Abiogenesis takes another step forward.....

by snare&racket 48 Replies latest jw friends

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  Perry

  And think too!

  The origin of metabolism is a major gap in our understanding of the emergence of life. "If you look at many different organisms from around the world, this network of reactions always looks very similar, suggesting that it must have come into place very early on in evolution,

  Or, it suggests a common designer.

  Happy accident

  One theory is that RNA was the first building block of life because it helps to produce the enzymes that could catalyse complex sequences of reactions.

  

  The fact is:

  Ribonucleic acid ( RNA ) is a ubiquitous family of large biological molecules that perform multiple vital roles in the coding , decoding , regulation , and expression of genes . Together with DNA , RNA comprises the nucleic acids , which, along with proteins , constitute the three major macromolecules essential for all known forms of life .

  The author calls, RNA the "first building block of life". Since cells are now compared to the complexity of a city with hundreds of irreducible interdependent complex parts, that is like saying that the light company is one of the first building blocks of Chicago. Or, it is like saying that the city permit department with is scores of engineers and volumes of building codes constitute a basic building block of the City of Atlanta. Ridiculous. Where did all the information come from? Information does NOT self-generate. Information comes from a mind.

  Another possibility is that metabolism came first; perhaps even generating the molecules needed to make RNA, and that cells later incorporated these processes – but there was little evidence to support this.

  Ahh, how about ZERO evidence to support this.

  This is not science folks. This is confirmation bias.

  Evolution and especially ambiogenesis is a fairy tale for adults.
• 

  KateWild

  Kate: This is chemistry ! It demonstrates spontaneous interaction in very important metabolic pathways for life, vital processes to life and all without a cell membrane!!!- Snare

  To be fair it's probably biochemistry, not my area.

  This experiement has taken the process back to 'chemicals spontaneously interacting'....yes we have gaps between there and proteins, but we have only done this research for a lifetime at best. Abiogenesis... spontaneous formation of life here on earth, just got more viable. - Snare

  This clears things up for me. Cofty mentioned on another thread about the Soai reaction, an autocatalyst was discovered that helps chemicals react in a way to form the correct building blocks for life, namely homochiral sterio- isomers.

  Do you think spontaneous formation of life is evidence for believers there is no God?

  I don't I think so, humans only discover how God created life. Filling in the gaps of our knowledge IMO only tells me how it was done, not that it was chance.

  Thanks for bringing out the chemistry I am familiar with. Abiogenesis is complex and I don't understand everything I read about it, so I will take your word for it.

  Kate xx
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  Apognophos

  "Proteins can form enormously sophisticated chemical devices." "The most impressive tasks are carried out by large protein assemblies formed from many protein molecules." "Each of the central processes in a cell... is catalyzed by a highly coordinated, linked set of 10 or more proteins." The parts of a cell where proteins are made (ribosomes) are themselves made of many different proteins. "The complexity of living organisms is staggering."

  It's misleading to point to a modern cell as evidence of how complex the first cells were. As Wikipedia says, "The birth of the cell marked the passage from pre-biotic chemistry to partitioned units resembling modern cells. The final transition to living entities that fulfill all the definitions of modern cells depended on the ability to evolve effectively by natural selection." So the earliest cell was little more than a bag of self-sustaining chemical reactions. As some scientists theorize, they may not have even had RNA at the beginning.

  The necessary proteins cannot be invented one at a time. Either they are all there, ready to work together, or nothing happens and they disintegrate. [...] Their shapes fit each other like a hand in a glove.

  Again, the theory is that the simplest cell today, with all its proteins, is much more complex than the original cell, which was probably barely a functional cell by today's standards. All that matters is that the early cell was capable of reproducing, and then natural variation over time led to divergence of single kinds of proteins into multiple kinds of proteins. It's like starting from a simple, symmetrical ambidextrous glove and then finding through experimentation that left-handed and right-handed gloves made in pairs will also work together.

  Where did all the information come from? Information does NOT self-generate. Information comes from a mind.

