A positive argument against abiogenesis

[TagliatelliMonster]

You're being unfair here.
1. You assume a motive you can't prove. (There is evidence for it but that doesn't disqualify the argument.) - It is basically an ad hominem.
2. You misrepresent @leroy's argument, building a straw man.
He doesn't argue that the same primitive species should have survived, just that we should have primitive species on par with first life. His argument is that a loss of function is as possible as a gain in function and he cites a Wikipedia article that supports his argument.
I think he made a serious claim that deserves a serious rebuttal.

I disagree.

Not a single abiogenesis researcher or evolutionary biologist expects such life to be around today. In fact, the little I saw experts say about this, is rather that if such life would be introduced today, it would almost instantly be consumed / overtaken by modern life.
His premise therefor is not based on science or any kind of data or scientific evidence.

That raises the question for why he makes that argument.
And it seems to me to be painfully obvious that the answer to that is: his religious beliefs, which are incompatible with the idea of a natural abiogenesis event.
His posting history supports that conclusion.

 

[Heyo]

I disagree.

Not a single abiogenesis researcher or evolutionary biologist expects such life to be around today. In fact, the little I saw experts say about this, is rather that if such life would be introduced today, it would almost instantly be consumed / overtaken by modern life.
His premise therefor is not based on science or any kind of data or scientific evidence.

Yep. But his idea of ranking species by complexity, the transition probability towards higher or lower complexity being equal and the resulting conclusion that we must, under those premises, have low complexity life, were valid. You can't hold his ignorance against him in this case. You have to point out why his premises were not sound.

That raises the question for why he makes that argument.
And it seems to me to be painfully obvious that the answer to that is: his religious beliefs, which are incompatible with the idea of a natural abiogenesis event.
His posting history supports that conclusion.

Yep. I had a run-in or two with @leroy that nearly granted him a place on my ignore list.
But this is a new argument and it is dangerously convincing. We can't brush it off as the usual ID nonsense. I felt the need to seriously address it. Not that I think I can convince @leroy but to explain to the general audience where his argument fails. It takes a little knowledge and a little maths to debunk it and others may be able to use it when they encounter the argument elsewhere.

 

[HonestJoe]

My point is that 1s would represent a wide range of organisms each living in a different environment, (perhaps even in a different continent) ………. It’s hard to even imagine a catastrophe that would kill all the 1s of the world

I think there is still a fundamental point being missed here. Exactly what kind of simple organisms are you asserting existed in the past but don't exist anywhere today?

There are loads of very simple organisms that exist today (and probably loads we're not entirely aware of in extreme and isolated environments) so I don't think the idea that everything developed in to more complex forms is valid in the first place.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Yep. But his idea of ranking species by complexity, the transition probability towards higher or lower complexity being equal and the resulting conclusion that we must, under those premises, have low complexity life, were valid. You can't hold his ignorance against him in this case. You have to point out why his premises were not sound.

Yep. I had a run-in or two with @leroy that nearly granted him a place on my ignore list.
But this is a new argument and it is dangerously convincing. We can't brush it off as the usual ID nonsense. I felt the need to seriously address it. Not that I think I can convince @leroy but to explain to the general audience where his argument fails. It takes a little knowledge and a little maths to debunk it and others may be able to use it when they encounter the argument elsewhere.

I get what you're saying.

However, I feel like it was adequately addressed. All it takes is pointing out that his premise is unsupported and there is no reason to think that species with that level of simplicity would survive and thrive for 4 billion years. In fact, the opposite is true. There is much reason to think such species would NOT survive.
And even IF we would assume that some isolated pocket of "ancient" life remained in this simple state somewhere, then still the argument wouldn't work. Because us not knowing about such an isolated population would simply mean that we haven't discovered it yet.
And in fact, discovering it would, according to the actual professionals of these fields, instantly kill it as it would expose them to populations (and environments) that would almost instantly consume and overtake them.


The fact is, as someone else in this thread already mentioned, early life grew on an earth that didn't contain oxygen. Oxygen was lethal to early life. To survive the Great Oxidation event, species would have been required to evolve systems that can protect them against it. Those would necessarily require a certain level of complexity. A certain level of complexity that had to endure, because unlike other extinction events (like the meteor impact some 70 million years ago ), earth did not return to its previous state. The oxygen didn't go away.

