Graham Cairns-Smith

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Alexander Graham Cairns-Smith (born 1931) is an organic chemist and molecular biologist at the University of Glasgow. He is most famous for his controversial 1985 book, Seven Clues to the Origin of Life.

The book popularized a hypothesis he began to develop in the mid-1960s—that self-replication of clay crystals in solution might provide a simple intermediate step between biologically inert matter and organic life. He inspired other ideas about chemical evolution, including the Miller–Urey experiment and the RNA World, all of which are hypotheses that have greatly helped in explaining the origin of life.

Cairns-Smith also published on the evolution of consciousness, in Evolving the Mind (1996), favoring a role for quantum mechanics in human thought.[1]

Clay hypothesis[edit]

In simplified form, this is the clay hypothesis: Clays form naturally from silicates in solution. Clay crystals, as other crystals, preserve their external formal arrangement as they grow, snap, and grow further. Clay crystal masses of a particular external form may happen to affect their environment in ways that affect their chances of further replication. For example, a "stickier" clay crystal is more likely to silt a stream bed, creating an environment conducive to further sedimentation. It is conceivable that such effects could extend to the creation of flat areas likely to be exposed to air, dry, and turn to wind-borne dust, which could fall randomly in other streams. Thus—by simple, inorganic, physical processes—a selection environment might exist for the reproduction of clay crystals of the "stickier" shape.

There follows a process of natural selection for clay crystals that trap certain forms of molecules to their surfaces (those that enhance their replication potential). Quite complex proto-organic molecules can be catalysed by the surface properties of silicates. The final step occurs when these complex molecules perform a "genetic takeover" from their clay "vehicle", becoming an independent locus of replication – an evolutionary moment that might be understood as the first exaptation.

Extraterrestrial biochemistry[edit]

Smith suggests that the ancestors of humans might have had alien biochemistries and presented some evidence to support this possibility in a paper for a biological research journal in 1975.[2][3]

Selected publications[edit]

See also[edit]


  1. ^ Dennett, Daniel (1996). "Quantum Incoherence: Review of Cairns-Smith, Evolving the Mind". Nature 381: 486. Bibcode:1996Natur.381..486T. doi:10.1038/381486a0. 
  3. ^ Cairns-Smith, A. G.; Kaplan, I. R.; Fellgett, P. (1975). "A Case for an Alien Ancestry". Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B 189 (1095): 249. Bibcode:1975RSPSB.189..249C. doi:10.1098/rspb.1975.0056. 

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