  These are assertions that science does not agree with. They may sound right to our common sense, but the 20th century contained some important work that has begun to teach us that the universe is not so concerned with our common sense. The study of self-organization is about exactly this subject.

  We also have formulas to describe the process of iterative complexity. Benoit Mandelbrot, the discoverer of fractals, found that great complexity could come from a simple formula run over and over. Before his discovery in the 1970s, it seemed that nature had a lot of daunting complexity in it, but fractal formulas cut to the heart of the complexity by offering a means by which iteration over a simple formula like z=z^2+c could result in complex shapes found in nature. Here are 14 lines of pseudocode which can create these natural and infinitely complex shapes.

  I don't expect Perry to respond to any of this. He's a hit-and-run copy-paster. He wouldn't last five minutes in a face-to-face conversation because he would have to respond to the replies of his opponent, but the nature of the Internet allows him to buzz in, drop his payload of other people's words, and then fly away and call it "mission accomplished". But others reading this should know that Perry's tactics are hollow. They are based upon impressing the reader with big words and appeals to common sense ("Look how complex this is, doesn't it seem impossible for it to just happen?") and cherry-picking quotes to emphasize the parts where science admits uncertainty while ignoring that science has worked out many answers before now, and is continuing to make progress at a high rate.

  It also draws attention away from the fact that Perry's own explanation is, "Just shut up and admire God's handiwork." If we all took that approach, would we have modern technology and medicine at all? Finally, it is not in any way easier to imagine God coming into existence as a complex entity than it is to imagine a cell doing so. But there's nothing Perry can copy-paste to show how a God evolves from nothing. Why not?
• 

  Perry

  It's misleading to point to a modern cell as evidence of how complex the first cells were.

  What would cause you to characterize a cell as modern?

  Here's what experts say about the cell:

  Dr. Denton, who has a Ph. D. in biochemistry, asserts that the basic design of the cell system is essentially the same in all living systems, from the humblest bacterium to the largest mammal. (Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, 1985). As a consequence, according to Denton, there is no such thing as a primitive cell that is ancestral to any other cell system. He argues, then, that there is not the lightest empirical hint of an evolutionary sequence from one form of life to another. Nobel Prize laureate Jacques Monod agrees with Denton’s findings. “The simplest living system, the bacterial cell,” he writes, “in its overall chemical plan is the same as that of all other living beings. It employs the same genetic code and the same mechanism of translation as do, for example, human cells.”

  A single living cell contains something in the order of 100 million proteins of 20,000 different types. Despite this fantastic degree of complexity and diversity, a few hundred of the cells could fit on the dot of this letter “i”. And there is no scientific evidence that the living cell “evolved”. And yet, it is the prototype, the common factor of all the cells contained in the the broad spectrum of the plant and animal kingdoms. How did self-replicating organisms come into being in the first place? On this question, science draws a blank, though scientists themselves are prodigal with "just so" theories.

  The idea of a modern cell or a primitive cell is not supported by science. It is however supported by your own confirmation bias.
• 

  Vidqun

  There is one big problem, however. "For origins of life, it is important to understand where the source molecules come from," Powner says. No one has yet shown that such substances could form spontaneously in the early oceans.

  I thought I would highlight what I find interesting. At least the scientists are honest. The fact that teams of researchers need to do these experiments in state-of-the-art labs give an indication of the complexities involved. What Perry said. What's this about copy and paste? Since when is that illegal. Or is it only reserved for a select few? I think it's a case of "the truth hurts."
• 

  Apognophos

  Dr. Denton, who has a Ph. D. in biochemistry, asserts that the basic design of the cell system is essentially the same in all living systems, from the humblest bacterium to the largest mammal. (Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, 1985). As a consequence, according to Denton, there is no such thing as a primitive cell that is ancestral to any other cell system.

  You are aware that Denton is not a creationist, right? He does support his own variant of evolution theory. Anyway, Denton's views are outside the mainstream. When I was a Witness, I latched onto anyone who would support my viewpoint, but now I allow the scientific community's consensus to inform my views. So if most scientists differ with Denton, then I am going to side with most scientists.

