Polymers Don't Qualify
"It is possible to make a more fundamental distinction between living and nonliving things by examining their molecular structure and molecular behavior. In brief, living organisms are distinguished by their specified complexity.
Crystals are usually taken as the prototypes of simple, well-specified structures, because they consist of a very large number of identical molecules packed together in a uniform way.
Lumps of granite or random mixtures of polymers are examples of structures which are complex but not specified.
The crystals fail to qualify as living because they lack complexity; the mixtures of polymers fail to qualify because they lack specificity."| | Leslie E. Orgel,
Biochemist and Resident Fellow, Salk Institute for Biological Studies, "The Origins of Life: Molecules and Natural Selection," Chapman & Hall: London, 1973, p.189. Emphasis in original |
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