Speculation on Early life…. What do you think?

[Mountainmike]

There are no right or wrong answers to this.
For everyone it is speculation / belief.
I am just curious to know what people think.

Many think the product of abiogenesis ( or creation) was a minimal living organism, then evolution took over to produce the life we see today.
I am talking to you…

But There is a massive void between the structure of the simplest organisms we know, and the Simplicitly needed to be likely to form by chemistry alone.
even Craig ventner, stripping down cells, I believe failed to get down below a couple of hundred genes before his backward engineering of cells was unstable or ceased to function. So there is no real picture of life before that. If someone’s done less as a backward engineering reduction, than I am interested.

So I am curious to know peoples opinions on answers to these - don’t know is ok as answer,

1/ do you believe there were multiple starts to life or just one?
2/ do you believe the life start process should still be continuing? If not why not?
3/ do you believe early reproduction was what we would term asexual?
4/ so do you believe HGT was the first way two genomes interacted for diversity? Otherwise how did diversity happen?
5/ how many genes ( ie information content in bits) do you believe the first genome had?
6/ do you believe that DNA/RNA/nucleic acid was the first genome or only a later one?
7/ do you believe that sexual reproduction Only started with dna/rna?
8/ if you believe in other than dna as genome how complicated do you think ( bits infirmation) a genome carried before the transition to DNA/ RNA
9/ do you believe the genome was / is the only contributor to diversity? If not what else?

I guess the last one is..
10/ if you can’t answer any or all of those how can you say it’s a fact it happened at all which many seem to do now?


For the abiogenesis believers, I am fascinated how you think life developed?
to me - this is most of the problem , not a small detail at the start.

 

[Frank Robert]

I guess the last one is..
10/ if you can’t answer any or all of those how can you say it’s a fact it happened at all which many seem to do now?

You appear to be claiming, w/o evidence, that because science does not have all the answers its must be miraculous.

For the abiogenesis believers, I am fascinated how you think life developed?
to me - this is most of the problem , not a small detail at the start.

Another claim that scientists should not investigate abiogenesis just because you say so?

 

[essentialsaltes]

10/ if you can’t answer any or all of those how can you say it’s a fact it happened at all which many seem to do now?

We know in broad outlines the history of life on earth. A long time ago, there weren't people or brontosaurs or fish. There was, I dunno, stromatolites and scummy pools. I'm not a biologist.

There was a time when there was no life on earth.
And now life exists on earth.

All matter on earth was once non-living. And now some matter on earth is living.

Ergo, non-living matter turned into living matter. Abiogenesis happened. It's an unavoidable fact.

If you wanna say God rearranged some of the nonliving scum into living scum with a poof from his finger, I'm not going to stop you.

 

[Yttrium]

I guess the last one is..
10/ if you can’t answer any or all of those how can you say it’s a fact it happened at all which many seem to do now?

I can't say it's a fact. I just think it's likely. I'm more than happy to consider alternatives. And I'm not a belief-oriented person, so there's no point in answering the previous questions.

 

[Mountainmike]

We know in broad outlines the history of life on earth. A long time ago, there weren't people or brontosaurs or fish. There was, I dunno, stromatolites and scummy pools. I'm not a biologist.

There was a time when there was no life on earth.
And now life exists on earth.

All matter on earth was once non-living. And now some matter on earth is living.

Ergo, non-living matter turned into living matter. Abiogenesis happened. It's an unavoidable fact.

If you wanna say God rearranged some of the nonliving scum into living scum with a poof from his finger, I'm not going to stop you.

I was interested to know what such as you thought the answer to those questioms were:
there are no wrong answers. Do you have a firm view on any?

 

[The IbanezerScrooge]

1/ do you believe there were multiple starts to life or just one?

Possibly, leaning toward likely.

2/ do you believe the life start process should still be continuing? If not why not? -

Possibly, but the "market is saturated", so to speak. We probably would have a hard time finding or creating the conditions that would allow it without also contending with already living things saturating those spaces.

3/ do you believe early reproduction was what we would term asexual?

almost certainly.