 

[Subduction Zone]

I think there is still a fundamental point being missed here. Exactly what kind of simple organisms are you asserting existed in the past but don't exist anywhere today?

There are loads of very simple organisms that exist today (and probably loads we're not entirely aware of in extreme and isolated environments) so I don't think the idea that everything developed in to more complex forms is valid in the first place.

Even the simplest of life today is still rather complex. The first life was all but guaranteed to be barely alive by today's standards and would have limped along. Why did it survive? A big part of the answer that is no competition.

 

[Heyo]

And in fact, discovering it would, according to the actual professionals of these fields, instantly kill it as it would expose them to populations (and environments) that would almost instantly consume and overtake them.

I know of no environments that are 2 billion years old and contain life but it will be interesting once we research closed of aquifers beneath the sahara and Antarctica.

The fact is, as someone else in this thread already mentioned, early life grew on an earth that didn't contain oxygen. Oxygen was lethal to early life. To survive the Great Oxidation event, species would have been required to evolve systems that can protect them against it.

That was me, attempting to seriously address the claim.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

The problem is that we are talking about millions of populations living in different environments, statistically speaking it is likely that at least in some environments simple life was ok or even better adapted than complex life

That's often the case. The general trend is that evolution usually favours less complex life.

Read "Full House" by Stephen Jay Gould if you want a deep dive on this.

 

[YoursTrue]

You're being unfair here.
1. You assume a motive you can't prove. (There is evidence for it but that doesn't disqualify the argument.) - It is basically an ad hominem.
2. You misrepresent @leroy's argument, building a straw man.
He doesn't argue that the same primitive species should have survived, just that we should have primitive species on par with first life. His argument is that a loss of function is as possible as a gain in function and he cites a Wikipedia article that supports his argument.
I think he made a serious claim that deserves a serious rebuttal.

I'm thinking there are conjectures in many areas some give real credence to, and no real proof.

 

[leroy]

Let's make it clear. Sometimes is the answer to number one. But not always. A care from 1920 is not going to win the Indianapolis 500. In life complexity often does give a significant advantage. The first life would have less chance of surviving today than a car from 1920 would have of winning Indy. You keep forgetting that there are limited resources in any enviornment.

And yes, number two is true too. That still does not help you.

Ok, but if sometimes simpler is better than complex, then what prevented “simple life” to survive to this date?

Your car analogy is valid and granted, in an environment where “speed” is important for survivor then any organism with complex traits that allow him to move faster would trump simple organisms that lack these traits………….but my point is no all environments favor “speed”……..therefore the slow simple life is expected to survive and flourish in at least some enviroments.

 

[leroy]

Resources are limited in any environment. Early on, when there is little competition, anything can survive. Efficiency becomes a factor when competition sets in.

Granted, and sometimes “being simpler” allows organisms to be more efficient in getting those limited resources. Agree?

 

[leroy]

I'll be looking for the answers to your points.

Search for the answers provided by @Heyo …….he is honestly approaching the problem and providing good and tough replies.

 

[Clara Tea]

Some Definitions
.......
In the context of this thread, with abiogenesis I mean the idea that primitive life formed in a primordial soup (or some other environment) by natural mechanisms.

With primitive life, I mean relatively simple self-replicating molecules (much simpler than modern microbes)

I will use to “primodial soup” as a generic term to refer to all of the enviroments that have been proposed by researches (even if these are not literally primordial soups)

With 1s I mean simple self replicating molecules (simply enogh to have formed in a primodial soup)
.....

My argument against abiogenesis

Premise 1: Complex organism could have not been formed in a primordial soup

Premise 2: Life has always been complex

* With complex I mean " nearly as complex as a modern microbe or more"

Therefore Life could have not formed in a primordial soup

........
Supporting premise 1 and premise 2:

Premise 1: is not controversial, the junk yard tornado analogy shows that the premise is true, and no atheist to my knowledge believes that modern-like organisms formed in the primordial soup.

