Abiogenesis

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Now we will move on to #4. DNAUnion once again disputed this.

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I will bring out the dictionary again.

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autocatalysis: Catalysis of a chemical reaction by one of the products of the reaction.

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replication: The process by which genetic material, a single-celled organism, or a virus reproduces or makes a copy of itself

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So auto-catalysis is replication because one of the products of it is the catalyzer--it has made a copy of itself.

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Autocatalysis and self-replication are not the same thing. For example:

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David Lee and his colleagues at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, have now shown that autocatalytic capabilities are not confined to RNA or DNA or even PNA. They isolated a small peptide, part of a protein made by yeast, and showed that it could catalyze the joining together of two fragments of itself to make more copies of the complete peptide.

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Here again, of course, the result is far from a completely self-replicating molecule. Such a molecule would have to start not with two pieces of itself but with a set of building blocks — in this case amino acids — and make a copy of itself from scratch. (Christopher Wills & Jeffrey Bada, The Spark of Life: Darwin and the Primeval Soup, Perseus Publishing, 2000, p136)

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See, the 32-aa is autocatalytic, but it is not a self-replicator. Different things.In fact, you yourself refute your claim, as follows:

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I described one such auto-catalyzer. Let me review it again:

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Hammerhead ribozymes are small, catalytic RNAs that undergo self-cleavage of their own backbone to produce two RNA products. ...

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So by your stating that the hammerhead ribozymes are autocatalytic you are claiming that they replicate themselves, even though you say they undergo self-cleavage of their own backbone to produce two RNA products. But how can one be replicating itself if it cleaves its own backbone resulting in two RNA molecules that differ from the original?********************************
Just so that we are all clear on what I actually stated, here’s Black's original statement followed by my reply to it.

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Black: (4) RNA would need neither DNA nor protein to catalyze its own replication

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DNAunion: That's the theory. No prebiotically plausible experiment has accomplished this.

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[This message has been edited by DNAunion, 04-10-2004]

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In conclusion, I still believe that all four of my statements were correct.

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Only one has been confirmed by experimentation.

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DNAunion: The experiment required SPECIFIC 15-aa and SPECIFIC 17-aa sequences. And EACH copy of the full template to be made required its own set of one presynthesized 15-aa and one presynthesized 17-aa "half", preactivated, of course.

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And the 32-aa peptide we’ve been discussing has no relevance to abiogenesis since it cannot actually self-replicate.

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Black: self-replication: Replicating oneself or itself

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Too simplistic and not the one applicable to abiogenesis. More below.

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What does the GL peptide do (and Chmielewski's peptide)? It replicates itself (I put the definition of replicate somewhere above).

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So yes it is self-replication.

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No, it is not self-replication when discussing OOL. You are guilty of equivocation. The GL peptide simply does not self-replicate in any manner relevant to abiogenesis and your attempts to tie its activity to OOL is disingenuous.A self-replicator in the OOL sense cannot rely upon researchers to synthesize every one of its complex and highly improbably halves, preactivate them, and feed them to the reaction. That’s simply not what abiogenesis is about.If the peptide were placed in an amino acid solution and it could create copies of itself, then yes, it would be a self-replicator in a sense relevant to abiogenesis. But it can’t do that, not at all, so it’s not a self-replicator in the OOL sense.And it’s not just me saying this:

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David Lee and his colleagues at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, have now shown that autocatalytic capabilities are not confined to RNA or DNA or even PNA. They isolated a small peptide, part of a protein made by yeast, and showed that it could catalyze the joining together of two fragments of itself to make more copies of the complete peptide.

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Here again, of course, the result is far from a completely self-replicating molecule. Such a molecule would have to start not with two pieces of itself but with a set of building blocks — in this case amino acids — and make a copy of itself from scratch. (Christopher Wills & Jeffrey Bada, The Spark of Life: Darwin and the Primeval Soup, Perseus Publishing, 2000, p136)

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Next topic:

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DNAunion: Just so we are clear: no RNA polymer that could have kick started life has ever been discovered in experiments carried out under prebiotically plausible conditions.

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Black: What kind of RNA polymer are you looking for?

