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Author Topic:   Geological Origin of Life
IrishRockhound
Member (Idle past 4436 days)
Posts: 569
From: Ireland
Joined: 05-19-2003


Message 1 of 23 (41366)
05-26-2003 1:56 PM


Hello all,
This is continuing from another topic started by mike the wiz - (creation argument) - where we were talking about the origin of RNA and DNA based life. Here's what I found:
"The first hypothesis about the origin of life was put forward by a Russian scientist named Oparin in 1924 - it stated that the early atmosphere of the Earth was anoxic and consisted of carbon dioxide, methane, ammonia, hydrogen sulphide, etc. When these gases condensed into a "primordial soup" ocean, certain aminoacids could be synthesised if a source of energy was added.
Stanley Miller (an American scientist) attempted to reproduce this effect by electrifying the gas mixture, and succeeded in producing several characteristic aminoacids.
Another American scientist at the University of Florida named Fox ran more elaborate versions of this experiment, and succeeded in producing protenoids - complex molecules of around 200 aminoacids. As he continued working with them, he showed that over longer periods of time they spontaneously formed into microspheres - bounding membranes required for cells.
The most important step was still to discover how primitive life replicated, as all modern life requires DNA and RNA.
Recent research suggests that small strands of RNA can replicate without the need for enzymes, unlike DNA - so the early world could have been dominated by RNA organisms.
An alternative view is that life did not originate on Earth. The Murchison Meteorite, discovered in Australia in 1969, was classified as a stony meteorite with carbonaceous chondrites - meaning that aminoacids were present. These were different from Earth aminoacids in that they had equal amounts of left and right hand structural configurations in their molecules. Their carbon13 ratio was also much higher - all powerful evidence of their extraterrestrial origin.
This lead to the proposition of Hoyle in the 1970's of the panspermia hypothesis - that microbes present in cosmic dust came to settle in the Earth's stratosphere and lead to the development of life.
Scientists do agree that life probably did originate in the oceans. Evidence for this is the existence of 'black smokers' - undersea volcanic vents where life thrives without the need for oxygen or sunlight (autotroph bacteria - survive by chemosynthesis)."
This is taken more or less verbatim from my own notes - I left out some of the more technical stuff. This is the current view among geologists (the Irish and British ones anyway) about the origin of life.
Thoughts anyone?
The Rock Hound

Replies to this message:
 Message 2 by IrishRockhound, posted 05-30-2003 10:14 AM IrishRockhound has not replied
 Message 4 by Brad McFall, posted 05-30-2003 11:22 AM IrishRockhound has replied

  
IrishRockhound
Member (Idle past 4436 days)
Posts: 569
From: Ireland
Joined: 05-19-2003


Message 2 of 23 (41779)
05-30-2003 10:14 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by IrishRockhound
05-26-2003 1:56 PM


Er...
I can't believe I haven't got any replies to this yet. This is probably the most controversial subject I can concieve of - some of it even sounds ridiculous to me - and no one wants to talk about it?
Do I have to double-dare people or something?
The Rock Hound

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by IrishRockhound, posted 05-26-2003 1:56 PM IrishRockhound has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 3 by Quetzal, posted 05-30-2003 11:15 AM IrishRockhound has not replied

  
Quetzal
Member (Idle past 5872 days)
Posts: 3228
Joined: 01-09-2002


Message 3 of 23 (41783)
05-30-2003 11:15 AM
Reply to: Message 2 by IrishRockhound
05-30-2003 10:14 AM


Re: Er...
Heh. It's because the creationists don't have a clue what you're talking about, and the rest of us have already digested the "black smoker" hypothesis. The U. Glasgow team's work Origin of Life, and Corliss' submarine cracking front hypothesis have already been addressed on this forum (it was awhile ago, but still...).

