Proof against abiogenesis/evolution -- affirmative proof of God

[Psudopod]

Do you add sulfuric acid to a bowl of sugar? Do you add burnt matches or electricity to i?. Do you think that by adding alcohol and a variety of other simple compounds to the mix, and periodically zapping it with electricity, any kind of a life form would result, even over a trillion trillion years?

You said:

Is it not true that if a simple sugar were somehow to form from a chemical reaction, that the next reactive molecule to come along would destroy the sugar?

I was merely pointing out that this was easily shown as false.

 

[thaumaturgy]

Do you add sulfuric acid to a bowl of sugar? Do you add burnt matches or electricity to i?. Do you think that by adding alcohol and a variety of other simple compounds to the mix, and periodically zapping it with electricity, any kind of a life form would result, even over a trillion trillion years?

Why don't you address the fact that Miller and Urey were able to start with H2O, CH4, NH2 and H2 in a sealed container and then added energy and got amino acids?

Honestly this is about as simple a proof of concept as you could ask for. Note they just used electrical current. No super atomic particle accelerators, no excessively gigantic monster equipment. Just the basic building blocks (SIMPLE COMPOUNDS) and energy.

A few years later in 1961 Juan Oro made one of the nitrogenous bases in DNA/RNA from an aqueous solution of HCN and NH3 in a similar type of "spark tube" experiment.

In the 1970's and 80's UV irradiation was found to be effective when H2S is around in the mix to boost the formation of these organic building blocks of life (SOURCE). UV radiation isn't all that uncommon in the universe and may have been able to penetrate the early earth's atmosphere effectively enough to provide even more energy than lightning discharges.

So, again, if one takes all of the reasonable materials, all of which are relatively simple compounds that would not have been unheard of in the early earth and provides energy that would not be outside of the bounds of reason in the early earth and finds that this combination can indeed form the more complex molecules that make up life, and further there's information out there that various common minerals could be catalytically important to early life's formation (thus making the system even more likely...remember what a catalyst does), I have to wonder why one would spend their time simplifying the system down to a series of Bernoulli Trials based on non-chemical assumptions.

I think, True-Blue, you really need to address the chemistry here rather than getting lost in your simple statistics which don't relate to the actual "trials" you are attempting to model.

You seem to be of the impression that there's only ONE reaction: 1st Order Decay Reactions and that's it. Nothing else can happen in the universe. But that is demonstrably false.

So if I tell you there are a number of reactions that can and do occur in the universe every single second of every day that allow for more complex items to form spontaneously out of simpler compounds, then you need to go back and re-think your "model" and your "probabilities".

That's what everyone here is saying to you. You haven't addressed the actual reality of chemistry in your calculations. Hence your "model" is fatally flawed from the start.

 

[Psudopod]

I'm not sure the 2nd Law has really sunk into your bones yet.

I don't think it's sunk into yours either. Go away, look up gibbs free energy and reaction pathways.

For a start.

 

[True_Blue]

Actually a lot of stochastic processes are utilized in chemistry, especially in entropy and statistical thermodynamics. However, the gross oversimplifications that True-Blue is talking about here bear very little resemblance to chemistry since he's conventiently left the "chemistry" part out.

And that's the whole point of the exercise here. True-Blue keeps making comments about how simple molecules don't make complex molecules, but that simply isn't true. It happens all the time, every day in plants. Unless plants = God, then we have a system by which unintelligent purely chemical forces are acting to turn simple compounds (CO2) into sugars and larger molecules. In addition we find simple sugars and sugar-related compounds in meteorites (LINK). Sugars are not "miracles", they are chemicals.

But further there are a number of reactions where "simple" molecules react to form "more complex" molecules. Often times this involves the addition of heat or some avialable energy. The Miller-Urey experiments showed that such can happen. The key now is to see if those conditions were dominant at the time it is hypothesized to have happened, and that is looking pretty clearly to be the case.

If True-Blue wants to obsess now over "organelles" he should think about micelles. These are possibly the simplest analogue to a proto-cell wall. Micelles are rather interesting structures made up of the spontaneous organization of simple surfactant molecules into sheets and 'envelopes'. Every time True-blue washes his hands he makes these things. Is he God?

Now granted real cell walls are actually more like "double layers" of these in which an open space is introduced in the middle. But the development of lipid bilayers is not unheard of. So now you have the "skin" for the early living cell. A protective outer coating. No supernatural event necessarily needed.

What I don't understand about True_Blue's whole thesis here is that he seems to think every single reaction is some drive from complex to simplistic in one single inexorable step. I don't know where he gets that idea. He seems to ignore all of chemistry.

As chemists we walk into the lab every day and run reactions that, with a bit of energy, or in some cases removing the energy, we drive reactions of simpler compounds to more complex compounds. UNIVERSALLY everything is driving toward greater entropy, "decay" after a fashion, if you will. But locally many reactions occur in which order is generated out of disorder. My freezer does it every single minute of every day. If I didn't have an auto-defrost on the thing I'd have to face this grim reality every so often as we all used to have to do.

