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PostPosted: Tue Nov 02, 2004 8:12 am 
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I thought I should start with this quote from Talon:

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There are so many unanswered questions being ignored when listening to explainations of Evolutions. Notably the questions of, "Where is the connection between non-living matter, and the emergence of living matter?" There is no solid explanation for that in evolution. Also, "Where did the non-living matter come from?"
and attempt to answer some of the questions raised here.

So, yes, I am going to attempt to answer part of the question: How did life begin? from a scientific standpoint, without invoking any supernatural powers.

First of all, we need to envision the environment on the early earth, before life existed. Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune have reducing atmospheres. Earth is the only planet in our solar system with free oxygen, and the oxygen on earth is of biological origin. Without life on earth, no oxygen in the atmosphere. Any oxygen would quickly react with other chemicals.

Methane (CH4), water (H2O), hydrogen(H2), and ammonia (NH3) are simple compounds that does not require life to be made, and these chemicals are likely candidates for chemicals present in the early days of earths history.

Nevertheless, several interesting experiments with reducing and not so reducing atmospheres have been conducted since Stanley Millers famous experiment in 1953.

Here is a little recap of his famous experiment:
Image

Methane, hydrogen, ammonia and water was added as a gaseous mix. The whole system was heated in an autoclave for 18 hours to kill of any bacterial contamination.

Formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide was among the first molecules to be formed, and these in turn reacted and formed amino acids.

11 of the 20 aminoacids we have in living organisms were formed in this simple experiment, and it took only 14 days.

I'll be back with more, my 30 minutes is over.

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PostPosted: Tue Nov 02, 2004 9:45 am 
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ok, good stuff here. thanks Kyp.

Couple of questions in regards to this experiment and why scientists feel this supports evolution and whatnot:

Why do we think that the chemicals you have listed there were present at the beginning of the earth's existence?

Is it legitimate to propose that evolution started in some primordial soup, when the long chain polymers that are present in proteins and DNA are so complicated that the level of chemical control needed during the chain building process is beyond the realm of natural chemistry?

Amino acids are a bit shy of life. How is that chemicals can change into life, even if the conditions were right for the forming of aminoacids that are contained in organisms.

Sure, 11 out of 20 aminoacids is pretty good, but still, that's just half-life (get it? half-life??! hah!) without the other 9. And then there's the fact that there's alot more to life than a few kinds of acid.

I can do an experiment with Hydrogen and Oxygen atoms in a vaccuum and say, "Hey look, they combined and made water, and we all know water makes up like 70% of our bodies, so it must be how we were made?"

Understand my take on that? These may seem like ridiculous statements to you, but I'm really trying to understand all this stuff. Also, can we sit here at this discussion a bit, before bringing in more stuff. I want to discuss this chemical reaction stuff completely before moving to the next stage.

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PostPosted: Tue Nov 02, 2004 12:06 pm 
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Damnit, I can't stay away. And being a chemist, I think maybe I can shed some light on this one.

Talon1977 wrote:
ok, good stuff here. thanks Kyp.

Couple of questions in regards to this experiment and why scientists feel this supports evolution and whatnot:

Why do we think that the chemicals you have listed there were present at the beginning of the earth's existence?


Becuase those gases (methane, ammonia, hydrogen, water) are also found on other planets in our solar system. They are also found in stars. In fact, all atoms heavier than hydrogen, have been produced by nuclear fusion in the stars. Ammonia, methane and water are very stable molecules that result at the end of fusion process, becuase they are the molecules of the respective elements in their most reduced form (-3 for N, -2 for O, -4 for C). The atmosphere of the stars is reductive, because of all the hydrogen present. Since the earth is a chunk of the ol' sun that was spit into its orbit, we can safely conclude that these gases were present on Earth at its beginning.


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Is it legitimate to propose that evolution started in some primordial soup, when the long chain polymers that are present in proteins and DNA are so complicated that the level of chemical control needed during the chain building process is beyond the realm of natural chemistry?


I think it is legitimate. Not sure what you mean by "natural chemistry". Note that going from a few amino acids to long chains is truly a demanding process, which I think will be addressed in one of your questions below.

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Amino acids are a bit shy of life. How is that chemicals can change into life, even if the conditions were right for the forming of aminoacids that are contained in organisms.


True, and it is hard to draw the line where life begins. They key here is just to demonstrate that the key building blocks form spontaneusly.

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Sure, 11 out of 20 aminoacids is pretty good, but still, that's just half-life (get it? half-life??! hah!) without the other 9. And then there's the fact that there's alot more to life than a few kinds of acid.


You forget that the first "life" was not quite as complicated as it is today. IMHO they key to the amino acids developing into life is by way of auto-catalysis into more complicated molecules. Amino acids tend to aggregate and form dimers and trimers, going into short chains. These short chains can then fold into pockets or other shapes. Recently, people have been using amino acids to design catalytic active site - by variation of a sequence of length of ~20 amino acids, using only 4 amino acids, they were able to make catalysts which promoted the chosen reactions.

