Actually, the conditions of early earth are still not agreed upon in the scientific community, there is even evidence of the early Earth being rich in Oxygen, which is the opposite of what evolution needed. Also, when they recreated the "early earth environment", they left out all the effects that would have stopped the experiment from working.
1. Best way to start is looking at ancient earth 4.7 billion years ago. Many different compounds were around back then, such as hydrogen cyanide and methane gas. DNA is made from only 4 different types of Nucleotides, so where did that come from? How in the world did they come to be in this universe?
Here's this: In 1964 a brilliant researcher called Wan Oro put methane and the cyanide to boil in a solution under the perfect conditions that were in ancient earth back then. Afterwards, the solution produced adenine, one of the four types of nucleotide bases. To make a full nucleotide, it needs to gain a sugar called Ribose and a group of phosphates. How in the world did the ribose and phosphate group get formed and get attached to that nucleotide?
2. From the nucleotide to the polynucleotide
Well, once the nucleotide was formed, they needed to form together in chains called polynucleotides. In the 1980s, researchers found that a clay, called "montmorillonite", a very abundant resource in ancient earth, was a perfect catalyst for this process of "chaining".
3. Now we are going to make RNA!
Some of these copies of the polynucleotides with ribose inside, or RNA (ribonucleic acid) are able to make copies of themselves...huh. Of course the copies aren't as perfect, but again, some copies are more adapted than the other copies to survive in the hot, dense planet earth used to be. So these molecules that did survive would replicate and pass on their traits, while those that aren't so great at surviving would just break apart into regular compounds of methane and cyanide.
4. Making protocells!
As RNA replicated, they shared their surroundings with other chemicals around them. Some chemicals, called "lipids" like to clump together to form circular bodies called micelles. RNA molecules that attracted the micelles found themselves protected inside them. Because they were protected, they better survived than those that weren't. From there, they replicated successfully, but with the entire protocell with them. There, you have the first primitive cellular structure.
5. Then from the span of hundreds of millions of years later, RNA grew more complex from replicating and passing on better traits. The single strand formed to create a double-strand molecule, and the more successful DNA molecule evolved. One thing however: DNA needs proteins to replicate. Proteins are made from amino acids or the building blocks of life, so how/where in the world did the amino acids get into the picture?
6. formation of amino acids
a number of experiments with the montmorillonite not only produced amino acids, but long chains of them that are called "
olypeptides". It turns out that this long-difficult name clay stuff is a natural breeding ground for all these complex chemicals. So there you have it. RNA, DNA, what made it, and what made amino acids, non-living chemicals that in turn made living organisms and the process in which these chemicals came to be.
(Yes, I threw this at you again.)
So, going back to what this thread is
supposed to be about, really, anyone has the right to learn what they want. At an early age, you have parental influences to just basically provide what they think is best for you. Providing the bible and concepts of Christianity is a good experience for children, believe it or not. It teaches them morals in the form of stories. I'm sure you can do that yourself, though you may forget a couple points. The point of early childhood is to raise them so that later, they will become as great an individual as they way you have taught them to be.
