A. G. Cairns-Smith and a few other evolutionists have proposed that life didn’t originate with either nucleic acids or proteins but that the “original replicators and catalyzing agents were actually crystals found everywhere in the clay that lay around the primitive Earth.” It was thought that crystals qualified because they “grow . . . propagate themselves . . . carry information [and] have some minimum capacity of catalyzing.” Crystals may carry information, but they cannot originate it—nor can DNA.”