How were they able to do this? They made a crapload of combinations and found some molecules that did catalyse the desired reaction. They weren't even tryng to prove evolution - they were looking for a catalyst that would help in drug synthesis.

Example:
[url]
http://chemserv.bc.edu/faculty/miller.html[/url]


How does this relate to evolution? Well, it demonstrates that short peptide chains can act as flexible catalysis active sites, promoting more complex reactions needed to make more complex molecules. That way, simple molecules grow more and more complex.

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I can do an experiment with Hydrogen and Oxygen atoms in a vaccuum and say, "Hey look, they combined and made water, and we all know water makes up like 70% of our bodies, so it must be how we were made?"


Well, for one thing there is no free oxygen floating around anywhere else in the universe.

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Understand my take on that? These may seem like ridiculous statements to you, but I'm really trying to understand all this stuff. Also, can we sit here at this discussion a bit, before bringing in more stuff. I want to discuss this chemical reaction stuff completely before moving to the next stage.


That's cool with me, I like discussing chemistry 8)

One thing I have probably not addressed enough - the formation of the peptide bond between two amino acids. The peptide bond is very stable and thermodynamically favorable. I think people have shown that it forms spontaneously, as well, but I don't have the reference right now.

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PostPosted: Tue Nov 02, 2004 1:41 pm 
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First, question: Why do we think that the chemicals you have listed there were present at the beginning of the earth's existence?

The basis Miller and Urey had for choosing these chemicals was the fresh information that came in at that time about the composition of the atmosphere on the other planets in our solar system. Since that time, scientists have learned a lot more about our own planets earliest atmosphere. We now know that CO2 probably was present in large amounts in the early atmosphere, since volcanic emmissions contain vaper vapor, CO2, CO and H2. Hydro-termal vents on the ocean floor produce about 99% CO2 and 1% methane.

Here is a link to the cutting edge of science about the early atmosphere:
http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2 ... eo-62.html

Quite interesting.

The Miller-Urey experiment I showed above, was most important because it showed that important bio-molecules could be formed from simple inorganic molecules under conditions that simulated what scientists at that time believed the earths early atmosphere to be composed of at that time.

The importance of the Miller experiment is just that it is possible to create biomolecules from inorganic molecules, provided you have an input of energy and a reducing atmosphere. Nobody claims that the composition of that experiment was the composition of the early earth atmosphere anymore. To get biomolecules formed, you need a way to make HCN and formaldehyde, but there are plenty of ways to do that chemically, so we are not limited to a particular composition of the atmosphere.


In 1961, a scientist named Juan Oro found that you could make amino acids from an aqeuous solution of HCN (hydrogen cyanide) and ammonia (NH3). In addition he found that in this particular experiment, he got an enormous amount of the molecule adenine.

Adenine is one of the four bases in RNA and DNA, and is a component of adeninetriphospate (ATP), the major energy carrier in all cells on earth.

As you remember, HCN was one of the first molecules formed in the Miller-Urey experiment. HCN can be made in several different ways, not only with the Miller-Urey experiment.


There is very good evidence that the early atmosphere did not contain oxygen. Oxygen arrived between 2.4 and 2.2 billion years ago.

The evidence lies in ancient continental rocks, before 2.4 billion years ago, rocks which contain iron are grey. After 2.2 billion years ago, rocks that contain iron are red, because iron then has reacted with oxygen and rusted.


The earliest fossil of cyanobacteria is dated to 400 million years earlier than the first evidence of oxygen in the atmosphere, but it took a lot of time before oxygen started to accumulate in the atmosphere. When the first cyanobacteria started to leave oxygen as a waste product, oxygen would immediatly react with other chemicals in the beginning, so there would not be much free oxygen in the beginning. Methane however, could accumulate, since there was no or little oxygen.



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Is it legitimate to propose that evolution started in some primordial soup, when the long chain polymers that are present in proteins and DNA are so complicated that the level of chemical control needed during the chain building process is beyond the realm of natural chemistry?


Its legitimate, as Matija also argues. The key is to remember that the first self-replicating molecule was a lot less complex than the self-replicating molecules we have today. Todays self-replicating molecules have tons of error-checking enzymes that work together, to minimize mutations. The earliest self-replicating molecules probably only had themselves in the beginning, probably single-stranded, with auto-catalyzing ability.

We'll discuss the chemistry part a bit more, but after that we can move on to theories about the formation of the first self-replicating molecule, and the formation of the first membranes.