This message is a reply to:
 Message 2 by IrishRockhound, posted 05-30-2003 10:14 AM IrishRockhound has not replied

  
Brad McFall
Member (Idle past 5032 days)
Posts: 3428
From: Ithaca,NY, USA
Joined: 12-20-2001


Message 4 of 23 (41784)
05-30-2003 11:22 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by IrishRockhound
05-26-2003 1:56 PM


geology as next ant(i) c/e-->e/c ground?
Freeman Dyson thought it OK to seperate "replication" and "metabolism". I do not think that even of the biology of space exploration will NEED this difference but rather a more elemental universality that is irreducible. I am hard to agree with but even harder to disagree with. In the past I has thought there WAS something to dialectical materialism materially but seeing as those kind of scientists could not gain say topobiology evolutionary I give that this but passing interest only.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by IrishRockhound, posted 05-26-2003 1:56 PM IrishRockhound has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 5 by IrishRockhound, posted 06-02-2003 7:28 AM Brad McFall has replied

  
IrishRockhound
Member (Idle past 4436 days)
Posts: 569
From: Ireland
Joined: 05-19-2003


Message 5 of 23 (41934)
06-02-2003 7:28 AM
Reply to: Message 4 by Brad McFall
05-30-2003 11:22 AM


Re: geology as next ant(i) c/e-->e/c ground?
Well that's that then on to other topics. Wish I'd caught the debate about black smokers though...
Incidently Brad I couldn't understand a word of your post - was it supposed to go on a different thread?
The Rock Hound

This message is a reply to:
 Message 4 by Brad McFall, posted 05-30-2003 11:22 AM Brad McFall has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 6 by Brad McFall, posted 06-02-2003 1:25 PM IrishRockhound has replied

  
Brad McFall
Member (Idle past 5032 days)
Posts: 3428
From: Ithaca,NY, USA
Joined: 12-20-2001


Message 6 of 23 (41963)
06-02-2003 1:25 PM
Reply to: Message 5 by IrishRockhound
06-02-2003 7:28 AM


Re: geology as next ant(i) c/e-->e/c ground?
Nope, if one is willing to do this seperation in biochemsity than one is MORE likely to search off EARTH for the distances needed to make a MATHAMATICAL PROJECTION in comptuer/simulated space OF A CONTINUTIY and because atomic science seems* rather to have most readers THINK that space it self in this case is discontinuous (Feynamn etc) it usually happens that isolation of the question occurs than the continuance in the ANSWER. But that is how finshing polishing a telescope goes as well it seemed to me. REPLICATION is something that happens IN metabolism but only if life has more than Earth origin does it happen to one to think that there may be different relications (EIGens etc) for a plurity in the biochemisty of the transiently understood metabolism. The adjective IS important. Thanks for getting back to me. Best.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 5 by IrishRockhound, posted 06-02-2003 7:28 AM IrishRockhound has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 7 by IrishRockhound, posted 06-03-2003 9:03 AM Brad McFall has replied

  
IrishRockhound
Member (Idle past 4436 days)
Posts: 569
From: Ireland
Joined: 05-19-2003


Message 7 of 23 (41995)
06-03-2003 9:03 AM
Reply to: Message 6 by Brad McFall
06-02-2003 1:25 PM


Re: geology as next ant(i) c/e-->e/c ground?
I still can't understand how this relates to my original post. Maybe biochemistry just isn't my strong point... Please explain what you're trying to say in the simplest way possible.
The Rock Hound

This message is a reply to:
 Message 6 by Brad McFall, posted 06-02-2003 1:25 PM Brad McFall has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 8 by Brad McFall, posted 06-03-2003 12:01 PM IrishRockhound has replied

  
Brad McFall
Member (Idle past 5032 days)
Posts: 3428
From: Ithaca,NY, USA
Joined: 12-20-2001


Message 8 of 23 (42008)
06-03-2003 12:01 PM
Reply to: Message 7 by IrishRockhound
06-03-2003 9:03 AM