Last I checked there's no one worshiping my fridge as "god" (except for my dog, Aleister Growly).

I think True-Blue is simply trying to oversimplify the system because he doesn't have any chemistry fundamentals to rely on. He wishes to pull it over to a purely statistical system without any "constraints" which make it a chemical system and not just a bunch of coin flips.

You're a smart guy, Thaumatury. Do you want to adjust the model to fit what you believe are the chemical realities on the ground, and perhaps provide a paragraph or two explaining your assumptions? If you did so, it would be a first by evolutionists, to my knowledge. TalkOrigins copped out and set P=1.

When liquid water has energy removed, the resulting arrangement of the molecules is not more "complex" that the arrangement of the liquid water molecules. Similar to looking for faces in clouds. When you look at the top of a hurricane, the spiral shape of the clouds is not a "complex" pattern.

 

[Naraoia]

Your post above responds to item 4(d).

Perhaps he has no time to respond to all. Just like you

You have a lot of work to do to overcome all the other hurdles laid out above.

Before you complain about unanswered issues at least react to the replies that were given to them. I'm specifically thinking about the atmosphere because that's one point I replied to. I brought up minerals that are found in early rocks and (at least those notes said) couldn't have formed under oxidising conditions. It's true that I brought them up more as a question (because, again, evolutionary biology undergraduate =/= geochemist). But if you are going to be dissatisfied with our evidence for a non-oxidising early atmosphere you ought to address it first.

 

[Naraoia]

In my response here, I just want to make sure that you understand the larger context of this discussion on atmosphere:
1. My thesis #1: Building blocks to life impossible
2. My thesis #2: Formation of building blocks themselves not realistic in today's atmosphere.
3. Response to #2: Maybe atmosphere had no oxygen
4. Response to #3: (a) radiation, (b) excess heat, (c) no substantial volcanic source of non-oxgygen compounds or resemblence to Stanley's experiment, etc. (d) lots of oxgyen in form of CO2, etc.

Your post above responds to item 4(d). You have a lot of work to do to overcome all the other hurdles laid out above.

Now that I look at it again, all those points were answered. So I don't know what your problem is. That it wasn't one single person in one single post?

 

[Naraoia]

While I am no expert on nuclear fusion I found this to be more than a little interesting in light of you "proclamation":

(emphasis added).

Now, how does this violate the Second Law?

Thanks. So I was right about the idea, just not about the explanation.

 

[True_Blue]

Actually a lot of stochastic processes are utilized in chemistry, especially in entropy and statistical thermodynamics. However, the gross oversimplifications that True-Blue is talking about here bear very little resemblance to chemistry since he's conventiently left the "chemistry" part out.

And that's the whole point of the exercise here. True-Blue keeps making comments about how simple molecules don't make complex molecules, but that simply isn't true. It happens all the time, every day in plants. Unless plants = God, then we have a system by which unintelligent purely chemical forces are acting to turn simple compounds (CO2) into sugars and larger molecules. In addition we find simple sugars and sugar-related compounds in meteorites (LINK). Sugars are not "miracles", they are chemicals.

But further there are a number of reactions where "simple" molecules react to form "more complex" molecules. Often times this involves the addition of heat or some avialable energy. The Miller-Urey experiments showed that such can happen. The key now is to see if those conditions were dominant at the time it is hypothesized to have happened, and that is looking pretty clearly to be the case.

If True-Blue wants to obsess now over "organelles" he should think about micelles. These are possibly the simplest analogue to a proto-cell wall. Micelles are rather interesting structures made up of the spontaneous organization of simple surfactant molecules into sheets and 'envelopes'. Every time True-blue washes his hands he makes these things. Is he God?

Now granted real cell walls are actually more like "double layers" of these in which an open space is introduced in the middle. But the development of lipid bilayers is not unheard of. So now you have the "skin" for the early living cell. A protective outer coating. No supernatural event necessarily needed.

What I don't understand about True_Blue's whole thesis here is that he seems to think every single reaction is some drive from complex to simplistic in one single inexorable step. I don't know where he gets that idea. He seems to ignore all of chemistry.

As chemists we walk into the lab every day and run reactions that, with a bit of energy, or in some cases removing the energy, we drive reactions of simpler compounds to more complex compounds. UNIVERSALLY everything is driving toward greater entropy, "decay" after a fashion, if you will. But locally many reactions occur in which order is generated out of disorder. My freezer does it every single minute of every day. If I didn't have an auto-defrost on the thing I'd have to face this grim reality every so often as we all used to have to do.

Last I checked there's no one worshiping my fridge as "god" (except for my dog, Aleister Growly).

