Evidence against abiogenesis/evolution

[Chalnoth]

Nope: plants 'breathe' O[sub]2[/sub] at night.

And in any case, we are talking about the first organism, not humans. A simple self-replicating molecule incased in a simple phospholipid double-membrane might not make any excrement, let alone excrement that is toxic.

Please, show that the first organism must:
a) excrete toxic chemicals
b) be unable to move away from said excrement

Because, even if you're right about the excrement, simple thermal motion would cause the toxins to spread uniformly throughout the 'ocean' of chemicals.

Oh, I think that waste is inevitable. It's a consequence of thermodynamics: in order to live, organisms need to make use of an increase in entropy. And the way they do that is chemical reactions. If they are to continue catalyzing chemical reactions, they need a continual input of chemicals to react. Since the chemical potential of these reactions will reverse if the products of the chemical reactions build up, they need to get rid of these products. Else they'll simply reach equilibrium with as many forward reactions as backward reactions, which equates to death for a living organism (because in equilibrium no entropy increase can be used).

But it's not a problem, because the ocean will dilute to effectively nothing any and all waste products for the earliest life forms.

 

[Naraoia]

To best of my knowledge, all life forms have excrement (except perhaps viruses), and to the best of my knowledge, growth of all life forms is inhibited if the concentration of excrement reaches a certain threshold. CO2 is toxic to humans. O2 is toxic to organisms that excrete it.

Such as plants, which have mitochondria and perform oxidative phosphorylation just like we do? And, anyone who knows this, aren't cyanobacteria also aerobic?

 

[Naraoia]

But it's not a problem, because the ocean will dilute to effectively nothing any and all waste products for the earliest life forms.

Yep, I was thinking about the oxygen catastrophe. IIRC the earth successfully put away the waste of cyanobacteria without any major harm to life for more than a billion years (assuming, of course, that early cyanobacteria were also oxygenic).

 

[Chalnoth]

Yep, I was thinking about the oxygen catastrophe. IIRC the earth successfully put away the waste of cyanobacteria without any major harm to life for more than a billion years (assuming, of course, that early cyanobacteria were also oxygenic).

Well, when it takes even thousands of years (and it may have taken tens of millions) for the concentrations of atmospheric gasses to change significantly, single-celled organisms have no problems whatsoever coping.

 

[plindboe]

But then I'm a crazy biology student who spends two hours freezing her extremities off and crawling over slippery seaweedy rocks just to admire a few worms, snails and anemones

I wish I had that kind of passion. I often consider the studies very dull, because of the seemingly endless info one has to absorb.

I saw an actual lamprey today though, and I must admit that I was completely fascinated by it.

Peter

 

[Loudmouth]

Nylon isn’t an entirely new substance—it’s made out of coal.

Nylon is a man made polymer that does not occur naturally. The bacteria in this example evolved enzymes that were capable of breaking down the oligomers used in producing nylon. Again, these oligomers do not occur in nature and did not exist until the 1950's.

Almost all manufactured goods are hydrocarbons. The very complexity of a molecule is an energy source. I imagine that pretty much any complex substance a human might make can be degraded by microbes already in existence. This is one reason why I am not worried that man-made pollution can irreparably harm the environment.

The parent strain could not digest nylon oligomers. The bacteria had to evolve the enzymes.

My little business has been studying methanogens in detail, among other microbes, to devise exotic ways to make money from them. There is compelling experimental evidence showing that it’s impractical to expect microbes to evolve to reverse their metabolic pathway such that they are no longer inhibited by excretion of a particular substance. We’ve structured our business model accordingly. If you were right, Drs. Deng and Coleman, who created ethanol-excreting cyanobacteria, would be richer than Bill Gates right now: http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=91056. Their idea went nowhere because the bacteria were destroyed when concentrations of ethanol reached a certain level. If you can spend a few years coaxing cyanos to develop high ethanol tolerance through natural selection, up to 50 g/L (let alone eating the ethanol itself), you’ll be the richest human being ever. You’ll also go a long way toward showing evolution is practical.

These researchers evolved new enzymes for bioremediation.

Chem Biol. 2007 Sep;14(9):1052-64. Links

In vitro evolution of a fungal laccase in high concentrations of organic cosolvents.

