Scientific advances in abiogenesis

[Justatruthseeker]

I see myself all the time.



Well, look at the properties of thoughts: they involve information, emotions, etc. They are directly affected by what we do to the brain. I could go into a lot more detail, but that 'theory' is predictive, testable, and has passed every test thrown at it.




In that strict sense, then, we never see anything other than images. I don't see the chair in my room, but only the light reflected from it. Detection and seeing in a mirror is a perfectly good example of seeing.



Well, it is a fact in the same sense as any other scientific fact: it makes testable predictions that have been verified, etc.



The way we know of state changes is via changes in our own state. Again, there is nothing there that can't be done by matter. And, in fact, by the neurons in our brains.



I really don't see the issue here. To know the 'creative process' just means we have an internal representation of the steps involved. I see no reason at all that would make that impossible.




Exactly the same way it would know any other piece of information. Internal storage of data and enough processing to fit it into the mesh of other information. This really seems like a triviality once we have the possibility of any sort of knowledge.



Only in the sense that we don't have all the details. We know that life is a chemical process. We know the chemicals involved and a lot about how they interact. We are learning how the required polymerizations and information processing abilities are produced. We have good ideas of where such events happened (deep sea vents are one place--ponds with cycles of wetting and dryng are another).

The whole issue of consciousness is a side issue for abiogenesis. Consciousness happened *much* later on and is a separate thing that evolved.

Deep sea vents are the worst possible place. Water is a solvent. RNA, DNA, proteins, sugars, etc dissolve in water without a functioning cell to protect it.

The latest experiments in water only lasted a few hours before the chains were broken down and dissolved. Long before anything useful would have time to arise....

Water is only useful to life with fully functioning cells to protect it from the solvent effects of water....

 

[Polymath257]

What did it originate from then?

An inorganic molecule, or dust?

Inorganic in chemistry means that there is no carbon. Life arose from *organic* chemicals like sugars, amino acids, nucleic acids, lipids, etc. All of those are *organic* compounds which are based on carbon. They are not 'dust'.

 

[Justatruthseeker]

Inorganic in chemistry means that there is no carbon. Life arose from *organic* chemicals like sugars, amino acids, nucleic acids, lipids, etc. All of those are *organic* compounds which are based on carbon. They are not 'dust'.

No. An organic compound is anything that has carbon attached to it.....

Dust.....

 

[Polymath257]

No. An organic compound is anything that has carbon attached to it.....

That's what I said. Although, often there is an exception made for carbon dioxide: whether it is considered organic or not is a matter of context.

Dust.....

Dust is usually a complex mix of decomposed organic compounds and inorganic compounds from weathering of rocks (as I understand it---anyone else, please point it out if I am wrong).

 

[Justatruthseeker]

That's what I said. Although, often there is an exception made for carbon dioxide: whether it is considered organic or not is a matter of context.

There’s an exception made for many things, like diamonds....

Dust is usually a complex mix of decomposed organic compounds and inorganic compounds from weathering of rocks (as I understand it---anyone else, please point it out if I am wrong).

Dust is just human terminology. The actual Hebrew word simply means earth or ground.

I.e. organic or non-organic compounds, or both.....

Although organic is a misnomer as you must have life for it to be organic. It is simply compounds found in life....

It’s actually rediculous to classify carbon dioxide as inorganic since life expells it and other life uses it to grow....

 

[shunyadragon]

What did it originate from then?

An inorganic molecule, or dust?

Inorganic molecules.

 

[sayak83]

Inorganic molecules.

How is the thread going? Any specific topic you want me to do some research and chip in on?

 

[shunyadragon]

I sent that to prokaryote. Thank you. I just wanted to comment that unlike Intelligent Design astrobiology is actual recognized science.

Astrobiology does not support your view of aliens. It has determined that some amino acids do come from meteorites, and the possibility of life on Mars and in other solar systems, nothing more.. Your argument for this has aspects of 'Intelligent Design arguments.

 

[shunyadragon]

How is the thread going? Any specific topic you want me to do some research and chip in on?

Please do!

 

[sayak83]

Please do!

Anything specific. What topic within abiogenesis should I cover?

Here is something fresh of the press and promising
Selective prebiotic conversion of pyrimidine and purine anhydronucleosides into Watson-Crick base-pairing <i>arabino</i>-furanosyl nucleosides in water
The synthesis of the complete set of canonical Watson–Crick base-pairing nucleosides [adenosine (A), cytidine (C), guanosine (G) and uridine (U)] under conditions that do not violate the accepted plausible geochemical environments on early Earth is an essential step towards elucidating the origins of life on Earth. We have previously reported a prebiotic synthesis of pyrimidine ribonucleotides 1C and 1U16. More recently, we reported the divergent synthesis of 1C, 1U and 8-oxo-purine ribonucleotides 2A and 2I (Fig. 1, red arrows)22. However, no divergent prebiotic synthesis of pyrimidine and purine nucleoside monomers bearing the canonical Watson–Crick base-pairing nucleobases has yet been elucidated.