I think True-Blue is simply trying to oversimplify the system because he doesn't have any chemistry fundamentals to rely on. He wishes to pull it over to a purely statistical system without any "constraints" which make it a chemical system and not just a bunch of coin flips.

You're a smart guy, Thaumatury. Do you want to create a model to fit what you believe are the chemical realities on the ground, and perhaps provide a paragraph or two explaining your assumptions? If you did so, it would be a first by evolutionists, to my knowledge. TalkOrigins copped out and set P=1. When you estimate things, there's no need to be bothered by simplification. I've estimated the cost of Air Force aircraft using a thousand equations, and I've done so with one equation. The same is true in this exercise.

When liquid water has energy removed, the resulting arrangement of the molecules is not more "complex" that the arrangement of the liquid water molecules. Similar to looking for faces in clouds. When you look at the top of a hurricane, the spiral shape of the clouds is not a "complex" pattern.

 

[True_Blue]

And yet again, again, we have no idea about how many, among the multitude of possible conclusions, would result in a viable life precursor. TB chooses 1, but that choice is arbitrary (like nearly all of the other assumptions of his statistical analysis).

What's more, the example considers only a single reaction scenario, that you have to go through every step without a single step backwards, so to speak, which is highly implausible. Yes, degradation processes will occur, but its not as if those bring you all the way back to step one in an instant. If you only reach, say, step 8 with 195 macromers, and slip back to step 4 before starting the process up again, you're starting from a more advanced state of polymerization than you were from time=0. So, the next time your reaction conditions are present, you progress from step 4 to step 12, slip back to step 9, and then finish off the cycle on the last go.
In fact, including some amount of a degradative processes will favor the formation of a more stable system at the end, as those bonds/conformations within your polymer which are most susceptible to breakage will invariably break first, and stronger bonds/conformations will be preserved. By the time you are done, the most robust polymer is what is left behind...

With respect to the number of combinations that could form life, I touched on it briefly in Post #1. We could assume a trillion trillion viable combinations. Or if you prefer, we could assume a trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion combinations. However, just think for a moment how many discrete possibilities of a self-replicating life form there are with only 50,000 pieces of something. If you take the simplest bacterial DNA and start knocking out pieces, how many knocks can you make before the bacteria dies? How many combinations? Even an absurdly high number of combinations of viability will barely dent the vast probabilities required to create that life form (^4000000+ using reasonable assumptions, instead of the unreasonable assumptions I made). Creative, intelligent people can't even model the behavior of a flagellum on a computer. How are we supposed to create a bacteria from scratch with our lab equipment and genius? How is chance supposed to succeed where we fail?

 

[atomweaver]

Interesting that the title of the article itself is misleading: Glycolaldehyde does not equal glucose, fructose, etc. There's a big gap between an 8-atom molecule and a 24-atom molecule.

No, there isn't. One simple reaction needs to occur twice; 8+8+8 = 24

There's an even bigger gap between a 24-atom molecule and a 300 million-atom molecule capable of replicating itself.

How big, you might ask..? Its not 299,999,976 discrete steps, as your statistic exercise would model it.

It's possible that they've discovered 8-atom molecules in the cloud. However, my skeptical antenna starts to perk up a bit when consider what known frame of reference they used to calibrate their measurements across 26,000 light-years.

Doubt for doubt's sake. Its convenient that you don't get bogged down in the science of things. If you did, you could actually know how accurate their measurements were. Better for your confidence in your own model if you continue to remain ignorant....

In any case, as with my comments on atmospheres, I made an aggressive facial attack on abiogenesis by supposing that even the simple 24-atom molecules would not form naturalistically. I am willing to concede that it is conceivable such a compound could arise naturalistically, though as yet unproven and not actually observed yet to my knowledge.

"to my knowledge" is not a particularly stringent qualifier, particularly when the person uttering it is explicit in stating they won't consider the science.

I'm not sure the 2nd Law has really sunk into your bones yet. If it had, you'd know what I'm referring to. The larger and more complex the molecule, the faster the forces of entropy will break it down.

False. In fact, the opposite is often true. Take the ABS plastic housing that your, and every other, computer monitor is enclosed in. Larger molecules (polymer plastics, metals, etc) can be more durable, not less. The fact that the polymer chains are as large as they are, and entangled with one another, and cross-linked one to another is exactly why the housing is durable. You are looking at and actively using evidence that disproves your assertion right now, TB...

I'll say this one time; your assertions about the effect of the second law, applied on a localized basis, have no basis.

Everything in chemistry works against complex molecules, which is why one of the other posts point out that plants make such complex molecules. It takes an exceedingly complex system (a plant, for example) to make a somewhat less complex compound, like a protein. It doesn't happen the other way around. Either you will understand this or you won't. The 2nd Law is wholly and completely incompatible with every aspect of evolution (save the microevolution reductionist kind).