Zumárraga M, Bulter T, Shleev S, Polaina J, Martínez-Arias A, Plou FJ, Ballesteros A, Alcalde M.
Department of Biocatalysis, Institute of Catalysis, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, Cantoblanco, 28049 Madrid, Spain.
Fungal laccases are remarkable green catalysts that have a broad substrate specificity and many potential applications in bioremediation, lignocellulose processing, organic synthesis, and more. However, most of these transformations must be carried out at high concentrations of organic cosolvents in which laccases undergo unfolding, thereby losing their activity. We have tailored a thermostable laccase that tolerates high concentrations of cosolvents, the genetic product of five rounds of directed evolution expressed in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. This evolved laccase--R2 variant--was capable of resisting a wide array of cosolvents at concentrations as high as 50% (v/v). Intrinsic laccase features such as the redox potential and the geometry of catalytic copper varied slightly during the course of the molecular evolution. Some mutations at the protein surface stabilized the laccase by allowing additional electrostatic and hydrogen bonding to occur.

I’m going to stick to my assertion that clumping of unicellular organisms does not a multicellular organism make.

Closing your eyes does not make the evidence go away.

 

[True_Blue]

Yep, I was thinking about the oxygen catastrophe. IIRC the earth successfully put away the waste of cyanobacteria without any major harm to life for more than a billion years (assuming, of course, that early cyanobacteria were also oxygenic).

I have a different take on the oxygen catastrophe. I've read studies indicating oxygen concentration was 30% at some point in the past versus 21% today, a 50% increase over today's levels. This might explain at least some of the reason for the incredible longevity of people in Genesis (up to 1000 years). With a high oxygen content, people would heal much quicker and perform physical activity at much higher performance levels. Marathons would no problem at all. From fossil discoveries, it's apparent that creatures of almost every kind grew to larger maximal sizes than they do now. It's entirely reasonable to speculate that they grew to such large sizes because their lifespans were so much longer. Lizards don't stop growing. If the lizards live 500 years or more, they're gonna be enormous.

So I say that the oxygen catastrophe is what we're experiencing today, not as it was in the past. Thermodynamically, things go from order to disorder, and the sad and degraded state of the ecosystem today compared to how it looked in the past is consistent with this truism.

 

[Loudmouth]

I have a different take on the oxygen "catastrophe." I've read studies indicating oxygen concentration was 30% at some point in the past versus 21% today, a 50% increase over today's levels. This might explain at least some of the reason for the incredible longevity of people in Genesis (up to 1000 years).

The oxygen catastrophe is thought to have cased the Permian extinction. This occurred millions of years ago. There are no human fossils from this time period, or even primate fossils for that matter.

From fossil discoveries, it's apparent that creatures of almost every kind grew to larger maximal sizes than they do now. It's entirely reasonable to speculate that they grew to such large sizes because their lifespans were so much longer.

Size does not equate to life span.

 

[Paconious]

I have a different take on the oxygen "catastrophe." I've read studies indicating oxygen concentration was 30% at some point in the past versus 21% today, a 50% increase over today's levels. This might explain at least some of the reason for the incredible longevity of people in Genesis (up to 1000 years). With a high oxygen content, people would heal much quicker and perform physical activity at much higher performance levels. .

The people who lived at the time Genesis was written did not use 365 days to mark a year. You cant possibly believe that back then people lived 1000 years. We have trouble keeping ourselfs in the 70-80 year mark with modern medicine, which is a astronomical leap given that 100 years ago life expectancy was lower. Regarding the oxygen claim, I'm confident in saying that, if the oxygen concentration were tweaked slightly higher, you could ignite a considerable region of land with the strike of a match.

 

[thaumaturgy]

Volcanic and geothermal activity exist because pressure is being released. When the pressure is equalized, the activity ceases. Volcanic activity at a region lasts from days to decades, not millions of years of even multiple millennia. I don't subscribe to uniformitarianism in geology any more than I do in biology.

