Abiogenesis

AZPaul3 wrote: Then, by your reasoning, abiogensis could never happen because life would simply eat itself to death. (After bug A eats bug B it starves to death, and the whole process has to start over.)”HM

jar wrote: Why would you expect me to have my expections approved by you?”Hm

jar wrote: Because chemists are so dang sure it was only a chemical thing. Because chemists claim abiogenesis as their own thing (see Ringo's post in Message 246: jar, don't bother me anymore with this question. I can have any old expectation I like without having to get your approval for it. Maybe you and Ringo and other molecular moles here would like to explain why the principles of chemistry are ALL there is to know about abiogenesis. With claims like that you'd think they'd have it in spades by now. (Where can send my $5 check to purchase one of those nifty laptop abiogenesis kits?)Bottom line: If you think abiogensis was only a chemical thing then the burden is on you to prove it. I can't prove that it wasn't, but I can prove that life itself is more than just a collection of chemicals. (Clue: think genes”pure, digital information.)”HM

Nosy wrote: Are they? Rocks are all just chemicals. Dirt is all just chemicals. Planets are all just chemicals. The whole universe is all just chemicals. Why shouldn't life be all just chemicals? Chemists arrogantly like to ask those questions.But life is more than just a bunch of chemicals. Because nowhere in this universe, so far as we, nothing but life that depends upon a digital code to facilitate its chemical survival and biological evolution. Take away it encoded messages and deciphering alphabet and whaddaya got? A lot amino acids floating around with nowhere to go and nothing to do...but, of course, they're all just a bunch of chemicals.”HMEdited by Hoot Mon, : No reason given.

Oh, and don't forget "palming the pea." NO reason good enough for you, perhaps. Why do you cling to your chemicals when molecular biologists have already shown that there is more to life than molecular biology?”HM

AZPaul3 wrote: Sure, if you're into thought experimentation. Take two E. coli bacteria and put them in separate test tubes containing the same sterilized, healthy medium. Now, using your nanosurigical skills, take one bacterium and shuffle all of the nucleotides on its DNA, making sure you have all the very same nucleotides you started out with after the shuffling is complete. You won't change the chemical at all”it's still DNA with every one of its nucleotides present and accounted for (only in a different order). To the second bacterium you perform the same kind of nanosurgery, to neutralize surgical effects, but you will leave the order of nucleotides on its DNA alone. Make sure you put 'em all back in the right places, OK. Start the clock and let the experiment run for 24 hours. Return and examine your results.I predict that one test tube will have lots of healthy microbes swimming around. And I predict one test tube will not have any at all. There is the proof you desire, because BOTH bacterial cells contained ALL the chemicals they allegedly require to get on with their bacterial affairs. But only one of them contained that pure, digital information we have come to know as genes. That bug did fine. But take those whispy codes away and whadaya get? A tiny lump of chemicals and nothing else.Case closed.”HM

Woodsy wondxers: Not souls. Codes.”HM

Nosy wrote: Please see Message 284.”HM

Mod writes: Well, if those prebiotic chemicals didn't do the biological trick, then what did?”HM

NoseyNed & Coragyps,There are more than chemicals in DNA; there are digital messages, too. If you deny this fact then you have to go back to school and learn what you missed in freshman biology. How many chemical isomers can you think of that are configured as digital code? I can think of DNA and RNA...and you can add the rest. I'll be interested in seeing how long your lists are.”HM

kuresu wrote: How about the signal-to-noise ratio? What makes your system coherent? Why don't rocks do that? They're chemicals, too, aren't they? Do you have a chemical principle for such kinds of coherent self-organization to offer? No, not separately. Intrinsically. I can agree that genetic information developed somehow along with the molecular development of RNA/DNA. Or maybe later, I don't know. But the fact that genes eventually appeared as encryptions on RNA/DNA is still interesting to me. Besides biological systems, no other marriage between codes and molecules ever occurred in nature. At least so far as we know. Why shouldn't I be curious about the role of digital code in biological organization? It seems like an awfully clever trick of nature.Chemicals. Reductionism. Tinker Toys. Erector Sets. Who, or what, writes the instruction manuals for those mechanical wonders? Am I to assume that the molecules, working in cooperation with unknown natural forces, invented the code on their own to inform their protein molecules? I don't think Goddidit. I think it probably did it on its own. But I simply don't understand how. That's all.”HM

Mod wrote: If you are right, Mod, then you have discovered an important biological principle. I'll call it the "abiogenic truncation principle"”once abiogenesis is successfuly established it cannot happen again, because existing biotic will truncate its late appearance by having it for lunch.If you know for certain that your principle is correct, then I'd suggest you apply for authorship immediately if not sooner. Hell, it's more than a principle! Let's call it "Mod's Law."”HM

Ringo wrote: Profound.”HM

AZPaul3 wrote: Wish I had a good one. Since I don't believe Goddidit, what are my options? Vitalism? Parallel universes? What ever it is that we don't yet know is HUGE.”HM

AZPaul3 wrote: Pure chance doesn't do it for me. Have you any probability models to determine what those odds were? I believe its was Hoyle and Wickramasinghe who calculated the probability of the first protein molecule to be on the order 1 in 10^120.”HM