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This article has been amended since it was first published
A rock is the ultimate example of inanimate, dead matter. After all, it just sits there, and only moves if it is pushed. But what if some minerals are not as stone-dead as we thought?
Chemist Graham Cairns-Smith has spent his entire scientific career pushing a simple, radical idea: life did not begin with fiddly organic molecules like DNA, but with simple crystals.
It is now 50 years since Cairns-Smith first put forward his ideas about the origin of life. Some scientists have ridiculed them; others have, cautiously or wholeheartedly, embraced them. They have never become mainstream orthodoxy, but they have never quite gone away either. Was there any truth to Cairns-Smith's daring proposal? Did life really come from crystals?
In June 2016 I visited Cairns-Smith and his wife Dorothy at their house on the outskirts of Glasgow, UK. Now 85, he has a rare condition related to Parkinson's disease, which has affected his mobility. However, his scientific curiosity and his sense of humour remain undimmed.
He was a dour man and he sort of muttered, 'A pity you chose science'
While he will most likely be remembered for his theories on the origin of life, his first passion was painting.
"We met when he was at Glasgow and he was doing these," says Dorothy, showing me the prolific collection lining almost every wall in the downstairs of their house. "He was going through an abstract phase."
Cairns-Smith's success as a painter eventually became too demanding. He was putting on one-man shows and getting paintings into the Royal Scottish Academy, but decided to quit and focus on science, which offered a more reliable income with which to support a family.
"There was a man called William Crosbie, who was a very well-known Scottish painter, who was teaching him [at Glasgow]," Dorothy recalls. "He was a dour man and he sort of muttered, 'A pity you chose science'."
However, Cairns-Smith does not seem to have any regrets about his decision. Copies of his scientific books, and the sketches he drew to illustrate them, are spread across his upstairs study. They have just as much of a presence in the house as his artwork.
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