The Origin of Life

[Jose]

The abiogenesis story nonetheless follows the same rules as the rest of science. We gather information--data, observations, etc--from the world. We then develop models to explain the observations. The rules are that we can't invent things for which there are no data. ... If we stick with facts--hard evidence from geochemistry and from experimental chemistry--we're kinda stuck with current ideas for the origin of life. We may be dissatisfied that we don't have a complete story yet, but that doesn't justify the response that so many people have: throw out everything we know, in favor of magical stories that emerged in a pre-scientific age.

But abiogenesis does exactly that. It invents a mechanism that explains the creation of life to fit with the theory of cosmogenesis even though there is absolutely no data to support it and ignores the masses of data that debunk it. ... Hard evidence from intensive experimentation suggests that life does not originate in this way at all. There is no evidence that biological/living processes can evolve from non-living self replicating molecules and all the data suggests that they do not. By all means believe it if you must but it isn't science.

The above exchange illustrates the basic issue. The Origin-of-Life researchers have lots of data and lots of ideas, but no absolute proof of a particular mechanism by which life certainly arose from plain old chemistry. The anti-evolution folks insist that the physical origin of life (as opposed to special creation) is hogwash, a flight of fancy for which there are no facts. They use this to claim that evolution is impossible, although "evolution" is what life does after it exists, not before.

Questions for Debate

1. Are there data and ideas? Are they valid? What is the current status of Origin-of-Life research?
2. What, if anything, has been debunked?
3. Is it valid to pretend that a chemical origin of life is impossible until it's been re-constructed in the lab, with a complete description of every step? We don't require this level of certainty for medical research; why require it for this?

__________________
Use a small broom for the corners.

[micatala]

Thanks Jose for starting this thread. It should be an interesting one. I cannot say I have any data to offer at this point.

My initial comment is to reiterate that while the theory of abiogenesis and evolution both work from data that has been left to us from the past, for the most part, they are seperate studies. We do not need to answer the abiogenesis question to be confident of what we know about evolution, any more than we have to answer the Big Bang question to be confident of what we know about physics, chemistry, and astronomy.

[Grumpy]

Jose

I do not yet have sources to cite, but amino acids have been found in molecular clouds in distant(and not so distant) space. I also read where research had shown that these precursers of metabolism could be "shocked" into much more complex peptides by the heat and pressure of a comet collision with Earths oceans.

Given the bombardment of early Earth(most of our water came from comets, it seems) and the multiple trillions of resultant different complex prebiotic molecules that would result, it begins to look like life was not only possible, but likely. Just one self replicating molecule coming into existance some 3.8 billion years ago is all that it would take to start the whole process leading to the diversity of life we see today.

Grumpy

[achilles12604]

How interesting this post would come while I was reading The Language of God. It covers much of this topic.


Grumpy,

What you wrote it correct. Life on earth could have orriginated from a meteor or something of that sort. However, since all laws of biology and physics are constant throughout all of what we know of the universe and certainly what would have been able to reach us in the last 4 billion years, the problem of the origin of life is only taken back on step. In other words, how did life come to be on that meteor?

The problem of the absolute origin of life is still a mystery.

The largest problem with the origin of life anywhere is the complexity of organisms.

Step one - ammino acids would need to be formed

Step two - Thousands of ammino acids would have had to be place into just the right order to form DNA or RNA. (RNA is much simpler than DNA)

Step three - this DNA would need to have enough protiens around to begin construction of organisms.

The first problem I will address deals with RNA. 50 years ago, Stanley Miller and Harold Urey conducted experiments where they took water and some organic compounds and passed electricity through them. They were able to create very small amounts of ammino acids. However, the compounds they used were most likely not on earth at any point and especially were nt on earth right after it formed. The ratios of the Gases they had were in fact the opposite of what could have been expected on earth.

This is not the problem I am addressing however. This experiment could have possibly created the building blocks for DNA on a distant planet which then broke off and flew here on a meteor. No the problem that arrises is that asbolutly no compunds were created which could have created RNA. Nor has self-replicating RNA been about to be reproduced. So RNA is out as a starting place.

Back to DNA.


While all of this would be extreamly unlikely to happen by chance, number 2 is by far the most complicated.

DNA sequences are extreamly specific. They are long chains of 4 letters which are bound by a double helix and provide the blueprints to build whatever it is they should build.