You are applying the universal effect of the Second Law on a local level. The fact that the whole universe tends towards entropy says nothing about localized systems with a massive available energy source. In your 50,000 'parts' example, you were off by nearly 4 orders of magnitude on the number of steps to make a whole. This 2nd Law application blunder you're making is a massive number of orders of magnitude worse, as you're trying to apply the universe-wide entropy effect to one vanishingly small portion of that universe and pretending its all on the same scale. It is not. The universe is quite a bit bigger than Earth, TB...

Natural selection only selects from among existing life forms those individuals best suited for the particular environment. It cannot generate new forms.

Correct, that is mutation's job (and genetic drift, etc.).

As such, natural selection is a 2nd law process.

Incorrect.

One can't understand the 2nd Law while still grasping macroevolution and abiogenesis as the explanation of your existence.

Look at that glowing orb in the sky for a while, TB. Keep staring, (but not too long!!) and then come back here and tell us it is not a source of energy external to our Earth.

 

[True_Blue]

For a starter, though, I'd be satisfied with a brief explanation of how the above idea violates the second law. It might also be a good idea for you to post the second law in your own words, so we can tell if there are any misconceptions. Translation: "even if it turns out I'm wrong I'm right".

The greater the temperature difference between two objects, the faster the rate of heat transfer between the two. Thus, the rate of heat transfer between the sun and space should diminish over time at a decreasing rate, being extremely fast initially but slowing down over time. The heat transfer is the luminosity of the sun. The space into which the energy enters will contain less usable energy than the sun.

The pace at which the fuel within the sun "detonates" will also diminish on a decaying curve over time. We see this with earthquakes, volcanoes, tornadoes, the earth's magnetic field, and every other process under the sun.

A complex molecule is essentially "fuel." The fuel "wants" to detonate, and the underlying complexity of the molecule "wants" to be destroyed. That's the malevolence that I described earlier. Everything about nature destroys complexity, and present life is inevitably destroyed. It's completely against nature to tolerate life, and abiogenesis works precisely in the wrong direction. The Bible is in perfect conformity with the 2nd Law. In the early days, mankind lived 900+ years, and that age has decayed in perfect conformity with the second law, asymptotically approaching zero. Check out the attached thumbnail. From the fossil record, we can infer that animals lived an extremely long time as well, given the giantism we see in many extinct fossils, especially reptiles. I love the Bible because science, excellently performed, is conformity. To accept the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics is to accept the Bible.

 

[Naraoia]

I'm trying to introduce a way of thinking about scientific problems more than I am trying to prove a particular model.

Your way of thinking about scientific problems - or what I understand of it - doesn't impress this particular wannabe scientist. Models out of thin air, convictions based on ignorance of the field and simply letting evidence against your ideas slip past you unnoticed.

I'm sure the data on solar luminosity is out there somewhere, but I've so far been unsuccessful at dredging it up. For example, I used search "luminosity sun time data" and came up empty-handed. This is an important question for global warming and for our current discussion. If there is any amount of statistically significant exponential decay to solar luminosity, then that would have great implications.

It didn't seem to have that great implications during earth history (how would we have come out of the last Ice Age, just to stay close to your timescale?)

I expect that any results gleaned from the last 100 years will not show any statistically significant trend one way or the other.

Incidentally, I have the same expectation. I'm not sure whether any trend going on for the past 4-5 billion years would be large enough to be detectable among background noise on a 100-year timescale (and probably even smaller than that, as I'm sure our instruments for measuring such stuff have got immensely more precise in the past 100 years)

If you turn the kitchen oven off and open the door, the interior temperature of the oven will decay assymptotically towards the temperature of the room.

The key point here is: if you turn it off. The sun's very far from turned off.

The energy flux will likewise decay exponentially. The sun is a thermal energy reservoir,

It's a fusion reactor.

so it will decay more slowly than an oven. But we have every reason to believe the relevant curves will look the same.

And which reasons would that be?

Complex molecules, like lipids, degrade in the same way. If you extract a DNA strand from a cell and put it in any medium you like, the organization of the strand will decay in a downward-sloping curve. It simply isn't the case that tiny organic compounds will come together to form a DNA strand. That violates the 2nd law.

Simply isn't? That's what happens in every single cell cycle. The tiny organic compounds are nucleoside triphosphates - which are themselves synthesised de novo from even tinier components - and the energy comes from hydrolysing off two of the phosphate groups (basic biochemistry, really. They teach ATP in high school, at least where I come from). As I've said, enzymes may increase the rate of spontaneous reactions vastly (even by factors of 10[sup]18[/sup] IIRC) but they can't make otherwise impossible things happen. If DNA synthesis violated any law of physics it wouldn't occur in a cell.

But as I said earlier, I made the magnanimous assumption in my statistical model that those particular 2nd law effects don't apply. Another second law effect is itself illustrated in my probability model, which is that something I call "organizational entropy," or "information entropy," actively works against the formation of an organized system, absent intelligent design.

