Abiogenesis

Question: Do you assume that abiogenesis necessarily had to happen on planet Earth? If so, could you provided the reasoning to support this? I bring this up because geocentrism too often goes unquestioned on this forum. Biologically speaking, we are still largely Earth-bound on this matter of abiogenesis.Obviously, abiogenesis happened...somewhere. The key question is whether it happened on a multi-regional basis (many origins) or on a single-origin basis. If biological life is a one-off, which is often the prevailing assumption, then we know Earth was the scene of that glorious event. And it may have been so, because we know of ONLY ONE kind of life. Perhaps the greatest mystery in biology”even more mysterious than abiogenesis”is this appearance of "organizational singularity," if I may. One might expect to see several competing kinds of life”say DNA/RNA life fighting it out with carbonate crystalline life”to take advantage of available resouces. (Schrdinger might have called it "aperiodic crystalline life" vs. "periodic crystalline life.") But there simply is no evidence of a "beta-max" competitor that lost the mighty struggle for our biosphere. Biological life is the only kind we know of, and there is only one kind of it”life with coded nucleic acids. How strange!Now, if that abiogenic stuggle went on somehwere else besides Earth, then why would we expect to see any evidence of it here?”HM

Your lab is way too small to accommodate the improbability of abiogenesis. If it happened once, and only here, then why isn't happening here all the time? Why is your lab so good for abiogenesis one time in its histroy and not so good for it at another? Mother Earth may be old but she still seems to have plenty of bio-friendly tits.”HM

Good God! They're eating the evidence! What could be more convenient?”HMEdited by Hoot Mon, : only vanity

Rob writes: I'm curious about what you mean by "where" and "from." Do you mean a location? Or do you mean a path from that location? Or do you actually mean a "how" instead of a "where from"?If you don't fancy any how-based mechanics in your explanation of life, then answers like this one would suffice: "Life comes from the Love of God and the boundless and immeasurable creativity in His Heart." Is that enough for you?”HM

If abiogenesis was an entirely mechanical process and involved no genetic encryption processes at all, then I think scientists would have discovered all of its mysteries by now. They would be conducting table-top abiogenesis demonstrations routinely in Biology 101 labs. The biggest problem in explaining abiogenesis is accounting for how genes got into the act. There must have been an operational role for pure information when abiogenesis occurred. Was it a one-off "miracle"? Did it happen only once? One thing seems obvious: after Earth's bio-friendly vestibule became flooded with genes there was no need for nature to bother any further with abiogenesis.Unless someone discovers how gene encryption evolved from nothing we'll never solve the mystery of abiogenesis.”HM

kuresu wrote: Nothing more than the fact that a gene is a linear digital code that is encrypted on one nucleic acid and translated by another. Does an operational role necessarily imply purpose? Does the operational role of a sperm”to fertilize an egg”mean that the sperm has a purpose to do so?”HM

It's not? You'll have to rewrite the last half-century of molecular biology if it isn't.”HM

kuresu, you said: Well, if you won't take my word for it, would you accept Richard Dawkins' words (River Out Of Eden, 1995, p. 19)?:

quote:

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Genes are pure information”information that can be encoded, recorded, and decoded, without an degradation or change of meaning. Pure information can be copied and, since it is digital information, the fidality of the copying can be immense. DNA characters are copied with an accuracy that rivals anything modern engineers can do. They are copied down through generations, with just enough occasional errors to introduce variety.

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Genes even use a digital "alphabet" to express themselves. All of that digital stuff had to evolve along with the chemical stuff to make abiogenesis happen. Otherwise, incipient biological life would have had no way of generational communication.”HM

This thread is about abiogenesis. NOBODY, and mean NOBODY, knows anything important enough about abiogenesis to tell another poster here that he/she is wrong about how it happened. The Creationists and the Evolutionists are equally in the dark about where life came from and how it got here. I think a few posters on this thead need to put their arrogant peckers back in their pants. And for Admins and their henchmen to crucify a Creationist to make their peckers look larger is PURE CHICKEN SH!T.Pissants, get a clue. You know less than you think you do.”HM