I hope everyone is familiar with alphabets, the cereal.

For life to have happened by accident by meteors crashing to earth, the amino acids from those rocks (which by the way had to originate somewhere else which in itself is a problem) would need to combine in perfect order to form the DNA. There would need to be enough ammino acids within a very small area (microscopic area) in order to have enough to complete the sequence. If there wernt enough AA's the DNA would nt be complete and would then be useless.

Now lets say for the sake of arguement that a meteor with a very high number of amino acids did crash into the earth. This would be like taking a bag of Alphabets and ripping it open and having all the little letters fall onto the floor.

What would need to happen for life is for those AA's to fall just right so that when they landed they were able to write a logical and complete thought.

For example instead of falling out of the bag and ending up as

TOSUJEMDILIFNAUSLDLEIFJKLSPALKSJDIOFKJ on the floor, they would have to combine without any outside assistence at all to say things like . . .

I THINK TIM IS A STRANGE PERSON BECAUSE HE LIKES TO HAVE HIS LAUNDRY WASHED BY LEPRACHAUNS.

Bear in mind that this would have to happen perfectly and without ANY outside help.

Now DNA is very very long, so the reality of creating DNA sequences would be for the above sentence to be pages long. And all those AA's would have to fall in place on accident.

This is what I understand about the origins of life and this is before evolution ever takes place.

No wonder the chances are next to none of life ever forming. And this doesn't even take into account that the earth had to be the perfect size, density, rotational speed, distance from the sun, tilt on the axis and dozens of other factors, or else this new life would have just died out or never been given the chance to form in the first place.

This is probably why astrphysicist Robert Jastrow wrote in the final paragraph of his book "In God and Astronomers" -

"At this moment, it seems as though science will never be able to raise the curtain on the mystery of creation. For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountians of ignorance; he is about to conqure the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries."

About the Anthropic Principle, Steven Hawking (agnostic/atheist) wrote in his book, A Brief History in Time -

"It would be very difficult to explain why the universe should have begun this way except as the act of a God who intended to create beings like us."


Physicist Freeman Dyson wrote "The more I examine the universe and the details of ts archetecture, the more evidence I find that the universe in some sense must have known we were coming."

In conclusion, life must have come from somewhere. Life is made of amino acids which form DNA. The first task was to create amino acids and earth could not have had the proper chemicals in the proper amounts to accomplish this. But somewhere else might have. Then the bigger problem of ordering the AA's perfectly would be impossible to overcome especially if the only amino acids that "nature" had to work with were microscopic amounts on a meteor which crashed into the earth causing increadible heat which would have more likely killed any life than helped it grow.

But even if the amino acids were created on accident and even if they were able to reach earth and even if they did somehow manage to arrange themselves into perfect and extreamly long and complex order (pages and pages and pages of perfect alignment of the amino acids along a double helix) . . .

Then you still have the problem that DNA and RNA are not self reproducing.

Bascially, I have very little faith in pure chance causing this to happen. And remember all of this came after the chance creation of the universe which had to be absolutly perfect or it would never have been created much less life.

On the topic of the origin of life, I would say that even if science can indeed someday figure out how it was all done, god's hand still had to be there to direct it simply because of the complexity.

[Grumpy]

achilles12604

Step one - ammino acids would need to be formed

Step two - Thousands of ammino acids would have had to be place into just the right order to form DNA or RNA. (RNA is much simpler than DNA)

Step three - this DNA would need to have enough protiens around to begin construction of organisms.

Step one is taken care of by simple chemistry caused by ultraviolet light bombardment of CHON in molecular clouds, a common occurance(we find it everywhere)

Step two- You are starting way too complicated. RNA, DNA are not necessary for a self replicating molecule(peptide). Just a simple short segment of peptide in a chemical soup which randomly attracts parts out of that soup(passively) that makes another peptide(or it's reverse) is all that is required. Such molecules have been fabricated in labs. From that point it could have taken several millions(or even billions of years) before RNA showed up.

Grumpy

[achilles12604]

achilles12604

Step one - ammino acids would need to be formed

Step two - Thousands of ammino acids would have had to be place into just the right order to form DNA or RNA. (RNA is much simpler than DNA)

Step three - this DNA would need to have enough protiens around to begin construction of organisms.