I increasingly get the feeling that you have no idea what the second law actually means.

 

[thaumaturgy]

You're a smart guy, Thaumatury. Do you want to create a model to fit what you believe are the chemical realities on the ground, and perhaps provide a paragraph or two explaining your assumptions?

I am not a biochemist, however I believe the biochemistry literature is replete with such estimations, but with a twist as I will discuss further on down. Just a brief flip through the 20 year old biochem textbook that I have at home establishes quite a few potential reactions.

I honestly don't know what it is you want here. I guess what you want is someone to produce a statistical probability for life to have occurred. I can tell you precisely what that statistical probability would NOT look like. You can see it here.

What you seem intent on doing in this thread is demanding that the chemistry be ignored. So far you've run up against a geochemist (me), a polymer/organic chemist (Maneki) and a couple of biochem students on this board who tell you your simplifications are so oversimplified that your model fails at the start.

That's what we've been trying to tell you all along. We are looking at a system that is complex but whose individual parts are not statistically impossible. The reactions described have been done. The Miller Urey experiment actually produced important organic precursors to life and the Oro experiment produced an actual biologically important nitrogenous base. One that we find in DNA and RNA.

Let me outline for you the real favorable assumptions you left out of your model:

1. Early earth with a reducing atmosphere. You have so far only found some discussion of a later atmosphere that was, at worst, possibly "neutral" but still capable of sustaining some of these reactions. But life, as has been pointed out, left evidence it was around before this "neutral atmosphere" was in play.

2. Available energy sources (lightning, possibly UV, geothermal heat)

3. Available water

4. Potential catalytic surfaces (silicates, sulfides, etc.)

NOW, when you run the "statistics" you need to:

A. Actually model the reactions necessary. That means establish the reaction kinetics, and then the thermodynamics to determine what reactions are more likely and what reactions are limited by speed.

B. Factor in the catalytic mineral surfaces' role in removing some kinetic barriers to some of these reactions.

C. Assess the YIELDS of these reactions.

THEN run your statistical model.

I am not even going to begin to place numbers on these factors, but I am sure the biochemical literature is quite full of them.

If you did so, it would be a first by evolutionists, to my knowledge.

To your knowledge. Which I think we've established as extremely limited in terms of chemistry and biochemistry.

TalkOrigins copped out and set P=1.

Well, to be fair, the fact that we are all here means life had a 100% chance of occuring in the past. Our differences seem to lie in exactly how that happened.

You seem to be of the impression that the reactions could not have occurred without God's direct intervention, correct? While science assumes that if all the pieces of the reaction are possible then the overall reaction is far more likely to be possible.

Right now we have all the pieces coming together, but it's a young science.

Think of it this way: You guys have had about 1 million years to "prove" one particular God exists. You in the Judeo-Christian Community have had approximately 5000 years to do your work. So far you are not successful in convincing everyone everywhere that Yahweh is THE God.

Science has had only about 50 years since Miller-Urey to put the system together. Cut us some slack.

When you estimate things, there's no need to be bothered by simplification. I've estimated the cost of Air Force aircraft using a thousand equations, and I've done so with one equation. The same is true in this exercise.

No, but you most assuredly need to understand the system you are working with. Your simplification is so oversimplified it ignores the actual system.

Imagine if you will that I wish to estimate the cost of Air Force Aircraft by the following assumptions:

1. Airplanes cost a lot.
2. 1 trillion is a lot.
3. The Air force has a lot of airplanes

Result: The Airforce has 1 trillion airplanes at 1 trillion dollars a piece which means the total cost of the U.S. airforce airplanes is $1X10[sup]24[/sup].

Do you see the error here? I have failed to constrain one of the important variables.

I have oversimplified the assumptions and made a fatal flaw. In the case of your assumptions you made a gross oversimplification that ignores all the details:

I also give each part a 50% chance of creating a favorable reaction each time they interact with each other.

In reaction rate kinetics there's an expression called the Arrhenius equation that describes the very thing you have oversimplified here.

The A in the equation, the "pre-exponential" factor is often called the "Frequency Factor" and tell us something about the frequency of collisions and their orientation, because sometimes orientation (how the molecules are arranged and facing each other) factors into the "success" of a reaction.

In addition the little E[sub]a[/sub] term tells us how energetically the collision must be to be successful.

A and Ea are set by the reaction which means that in order to actually model the countless reactions involved would mean that you have to know which reactions you are talking about. Not just randomly decree that you give it all a 50% chance of occuring.

This is also where catalytic surfaces like mineral surfaces come into play. A catalyst won't make a thermodynamically disfavorable reaction occur, but what it will do is LOWER the E[sub]a[/sub] of the reaction rate and make it more kinetically favorable to occur.

This is why it is important to not take your oversimplified systems too far. You cannot assess a random "chance" factor like a coinflip to these analyses.

