Biogenesis

AOk writes: RAZD writes: So you are saying that life has always existed, even before the planet existed? Curious argument. Uhmmmm... That is the argument of creationism. Panspermia also argues that life was somehow transported to this planet after the planet existed. Either way both are philosophical faiths just like abiogenesis.

I am not at all a creationist, but I have no problem with the hypothesis that life existed elsewhere in the universe before Earth got it. To me, those who insist that Earth got it first are as geocentric as the creationists.

Which has the greatest likelihood: abiogenesis on Earth first, or extraterrestrial abiogenesis first and panspermic transport to Earth?

The only way out here is "multiregional abiogenesis," which would seem to have about the same likelihood as the other two options. We just don't know enough yet about abiogenesis to understand its formative principles. I doubt that God did it. But I don't have a clue on how it happened and, except for Earth, where else.

Creationists, this is your best angle of attack. God must have done it, because scientists can't figure it out. (Hey, maybe there's a parallel universe out there that holds some kind of a digital format for life, manifesting itself in the digital language of genes.)

—HM

bluegenes writes: AOKid writes: What we actually observe is that there is more than chemical reactions to have life. Really? What?

Please pardon my barging in, but what about the digital information that is stored in genes and then used to build proteins? Doesn't genetic "software" count for something more than mere chemical reactions?

—HM

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If you got some quince, Pussycat, I got a runcible spoon.

bluegenes writes: What you refer to as genetic software is all made of chemicals. If there's a change in information by mutation, that's a chemical change.

A DNA molecule is still a DNA molecule, even if its nucleotides are rearranged. What matters more than chemical DNA is the order of its nucleotides. And to say that genetic information is nothing without the chemicals is to say that thinking about it is nothing without a brain.

—HM

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If you got some quince, Pussycat, I got a runcible spoon.

bluegenes writes: There is nothing "more" than chemical reactions involved (so far as we can observe). The arrangement of the chemicals is a result of historical chemical reactions.

I'll stretch for this anology: If Bill Gates had agreed with IBM that MSDOS was nothing more than a computer's electronic parts then Microsoft would never have gotten off the ground. In other words, the code is more than the chemicals, just as thoughts are more than neuronic synapses.

—HM

Coragyps writes: A car is still a car, but a Yugo and a Maserati don't share all their functions.

But they both transport passengers from point A to point B, which is their function. The Y chromosome is still a DNA molecule, even if it differs from the X chromosome. There is nothing special about the A, G, C, and T—the chemicals—on a Y chromosome that makes it different from an X chromosome. What is essentially different and important is the arrangement of these nucleotides. The chemicals—A, G, C, and T—themselves are perfunctory and identical to those of any other DNA molecule.

—HM

Edited by Hoot Mon, : No reason given.

bluegenes writes: The arrangement of the chemicals determines what reactions will and will not happen, as I said above, and how the chemicals are arranged (those that determine Bill Gates's thoughts, for example) is the product of chemical history, and the chemical history has been subject to loads of variation and natural selection, which is why some arrangements of chemicals can give us the impression of containing "information" and "codes".

Of course this true about chemical history and NS. But considered this, bluegenes, consider the fact that most codons are not stereochemical—they contain code without having the stereochemical advantage of linking directly to AAs. The code, therefore, must be transcribed and translated by RNA molecules. Doesn't this, in your mind, make genes more of an "information suspension" thing, if you will, than just a Tinker Toy model of chemical construction?

Adenine is adenine is any codon, and it is only a chemical—always the same chemical. But adenine is also a bit of information in a 2x2x3 cubic matrix of the genetic language, which has a alphabet complexity of 4^3 and an average 3.2 redundancy factor for selecting any of 20 AAs to make a protein.

Can you agree to this?

—HM

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If you got some quince, Pussycat, I got a runcible spoon.

bluegenes writes: We haven't observed that, IMO. Take all the chemicals out of a life form, and you're left with a void. Describing arrangements of chemicals as information (suspended or not) does not make them something other than arrangements of chemicals. Surely you agree?

Does the difference between Shakespeare's Hamlet and Mozart's Requiem amount to anything more than ink stains on paper?