Step one is taken care of by simple chemistry caused by ultraviolet light bombardment of CHON in molecular clouds, a common occurance(we find it everywhere)

Step two- You are starting way too complicated. RNA, DNA are not necessary for a self replicating molecule(peptide). Just a simple short segment of peptide in a chemical soup which randomly attracts parts out of that soup(passively) that makes another peptide(or it's reverse) is all that is required. Such molecules have been fabricated in labs. From that point it could have taken several millions(or even billions of years) before RNA showed up.

Grumpy

Actually I agree that this is probably how life formed. However, my statements still stand. The chances of even those bonds being formed were very slight if you consider all the variables. And the original premise for number 1, was very rare. To find the correct ratio of chemicals to mix and then pass energy through would have been difficult. Especially on earth where these chemicals were actually in reverse proportion. Still it is the best working theory we have so far. I still say that the complexity of this whole thing necessitates a God. That it would all just happen by chance, well I don't have enough faith to believe in that big of a chance happening.

The small molecules, even if they did happen to form, would then have to happen to connect and match up to larger ones to form the larger stands of DNA which could actually do something.

There is a lot of things which had to "just happen" to occur, for this whole thing to work.

Finally the timeframe is outstanding. From the time the earth was able to support life to the time it was teeming with life was an extreamly short time. Basically life appeared as soon after the earth cooled as was possible. It could have easily taken an extra billion years before life truely began to form because of the things that had to happen. For life t appear absoutly as soon after the earth's creation like it did, also points to a purpose.

Something else to point out is that science is still progressing. To date this is nothing more than a hypothesis, albeit a decent one in my opinion. I wonder what else we will find in the future.

[Goat]

How interesting this post would come while I was reading The Language of God. It covers much of this topic.


Grumpy,

What you wrote it correct. Life on earth could have orriginated from a meteor or something of that sort. However, since all laws of biology and physics are constant throughout all of what we know of the universe and certainly what would have been able to reach us in the last 4 billion years, the problem of the origin of life is only taken back on step. In other words, how did life come to be on that meteor?

The problem of the absolute origin of life is still a mystery.

The largest problem with the origin of life anywhere is the complexity of organisms.

Step one - ammino acids would need to be formed

Step two - Thousands of ammino acids would have had to be place into just the right order to form DNA or RNA. (RNA is much simpler than DNA)

Step three - this DNA would need to have enough protiens around to begin construction of organisms.

The first problem I will address deals with RNA. 50 years ago, Stanley Miller and Harold Urey conducted experiments where they took water and some organic compounds and passed electricity through them. They were able to create very small amounts of ammino acids. However, the compounds they used were most likely not on earth at any point and especially were nt on earth right after it formed. The ratios of the Gases they had were in fact the opposite of what could have been expected on earth.

This is not the problem I am addressing however. This experiment could have possibly created the building blocks for DNA on a distant planet which then broke off and flew here on a meteor. No the problem that arrises is that asbolutly no compunds were created which could have created RNA. Nor has self-replicating RNA been about to be reproduced. So RNA is out as a starting place.

Back to DNA.


While all of this would be extreamly unlikely to happen by chance, number 2 is by far the most complicated.

DNA sequences are extreamly specific. They are long chains of 4 letters which are bound by a double helix and provide the blueprints to build whatever it is they should build.


I hope everyone is familiar with alphabets, the cereal.

For life to have happened by accident by meteors crashing to earth, the amino acids from those rocks (which by the way had to originate somewhere else which in itself is a problem) would need to combine in perfect order to form the DNA. There would need to be enough ammino acids within a very small area (microscopic area) in order to have enough to complete the sequence. If there wernt enough AA's the DNA would nt be complete and would then be useless.

Now lets say for the sake of arguement that a meteor with a very high number of amino acids did crash into the earth. This would be like taking a bag of Alphabets and ripping it open and having all the little letters fall onto the floor.

What would need to happen for life is for those AA's to fall just right so that when they landed they were able to write a logical and complete thought.

For example instead of falling out of the bag and ending up as

TOSUJEMDILIFNAUSLDLEIFJKLSPALKSJDIOFKJ on the floor, they would have to combine without any outside assistence at all to say things like . . .

I THINK TIM IS A STRANGE PERSON BECAUSE HE LIKES TO HAVE HIS LAUNDRY WASHED BY LEPRACHAUNS.

Bear in mind that this would have to happen perfectly and without ANY outside help.