"Estimates" of the kind you seem to want are probably available assuming certain reaction pathways. I think the actual facts on the ground are that we are still gathering the reaction pathways.

 

[Naraoia]

Do chemical reactions form organelles? I presume that intelligent humans lack the capacity to use chemistry to synthesize organelles. How is an unthinking and malevelant force of chance supposed to synthese something like an organelle or a simple DNA strand?

I wasn't going to reply to this particular post (wasn't addressed to me anyway) but I had to say my thing on the above idea.

The problem with your reasoning is that humans don't know everything about chemistry - and our knowledge limits what experiments we can envision, consequently also what we can create. Chemicals, however, don't need a knowledge of chemistry to act under its rules (just as you don't need to know about gravity to fall from a tree).

(Random nitpicking: how can an unthinking force be malevolent?)

 

[Naraoia]

This is a good article you provided, and I recommend the rest of you guys read it. It does a nice job illustrating the problem. Here are the list of assumptions they make, along with a few made in the course of this thread:

1. The early atmosphere contained substantially no oxygen.

Which, to my knowledge, remains a reasonable and even evidenced assumption up until three point something billion years ago.

2. The reactions took place in a broth such that iron and carbonate buffers kept the pH pegged such that any molecules would not be destroyed once created.

Can't say how realistic this is; I don't know how much iron and how much carbonate stuff would be present in an early ocean. I guess if the atmosphere was rich in CO[sub]2[/sub] then there had to be a substantial amount of dissolved carbonate

3. The broth was located deep underground or under the ocean, away from damaging solar radiation, and in a location neither too hot nor too cold.

A deep sea vent is a good place for that. It's far away from any sunlight and there's a nice heat gradient between the vent and the surrounding colder water. In modern vent systems this creates a temperature range from hundreds to a mere 4°C - I'm quite sure "neither too hot nor too cold" will be somewhere in that range

4. If under the ocean, it was in a pocket where no currents would sweep the broth away.

AFAIK there aren't many currents near the ocean bottom. Also, if you go down into the sediment on the sea floor or into cracks in the rocks then the stuff is protected from currents anyway.

5. Some sort of a spark provided energy to power the reaction, but the energy was neither to weak, nor too powerful, as with lightning.

Again, vents, heat gradients. (At the moment I'm too lazy to think about other options but vents are great for illustration purposes. And I really, really don't want to go and spend ages finding out the most likely temperature range of the early oceans.)

6. Once the amino acids are created, they are automatically removed from the source of the energy, but not too far away so that the products could somehow combine into more complex molecules.

Diffusion. Happens pretty automatically and in the desired direction.

7. The broth was maintained at optimal conditions to continually produce substantial numbers of amino acids long enough to form larger compounds.

Is years enough?

(Although I'm not sure why we're talking about amino acids combining into larger compounds. I thought proteins were a late addition to life's inventory; what else would need longer peptides in abiogenesis models? PNA, perhaps. Can anyone suggest anything else?)

8. The broth was maintained in optimal conditions for an extremely long period of time.

Just how long? Staying with hydrothermal vents and similar volcanic sources of heat, early (and more volcanic) earth would have a large number of them for quite a long time (there are still plenty and the earth's been cooling for ages and ages).

9. Damaging molecules and free radicals were somehow neutralized during the painstaking process of stitching together the long organic compounds in the direction of life.

Apparently, in Bada's experiment the iron and carbonate stuff did that.

I could keep adding assumptions, and perhaps I will tomorrow when I have more time on my hands, but my point is that when you account for these and other assumptions, you're basically assuming the entire laboratory in which Stanley's and follow-on experiments took place, which has little or no basis in actual physical reality.

According to the SciAm article it does. Does anyone have sources on how realistic the conditions were? (I'm mainly interested in the abundance of the minerals alluded to) Incidentally, did anyone track down Bada's paper? If there is one, that is; I tried to find it when I first met the SciAm article but I wasn't successful.

(By the way, why do you keep referring to Stanley Miller by his first name? This is at least the second time I've seen you do that and it sounds weird.)

The only thing missing from your long list of assumptions is the Scientist, the Designer. I really do want to reach you guys and help you come to know Jesus. That's why I'm here every day.

I don't think Jesus has much to do with science. But that's just me. (Also, I couldn't find him when I went looking, so unless you can tell him to come and find me I don't know how you could make me know him)

 

[Naraoia]

Do you have a sugar bowl? If so, do you keep it vacuum sealed until you need it?

Great point! And that in an atmosphere with 20+% molecular oxygen.

 

[atomweaver]

With respect to the number of combinations that could form life, I touched on it briefly in Post #1. We could assume a trillion trillion viable combinations. Or if you prefer, we could assume a trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion combinations. However, just think for a moment how many discrete possibilities of a self-replicating life form there are with only 50,000 pieces of something. If you take the simplest bacterial DNA and start knocking out pieces, how many knocks can you make before the bacteria dies?