I know this is a mere side-issue here at the circus, but if I might interject (since I missed this post earlier):

1. volcanic activity lasts quite a long time. Obviously, immediate release of pressure and volcanic eruptions are episodic in nature, but the underlying "stressor" (magma underground) lasts a long long time in an area. That is why some areas have volcanic activity lasting extremely long periods of time, but showing episodic eruptions.

The Yellowstone hotspot has been responsible for volcanic and geothermal activity for something like 17 million years or so. Of course as the continental US moves over the hotspot we see some movement in where it "pops up".

2. Further onto your ambivalence toward "uniformitarianism". I find this attitude most fascinating because it's rather contrarian. If you find evidence of actions occuring today at a given rate and resulting (by necessity of the chemistry or physics of the situation) in specific structures, and you find those same structures preserved in ancient rocks, why would you suppose the rates were not comparable or the processes were not similar?

That is the heart of Uniformitarianism. So I'm always amazed at why someone would find this "controversial" unless, of course, they'd never actually looked at a rock or taken a geology 1 class. Then I could understand.

This is not to say Catastrophism has no place in geology. Nothing could be further from the truth. No geologist thinks catastrophes never occur or are never shown in the geologic record. Indeed they stand out.

But whenever I read someone "dismissing" or otherwise downplaying Uniformitarianism I figure it is likely because they are uninterested or uninformed as to what the data actually shows or they have an ulterior motive, an agenda (perhaps it is so they can explain their desire to have Genesis be a literal account of creation, for instance.)

Which is it for you?

 

[Dilvish]

True blue, are you familiar with the term "reactive oxygen species" and the effect of aforementioned ROS on any given organism?

Here's a hint - while you're at it, look up singlet and triplet oxygen, hm?

 

[True_Blue]

2. Further onto your ambivalence toward "uniformitarianism". I find this attitude most fascinating because it's rather contrarian. If you find evidence of actions occuring today at a given rate and resulting (by necessity of the chemistry or physics of the situation) in specific structures, and you find those same structures preserved in ancient rocks, why would you suppose the rates were not comparable or the processes were not similar?

That is the heart of Uniformitarianism. So I'm always amazed at why someone would find this "controversial" unless, of course, they'd never actually looked at a rock or taken a geology 1 class. Then I could understand.

This is not to say Catastrophism has no place in geology. Nothing could be further from the truth. No geologist thinks catastrophes never occur or are never shown in the geologic record. Indeed they stand out.

But whenever I read someone "dismissing" or otherwise downplaying Uniformitarianism I figure it is likely because they are uninterested or uninformed as to what the data actually shows or they have an ulterior motive, an agenda (perhaps it is so they can explain their desire to have Genesis be a literal account of creation, for instance.)

Which is it for you?

Every kind of reaction in nature, to the best of my knowledge, follows a decaying exponential trajectory, asymptotically approaching zero. If you heat up your oven, then open up the door, the rate of heat transfer will be fast at first, then decline at a slower rate as the two temperatures begin to equalize. If a volcano erupts, the energy released is initially violent, but diminishes in an exponential pattern. Radioactive molecules diminish according to their half-life. The earth's magnetic field is similarly decaying. If a primorial ocean is full of BOD/COD (food), and the first microbe appears, the amount of food will decline on a decaying exponential trajectory.

In other words, when it comes to reactions of any kind in nature, there is no such thing as uniformitarianism.

 

[Split Rock]

I have a different take on the oxygen catastrophe. I've read studies indicating oxygen concentration was 30% at some point in the past versus 21% today, a 50% increase over today's levels. This might explain at least some of the reason for the incredible longevity of people in Genesis (up to 1000 years). With a high oxygen content, people would heal much quicker and perform physical activity at much higher performance levels. Marathons would no problem at all. From fossil discoveries, it's apparent that creatures of almost every kind grew to larger maximal sizes than they do now. It's entirely reasonable to speculate that they grew to such large sizes because their lifespans were so much longer. Lizards don't stop growing. If the lizards live 500 years or more, they're gonna be enormous.

1. Do you have any evidence to back up the claim that a higher oxygen atmosphere would speed healing or alter the aging process, or are you just speculating off the top of your head?
2. You seem to be implying that dinosaurs were just large, old lizards. They were not lizards, and many were quite small.