Premise 2: Is supported by the fact that natural selection doesn’t aims at complexity, (the average complexity doesn’t increases) sometimes becoming simpler or staying the same Is better for the organism source at the end of this post.1

This leads to the conclusion that atleast some simple organisms should be livign today.

Consider this scenario.

Let’s assume for the sake of simplicity that we can measure complexity in a scale from 1 -10 where 10 is something as complex as a human 5 is something as complex as a modern microbe and 1 would be a simple self-replicating molecule, simple enough to have formed in a primordial soup.

1 Supposedly all life started with “1” all life was simple in the past.

2 After a few million years any population of organisms could have evolved from 1 to 2 or stay as 1 (depending on the selective pressure)

3 Once you have some “2s” this organism would ether evolve in to 3, stay as 2 of evolve back to 1 (this is because sometimes losing complexity is good for the organism and therefore would be favored by natural selection)…………(let’s assume that each possibility has a 33% probability)

3.1 Once you have 3s they can ether evovle in to 4 stay as 3 or evovle in to 2 ((let’s assume that each possibility has a 33% probability)

3,2 once you have 4 you can evovle to 5 stay as 4 or evovle in to 3 ...((let’s assume that each possibility has a 33% probability)

etc. etc.

4 If you follow this algorithm, eventually you will get small minorities of “10” (something as complex as a human) … but you should still have 1s (and 2s and 3s and 4s)

5 Given that we don’t have 1s currently living today and given that there is no reason for why would then disappear, it follows that maybe 1s have never existed. (the same goes to 2,3 and 4)

Or to put it this way, given what we know about how organisms evolve, at least some of the simplest organisms that have ever lived (or something similar) should still be living today, implying that the simplest organisms that have ever lived are as complex as modern organisms (say as complex as modern microbes)

….

Given that premise 1 and 2 are probably true it follows that probably abiogenesis is wrong
+

Basically evolution doesnt explain the abcense of 1s living today, so ether evolution is wrong or abiogenesis is wrong...........given that evolution is better supported than abiogenesis we most reject abiogenesis.


...............
source 1

Evolution of biological complexity - Wikipedia.

It is unlikely that some of the simplest organisms would still be alive today. Almost all would have mutated to some degree.

We have the choice of believing that organisms came into existence from chemicals (and maybe a lightning strike), or believe that God made organisms. Then we have the conundrum of wondering how God was created (and what created the thing that created God). We could argue that God always existed, but we could always argue that organisms always existed.

You have asserted that life has always been complex, but you have no proof of that.

You have assumed (without proof) that complexity doesn't increase. Yet, there is DNA proof that organisms are related to each other. We can see evidence in their DNA that some have evolved to more complex beings. So, there is proof that your assumption is wrong.

Some people puzzle over the question "which came first, the chicken or the egg?" Yet the answer is quite obvious. The egg came first. Because a dinosaur could lay an egg with mutations (a chicken egg), but it is unlikely that every cell in the dinosaur could simultaneously mutate into a chicken.

When the Chicxulub meteor hit earth, it caused mass extinction. This meant that animals had fewer sex partners. This meant that there was more inbreeding (cousins mating with cousins). This caused more mutations. Most mutations were bad (maybe born blind). Some mutations were good, because instead of adapting to the earth before the sun was blotted out by the dust, these mutations were adapted to better survival after the dust blotted out the sun. By natural selection, those mutations survived better. As you can see from the fossil record of 66 million years ago (at the time of the Chicxulub impact), there was mass extinction, but there was also punctuated equilibrium (this means that there was a sudden diversity in number of species). So, the logic matches the reality.

You made the mistake of assigning equal probabilities to mutation survival. You can see that as conditions change (sun blocked out), some mutations do better than others.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Granted, and sometimes “being simpler” allows organisms to be more efficient in getting those limited resources. Agree?

Sometimes, yes. Sometimes a simpler vehicle can win a race. But again, this is limited simplicity. You keep dodging a very relative question: How would a 1920's car do in the Indy 500? Heck, even worse how would one from 1900 do?

One thing about environments is that they cannot be totally isolated. Competition for limited resources is the factor that you keep pretending that does not exist.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Granted, and sometimes “being simpler” allows organisms to be more efficient in getting those limited resources. Agree?