If you are considering abiogenesis, I'm curious why are you starting your thought process with a living thing, and working backwards? Reverse engineering works on engineering problems. I suspect your pre-supposition that life is designed is what makes you insist on applying engineering principles, here. There is a sort of 'reverse engineering' that you can apply to chemicals, called retrosynthetic analysis, but it does not follow the same guidelines as reverse engineering.

Next, you grossly under-estimate the resilience of life systems. I'd suggest you read about the critter known as the bedelloid rotifer;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bdelloid
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/320/5880/1210

When this small aquatic animal meets with dry conditions, it becomes dessicated, and within its cell walls its genome comes apart almost entirely, only to be reconstituted when water is re-introduced, only with the possibility of massive inputs of genes from other plants and animals. Yet, it remains a bdelloid rotifer. If a living thing can do this, its plausible to at least consider that a non-living precursor could show some of the same characteristics of resiliency. At the very least, it is hard physical evidence that your suggested frailty of DNA, RNA, and simple life forms is unfounded.

How many combinations? Even an absurdly high number of combinations of viability will barely dent the vast probabilities required to create that life form (^4000000+ using reasonable assumptions, instead of the unreasonable assumptions I made).

This is because your model contains vast orders of magnitude errors in your simplification of the chemical processes it attempts to model. Its not that life needs more opportunities to come about, its that your model doesn't reflect at all how few steps are actually required per 'opportunity'.

Speaking of opportunity, you likewise don't consider the simply massive number of molecules that reactions occur with. An 8 ounce cup of water has 7.5 x 10^24 H2O molecules. Consider the typical "shallow inland sea" origin of life scenario, just how many 8 ounce glasses of water there are to be had at your local beach? Do the math; Molecules and reactions can beat out your "improbably low" statistic, with shear numbers, alone...

Also, abiogenesis does not consider the process of life from non-life to have occurred in a single massive string of reactions. In fact, all that needs to happen is for the reaction products of one step to be a lower energy state than their precursors. Remember this diagram?

You're not modelling abiogensis, you are modelling your creationist idea of abiogenesis. I showed you already how your "50,000 steps from simple 'parts' to polymers" was off by 49,984 steps, because of your ignorance of chemistry. The whole statistical exercise contains similar (gross orders of magnitude) errors with every assumption.

Creative, intelligent people can't even model the behavior of a flagellum on a computer.

TB, you need to stop making crap up. Its bad for you in so many ways...

 

[Naraoia]

Interesting that the title of the article itself is misleading: Glycolaldehyde does not equal glucose, fructose, etc.

If I remember my high school chemistry correctly, sugars are just small carbohydrates. Glycolaldehyde is as good a sugar as D-deoxyribose.

There's a big gap between an 8-atom molecule and a 24-atom molecule. There's an even bigger gap between a 24-atom molecule and a 300 million-atom molecule capable of replicating itself.

Already addressed, and well enough that I don't feel the need to repeat the point.

It's possible that they've discovered 8-atom molecules in the cloud. However, my skeptical antenna starts to perk up a bit when consider what known frame of reference they used to calibrate their measurements across 26,000 light-years.

Why do you think emission spectra would change with distance?

In any case, as with my comments on atmospheres, I made an aggressive facial attack on abiogenesis by supposing that even the simple 24-atom molecules would not form naturalistically. I am willing to concede that it is conceivable such a compound could arise naturalistically, though as yet unproven and not actually observed yet to my knowledge.

Good start. It seems you aren't entirely impermeable to evidence

However, unless you propose that God personally planted organic molecules in interstellar dust and meteorites (or that passing aliens did so), I'd say we have pretty good evidence that they form naturally even without directly observing the process.

I'm not sure the 2nd Law has really sunk into your bones yet.

I'm a biologist in training, not a physicist or chemist. I don't work with the 2nd Law or claim to have a very deep understanding of it, but I understand it enough (and have seen enough of the world) to know it doesn't prohibit increasing complexity.

If it had, you'd know what I'm referring to. The larger and more complex the molecule, the faster the forces of entropy will break it down.

Someone answered this excellently.

Everything in chemistry works against complex molecules,

Why do plastic bags exist then? Does God's mighty hand stick into plastic factories? If so, why do people even need the appropriate chemicals and conditions to produce polymers?

which is why one of the other posts point out that plants make such complex molecules. It takes an exceedingly complex system (a plant, for example) to make a somewhat less complex compound, like a protein.

Enzymes are still catalysts, not magic wands.

It doesn't happen the other way around. Either you will understand this or you won't.

I admit I don't. Perhaps your reasoning just wasn't good enough?

The 2nd Law is wholly and completely incompatible with every aspect of evolution (save the microevolution reductionist kind).

Waaait, even the kind of microevolution that produces nylonases, citrate digesting E.coli and turns unicellular algae colonial under selective pressure from a predator? All these examples add to the complexity of the organism.