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One that could have kick started life, of course. There are several criteria, and not all of them are self-evident. Some of them include:1) Must be able to make a complete (complementary) copy of itself from its constituent monomers - free riobnucleotides — under prebiotically plausible conditions.2) a) The complementary copy must be able to make a complete (complementary) copy of itself from its constituent monomers — free ribonucleotides — under prebiotically plausible conditions.ORb) The original must be able to make a complete (complementary) copy of its complementary molecule it produced, again from the constituent monomers - free ribonucleotides - under prebiotically plausible conditions.3) The molecule must be able to evolve.********************************
Edited to add 2b[This message has been edited by DNAunion, 04-11-2004]

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Replies to this message:
Message 117 by DNAunion, posted 04-10-2004 05:57 PM
Message 118 by DNAunion, posted 04-10-2004 06:01 PM
Message 119 by DNAunion, posted 04-10-2004 06:08 PM
Message 120 by DNAunion, posted 04-10-2004 06:26 PM
Message 121 by DNAunion, posted 04-10-2004 06:51 PM
Message 122 by DNAunion, posted 04-10-2004 07:19 PM

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For God's sake, DNA. Say it in one post or don't say it at all, you know? This is excessive badgering.

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DNA, is there really a need for the ad hominems? Tone it down please.

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The attitude seems to be your modus operandi around here and if it is going to continue you'll be taking an extended break.

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And anyone who made it past elementary school can see that I didn't say it
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But since you seem incapable of grasping something so simple, let me explain it to you
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Did you lose your mind? Yep
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If you had half a brain and were honest you wouldn't be able to try to claim that two very different things you said were the same
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Odd, I didn't see a similar warning given to Mark24 for the following comments he made in another thread.

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Mark24: Good grief!!!

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Look, it is all VERY simple. That means it can't have been fucked about by liquefaction or hydrodyamic sorting, right? That means it was, whether you like it or not,

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DO YOU UNDERSTAND?

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Mark24: You mean your argument got whipped, six of the best trousers down, don't you?

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You can't help yourselves, can you? You are such a compartmentalised thinkers that you never cross-check one of your held beliefs against another for consistency. This is ALL creationism is, tiny factoids ripped from their context at the expense of all directly contradictory data.

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It was crashingly obvious to anyone who actually was a critical thinker that you were being a hypocritical creationist grasping at straws for something that would support your view. Typical.

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Mark24: But [you] hypocritically say:

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You now appear to be backtracking as hard as you can claiming that liquefaction actually eliminated any such artifact!

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Please can you reconcile your two contradictory statements, above. Was the Ce a genesis event recorded, or not. You can't have it both ways, mate.

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Good luck.

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Mark24: There are no coral reefs in the Precambrian, blowing that entire paragraph out of the water.

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Absolute & utter hypocrisy.

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So if you aren't going to be a hypocrite you have to drop the non-fossilisation argument, or withdraw the objection of "fully formed fossils" appearing in the GC. Which is it?

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And I redraw your attention to your missing fossil inconsistency.

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No, no, NO!!!! Why is this so hard for you to understand?

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No, no, NO!!!

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You really do have a comprehension problem, don't you?

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A complete non-answer.

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Interesting... do you truly believe that "somebody else did it too!" constitutes a mitigating circumstance? Do you believe that's a mature response? Just curious.

This message was supposed to be a response to Black's message
EvC Forum: Abiogenesis
and was posted in reply to DNAUnion by mistakethis edit is a corrction of that mistake, leaving this message I have for DNAUnion: [This message has been edited by AbbyLeever, 04-11-2004]

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Crashfrog: For God's sake, DNA. Say it in one post or don't say it at all, you know? This is excessive badgering.

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Splitting up a reply into multiple posts that address individual topics is not only badgering, but excessive badgering??? Please Crashfrog, get a life!The one doing any badgering here is you Crashfrog.Of the dozens of points raised, addressed, and discussed, you did not reference any of them. All you did was begin waging another of your "badger DNA" campaigns.This is just the latest in your typical gorilla warfare tactics.If you have something of worth to contribute to the discussion, then by all means, please do so. If not, your "contributions" do no good, except to shows us your ability to hold a personal grudge indefinitely.[This message has been edited by DNAunion, 04-11-2004]

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Black: Well, before I start the message I would like to say a couple things. DNAUnion has make quite a lot of attacks on my character. He has repeatedly called me dishonest.

