Abiogenisis by the Numbers

Surely amino acids dissolving in water is exactly what makes it possible to make long chains of them. If they were insoluble how exactly would they join to other amino acids? If hydrogen atoms weren't removed from the amino acids, how could a different amino acid take it's place?

No, I meant "Crashfrog is a pompous ass for pointing out spelling errors and thinking it gives him an edge in a debate". Are you telling me there was one SHREAD of proof for special relativity prior to the theory being proposed? Damn straight about the mathematics part........as for evidence, how much evidence for abiogenesis falls outside of the "here's some naturally occuring goop" category? No......no, there aren't. Every multi or oscillating universe theory is dependant on string theory to explain the amount of variablity between universes. You're right........it's an hypothesis.........just like abiogenesis. String theory has nothing to do with what caused the Big Bang. And why would scientists have an idea of that? Isn't like we've been studying living things for millenia.........First life would've had to have been a lipid cell with genetic material inside sufficient to metabolize and reproduce.......both of which, if I'm not mistaken, require proteins. We have no reason to think that any form of life that's simpler can exist. And the odds against that single protein forming are a google to one........ True. And it's mathematically IMPOSSIBLE for such things to self-assemble, barring future discoveries which we have no reason to believe we'll make. Funny how I don't see the words "replicate" or "metabolize" anywhere in your description of what the lipid bilayer was doing........only in the summary. Really? Because I don't recall tweaking molecules to form a bubble the last time I washed my hands........it just kinda happened.

I dunno, that's why I asked.......I don't understand why disolving would help amino acids form into proteins.

Show your work.

This is true. And ID advocates assume favorable conditions for abiogenesis when making their equations........and they also assume a level of complexity (a single protein) which is much less complex than first life most likely had to have been. I have NEVER seen an ID proponent do this. According to Behe, nucleic acids are much more complex than amino acids and, therefore, getting RNA to self-assemble would be a "walk in the park" compared to getting a protein to do so.So, I reiterate.........first life was certainly no less complex than a single protein molecule. Sounds rather vague......what kind of "later association" are you referring to?

Coragyps, you'll have to shell out some money on some Dembski for that one......

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I dunno, that's why I asked.......I don't understand why disolving would help amino acids form into proteins.

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If you have ever taken a chemistry class, you may remember that 99% of the reactions carried out in lab occur in water. Water is an ideal liquid for chemical reactions to occur. For amino acids, when they are dissolved in water it becomes possible for these amino acids to react with each other and create a polymer. This is because amino acids have a carboxy terminus (the negative end) and a amino terminus (the positive end). When certain conditions are right, the negative and positive ends connect like legos, creating a protein. Most of these conditions require the amino acids to be dissolved in water in order for them to have a medium to react in.

Risenlord,Could you please supply the first replicator that Dembski based his probabilities on? Without this knowledge we can't critique his choice of the first replicator nor the calculations he used. Also, without this knowledge, your assertions mean nothing.

You seem familiar enough with his work, and I'm a very cheap individual. Give us a summary of how he got a google to one odds, and we'll all be grateful.