4/ so do you believe HGT was the first way two genomes interacted for diversity? Otherwise how did diversity happen?

likely

5/ how many genes ( ie information content in bits) do you believe the first genome had?

If we mean the first genome being the first truly living thing, probably high 10's - low 100's

6/ do you believe that DNA/RNA/nucleic acid was the first genome or only a later one?

RNA World hypothesis seems pretty likely.

7/ do you believe that sexual reproduction Only started with dna/rna?

Almost certainly

8/ if you believe in other than dna as genome how complicated do you think ( bits infirmation) a genome carried before the transition to DNA/ RNA

not sure about this one. I would speculate 10's, but not sure we would classify it as a living thing.

9/ do you believe the genome was / is the only contributor to diversity? If not what else?

No, not the only. There are likely epigenetic effects that factor in as well as environmental.

I guess the last one is..
10/ if you can’t answer any or all of those how can you say it’s a fact it happened at all which many seem to do now?

I guess this doesn't apply to me. I don't think anyone is stating any specific hypothesis is a fact, but as @essentialsaltes pointed out, that life started on this planet is, indeed, an indisputable fact.

 

[Mountainmike]

Possibly, leaning toward likely.

Possibly, but the "market is saturated", so to speak. We probably would have a hard time finding or creating the conditions that would allow it without also contending with already living things saturating those spaces.

almost certainly.

likely

If we mean the first genome being the first truly living thing, probably high 10's - low 100's

RNA World hypothesis seems pretty likely.

Almost certainly

not sure about this one. I would speculate 10's, but not sure we would classify it as a living thing.

No, not the only. There are likely epigenetic effects that factor in as well as environmental.

I guess this doesn't apply to me. I don't think anyone is stating any specific hypothesis is a fact, but as @essentialsaltes pointed out, that life started on this planet is, indeed, an indisputable fact.

Thanks for the answers - as I said there are no wrong answers - only speculation.

interesting.

I am not convinced at all by RNA world, as the first living world, indeed as far as I am aware in vitro RNA is generally made with dna and such as bacteriophage polymerase, not synthesis from simple chemicals.
If rna were The first genome , you would expect a natural non living process that forms it, and also that it exists in reasonable quantity. Some nucleotides have no obvious process in vitro either, or that was true last time I looked.
I wondered if there were other candidate ideas for a genome yet?


Alas Logic concludes The fact of Life starting here , is not evidence of any natural process to it.

Eg gallium arsenide exists in our world now , but only because of intelligent design, in that case by man. It did not exist in nature till then, which example also shows intelligent design does not necessarily leave any trace of a designer.

Nor is the existence of life here, necessarily evidence of life starting here. Eg it could have been brought on the boots of little green men,
( working in the “ wuhan cell labs “ on a planet next to alpha centauri!!, whilst surveying the earth for demolition, to make way for a Hypergallactic bypass, and deciding it was “ mostly harmless”, according to hitchhikers guide!)

 

[AV1611VET]

1/ do you believe there were multiple starts to life or just one?
2/ do you believe the life start process should still be continuing? If not why not?
3/ do you believe early reproduction was what we would term asexual?
4/ so do you believe HGT was the first way two genomes interacted for diversity? Otherwise how did diversity happen?
5/ how many genes ( ie information content in bits) do you believe the first genome had?
6/ do you believe that DNA/RNA/nucleic acid was the first genome or only a later one?
7/ do you believe that sexual reproduction Only started with dna/rna?
8/ if you believe in other than dna as genome how complicated do you think ( bits infirmation) a genome carried before the transition to DNA/ RNA
9/ do you believe the genome was / is the only contributor to diversity? If not what else?

I guess the last one is..
10/ if you can’t answer any or all of those how can you say it’s a fact it happened at all which many seem to do now?

1. Multiple
2. No -- only if God wills it.
3. No
4. Beats me.
5. Beats me.
6. Beats me.
7. Beats me.
8. Beats me.
9. No -- God
10. God said it, that settles it.