Now DNA is very very long, so the reality of creating DNA sequences would be for the above sentence to be pages long. And all those AA's would have to fall in place on accident.

This is what I understand about the origins of life and this is before evolution ever takes place.

No wonder the chances are next to none of life ever forming. And this doesn't even take into account that the earth had to be the perfect size, density, rotational speed, distance from the sun, tilt on the axis and dozens of other factors, or else this new life would have just died out or never been given the chance to form in the first place.

This is probably why astrphysicist Robert Jastrow wrote in the final paragraph of his book "In God and Astronomers" -

"At this moment, it seems as though science will never be able to raise the curtain on the mystery of creation. For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountians of ignorance; he is about to conqure the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries."

About the Anthropic Principle, Steven Hawking (agnostic/atheist) wrote in his book, A Brief History in Time -

"It would be very difficult to explain why the universe should have begun this way except as the act of a God who intended to create beings like us."


Physicist Freeman Dyson wrote "The more I examine the universe and the details of ts archetecture, the more evidence I find that the universe in some sense must have known we were coming."

In conclusion, life must have come from somewhere. Life is made of amino acids which form DNA. The first task was to create amino acids and earth could not have had the proper chemicals in the proper amounts to accomplish this. But somewhere else might have. Then the bigger problem of ordering the AA's perfectly would be impossible to overcome especially if the only amino acids that "nature" had to work with were microscopic amounts on a meteor which crashed into the earth causing increadible heat which would have more likely killed any life than helped it grow.

But even if the amino acids were created on accident and even if they were able to reach earth and even if they did somehow manage to arrange themselves into perfect and extreamly long and complex order (pages and pages and pages of perfect alignment of the amino acids along a double helix) . . .

Then you still have the problem that DNA and RNA are not self reproducing.

Bascially, I have very little faith in pure chance causing this to happen. And remember all of this came after the chance creation of the universe which had to be absolutly perfect or it would never have been created much less life.

On the topic of the origin of life, I would say that even if science can indeed someday figure out how it was all done, god's hand still had to be there to direct it simply because of the complexity.

Several of those issues you are discussing (the initial ones), have already been solved. For example, when it comes to amino acids, they will form naturally in many atmospheres that have methene, with the addition of electricity. The Urey-Miller experiments showed that quite conclusively. Indeed, when NASA sent a probe to Titan, which has an atmosphere they think is similar to the early earth, the number of complex organic compounds that were in the atmosphere amazed them. I believe they expected some, but not at the levels that were found. Therefore, amino acids are very likely in the atmosphere that is thought to be the early earth.

Then, another piece of the puzzle is that amino acids will link togather on an exposed quartz crystal face to form simple proteins.

RNA appears to have existed aroudn that time fram also. (I don't really understand that one). However, some proteins are self replicating. All that needs for life to get a jump start is to have some self replicating protiens,

Yes, there are a lot of unknowns in getting from the simple organic compounds to the more complex structures of life. We have a lot more pieces to the puzzel than we did even 5 years ago.

[micatala]

I am probably going to listen more than contribute on this thread, but I will interject one comment regarding probabilistic arguements like the one made above by achilles.

Perhaps my objection has already been considered implicitly in achilles' arguement, but I do want to bring up this point, as many times it is forgotten.


It is fair to say that theprobability of a random construction of any particular sequence of acids, even a fairly small one, is next to nothing. However, what also needs to be considered is how many such sequences (other than the ones we see in nature) might function in an essentially equivalent 'self-replicating' way.

Consider the old card-shuffling analogy. The probability of shuffling a deck of cards and coming up with any pre-determined order of the cards is roughly 1 out of 8 times 10^67. This is true for the 'arranged' order of Ace through King with spades, hearts, diamonds, and clubs in the order as well as any other more 'random' looking order.

Every time you shuffle a deck of cards, you produce an order that is 'essentially impossible' to achieve, and yet you have done it. In a few seconds, you can do it again.

If you are shooting for a particular pre-determined arrangement, you have a very low probability of success (depending on how many card-shufflers you have of course). However, if there are many possible arrangements that would be considered successful, the odds obviously go up.

Anyway, I would ask if this issue has already been addressed implicitly. If not, it seems to me it should be addressed explicitly.

[Grumpy]

achilles12604

Actually I agree that this is probably how life formed. However, my statements still stand. The chances of even those bonds being formed were very slight if you consider all the variables.