Re: geology as next ant(i) c/e-->e/c ground?
quote:
This is continuing from another topic started by mike the wiz - (creation argument) - where we were talking about the origin of RNA and DNA based life. Here's what I found:
Yes, me too, I did find some things about RNA vs DNA in terms of an ORIGIN that is rarely apparent from Darwin's title book but I would not have started the natural kinds of thought about silicon etc basing for after listening to Linus Pauling talk about Boron I realized there were more fundamental questions in physical chemsistry that would really need to be addressed before SPECULATING about rxn systems able to afford the functionality of DNA and RNA. I no longer think this probable though it is possible. As for RNA AND DNA based life origins I HAVE Thought about it from a perspective of torque interacting with physical gradients such as temperature, organic locomotion, etc but this does not assume that living material (DNA and RNA) PREexisted the origination timing with or without dissipative systems. Hence I found discussions that seperated DNA and RNA as to origins misplaced (especially in light of my recent reading of Boscovich) and hence I agree with You as if wer were talking about the origin of RNA and DNA BASED life.
quote:
"The first hypothesis about the origin of life was put forward by a Russian scientist named Oparin in 1924 - it stated that the early atmosphere of the Earth was anoxic and consisted of carbon dioxide, methane, ammonia, hydrogen sulphide, etc. When these gases condensed into a "primordial soup" ocean, certain aminoacids could be synthesised if a source of energy was added.
Stanley Miller (an American scientist) attempted to reproduce this effect by electrifying the gas mixture, and succeeded in producing several characteristic aminoacids.
Another American scientist at the University of Florida named Fox ran more elaborate versions of this experiment, and succeeded in producing protenoids - complex molecules of around 200 aminoacids. As he continued working with them, he showed that over longer periods of time they spontaneously formed into microspheres - bounding membranes required for cells.
Presently I am thinking that perhaps the amino acids interact with a "dielectric ether" both within protein sensu stricto and especially with respect to connections of adherence beyond the cell membrane. The important thing that I think is mistaken here was Fox's thought that size and shape protenoids implied homology to existing cell's collected membranes. I tried in high school to make these spheres. I am tending to think of topobiology at this point noting that ENERGY had to be added which tends to think this may NOT have been how it happened. The issue is with the conception of force and the chemical bond and I find increasinly that Crick's position which for him was enough to dash vital forces for RNA hypercycles etc was not what the words let alone the impulse it meant gave. But that is only a guess on my part. I see DNA, RNA, PROTEINS and CELL MEMBRANES as constiutive but I do not see the need to follow Weismann and claim subcellular selection though such may indeed be happening and thus I think of Fox's microspheres as ONLY protein and not pre-existng living protein material of what was the first cytoplasm. Weismann thought of death of the cytoplasm from Darwin's organismal level but if DNA, RNA, Proteins, and Membranes are all part and parcel of one Boscovich curve of force Universe adapted differentially between two infinite directums then Weismann's seperation needs to be modifed by the molecular embyrology of cell death in topobiology. I dont know.
quote:
The most important step was still to discover how primitive life replicated, as all modern life requires DNA and RNA.
Recent research suggests that small strands of RNA can replicate without the need for enzymes, unlike DNA - so the early world could have been dominated by RNA organisms.
Here you seem to have noted what I had researched was originally Freeman Dyson's contribution that spurred S. Kaufmann to work in the this discipline that replication IS INDEPENDENT of METABOLISM. What I would be doing at this point is trying to understand is whether re-cycling of parts of the macromolecules has any irreversible macrothermodynamic reality within an inequality of FROM entropy of reversibilities on the higher levels that may indeed need enzymes. So you see I really to think about this stuff not as is standard. What they are trying to discuss is that SINCE we can tease apart DNA, RNA, Proteins -- the disjuction implies importance for origin. I am not so sure this thinking point is directly correct. Certainly Boscovich thought otherwise for he argued that there is NOT compenetration in terms of particles and if these molecules are Boscovich's particles AND Maxwell's vortex "particles" then the way people are approaching the study of the origin of life is misaruged from a proabalims to start with. I agree with you not every thing is random and we may one day deterimine bio-change pathways. The problem is that the anti-reductionist position held by at best Lewontin only argues against BIOLOGICAL DETERMINISM and not for the determination of any particular biology.
quote:
An alternative view is that life did not originate on Earth. The Murchison Meteorite, discovered in Australia in 1969, was classified as a stony meteorite with carbonaceous chondrites - meaning that aminoacids were present. These were different from Earth aminoacids in that they had equal amounts of left and right hand structural configurations in their molecules. Their carbon13 ratio was also much higher - all powerful evidence of their extraterrestrial origin.
This lead to the proposition of Hoyle in the 1970's of the panspermia hypothesis - that microbes present in cosmic dust came to settle in the Earth's stratosphere and lead to the development of life.
Scientists do agree that life probably did originate in the oceans. Evidence for this is the existence of 'black smokers' - undersea volcanic vents where life thrives without the need for oxygen or sunlight (autotroph bacteria - survive by chemosynthesis)."
This is taken more or less verbatim from my own notes - I left out some of the more technical stuff. This is the current view among geologists (the Irish and British ones anyway) about the origin of life.
I have said a few things in the cosmology threads about life in the universe at large but once again there were and still are plenty of things right here on earth that can be rather I hope not detracted from and sicne there IS NOT a good deductive biogeography in any sense explaining disjucnt locaties on and off the Earth would be less profitable then attempting work with techonlogy in local loops of species distribution, GBIF, NEON etc, of course it is possible that life arose in Dark Matter or is it not? When evaluating the different attidues of biologists with respec to ecological time frames and evolutioanry time frames and then attempting to find a common mathematrical symbolism for ecology and evoltuion I considered indeed life from under water starting but I do not see the signs that the biological communinty could standardize its already in use tools of math so I have moved on to create my own to work from than what has been used in the past. The stage of this instantiation is quite embryonic at present however.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 7 by IrishRockhound, posted 06-03-2003 9:03 AM IrishRockhound has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 9 by IrishRockhound, posted 06-03-2003 12:20 PM Brad McFall has replied

