most outstanding propositions of the twentieth century.” Thaxton was fascinated. He began to examine the state of the origin-of-life field, and found it… well, let’s say Unproductive.

Rejecting Darwin

Throughout the late 1970s, Thaxton gave guest lectures at universities around the country in which he questioned the productivity of the current origin-of-life research program, including its variations on the theme of Darwin’s “warm little pond.” He pointed out, for example, that significant changes are possible only if there is a substantial

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