  Yes, this is an argumentum ad populum. I don't think it's fallacious reasoning, however. These people have spent their lives learning about the universe and trying to understand it. Your use of the phrase "confirmation bias" is not appropriate because you are the one embracing the views of a handful, not me. There's no "bias" in accepting majority opinion. However, if one assumes bad faith, or a conspiracy among scientists to reject God, then really there's nothing I can do to convince someone to accept modern science.

  Anyway, the above assertion is not logical. The cell is indeed similar in all life. That does not mean that the first cell was not simpler than a modern cell (one with all the parts we find in it today). The single-celled organism would have experienced the biggest changes to its cell structure and function before there were ever multicellular organisms, and outbred its simpler cousins, at which point the improvements to cell design would have been passed down to the animal and plant life that developed from these superior cells. Keep in mind that scientists give single-celled life over a billion years to itself before multi-celled life came along.

  A single living cell contains something in the order of 100 million proteins of 20,000 different types. Despite this fantastic degree of complexity and diversity, a few hundred of the cells could fit on the dot of this letter “i”. And there is no scientific evidence that the living cell “evolved”.

  I'm not really sure what the bold part means, so I can't respond to it. Of course we don't have fossils of the early cells so we can't visibly trace their evolution, so I admit that this is all hypothetical. But if scientists can gradually explain how a cell could develop from the conditions of the early Earth, then even though it will never be provable, it will show how it could have happened. Conversely, Perry has not shown how God could have spontaneously come into being.

  By the way, it's not amazing that cells have so much detail in such a small space. They're made up of molecules which probably interacted to form the first cell, and molecules are composed of handfuls of atoms, so naturally the scale of the cell is very small compared to us. It would only be expected to be bigger if atoms were bigger.

  The fact that teams of researchers need to do these experiments in state-of-the-art labs give an indication of the complexities involved.

  Only because the Earth has changed so much. They can't exactly go scoop up a bucket of modern seawater if they want to recreate how the ocean used to be billions of years ago.
• 

  snare&racket

  Perry, or as you should be known 'Ctrl C then Ctrl V'

  Protein folding is a religious cop out. It is the first big assignment I did in university, looking at chaperone proteins and alpha-helix and beta-sheet protein folding. We do know how they fold, but proteins are all so meticulously folded in numerable ways that we cant model them all individually yet. So in strict definition, we do not yet know how all the proteins have been folded. BUT....The issue isn't 'how does this magic occur?' the issue is effort and time and computing power, to analyse it all.

  But that is all you have. More god of the gaps, enjoy them while they last.
• 

  snare&racket

  I have never seen so many replies to a scientific discovery, with nothing but personal opinion on whether there is a god and plenty of "yeah well, you still can't explain 'x' yet..."

  Also, I have seen every single one of the repliers misunderstand evolution and abiogenesis on many occasions, yet here they are refuting science. Have some self relflection and humility, my lordy! On top of that, all we hear about from the religious is "Yeah, well what about where life came from?!" When we start to have results, following some very plausible hypothesis....now the issue is "Well you haven't mapped out all the protein folding yet have you!"

  You guys DON'T WANT answers, you want darkness for your god's to inhabit. Don't stand in front of the scientific train with your hand held up shouting 'stop in the name of yaweh' ...... it is just embarassing and get's messy.

  I have NO issue at all with people believing in god or whatever, you can even deny science, or reality. But don't promote it or come defend your stance and expect no reply! I know what will be next...

  Know it all

  Millitant

  Elitist

  Anti-theist

  Arrogant

  Cold Hearted

  etc, etc,,etc, etc, etc......

  EVERYONE should have simply said "wow" or "Cool!" to this humble human discovery... and in fact most did.

  Ask yourself if you didn't WHY you didn't! This is not opinions being discovered, but FACTS.

  You are getting annoyed and upset with FACTS.
• 

  prologos

  S&R thanx FACTS are great, that is all we have.

  Facts will not Fail us.Facts Forever.
• 

  Vidqun