Only under specific circumstances. Never to the point of first life. Once again like your terrible argument about expansion caused by surrounding masses (they cancel out in case you forgot) this one of yours ignores the fact of limited resources and competition.

 

[leroy]

And the ONLY reason you argue this, is just so you can accommodate for your premises to make your argument "work". Not because you have actual scientific, data driven, reasons to assume such. Your ONLY motivation here is to make your argument "work".

And the ONLY reason for you to make this argument, is because you have religious beliefs that aren't compatible with it, so you have a priori interest in abiogenesis being wrong. You want it to be wrong. You need it to be wrong.

Genetic fallacy, my personal motivations are irrelevant

But let's not kid ourselves, you don't have valid reasons for this premise - nore for this argument.

Well then deal with the reasons that I provided and explain why aren’t this good reasons to accept the premises.

Ohh wait you are an atheist , you don’t support your claims

Tell me, how many working abiogenesis researchers, or evolutionary biologists, believe/expect as you do, that the "first" populations of life that existed at least 3.8 billion years ago, should still be around today?

I don’t know……….do you? I haven find any papers that suggest that they should have gone extinct ether , this is one of the reasons I presented this argument in this forum just hoping to find peer reviewed information that would ether support or refute the argument.

 

[leroy]

You're being unfair here.
1. You assume a motive you can't prove. (There is evidence for it but that doesn't disqualify the argument.) - It is basically an ad hominem.
2. You misrepresent @leroy's argument, building a straw man.
He doesn't argue that the same primitive species should have survived, just that we should have primitive species on par with first life. His argument is that a loss of function is as possible as a gain in function and he cites a Wikipedia article that supports his argument.
I think he made a serious claim that deserves a serious rebuttal.

Just to let you know that I am aware of your reply , haven’t have time to see your sources and the video

 

[Subduction Zone]

Genetic fallacy, my personal motivations are irrelevant

You do not seem to realize that you already lost the debate. He is not merely trying to analyze your motives. So no, this is not a genetic fallacy.

Well then deal with the reasons that I provided and explain why aren’t this good reasons to accept the premises.

Ohh wait you are an atheist , you don’t support your claims

As usual your arguments have been dealt with and explained to you. As usual you ignored or did not understand the arguments.

I don’t know……….do you? I haven find any papers that suggest that they should have gone extinct ether , this is one of the reasons I presented this argument in this forum just hoping to find peer reviewed information that would ether support or refute the argument.

Technically they did not "go extinct". You are alive aren't you? Evolution is a process that occurs whether you want it to or not. There is always competition, why do you keep ignoring this? Is it because you have no response to it. Variation also will always occur. There is no need to write in papers that life in its original form is no longer here in scientific papers. Why do you think that it should be there?

 

[leroy]

Only under specific circumstances. Never to the point of first life. Once again like your terrible argument about expansion caused by surrounding masses (they cancel out in case you forgot) this one of yours ignores the fact of limited resources and competition.

Again if someone times “simple” does well in the competition and sometimes “simple” even trumps complex, why is it that we don’t have “simple life” today?

In an environment where “moving slow” and “save gasoline” is beneficial, then a 1920 would overcome a modern car.

*Well I don’t know much about cars , maybe 1920 cars waste more gas, but hopefully you see my point.

 

[leroy]

There is always competition, why do you keep ignoring this?

I am not ignoring it, yes there is always competition, but sometimes being “simple” helps you win the competition ……. You already agreed with this point.

SO why don’t we have simple life today?

 

[Subduction Zone]

Again if someone times “simple” does well in the competition and sometimes “simple” even trumps complex, why is it that we don’t have “simple life” today?

In an environment where “moving slow” and “save gasoline” is beneficial, then a 1920 would overcome a modern car.

*Well I don’t know much about cars , maybe 1920 cars waste more gas, but hopefully you see my point.

Oh look! Its a Dodge Dart. That was not the question. You are once again ignoring the effect of competition.

I am not ignoring it, yes there is always competition, but sometimes being “simple” helps you win the competition ……. You already agreed with this point.

SO why don’t we have simple life today?

Yes you are. That is the problem. You are also ignoring the fact that life will evolve. There is no way to prevent change. Mutations happen.