Divergent prebiotic nucleotides synthesis. Red arrows: Previous work; a prebiotic pathway to cytidine-2′,3′-cyclic phosphate (1C), uridine-2′,3′-cyclic phosphate (1U), 8-oxo-adenosine-2′,3′-cyclic phosphate (2A) and 8-oxo-inosine-2′,3′-cyclic phosphate (2I)16,22. Dashed arrow: Hydrolysis of 8,2′-anhydropurines (3A, 3I and 3G) is not observed, which provides chemical differentiation from 2,2′-anhydropyrimidine (3C) that readily hydrolyses to β-arabino-adenosine (ara-4C). Blue arrows: This work; a prebiotic pathway to β-arabino-cytidine (ara-4C), β-arabino-uridine (ara-4U), β-arabino-adenosine (ara-4A), β-arabino-inosine (ara-4I) and β-arabino-guanosine (ara-4G).

Arabino Nucleic Acid ANA displays many properties that make it an attractive candidate for the first genetic polymer of life. ANAs can equilibrate between helix and stem-loop structures, which mimic DNA and RNA, respectively25. ANA can form a complementary Watson–Crick base-paired duplex with RNA26,27, and can be readily transcribed (from DNA) and reverse transcribed (to DNA)28. Additionally, Holliger and co-workers recently evolved catalytic ANA-zymes that can achieve RNA phosphodiester cleavage6. Notably, the ANA phosphodiester backbone is also far more resistant to hydrolysis than its RNA analogue.

Here, we demonstrate a divergent route to synthesise a complete set of canonical (A, G, C and U) nucleosides from one plausibly prebiotic reaction sequence. Interestingly, photochemical reduction of (intermediate) 8-mercaptopurines is observed to be highly efficient for the desired canonical purines (A and G), but not the non-canonical purine inosine (I). The facile prebiotic synthesis of ANA indicates that it may have played an important role during the origins of life, and the selective photochemical reduction of 8-mercaptopurines provides a physical mechanism for prebiotic nucleobase selection en route to the Watson–Crick base-pairing nucleosides.

To form information-rich ANA nucleic acid oligomers, all four Watson–Crick base-pairing nucleosides (ara-4A, ara-4C, ara-4G and ara-4U) need to accrue at the same time in the same environment, ideally from the same set of chemical reactions. We reacted 1:1:1 3C, 3A and 3G with H2S (pH 7, 60 °C; Supplementary Fig. 46), and after 7 d we observed ara-5A (65%), ara-5G (62%), ara-4C (55%) and ara-7U (35%). Subsequent incubation with H2O2 (pH 7, room temperature, 2 h) gave the desired Watson–Crick base-pairing products ara-4A (53%), ara-4G (62%), ara-4C (47%) and ara-4U (35%) without purification or isolation of intermediate products (Fig. 5). Thus, we achieved a plausibly prebiotic divergent synthesis of Watson–Crick base-pairing nucleosides, and have marked ANA as a likely candidate for the nucleic acid of early evolution.

 

[robocop (actually)]

Astrobiology does not support your view of aliens. It has determined that some amino acids do come from meteorites, and the possibility of life on Mars and in other solar systems, nothing more.. Your argument for this has aspects of 'Intelligent Design arguments.

Note that that is no longer my view of Aliens. I think I've seen an Alien, but why would they stick around for what must have been billions of years and then create humanity all of the sudden? If early cell-formation was previous creation, it still doesn't work with a group of Aliens.

 

[robocop (actually)]

This is not necessarily the last stage, and it does not restrict it to the last stage. In the early stages of abiogeneis the energy sources would the thermal sources of the earth such as the thermal vents. There has to be a point in the chemical evolution where the the early life forms based on RNA would have to independent of external sources. This is the reason RNA utilizing organic phosphate in energy transfer.

Prokaryote noted:
1. I know that the theory may not make it a last stage but again, in the experiment it was only added at the end after all the other chemical reactions and there were no successful results until after the process was broken down into controlled cycles (which you yourself said would not happen in nature) and the phosphate reaction was placed at the end. The second point in your first paragraph makes no sense, perhaps you could reword it as the grammar in particular makes it really hard to understand what you are saying. All I got from it was RNA utilising organic phosphate in energy transfer, if your referring to RNA viruses they don't use it.

The relying the probability ruse is an Intelligent Design problem and not science. I do not believe relying on statistics and probability theory works, because of too many unknowns, and cannot be applied to evolution and abiogensis based the limits of the variables are not none. Too many unknowns.