So I say that the oxygen catastrophe is what we're experiencing today, not as it was in the past. Thermodynamically, things go from order to disorder, and the sad and degraded state of the ecosystem today compared to how it looked in the past is consistent with this truism.

What evidence can you provide us to back up your claim that thermodynamically ecosystems today are "degraded" campared to the past?

Regarding the oxygen claim, I'm confident in saying that, if the oxygen concentration were tweaked slightly higher, you could ignite a considerable region of land with the strike of a match.

Actually, this part of his post is fairly accurate. It is hypothesized that the reason insects were larger during the Permian and Carboniferous Periods was becasue the oxygen content in the atmosphere was greater than today. However, this has to do with insect anatomy, rather than how old they could get. Insects do not have a closed circulatory system, and use openings in their exoskeleton (trachea) to take in oygen and remove caron dioxide. This limits the size they can effectively grow to. The idea is that with a higher concentration of oxygen in the atmosphere, they were capable of grower larger.

 

[Split Rock]

Every kind of reaction in nature, to the best of my knowledge, follows a decaying exponential trajectory, asymptotically approaching zero. If you heat up your oven, then open up the door, the rate of heat transfer will be fast at first, then decline at a slower rate as the two temperatures begin to equalize. If a volcano erupts, the energy released is initially violent, but diminishes in an exponential pattern. Radioactive molecules diminish according to their half-life. The earth's magnetic field is similarly decaying. If a primorial ocean is full of BOD/COD (food), and the first microbe appears, the amount of food will decline on a decaying exponential trajectory.

In other words, when it comes to reactions of any kind in nature, there is no such thing as uniformitarianism.

There are a few problems with your thinking.
1. Biological organisms are never at theromodynamic equilibrium, unless they are dead.
2. The earth is constantly being supplied with a large external supply of energy from the sun.
3. Local increases in entropy are possible in a system, as long as the net entropy of the entire system increases over time.
4. The magnetic field of the earth is not decaying, and has flipped polarity numerous times in the past.

 

[thaumaturgy]

Every kind of reaction in nature, to the best of my knowledge, follows a decaying exponential trajectory

Are you familiar with Zeroth Order Reaction Rates? They are linear.

Radioactive molecules diminish according to their half-life.

Indeed an exponential form. A First Order Rate equation.

The earth's magnetic field is similarly decaying.

The magnetic field fluctuates and has been known to ebb and flow throughout geologic history.

In other words, when it comes to reactions of any kind in nature, there is no such thing as uniformitarianism.

Any reaction rate that can be modelled mathematically would seem to be aptly called a uniformitarian model. It simply means that a rate expression can be forecast and backed out in time.

Uniformitarianism can be generalized to state that processes occuring at a given rate today probably occured at a similar rate in the past. This would seem to account for chemical rates as well. That is how we know that radiometric dating (an exponential decay process) is a good dating technique. The rate is calculable over time.

If a first-order reaction is what you consider to be the only thing of importance then indeed rates may be faster in the past. But that does not mean that streams necessarily ran faster in the past and eroded at dramatically higher rates in the past just because you have some examples of chemical reaction rates that follow an exponential decay.

If that were the case, then surely we'd see such a change happening in stream erosion patterns all over the earth at this time. It would be pattently obvious.

To my knowledge stream erosion rates are not universally decaying. They are a function of gravitational potential, weather, rock strength, capacity and competence of the stream.

Indeed a given stream will erode to a level in which it loses capacity and competence in that locality, but that doesn't affect streams in other unrelated parts of the world.

But further, remember, the way we know how things occured in the past is by the evidence we see in the rocks today compared to the same type of evidence in soft-sediments under modern conditions.

Now, unless you are going to make equally unfounded claims around some decay of fundamental laws of physics over time (like did Gravity follow a different formula in the past that it doesn't today?) you will have to explain how modern structures (a function of the physics or chemistry occuring as we watch it) are wholly unrelated to strikingly similar structures we see preserved in rocks.

Just because you can find some exponential decays in nature does not mean that everything over all of history follows some exponential decay curve.

Indeed, if it were so, then those same decays would be readily apparent today.