 

[DialecticSkeptic]

1. Do you believe there were multiple starts to life, or just one?

I suspect there were probably billions of starts, nearly all of which failed—the molecular ingredients of the primordial soup were abundant, such as found in carbon-rich meteorites—but out of those precious few starts which succeeded, only one line avoided extinction.

2. Do you believe the life-start process should still be continuing? If not, why not?

Yes, I believe it is probably still going on. (Why would it stop?) But nearly all of those starts fail, and those precious few which succeed end up going extinct (because they can't compete with existing life).

10. If you can't answer any or all of those, how can you say it's a fact it happened at all, as many seem to do now?

We know that life arose because, well, here it is. We're certain it happened. What we don't know is how.

There is a massive void between the structure of the simplest organisms we know and the simplicitly needed to be likely to form by chemistry alone.

That's because "the simplest organisms we know" are the product of several hundred million years of evolution. But what did the first organism to count as life look like?

 

[Mountainmike]

1. Do you believe there were multiple starts to life, or just one?

I suspect there were probably billions of starts, nearly all of which failed—the molecular ingredients of the primordial soup were abundant, such as found in carbon-rich meteorites—but out of those precious few starts which succeeded, only one line avoided extinction.

2. Do you believe the life-start process should still be continuing? If not, why not?

Yes, I believe it is probably still going on. (Why would it stop?) But nearly all of those starts fail, and those precious few which succeed end up going extinct (because they can't compete with existing life).

10. If you can't answer any or all of those, how can you say it's a fact it happened at all, as many seem to do now?

We know that life arose because, well, here it is. We're certain it happened. What we don't know is how.




That's because "the simplest organisms we know" are the product of several hundred million years of evolution. But what did the first organism to count as life look like?

Thanks . There are no wrong answers.
Three comments on them.
1/ An easier explanation than” only one form survived” is that life came from elsewhere, which is why there is no genome type diversity.
You recite the oft repeated assumption on soup .
But It’s hard to say whether the necessary soup was either abundant or even present, until there is a postulated pathway that determines what ingredients were needed to exist in the first place.

2/ Again the well worn track. But there are many isolated locations of eg post volcanic pools, and more of them created all the time, in which there is no competition at all. No evidence of other primitive minimal life forms Ever found With alternative structure, despite pools all the way from very acid to alkaline, and all shades in between and mineral contents.
One of Darwin’s theses was diverging life in separated locations. If it occurs on macro scale it should occur on micro scale too because of protection from competition.. The tribes of southern America were wiped out by conquistador disease. So isolated development protected from other life threats for long periods can and does happen. Yet life Of simpler genome type has never been observed.

On 10/ indeed life exists.
But in an argument between ( at some stage) created life , or life from a chemical abiogenesis followed by chemical evolution the mere existence of life scores a goal for neither team! It is the latter that is often stated as fact , but as you say we do not know how, and without explanation it cannot be fact!

 

[essentialsaltes]

without explanation it cannot be fact!

Nonsense. If an airplane crashes, that is a fact, whether we ever find out the explanation for it.


Thinking more science-y, we have facts and observations. They stand on their own. Theories are developed to explain them. At this point there are various competing hypotheses about abiogenesis. But the facts they are trying to explain don't vanish, just because we haven't reached a tentative conclusion.

 

[The IbanezerScrooge]

Nonsense. If an airplane crashes, that is a fact, whether we ever find out the explanation for it.


Thinking more science-y, we have facts and observations. They stand on their own. Theories are developed to explain them. At this point there are various competing hypotheses about abiogenesis. But the facts they are trying to explain don't vanish, just because we haven't reached a tentative conclusion.

Also, in the absence of a scientific explanation, "magic" doesn't automatically become the default.

 

[Mountainmike]

Nonsense. If an airplane crashes, that is a fact, whether we ever find out the explanation for it.


Thinking more science-y, we have facts and observations. They stand on their own. Theories are developed to explain them. At this point there are various competing hypotheses about abiogenesis. But the facts they are trying to explain don't vanish, just because we haven't reached a tentative conclusion.

You have no observations or facts. You have only supposition. And faith that it was chemical abiogenesis, so spare me pseudoscientific claptrap that promotes abiogenesis way beyond the present status.