Actually the best bet at present is iron compound catalysts or other catalysts that allow for large production of RNA..

This discussion will continue with more research posted on abiogenesis.

Prokaryote noted:
2. I would hardly say i've been relying on probability as I only brought it up once briefly. However it is not unreliable like you claim it is and is based on the simplest proteins in one of the considered 'simplest cells' (ironic as cells are hardly simple). There are unknowns but it wouldn't even make a dent in the number (which is way above what is considered operationally impossible at 1 in 10^70, to put that in context filling the entire visible universe with sand and picking the right grain of sand from it is around 1 in 10^72) and the majority of unknowns would make it less likely to form. The calculations were done considering no outside disruption and perfect conditions for proteins to form and this would just not be the case, after thinking about it now the number seems quite generous. To top it all off the number of proteins in a 'simple cell' or even a single virus and the variety of proteins that are needed for them all coming together at the right moment is ridiculous.

I have also found an article about the number, the calculation and a few other things that you might like to read.

https://spectrummagazine.org/article/book-reviews/2009/10/06/signature-cell

@Prokaryote

 

[robocop (actually)]

Astrobiology does not support your view of aliens. It has determined that some amino acids do come from meteorites, and the possibility of life on Mars and in other solar systems, nothing more.. Your argument for this has aspects of 'Intelligent Design arguments.

I still believe the Universe is a slave to consciousness/thought though.

 

[ecco]

Can you give some examples of Ontological naturalists who believe in a story of creation of life-intelligence from 'dust' just as creationists believe.

Abiogenesis?

Is the dopey grin there because you don't understand the word "who"? Please re-read my comment. Please try to understand what I am asking for when I use the word "who".

 

[ecco]

This response is similar to the Fundamentalist Christian view of evolution. Neither evolution nor abiogensis are 'proven facts,' This is an unfortunate corrupted layman's view from a religious agenda. They are sciences developed from falsified hypothesis with valid predictions. Of course, abiogenesis is a far younger science, and many more questions remain to be answered.

You cannot prove that Thor is not responsible for lightning, so there! And Hah, Hah too.

 

[ecco]

I have also found an article about the number, the calculation and a few other things that you might like to read.

https://spectrummagazine.org/article/book-reviews/2009/10/06/signature-cell

@Prokaryote

Here are a few quotes from that article.

A new book by Stephen C. Meyer, Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design,

Meyer, currently the director of the Center for Science and Culture at the Discovery Institute in Seattle,
​

We learn that the author is a Director at the Discovery Institute. We already know that the Discovery Institute is the preeminent proponent of Creationism/ID. Therefore we can be assured that there is no real science in any of its writings.

The article was published in spectrummagazine.org which Google tells us

...is the official publication of Adventist Forums and a non-official publication of the Seventh-day Adventist Church
​

Furthermore, we know from experience that people who quote Discovery Institute and/or Seventh-day Adventist writings know full well that their sources are non-scientific creationist apologists.

​

 

[shunyadragon]

You cannot prove that Thor is not responsible for lightning, so there! And Hah, Hah too.

I would attempt to prove anything. That is not how scientists work.

I leave problem of lightning's cause up to Thorinians.

 

[ecco]

There are unknowns but it wouldn't even make a dent in the number (which is way above what is considered operationally impossible at 1 in 10^70, to put that in context filling the entire visible universe with sand and picking the right grain of sand from it is around 1 in 10^72) and the majority of unknowns would make it less likely to form.

Above I discredited your sources. The logic used to arrive at numbers like 10^70 do not take into account natural bindings. But I'll leave that part of the argument for others.

But even without that, I will discredit the logic behind "operationally impossible probabilities."

robocop, I'm sure that YOU are an individual. There is no other YOU.

YOU are the result of one of your father's sperm impregnating one of your mother's eggs. One sperm out of ~200 million. If any other sperm had impregnated your mother's egg, YOU would not exist. Someone like you, maybe. But not YOU. And yet YOU do exist. One chance in 200,000,000.

Your father and grandfather were also 1 in 200,000,000 long shots. In just three generations, the odds of YOU existing are 1 in 200,000,000^3. That's 1 in 8000000000000000000000000.

Five generations per year. 5,000 years back to Noah. 25,000 generations. The odds of YOU existing are 1 in 200,000,000^25,000. And yet, here YOU are.

So much for operationally impossible odds.

 

[gnostic]

What did it originate from then?

An inorganic molecule, or dust?

Inorganic in chemistry means that there is no carbon. Life arose from *organic* chemicals like sugars, amino acids, nucleic acids, lipids, etc. All of those are *organic* compounds which are based on carbon. They are not 'dust'.

No. An organic compound is anything that has carbon attached to it.....

Dust.....