Natural selection only selects from among existing life forms those individuals best suited for the particular environment. It cannot generate new forms. As such, natural selection is a 2nd law process.

True. It's mutation that generates the new forms. I guess you could call mutations "2nd law processes" by your weird definition of the 2nd Law. They arise from damage to DNA - spontaneous methylation/oxidation/deamination/whatever chemical change to a base, radiation damage, bases spontaneously hydrolysing off the sugar backbone, copying errors, faulty repair etc.

And yet, some of them are greatly advantageous. Some of them increase complexity. Some of them create novelties. And that's not theoretical speculation, that's fact.

One can't understand the 2nd Law while still grasping macroevolution and abiogenesis as the explanation of your existence.

One can't understand the 2nd Law and claim that it prohibits said processes. See, I can make big claims too!

 

[thaumaturgy]

which is why one of the other posts point out that plants make such complex molecules. It takes an exceedingly complex system (a plant, for example) to make a somewhat less complex compound, like a protein.

Whoah there. Plants synthesize "complex" compounds (ie sugars) from simple compounds (ie CO2) every single day. It is a purely normal, natural, chemical reaction. It utilizes a "catalytic" factor in chlorophyll, but it is still a perfectly normal chemical reaction.

It doesn't happen the other way around. Either you will understand this or you won't. The 2nd Law is wholly and completely incompatible with every aspect of evolution

I am wondering if you know what the Second Law of Thermodynamics actually says.

Let's look at a formulation of the Second Law:

"The entropy of an isolated system increases in the course of a spontaneous change." (P.W. Atkins Physical Chemistry 3rd Ed.) (Emphasis added).

Note the "isolated system" clause there. That's pretty important. In fact it is the one thing Creationists fail to ever read when spouting the Second Law. Either you can read or you cannot. If you cannot you can be forgiven for making irrational and silly commentary about how evolution is some violation of the second law.

As stated earlier there are a number of reactions where the entropy locally actually decreases, so long as within the CLOSED SYSTEM (perhaps the universe or some isolated system) increases.

Evolution is taking place on the planet earth which utilizes energy from the Sun. For "evolution" to violate the second law you need to look at the entire solar system or the entire universe to determine that evolution somehow disallows the overall increase in entropy.

But further, I'll level with you, I've yet to see a Creationist who appeared to understand entropy qua entropy. I'll freely admit I'm still puzzling over it myself. I've read Fermi's Thermodynamics and I've got my well-worn copy of Atkins Physical Chemistry here. And a couple other books on thermo on my bookshelf and to be honest I'm still scratching my head.

The thing I have learned in all my years in chemistry is that "Entropy is not merely jumbled up things". Unfortunately for Creationists (most of whom have not put the time into understanding thermodynamics and think their "simplistic" junior high school level of understanding will suffice) the sad fact is The Second Law is a rather complex subject. Entropy itself is rather complex.

When a Creationist looks at a living thing they see nothing but extreme complexity and order and can't see beyond their dazzlement by that to see how the rest of the universe has become more disordered by the local existence of order.

You keep conveniently ignoring the discussion around the entropy of crystallization. It is a simple analogue. Order from disorder locally. Entropy terms in a given reaction can sometimes be NEGATIVE. There are honest, real reactions on this very planet that carry a negative entropy term.

How do they occur? How can something have a "negative entropy" (ie go against your simplistic misunderstanding of the second law)? I'll tell you how: because the larger overall system itself gains entropy.

As such, natural selection is a 2nd law process. One can't understand the 2nd Law while still grasping macroevolution and abiogenesis as the explanation of your existence.

I wonder what you understand about the Second Law. No offense. As I've said I have trouble with it, but I don't think you've expressed much in the previous paragraphs or posts that indicates you have a significant grasp of it.

Please, using strict thermodynamic formalisms, explain to us how the earth, a NON-ISOLATED SYSTEM cannot have "evolution" on it?

Tell us what is happening to the sun and heat in the universe overall when evolution is occuring.

OR, perhaps you'd like to tell us how the earth is not receiving energy from the Sun. I'd be interested in your hypotheses either way.

 

[Naraoia]

If you take a DNA strand and chop to bits, the DNA stand will no longer function. You can take a crystal and break it into a thousand pieces. Each piece will still be a crystal. Not so with DNA. That's why I say that multiplicative probabilities are appropriate. In some cases, it might be possible to break DNA into 2 or 4 pieces and retain functionality. In that case, a tiny amount of additive probability may be appropriate.

DNA is a fairly stable molecule. In the past few weeks I've shaken, heated and centrifuged lots of it lots of times and it doesn't seem to mind (and this was just DNA without all the fluff of a cell ).

RNA is less stable than DNA but RNA viruses as large as 30 kilobases (some coronaviruses) still flourish - and unless I'm very much mistaken, RNA viruses aren't exactly experts in repairing strand breaks.