IF and it is a very big IFFF there is ever a process and pathway defined that could lead to life, you might have a hypothesis to test on what actually happened.. Until then you have only speculation, they are not experiments testing what did happen, only small bits of a process that might have happened. none joined up in a way that even might have led to life. And even then there is precious little. Self catalysing polymers are a minute piece of a very vast puzzle. Nobody knows if self catalzyzing polymers were even part of the puzzle!

IFF such a process is defined I might even believe it. But as yet abiogenesis is just wishful thinking , justified by pseudoscience. eg

Take one of the oft quoted myths echoed by the previous poster - "the abundant supply of chemical soup" as precursors.
Until you have some process defined you have no idea whatsoever of what the needed raw ingredients are, so you have no idea of whether they existed at all, let alone were abundant here. But the myth is repeated often as a piece of pseudoscience / faulty logic to justify belief in abiogenesis. Its a myth repeated so often it became a fact that everyone echoes. The abundance of chemical soup as precursor..

You believe it, and you are welcome to those beliefs. There are no wrong answers because right now it is all faith and speculation for everyones assumption on how life came to be.

But I am a scientist. At the level of science there is no evidence whatsoever for abiogenesis,. where when or how it happened,.or indeed the process (which interests me ) of how the first cells evolved to the complexity of present day. DNA/RNA cells are too complex to be the first precursors happening as random chance ,even RNA is not naturally occurring except ex vivo, and it smade in vitro using DNA and phage polymerase - not synthesis from simple chemicals. So cells are A huge evolutionary journey with a big fat void of evidence for it. What happened before present day cells. Nobody knows.

I think it is a big deal, that in none of the volcanic and other newly created ponds has there ever been a simpler life form occurring by the ongoing process that should be abiogenesis if it were ever true to begin with. There is no variety of genome type which an unguided process of multiple life starts should produce, if the speculation were true. Why not? As I pointed out to another poster, independent groups can be sufficiently isolated to evolve differently, and to dodge things that wipe them out. I cited the populations of the amazon who were devastated by conquistador disease. For anyone that doesnt want to blame their government so actually looks at the science, there is a definite pattern of eastern immunity to covid too.
So the idea that ALL new life is gobbled up, or outcompeted, fails to deal with its survival for long enough to be detected in new habitats.


If abiogenesis wants to become credible as more than just wishful thinking, science needs to define an intermediate cell structure and genome, of far simpler things , so it could possibly have occurred from simple chemicals, whilst having potential to develop to DNA genome.

I have been studying "protocell research" for 50 years since it appeared in new scientist. And nobody has even got close to a practical suggestion of an intermediate form that could have come from simple chemistry. I am all ears if anyone knows of one.

 

[essentialsaltes]

so spare me pseudoscientific claptrap

I will certainly spare you any further comment in this thread.

 

[Frank Robert]

You have no observations or facts. You have only supposition. And faith that it was chemical abiogenesis, so spare me pseudoscientific claptrap that promotes abiogenesis way beyond the present status.

You are in the same situation. What scientific evidence do you have that a deity did it?

Claiming "oh it is too complicated" is not evidence that a deity created life. See:

New Theory Concludes That the Origin of Life on Earth-Like Planets Is Likely​

...In this analogy, “hard” means contraception was used. “Easy” means no contraception was used. In each case, Whitmire assigns values to these propositions.​

​

​

Whitmire continues, “However, my existence is old evidence and must be treated as such. When this is done the conclusion is that it is much more probable that my conception was easy. In the abiogenesis case of interest, it's the same thing. The existence of life on Earth is old evidence and just like in the conception analogy the probability that abiogenesis is easy is much more probable.”​

​

​

In other words, the evidence of life on Earth is not of neutral value in making the case for life on similar planets. As such, our life suggests that life is more likely to emerge on other Earth-like planets — maybe even on the recent “super-Earth” type planet, LP 890-9b, discovered 100 light years away.​

​

​

Those with a taste for math can read Whitmire’s paper, “Abiogensis: The Carter Argument Reconsidered,” in the International Journal of Astrobiology.​

​

I predict that you will apply your usual denial with zero scientific support for "it's too complected." Have fun.