  
IrishRockhound
Member (Idle past 4436 days)
Posts: 569
From: Ireland
Joined: 05-19-2003


Message 9 of 23 (42012)
06-03-2003 12:20 PM
Reply to: Message 8 by Brad McFall
06-03-2003 12:01 PM


Re: geology as next ant(i) c/e-->e/c ground?
I actually understood that. Wow.
I don't think the panspermia hypothesis really holds any water - it simply brings up the question of how life originated in space, which is far more hostile than Earth. It is generally agreed that life as we know it did originate in the oceans - to me it suggests that there was no other reason except that the oceans were probably less hostile than the land at that time.
quote:
I think of Fox's microspheres as ONLY protein and not pre-existng living protein material of what was the first cytoplasm.
Remember Fox could not conduct his experiment over the kind of geological timescales we see in the fossil record. It is possible that if the experiment was conducted over millions of years, the first pre-RNA life could eventually occur. If this is the case then the origin of life will never be conclusively proven.
The Rock Hound

This message is a reply to:
 Message 8 by Brad McFall, posted 06-03-2003 12:01 PM Brad McFall has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 10 by Brad McFall, posted 06-04-2003 1:00 PM IrishRockhound has replied

  
Brad McFall
Member (Idle past 5032 days)
Posts: 3428
From: Ithaca,NY, USA
Joined: 12-20-2001


Message 10 of 23 (42087)
06-04-2003 1:00 PM
Reply to: Message 9 by IrishRockhound
06-03-2003 12:20 PM


Re: geology as next ant(i) c/e-->e/c ground?
Welcome to the club of those that KNOW I am not Crazy or Ill. Yes there is room for me to be falsifed precisely as I attempt to get a hearing to do the same for Gould. I am really thinking it possible to get some notion of INTEGRABLE time in biochange but I wont put a spandrelized token on this subway untill I read somewhere that deductive biogeography actually has a faculty of thought and not and Island of gilligan's Aleph. Jess-I almost did the Clinton thing. We used to Get coal from Clinton NJ but we had to go thru whitehouse not Sommervile to not get i'mcloned in the process.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 9 by IrishRockhound, posted 06-03-2003 12:20 PM IrishRockhound has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 11 by IrishRockhound, posted 06-09-2003 11:06 AM Brad McFall has replied

  
IrishRockhound
Member (Idle past 4436 days)
Posts: 569
From: Ireland
Joined: 05-19-2003


Message 11 of 23 (42428)
06-09-2003 11:06 AM
Reply to: Message 10 by Brad McFall
06-04-2003 1:00 PM


Re: geology as next ant(i) c/e-->e/c ground?
quote:
I am really thinking it possible to get some notion of INTEGRABLE time in biochange but I wont put a spandrelized token on this subway untill I read somewhere that deductive biogeography actually has a faculty of thought and not and Island of gilligan's Aleph. Jess-I almost did the Clinton thing. We used to Get coal from Clinton NJ but we had to go thru whitehouse not Sommervile to not get i'mcloned in the process.
Um, you've lost me again. What the hell does spandrelized mean?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 10 by Brad McFall, posted 06-04-2003 1:00 PM Brad McFall has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 12 by Brad McFall, posted 06-09-2003 1:05 PM IrishRockhound has replied

  
Brad McFall
Member (Idle past 5032 days)
Posts: 3428
From: Ithaca,NY, USA
Joined: 12-20-2001


Message 12 of 23 (42441)
06-09-2003 1:05 PM
Reply to: Message 11 by IrishRockhound
06-09-2003 11:06 AM