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That's pretty misleading, but I'll ignore that problem of yours for now.The thing is, I have also shown WHY your actions fit the actual "charges" I have made. They aren't empty charges I fabricated out of thin air, they're supported by facts.1) You stuffed words into my mouth that I absolutlely did not say and then you pretended to show me to be wrong by attacking your words instead of mine.2) I called you on it and explicitly stated that I did not say what you claimed I had.3) Instead of your simply admitting your error - as an honest person would do - you went further by tying to claim I had surely said it - even though I did not and I explicitly stated I did not.4) I pointed out the error in your "logic" that "showed" I had said it.5) I've even shown now that YOUR OWN STATEMENTS about autocatalysis and self-replication refute the logic you used.You did not have, and still do not have, any case for your stuffing words into my mouth, or your subsequent compounded disingenuousness.**********************************************Now, since YOUR OWN STATEMENTS refute your own offered logic for claiming I said what I clearly did not, the question remains: is your act of stuffing words into my mouth an act of dishonesty on your part, the result of a moment of stupidity on your part (since not even you can make your claim make sense), or some third, less obvious option? Just tell us and the matter will be settled.[This message has been edited by DNAunion, 04-11-2004]

EDITED: AbbyLeever moved his post so that it ended up below my reply to it: so I have moved my response so that it once again follows the statements it addresses.[This message has been edited by DNAunion, 04-11-2004]

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DNAunion: Odd, I didn't see a similar warning given to Mark24 for the following comments he made in another thread.

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Crashfrog: Interesting... do you truly believe that "somebody else did it too!" constitutes a mitigating circumstance?

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No, but I do think it is odd that some people can use obscenities - such as you calling me an asshole and Mark24 using "the 'F' word" - and no moderators object, and that some people can make aggressive statements about the inabilitiy of their opponents to understand simple matters ("Absolute & utter hypocrisy", "No, no, NO!!!! Why is this so hard for you to understand?", "You really do have a comprehension problem, don't you?", etc.) - and no moderators object: but when I say the kinds of things the moderator quoted above it must be pointed out and I must be warned.

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Crashfrog: Do you believe that's a mature response?

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No, I don't believe yours was a mature response! :-)In fact, I don't believe MOST of your responses to me are mature. You've taken up a badgering posture: you don't address any of the points I raise, you just hide in the shadows and sporadically snipe in a gorilla warfare-like manner.[This message has been edited by DNAunion, 04-11-2004]

black -- I can sympathize, as a similar experience happened to me. This, and his use of multiple posts in answer to one post, seem to be his main tools in an argument, the purpose of which appears to be an attempt to shout down the other opinions and evidence regardless of their worth. His problem also seems to be exacerbated by a propensity for misunderstanding other posters.He has gone so far as to take out of context quotes from two different posts of mine (separated by a series of other posts and about different things) to give the impression that I have contradicted myself, when in fact there is no such contradiction. That showed me that he was willingly dishonest, and I refuse to reply to any of his posts anymore as a result.I find your posts informative and constructive, and thank you for them.

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}

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Black: Well, before I start the message I would like to say a couple things. DNAUnion has make quite a lot of attacks on my character. He has repeatedly called me dishonest.

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AbbyLeever: I can sympathies, as a similar experience happened to me.

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Let's get this straight, AbbyLeever, you were the one who attacked me. And I pointed it out at the time.

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AbbyLeever: I have no need to converse with fools who repeat their mistakes.

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DNAunion: Tsk tsk...stooping to personal attacks...already!

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And then in another exchange:

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AbbyLeever: Poor fool.

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DNAunion: Tsk tsk...another personal attack. That makes two from you...zero from me. Let's all keep that in mind, shall we.

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AbbyLeever: That showed me that he was willingly dishonest, ...

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So you have called me not only a fool and a poor fool, but also willingly dishonest. Yet I am the only one who attacks others? How odd.

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AbbyLeever: ... I refuse to reply to any of his posts anymore as a result.

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This is priceless! You've just stated that you won't talk to me, but you obviously have no problem talking about me! Furthermore, you didn't address ANY of the actual points under discussion: your whole post was dedicated to mud slinging.You aren't interested in honest debate, but in trying to attack me... you and Crashfrog have a lot in common.[This message has been edited by DNAunion, 04-11-2004]

How can I address your points? They're generally buried in so much ad hominem and boorish behavior that it's impossible to recognize them. I suspect that's why you have such a problem getting your point across to so many posters here - you routinely sacrifice clarity for cheap shots at your opponent or transparent efforts at self-aggrandizement.Oh, and since you've used it twice, I assume you won't mind being corrected - it's "guerilla" warfare. Unless you're referring to my copious back hair?

Hee hee. It's "guerrilla warfare", Mr. Pedantfrog, sir.