 

[Mountainmike]

Also, in the absence of a scientific explanation, "magic" doesn't automatically become the default.

The nul hypothesis is correct. Nobody knows.

All then can have belief.
Yours in not the default either. Nul is.

As for "magic".

Let us take the simple alternative idea. That life was introduced here, it did not develop here as random chemistry..
Gets round the diversity of genome type problem here. Or the need for "soup"

Then of course is the annoying issue of heart tissue appearing in so called eucharistic miracles which was certainly not a product of successive small change. And unlike abiogenesis it is recent times , recorded events, they have a where, a when and a what, and there is actual pathology and DNA and other test results to back it up. So not magic, just actual evidence of something that DID happen , not something people speculate might have happened called abiogenesis
.

 

[Mountainmike]

I will certainly spare you any further comment in this thread.

I apologise , that phrase was too harsh, but I think the thread has run it’s course anyway.

Its quite remarkable that so little has changed in so long.
if I’d written this 25 years ago, I would have got the same responses.

miller Urey…abundance of prebiotic soup… any new life is gobbled up , outcompeted by present, and a picture of horse or dinosaur tree “ proving” evolution from Abiogenesis as source of life.

But in all that time nobody has proposed an early cell structure with prospective pathway to/ from It , or a simple genome structure. The abundant “ prebiotic soup argument” is a fail, until you define A pathway so what ingredients were needed. Nobody has a good enough reason why other life origins don’t occur. There is a lot of speculation in the life tree. So little has changed, in all that tIme

Dont get me wrong, I might believe it if ever a structure and pathway looks credible .
The problem is it is all now promoted as a fact it happened with none of the detail Needed to argue that case.

 

[The IbanezerScrooge]

The nul hypothesis is correct. Nobody knows.

All then can have belief.
Yours in not the default either. Nul is.

As for "magic".

Let us take the simple alternative idea. That life was introduced here, it did not develop here as random chemistry..
Gets round the diversity of genome type problem here. Or the need for "soup"

Then of course is the annoying issue of heart tissue appearing in so called eucharistic miracles which was certainly not a product of successive small change. And unlike abiogenesis it is recent times , recorded events, they have a where, a when and a what, and there is actual pathology and DNA and other test results to back it up. So not magic, just actual evidence of something that DID happen , not something people speculate might have happened called abiogenesis
.

Sure, but we're not on equal footing here. Scientists and researchers aren't just guessing and making wild, unsupported speculations about how all this could have happened. There's real research, observation and experimentation that has and continues to happen on which these hypotheses are built. I posted a comment to a thread about this over 6 years ago with links to actual research and experimental results that supports these abiogenesis hypotheses.

Here.

I'm sure there is more that has been published in the last 6 years.

What experimental results, research and observations can you provide supporting your deity/disembodied, all-powerful mind/"magic" hypothesis?

 

[Frank Robert]

Then of course is the annoying issue of heart tissue appearing in so called eucharistic miracles which was certainly not a product of successive small change. And unlike abiogenesis it is recent times , recorded events, they have a where, a when and a what, and there is actual pathology and DNA and other test results to back it up. So not magic, just actual evidence of something that DID happen , not something people speculate might have happened called abiogenesis

What is your hypothesis for the miracles. Is it repeatable? Does it make any predictions? Is it testable? If not it is not scientific. The best you can say is they are suggestive similar to the spontaneous remission of cancers.

Many of the hypotheses for the building blocks needed for abiogenesis are testable, repeatable and predictive.

 

[DialecticSkeptic]

We have facts and observations. They stand on their own. Theories are developed to explain them. At this point there are various competing hypotheses about abiogenesis. But the facts they are trying to explain don't vanish, just because we haven't reached a tentative conclusion.

That reminds me of something Gould said: “Facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world’s data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts do not go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them.” Stephen Jay Gould, “Evolution as Fact and Theory,” Discover (May 1981): 34–37.