Re: geology as next ant(i) c/e-->e/c ground?
It refers to Gould's et al etc notion of exaptation IN MY MIND. We discussed this at Cornell, and I can start a discussion from Gould's tome on it if you prefer than my own ideas which were negative about this "concept" at that time for I think this is just a tab or place holder for what Gould had not been able to heirarchisize but I used the word here after seeing Ruse write in Nature or Science about Gould's book while he asked at the same time something I learned from my Grandmother as a teen ager as to if we could keep our converstaions of religion seperated AS GOULD VIEWED CHURCHES to which I think is as ludicrious as the Faraday Scholar who I SAW PREACH in Sage Chappel at Cornell give me an F for failing to see which snake was not on the Simpsons last nite.
There should still be some projection of the Chruch building that is not immediately cashed out in terms of Gould's provision for Maxwell's watch direction of the medium that in a body alife ought nonetheless work in or out the church and turn without twisting the skin to the north or south depending on the construction. The point was not that there are some people like my Grandma who "disbelive" and would assent to Ruse's post-Gould death call but that those who DO be not kept from eating meat if they so also desire...
If you really want some useful information relative directly to Gould's notion of evolutionary change from continuing this interpretation I will look up Gould's work and not refer to my own. best brad. It is not simply a matter of adpative and non-adaptive when it comes to temperature switches at cell death but Will Provine could only see a phase transition here where there is a bevy of statistical mechanics instead of genius at the switch the demon operated.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 11 by IrishRockhound, posted 06-09-2003 11:06 AM IrishRockhound has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 13 by IrishRockhound, posted 06-11-2003 7:28 AM Brad McFall has replied

  
IrishRockhound
Member (Idle past 4436 days)
Posts: 569
From: Ireland
Joined: 05-19-2003


Message 13 of 23 (42544)
06-11-2003 7:28 AM
Reply to: Message 12 by Brad McFall
06-09-2003 1:05 PM


Re: geology as next ant(i) c/e-->e/c ground?
Sure - post some of Gould's stuff if you want. In college we only really touched on his work, and I'd like to find out a bit more.
The Rock Hound

This message is a reply to:
 Message 12 by Brad McFall, posted 06-09-2003 1:05 PM Brad McFall has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 14 by Brad McFall, posted 06-11-2003 12:46 PM IrishRockhound has not replied

  
Brad McFall
Member (Idle past 5032 days)
Posts: 3428
From: Ithaca,NY, USA
Joined: 12-20-2001


Message 14 of 23 (42562)
06-11-2003 12:46 PM
Reply to: Message 13 by IrishRockhound
06-11-2003 7:28 AM


Re: geology as next ant(i) c/e-->e/c ground?
I dont think Gould played out his hand far enough aka your question of origins but he seems to think that Mayr will not be shown to be correct in spirit when it comes to the non-neutral nature of Stasis when not also mass extinction but I still hold to my high school evalutation there for any change there can not be TWO gradual vs punctuated kinds of change unless the locus of change be known materially and not merely conceptually. If one COUNTS the population from the cell AND NOT the organism then I suspect even Dawkins' notions will not surive any hypothetical test that injects randomness and then attempts to find correlations but this may still not be able to originate the discussion of origins you started in this thread. I only say that it makes non-sense to see that life PRE exists this life for if it was (pre)existent than it was not the same life but something else but when it comes to units of disection in any taxogeny I doubt that merely refering to Sewall Wright effect on the species level will hold the philosopher's attention in a clinical in silico environnment and exploration of the solar system. I think that if you had not got MORE Gould you merely need to allow time and history its chance. I however got stuck with it because of Zimmer and Provine who still are flesh in my own sinful thorn that only plants have but at least these "guys" are not mental health professionals as it was before.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 13 by IrishRockhound, posted 06-11-2003 7:28 AM IrishRockhound has not replied

  
contracycle
Inactive Member


Message 15 of 23 (43293)
06-18-2003 9:27 AM


Eh... I hesitate to ask, but what was this meant to mean?
"In the past I has thought there WAS something to dialectical materialism materially but seeing as those kind of scientists could not gain say topobiology evolutionary I give that this but passing interest only. "
I'm conversant with dialectical materialism. No I am not aware of any applied work on topobiology. I'm just curious as to what you are on about here.
Edite: "not gainsay"... do you mean, "could not contradict evolution"? That would be unsurprising given dialectical materialism's own basis.
[This message has been edited by contracycle, 06-18-2003]

Replies to this message:
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