 

[Chalnoth]

Every kind of reaction in nature, to the best of my knowledge, follows a decaying exponential trajectory, asymptotically approaching zero. If you heat up your oven, then open up the door, the rate of heat transfer will be fast at first, then decline at a slower rate as the two temperatures begin to equalize. If a volcano erupts, the energy released is initially violent, but diminishes in an exponential pattern. Radioactive molecules diminish according to their half-life. The earth's magnetic field is similarly decaying. If a primorial ocean is full of BOD/COD (food), and the first microbe appears, the amount of food will decline on a decaying exponential trajectory.

In other words, when it comes to reactions of any kind in nature, there is no such thing as uniformitarianism.

This might be applicable if the Earth wasn't unevenly heated by the Sun, and wasn't still in the process of cooling from its initial formation. Yes, many reactions do tend towards exponential decline as the system approaches a sort of equilibrium, but the process of the Earth cooling and being heated by the Sun throw things out of whack. The process of the Earth cooling is what powers volcanoes and earthquakes. The process of the Earth being unevenly heated by the Sun is what drives the wind and waves, as well as photosynthesis.

 

[Chalnoth]

I have a different take on the oxygen catastrophe. I've read studies indicating oxygen concentration was 30% at some point in the past versus 21% today, a 50% increase over today's levels. This might explain at least some of the reason for the incredible longevity of people in Genesis (up to 1000 years).

I sincerely doubt that increased oxygen levels would increase life spans. Sure, it might make higher metabolisms more feasible, but oxygen is a very caustic element, and oxidation is one of the major causes of aging. I rather suspect that life spans would be significantly shorter with higher levels of atmospheric oxygen.

 

[Loudmouth]

Every kind of reaction in nature, to the best of my knowledge, follows a decaying exponential trajectory, asymptotically approaching zero. If you heat up your oven, then open up the door, the rate of heat transfer will be fast at first, then decline at a slower rate as the two temperatures begin to equalize. If a volcano erupts, the energy released is initially violent, but diminishes in an exponential pattern. Radioactive molecules diminish according to their half-life. The earth's magnetic field is similarly decaying. If a primorial ocean is full of BOD/COD (food), and the first microbe appears, the amount of food will decline on a decaying exponential trajectory.
In other words, when it comes to reactions of any kind in nature, there is no such thing as uniformitarianism.

Then why do you argue for uniformitarianism?

"Every kind of reaction in nature, to the best of my knowledge, follows a decaying exponential trajectory, asymptotically approaching zero. If you heat up your oven, then open up the door, the rate of heat transfer will be fast at first, then decline at a slower rate as the two temperatures begin to equalize."--True Blue

That is uniformitarianism.

You also are missing another pheomena which is continually producing heat within the Earth. Radioactive decay. Heat is continually produced in the core of the earth. Also, differences in heat produce convection currents which is driving plate tectonics and magma plumes. There is also subduction zone volcanism caused by tectonic activity: http://www.geology.sdsu.edu/how_volcanoes_work/subducvolc_page.html

Things are not as simple as you pretend.

 

[Split Rock]

I sincerely doubt that increased oxygen levels would increase life spans. Sure, it might make higher metabolisms more feasible, but oxygen is a very caustic element, and oxidation is one of the major causes of aging. I rather suspect that life spans would be significantly shorter with higher levels of atmospheric oxygen.

Ah, but what you do not understand is that the idea that more oxygen in the atmosphere, or the presence of a "water canopy" in the past extending the lifespans of dinos and people is creationist dogma and is simply accepted as "revealed truth" by the faithful flock.

 

[Loudmouth]

I sincerely doubt that increased oxygen levels would increase life spans. Sure, it might make higher metabolisms more feasible, but oxygen is a very caustic element, and oxidation is one of the major causes of aging. I rather suspect that life spans would be significantly shorter with higher levels of atmospheric oxygen.

I think this comes from the Hyperbaric chamber urban legends. While these chambers may be helpful in healing torn tissue or in curing anaerobic bacterial infections they are not linked to greater overall health or extended life spans.

And as you mention, reactive oxygen species are health risks. Scientists have extended the life of mice by increasing their constituitive production of anti-oxidative enzymes. This would argue that increased oxygen shortens lifespans.