The great basic question of science on origin of life

Hey Vladimir,Hmm. I'm trying to understand your argument. Is there any way you could send me the PDF of your paper? Most journals AFAIK do not prohibit this; they only prohibit dissemination of your paper to the broader public. Let me know.Having said that, I've briefly outlined my understanding of your thesis:1. Proto-life forms cannot easily survive in an environment rich in Na+. This puts the origin of life in K+ ponds ("potassium big bang").2. But if life originated in potassium-rich ponds, why is an ATPase needed? This raises the possibility that the origin of the ur-ATPase required the intervention of agency.3. To understand the origin of life, we must understand non-membrane phase compartments.I'm still a little confused. Maybe you can expand further on how your points are linked together in a logical sequence. Thanks.

Hey Vladimir,So I've been busy over the past couple of months, but will gradually be responding to posts and a Great Debate thread.Anyway, I had a look at your presentation slides. It's an interesting hypothesis you propose. However, I'm not sure I quite see how it approaches the origin of life in a more effective manner than, e.g., Fox's microspheres. For starters, your model doesn't seem to address the origin of lipid membranes, a genetic code, and more sophisticated molecular machinery like F-ATPases. I'm probably missing something here, but I'm not sure I quite see what specific problem your model solves.(Of course, it doesn't have to "solve" a problem necessarily, since exploratory science -- where alternatives models are offered -- can often be useful)

C'mon, Pressie. You're looking for an argument where there isn't one. For starters, you didn't ask if life is poofed into existence. You asked if he thought life was poofed into existence. That nuance may be subtle, but it matters, because it makes your whole analogy kinda tangential.And just read his freakin' paper. I'm guessing you have what it takes to grasp at least some of it. His model is based on the adsorption of water molecules on polypeptide surfaces. No poofing involved. Case closed.

No models have been demonstrated to provide a satisfactory explanation for the origin of biological life. That includes your model. While your hypothesis does offer a somewhat different approach to looking at the origin of life, it still leaves a lot to explain, like the origin of gram-positive and gram-negative membrane structures.

But that doesn't explain the transition from gram-positive prokaryotes to gram-negative prokaryotes. In other words, just imagining the origin of a simple membrane bag does nothing to explain the origin of the earliest life forms empirically known to exist -- bacteria.Anyways, I'm still a little confused about your model. How does your model explain the origin of (1) the first membrane-bound cell systems, (2) the origin of ATPases and other early molecular machinery?Edited by Genomicus, : No reason given.