What sets biological organisms apart from rocks and dirt? I have this silly notion that it has something to do with genes—genetic information that jumps from material organism to material organism to survive, albeit they do their jumping on the backs of molecules.

But neither Shakespeare nor Mozart would have been remembered for anything without ink and paper; I'll give you that much. Same's true for genes and molecules. So what? There is a genetic code, and it has temporal wings that mere molecules could never ascend to.

—HM

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If you got some quince, Pussycat, I got a runcible spoon.

bluegenes writes: Hoot, my point is not about the degree of importance of the arrangements of chemicals. It is that if you take away the chemicals from life, and look at what's left, you're looking at a void.

And if you take away the code of life you're looking at a blob of chemicals.

Mere molecules can and have assembled themselves into your "genetic code".

Mere molecules have assembled themselves into your brain, too, but does that mean that your thinking is nothing more than chemicals?

Rahvin writes: Hoot, does sucrose contain information?

Well, Hawking says black holes contain information, so I suppose sucrose has some, too.

Yes, it's my fault that we're OT. Sorry. I'll skitter out by saying that chemistry is only about the molecular affairs of elements on the Periodic Table. That's all. And, yes, there's not a single element in any living organism that you can't find on that Periodic Table.

—HM

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If you got some quince, Pussycat, I got a runcible spoon.

bluegenes writes: Mere molecules!?!

All right, splendid molecules.

Why do you speak of molecules/chemicals as if they are lowly things? In the right assembly, they can make up something as extraordinary as the bluegenes brain...

The question is, then, Does the bluegene's brain contain any information?

Are we on topic?

I'm OT and out.

—HM

Edited by Hoot Mon, : spelling

Edited by Hoot Mon, : No reason given.

Adding to what you have said so well: Then abiogenesis had to be even more "miraculous." From soupy molecules to a digital code had to be one heck of an evolutionary trip.

—HM

Edited by Hoot Mon, : No reason given.

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If you got some quince, Pussycat, I got a runcible spoon.

AOKid writes: Now please can we return to the OP and concentrate on why you think abiogenesis is good science and the law of biogenesis is not.

Abiogenesis is "good science" only to the extent that we know that biological life did not always exist. Something happened somewhere, maybe once or maybe several times, to bring abiotic chemicals into a biotic arrangement. And scientists DON'T HAVE A CLUE as to how that came about. But scientists are not so gullible as to believe that abiogenesis was directed by a Universal Designer. We don't believe in Designer Fairies, either. We believe in testable hypotheses, empirical evidence, and peer reviews.

As for "the law of biogenesis," I have never heard of any scientist invoking it. "All life comes from other life." What does this law do for science? Why not a "law of chemogenesis"?—all chemicals come from other chemicals. Would that do anything useful for explaining the origin of molecules?

—HM

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If you got some quince, Pussycat, I got a runcible spoon.

AOkid, what about a "law of chemogenesis"? It would assert that all chemicals must come from other chemicals. Don't we need that one, too?

—HM

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If you got some quince, Pussycat, I got a runcible spoon.

AOkid,

Why, in your opinion, would the discovery of the principles of abiogenesis—let's even say the Laws of Abiogenesis—be anything more or less that an objective disclosure of God's creative work? If God created us after His own image then why wouldn't He be absolutely delighted to see us learn all we could about is His perfect ways? Doesn't God want us to be more like Him? Isn't that what grace is all about?

When humans learned that living organisms run on digital operating systems—genes—I think we got a closer look at how God created life, and how He keeps it going. (Hey, maybe God is digital programmer!) And if I actually did believe in Him I would want to use these arguments against any helpless scientist who can only reply: "Show me a testable hypothesis and some empirical evidence and then we'll have a peer review."

btw: Didn’t God use hydrogen and oxygen in a 2:1 ratio to make water? If He didn’t He should have. It's a good chemical.

—HM

AOkid writes: Rom. 1:22 Professing to be wise, they became fools.

How foolish of me to try to reason with such deep wisdom as yours. How shallow my thoughts. How wasteful my words. May the God of Blind Faith save us all from the evils of testable hypotheses and empirical evidence.

Lord, why did you give us brains and then expect us to use them as door stops?

—HM

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If you got some quince, Pussycat, I got a runcible spoon.