That's what I said. Although, often there is an exception made for carbon dioxide: whether it is considered organic or not is a matter of context.



Dust is usually a complex mix of decomposed organic compounds and inorganic compounds from weathering of rocks (as I understand it---anyone else, please point it out if I am wrong).

There’s an exception made for many things, like diamonds....



Dust is just human terminology. The actual Hebrew word simply means earth or ground.

I.e. organic or non-organic compounds, or both.....

Although organic is a misnomer as you must have life for it to be organic. It is simply compounds found in life....

It’s actually rediculous to classify carbon dioxide as inorganic since life expells it and other life uses it to grow....

Dust is a rather vague word, and can be used to described either discomposed organic matters or inorganic matters, justatruthseeker.

Iron can rust, due to any oxygen-based compounds causing iron to oxide and eventually turning to dust. But iron-based dust is not at all “organic”.

It really depends on context of what you mean by dust.

But in religion, such as used in the Bible, in connection to the earth,and since Genesis 2 is set in the Garden of Eden, then one would naturally assume it on the ground in the garden, meaning some sorts of soil.

In my time when I was studying for my civil engineering course, specifically basic geology and in soil mechanisms in regarding to the foundation of construction. What I have learned that there are 3 main types of soil:

1. Silt soil
2. Clay soil
3. Sandy soil

Now, there are always something that might get mixed with any of the 3 soils that I have mentioned above, like water from rain or table water, lime, acids and alkaline, some natural fertilizer from any animal peeing or taken dump (leaving their wastes behind), or any animal or plant dead and decomposing and wasting away, and so on and on...all of these are foreign materials that leaked into the soil, and it doesn’t matter if these materials contaminating the soils are organic or inorganic.

But the soil itself, if you were to trace it all back to the original sources, you would find that all soils originally come from minerals from rocks, most commonly from quartz, feldspar and mica.

If the Bible is referred to dust as in soil then, since the story is set in garden, then that would mean any one of these soil, but since most scholars believed that the Hebrew authors have copied and modified or adapted their story of creation from a Babylonian sources (eg Epic of Atrahasis, Epic of Gilgamesh, Enûma Elish), then I would assume this dust come clay soil.

Anyway, each soil is the result of mineral breaking down from further into finer particles, as in dust, but if you look at the composition of each soil minerals, then you’ll see that each soil are actually silicate-based (SiO4), no carbon.

Below is breakdown of the each soil’s mineral origin:

1. Clay mineral is from mica, which chemically be broken down as aluminum phyllosilicate - Al2 Si2 O5.
2. Silt mineral can be either from feldspar (there are 3 main types of feldspar, potassium (K AlSi3O8), sodium (NaAlSi3O8) or calcium (CaAl2Si2 O8)), or quartz (SiO2).
3. Sandy soil from quartz (SiO2).

As I said earlier, soil can get mixed with foreign organic or inorganic materials, but the soil themselves are not organic at all.

But as I have shown you, there are no carbon in the most basic compounds of soil; each one is silicate-based.

Now if you were to believe in Genesis creation, Genesis 1 say nothing about man and woman being made out of soil, while Genesis 2 tells a different story, and turning soil into human being, is not only high unlikely, but also resorting to supernatural, because you cannot chemically turn silicon-based materials into carbon-based materials.

And if you look at any biology book on human body, there are no silicate compounds or molecules in the human body, justatruthseeker.

So if this dust come from silt or clay, then “no”, and Genesis creation is a work of myth, allegory or fiction, with authors having no understanding in the science of nature. I would say it is a myth, because the story also include a fruit that give knowledge and a even sillier fable of a talking serpent.

There are no science in Genesis, just the superstition of the supernatural.

 

[robocop (actually)]

Here are a few quotes from that article.

A new book by Stephen C. Meyer, Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design,

Meyer, currently the director of the Center for Science and Culture at the Discovery Institute in Seattle,
​

We learn that the author is a Director at the Discovery Institute. We already know that the Discovery Institute is the preeminent proponent of Creationism/ID. Therefore we can be assured that there is no real science in any of its writings.

The article was published in spectrummagazine.org which Google tells us

...is the official publication of Adventist Forums and a non-official publication of the Seventh-day Adventist Church
​

Furthermore, we know from experience that people who quote Discovery Institute and/or Seventh-day Adventist writings know full well that their sources are non-scientific creationist apologists.

​

I'm sorry to hear that Prokaryote was using the discovery institute. I was parroting his quotes back and forth with Shunyadragon for them to debate.

Once again, regarding me Robocop:

"Note that that is no longer my view of Aliens. I think I've seen an Alien, but why would they stick around for what must have been billions of years and then create humanity all of the sudden? If early cell-formation was previous creation, it still doesn't work with a group of Aliens. "