As Behe found in Kansas, you can not put a reasonable estimate of the chances against these occurances and not have nature overwhelm that number by sheer volume . WHAT TO US SEEMS UNLIKELY, TO NATURE IS ALMOST INEVITABLE.

And the original premise for number 1, was very rare.

Amino acids have been found on meteorites here on Earth. Rare is not how scientists have found them to be.

To find the correct ratio of chemicals to mix and then pass energy through would have been difficult.

Actually they are the most abundent(after hydrogen/helium/lithium) and the energy is boiling off of the sun at prodigious rates. Amino acids are ridiculously easy to find throughout the universe.

Especially on earth where these chemicals were actually in reverse proportion.

Have no clue what your talking about here. On Earth, as it is in the Heavens would apply.

Still it is the best working theory we have so far. I still say that the complexity of this whole thing necessitates a God. That it would all just happen by chance, well I don't have enough faith to believe in that big of a chance happening.

Again as Behe found when he presented what he considered an astronomical number against the possibility, nature actually showed him that a single cubic mile of topsoil contains millions of times as many different possible combinations than Behe's number(which he considered impossible). Nature provides many millions more possibilities for that ONE SINGLE MOLECULE TO COME INTO EXISTENCE. After that happens(it is almost inevitable) the rest is evolution.

Our experience here on Earth tells us that where life CAN exist, it does exist. It even exists where we would not consider it possible(thousands of feet below the surface in solid rock, in boiling hot springs in Yellowstone, etc, Google extremophiles)

The small molecules, even if they did happen to form, would then have to happen to connect and match up to larger ones to form the larger stands of DNA which could actually do something.

Chemical evolution probably went on for many millions of years before the first RNA or DNA molecule formed. Neither is a prerequisite of life, just self replication(by any means). Our petroleum reserves are likely to have been formed during this period, they may be the chemical goo left by a whole era of non R/DNA life. Once R/DNA formed, it was so superior that it rapidly replaced the forms of chemical evolution, but it did not come first.

Finally the timeframe is outstanding. From the time the earth was able to support life to the time it was teeming with life was an extreamly short time.

That may be true, but from the time life first started to the time we see what we would recognize as a bacteria was on the order of 2.75 BILLION years. Life may have covered the Earth rapidly, but it was a very primitive form, no nucleus, no R/DNA, no mitochondria, no cell wall, none of these are required in the first life, just chemical replication from the soup of chemicals around those first self replicating molecules, the rest is simple competition for resources(evolution). If we were there we would call it slime, and the stench would be terrible(and poisonous to us).

Something else to point out is that science is still progressing. To date this is nothing more than a hypothesis, albeit a decent one in my opinion. I wonder what else we will find in the future.

Actually, self replicating molecules have been created in the lab. Was that the way life began? We will never know for sure, the first molecules left little behind them.

Grumpy

[Goat]

I am probably going to listen more than contribute on this thread, but I will interject one comment regarding probabilistic arguements like the one made above by achilles.

Perhaps my objection has already been considered implicitly in achilles' arguement, but I do want to bring up this point, as many times it is forgotten.


It is fair to say that theprobability of a random construction of any particular sequence of acids, even a fairly small one, is next to nothing. However, what also needs to be considered is how many such sequences (other than the ones we see in nature) might function in an essentially equivalent 'self-replicating' way.

Consider the old card-shuffling analogy. The probability of shuffling a deck of cards and coming up with any pre-determined order of the cards is roughly 1 out of 8 times 10^67. This is true for the 'arranged' order of Ace through King with spades, hearts, diamonds, and clubs in the order as well as any other more 'random' looking order.

Every time you shuffle a deck of cards, you produce an order that is 'essentially impossible' to achieve, and yet you have done it. In a few seconds, you can do it again.

If you are shooting for a particular pre-determined arrangement, you have a very low probability of success (depending on how many card-shufflers you have of course). However, if there are many possible arrangements that would be considered successful, the odds obviously go up.

Anyway, I would ask if this issue has already been addressed implicitly. If not, it seems to me it should be addressed explicitly.

There are some pieces of information that make the 'improbability' arguements. Not only does RNA form on crystaline faces (and protiens too), the mininal size of RNA needed to have a catylstic effect is 7 bases.

When it comes to how well RNA replicates, this article shoudl be of interest

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/quer ... s=12447445