One more time......
Ok
@Subduction Zone. I bowed out of that other thread. Lets take it up here.
Show me evidence abiogenisis
actually happened(not a few things might be possible or maybe's). or admit defeat. Your choice.
Did the Miller Urey experiment produce life?
Yes or no!
The answer is no. What they did do was show that the precursors of life, amino acids could be formed in the lab, using what science thought, at the time, were the conditions of the early earth. The earth was assumed to have plenty of water and simple gases in the atmosphere. The warm earth and surface water would have plenty of thunderstorms for lightning. Miller used an electric arc, water vapor and gases and formed more varieties of amino acids than is used by nature. Amino acids were easy to form in their simple experiment.
Miller experiments also formed organic oils and tars, too complex to analyze in the 1950's. This suggests that the term fossil fuel is not real, since their experiment suggested oils and tars were on earth way before life could have appeared. It is more likely life infiltrated the pre-existing organic pools and tar pits. Science drew the wrong conclusion and still runs with it. This may be why, we keep finding new sources of carbon based energy. I'm not sure why science never formally corrected this bad theory. It may have to do with politics and money.
What did not form in the Miller experiments, were nucleic acids precursors for RNA and DNA, as well as self polymerization of amino acids into protein. Other experiments were done in the following years, by other teams, based on science reversing its expectations of the early earth atmosphere. These also formed amino acids. It turns out protein precursors can be formed using either an atmosphere with water, ammonia, methane, or nitrogen gas, CO2 and water. Animo acids would have been easy to make, on the early earth. In the lab, nucleic acids needed the triple bonded nitrogen and carbon group; cyano-group; -CN, which was not as available. These may have needed a different pathway.
If we assume Miller helped defined the easiest order of life precursors, then protein would have come first, with RNA and DNA coming later, after we get some enzymes to make better use of traces of cyanide.
One of the practical problems, in the experiments of early abiogenesis, was going from the readily available amino acids, into proteins. This is not a spontaneous reaction, since it gives off water. It much prefers to stall or reverse in water. This tougher than expected reaction, turns out to be useful for life, since it allows for templates, which need to push the reactions up any energy hill, with spontaneous side reactions less likely. Experiments were able to make protein using assumed early earth conditions by dehydrating amino acid/water solutions on clay. The drying helps to drive out the water that is rate limiting, allowing protein to form.
There is also another way to make protein, based on the complex carbon compounds found in the early Miller Experiments. This path may not have been attempted, due to the fossil fuel bias.Amino acids should be able to polymerize using carbon based oils and water, since the water released will be able to phase separate, so the reaction can move forward. Plastic polymerizations often occur in emulsions of water and oil. The term "fossil fuel" creates an expectation that may still not allow oil based abiogenesis protein experiments to be defined as possible on the early earth, since all the oils are assumed to need life, first. Too many people still appear to benefit by an old tradition that can sabotage progress.Tell it to Miller.
Once we get the precursors proteins, then all we need is the water/oil affect, where we mix water and oil; high tide, then allow these emissions to separate; low tide. The organics will phase separate out, as a function of lowering water surface tension; chaos to order. Cell membrane formation would benefit using the Miller fuels. Fossil fuel came too late to be useful in abiogenesis.