I wasn't trying to be pompous, and I never criticize for spelling, as a rule.I simply didn't understand what you meant in that sentence, and I still don't. I'm still not sure if you meant "genesis" or "genus", because either way, your sentence still doesn't make any sense to me. So explain what you meant, already. Calling me names doesn't increase my understanding, or make you look any better as a communicator. Yeah. Mercury wasn't where the Newtonian models said it would be. Relativity explained why, though that wasn't what led Einstein to come up with the theory. But almost immediately that was how people knew he was on to something. Well, shit, dude, what would you expect evidence for abiogenesis to look like? "Using naturally occuring processes under situations mimicing ancient Earth, we were able to stimulate the formation of this substance or structure, which is suspected of being a chemical precursor of life."Absolutely none of what we've described, so far, constitutes "goop". Your use of that word further betrays the chasm of ignorance that separates you from substantive debate on this issue. Again, simply wrong. Had you made a cursory effort to inform yourself, you would have discovered that loop quantum gravity, noncommutative geometry, and Penrose's "Twistor theory" are all competing, non-string-based cosmological models. I'm not sure why you feel that's any sort of criticism. Studying the chemical precursors to life, seeing as how they no longer exist, is quite difficult. That we have any results at all, currently, is a considerable testament to the ingenuity of biochemists. As a theory of quantum gravity, in fact, it directly addresses the cause of the Big Bang. Because the universe doesn't tend to be black and white. Our classifications of things don't really reflect inherent natures in reality; they're just convinient boxes for us to put things into. The universe is under no obligation to operate in a way that lends itself towards easy classification.The other problem that makes it difficult is that living things are made from the exact same kinds of things as non-living ones. Why? Circular logic. If a simpler precursor to that organism did exist, which, in all likelyhood it did, you wouldn't consider it alive.The question is not "what is the first living thing?" The question is, what is the ultimate chemical precursor to all living things? Well, the odds that you would be you, and not someone else, are one out of the total number of sperm released by your father.But that's not evidence that you don't exist, now is it? Oh? Impossible, is it?Prove it. Show me the math. Self-assembly occurs constantly in nature. It's surprisingly frequent for something you claim to be impossible. This doesn't even make any sense. My description makes it abundantly clear that those processes were occuring. Do you know what those words even mean? Because it looks like you don't. Look, let me make it absolutely clear, because you don't seem to get it. Lipid bilayers aren't soap bubbles. Only someone completely ignorant of the simplest aspects of biochemistry would be confused about the two.

Clarify what you/Behe are saying here, please. RNA is much easier to assemble than a protein because its building blocks are more complex??

[qs ]I dunno, that's why I asked.......I don't understand why disolving would help amino acids form into proteins.[/qs]I think Loudmouth beat me to it (right down to the lego brick analogy, which I was going to use myself). It strikes me as very odd that your sources would say that amino acids dissolving is a bad thing.

Another ambiguous claim with no numbers to back it up...The classic ID equation makes some assumptions that are not at all "favorable" as you suggest. To start, why does Behe insist on using protein for his calculations rather than RNA? It's quite simple, because proteins needs to have more units, and have more options for units, than RNA.The ID "favorable" conditions usually claim that a protein needs to be at least 300 amino acids long to be functional, and there are at least 20 amino acids to choose from. They assume that only one specific sequence will produce anything useful (which is false), so the odds become:1 in 20^300 ; or 1 in 20000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000000000000or as you might say, "impossible".However, let's examine an RNA-based RNA polymerase replicator that has been discovered in actual laboratory experiments:26 units long, with 4 possible units, assuming that only one sequence is useful:1 in 4^26; or 1 in 4500000000000000Suddenly the odds are a lot less "impossible", and I assumed that only a single 26 bp sequence would have activity; we know that many other sequences have activity, so the odds are much less than stated above.In addition, some experiments suggest that the minimal RNA length with catalytic activity is 8 bp:1 in 4^8; or 1 in 65536Again, these odds include the assumption that only one 8 bp RNA has catalytic activity.Hopefully you see that the IDers have NOT used simple, "favorable" conditions to determine their probabilities.

Loudmouth, thanks for the info.

Speaking of ambiguous claims with nothing to back them up.... For starters, Behe gives no calculations at all......the numbers I've mentioned are from other scientists. Behe simply asserts that RNA is much less likely to self-assemble than proteins. Also, the RNA world theory is FAR from universally accepted and has many critics in the abiogenesis camp.....most theories involving abiogenesis have to do with proteins. And nucleic acids are themselves very complex apparently.......much more complex than amino acids.......and have tendancies which would make it very difficult for them to self-assemble. I've never heard such a claim. "Discovered"? You mean "intelligently designed" in labroatory experiments, don't you? And that bit of replicating RNA is NOT a life form....... Oh, yeah, one in 65536......that's a sure thing......