I don't think God did it”committed abiogenesis”but I do think nature did it somehow. My point is centered around the idea that a digital coe had to co-evolve into existence when abiogenesis took place. If all there was to it was a batch of chemicals in a bath of energy I think abiogenesis would not be a mystery to us at all. We'd be doing it routinely for kinds good and bad reasons. But the fact is that a genetic system”a digital communication system”had to adjoin the molecules to make abiogenesis happen.Until biologists can demonstrate how the code originated in the molecules they will not know what abiogenesis is. However, I must point out that in Message 158 Doddy mentioned that F. H. C. Crick has already explained, allegedly, "The origin of the genetic code." (1968, J. Mol. Biol., 38, pp. 367-379). No well enough yet, obviously, to duplicate it in a laboratory (which may be asking for too much). I have not read Crick's paper, but I have ordered a copy of it through my public library. I will be very eager to learn how a digital coding system with an unambiguous alphabet arose from that magnanimous brew of chemicals.I also googled up this paper by J. J. Hopfield on the "Origin of the Genetic Code: A Testable Hypothesis Based on tRNA Structure, Sequence, and Kinetic Proofreading". I intend to look at that one, too.”HM

To this point I would add a thought. In Thomas Gold’s “deep, hot biosphere theory”, he argues that abiogenesis, if it occurred on Earth, probably happened deep below the surface where temperatures are very high. But the pressures are high, too, increasing the boilling point of water. I will not belabor the details of Gold’s theory (check out the link), but I will point out that his ideas at first seemed preposterous to me, and then after reading his 1999 book The Deep Hot Biosphere I got hooked on them. (One of his sub-theories is that most of the world’s petroleum reserves do not have biogenetic origins, but instead arose from deeper sources that contain PAH and other hydrocarbon remnants of Earth's accretive and prebioic history.)”HM

My main interest with abiogenesis concerns its immense challenge to scientific understanding. It strikes me as odd that scientists have not yet completely explained abiogenesis, including laboratory demonstrations. But this biological mystery is far from being solved. Why? Obviously, there are important principles we have not yet discovered. There is little doubt that abiogenesis involved physicochemical principles and sequences. Those principles and sequences, however, must have included the evolution of a digital code with an alphabet. Some trick for Mother Nature in her soup kitchen! So now she makes alphabet soup?Rob, from your POV as a Creationist, I'd think you'd want to hop right on the back this blind horse and take him for a jolly ride, hollering, 'You see. Scientists might know a few important things about the molecules but they don't know enough important things about the words, especially those of the Creator.'Just a suggestion.”HM

Nosy, you wrote: If you're talking about the scientific side, I'd question how you would measure a "large number of clues." Obviously, there is not a large-enough number of clues to drive the first Model T microbe out of the lab.”HM

Kuresu says: and NosyNed says: Do either of you know for sure that it wasn't a microbe? Would you mind telling me then just what it was that abiogenesis produced. And what were the magic ingredients? What was magic temperature? Did it require stirring, mixing, shaking, boiling, freezing, evaporation, or precipitation? Did it initiate heritable properties? Please clue me in on these and other basic questions. We oughtta know at least these few simple facts. Otherwise, quit bitching at rob for saying that goddidit.Even Darwin invoked the Creator, whether he believed in one or not.”HMEdited by Hoot Mon, : No reason given.

Well, yes, there are clues, as you say. Self-replicating molecules are known to occur experimentally, and that would seem almost like an incipient heridity. I don't disagree with what you and kuresu are saying. But I'm always interested in the principles and assumptions that lead us forward.There is this massive opinion that abiogenesis HAD to happen on Earth. My own view of the universe, or just the Milky Way galaxy, makes tiny Earth seem like little more than just another bio-friendly rock (if stochastic projection is allowed). So, in my view, the problem of solving abiogenesis is terribly complicated by the principle of panspermia. There are Earth-firsters who assume without question that Earth must have been the Mother of All Life in the Universe, when all she is, probably, is just another bio-friendly rock with a few warm puddles. Is it fair to assume that Earth's puddles represent a universal standard for abiogenesis? Our sample size of one is way too small to measure a universal central tendency. And furthermore we know of only one kind of life. Is abiogenesis supposed to produce only DNA/RNA life? These are basic question that still elude answers.”HM