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Last edited by Kyp Darron on Tue Nov 02, 2004 1:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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PostPosted: Tue Nov 02, 2004 1:45 pm 
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Ok, I'll wait a bit before we move on to how RNA might have occurred on the scene :)

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PostPosted: Tue Nov 02, 2004 1:49 pm 
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Heh heh, I didn't want to start that one yet. I've heard of it but haven't had anyone explain it to me. I can see the purines and pyrimidines forming, but am not so sure about the ribose.

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PostPosted: Tue Nov 02, 2004 2:10 pm 
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Ribose has been difficult to make, but here is a few clues:
http://www.chemlin.de/news/jan04/20040108e01.htm

I'll quote a passage from this text:

Quote:
Benner and his team showed that formaldehyde, with other interstellar compounds, could form ribose and other sugars when treated in the presence of base materials such as lime, a material used to adjust the pH level of lawns, among other things. Lime was effective, but the ribose decomposed soon after it was formed.

Recognizing that ribose had a particular chemical structure that allowed it to bind to minerals containing the element boron, they turned to another substance called colemanite. "Colemanite is a mineral containing borate found in Death Valley," he said. "Without it, ribose turns into a brown tar. With it, ribose and other sugars emerge as clean products." Benner then showed similar reactions with other borate minerals, including ulexite and kernite, which is more commonly known as borax.


So, its possible to make ribose under prebiotic conditions.

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PostPosted: Tue Nov 02, 2004 2:32 pm 
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Hmm. A lot of scientists think that experiment was bunk.

1)The mixture used in the experiment was unrealistically optimistic about the composition of the atmosphere.

2)Electric Spark? Please...many do not appreciate the "lightning" theory...

Doesn't it seem obvious that this scientist knew it would work, made his theory, and then set up a perfectly controlled environment (just like nature!) with a constant electric input so that it would succeed. That is a perversion of the scientific method imho.


I mean, if 11 out of 20 were made in such a short time. doesn't that sort of lead you to believe the experiement was a little....um....optimistic?

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PostPosted: Tue Nov 02, 2004 4:07 pm 
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Hehe, as a scientist myself, I know that several people are critical to this experiment. Thats normal. Its a part of the scientific process. It drives science forward. I could have mentioned some of the more realistic experiments as well, but this particular experiement was the very first experiment on this topic that produced results. Others had tried before that, but they had only used oxidizing atmosphere models.

Yes, it had a very high yield of amino-acids, and it is probably unrealistic compared to the reaction rate occuring in nature. However, even if the reaction rate was 10000 times slower than in this experiment, it would still be formed an enourmous amounts of amino-acids on the prebiotic earth.

Laboratory experiments are often speeded up compared to how fast reactions would occur in nature. The main thing that speeded up their experiment, was that they boiled the water where the experiment took place. This increased the reaction speed.

This was a graduate student experiment, and his advisor, Urey, thought that it would fail, or take too long time for him to finish. They both got surprised by getting results that fast.

That the composition of the gases in this experiment is not the same as the composition of the atmosphere on early earth, is not the same as the experiment is bunk, though. This was the first time someone proved that amino-acids could be made in a reducing atmosphere, with energy added to the system. That is the historical value of the experiment.

Other researchers have done similar experiments with other gaseous mixes, and made amino acids in those as well. There are numerous mixes of gases that will produce amino acids. The only ones that does not seem to work very well, are those mixes that contain large amounts of oxygen (like our current atmosphere).



Appreciate the lightning theory? Appreciation has nothing to do with it.

You have to look at the sources of energy available on earth.
There are several potential energy sources to drive chemical reactions on earth: UV-light, lightning, heat from different types of volcanic activity, hydro-termal vents, and probably several others that I can't think of at the moment.

Lightning and UV-light is two types of energy sources that are practical in a laboratory setting. The main idea is that energy needs to be put into the system somehow, its not very important what type of energy it is, as long as it is enough for the reactions to take place.

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Mmm, remember the ozone layer? The one made of oxygen? Wasn't there on the prebiotic earth... Mucho UV.

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If there was no large amounts of oxygen on the prebiotic earth, there could be no ozone layer either. So, yes, lots of highly energetic ultraviolet light.

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Alright.. a couple of thoughts before I start trying to decipher all this mad scientist stuff.

"Chlorophyll??? Sounds more like Bore-ophyll to me!!"


On a more serious note, here's an article I'd like to get your counter-arguments on...

It's basically a more educated way of saying what I've been saying already. He makes good points, and wondered if chemistry could address the problems he presents....

Quote:
EVOLUTION HOPES YOU DON'T KNOW CHEMISTRY: THE PROBLEM OF CONTROL
by Dr. Charles McCombs*

According to modern evolutionary theory, the recipe for life is a chance accumulation of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen; add a pinch of phosphorus and sulfur, simmer for millions of years, and repeat if necessary. As a Ph.D. organic chemist, I am trained to understand the principles of chemistry, but this is not how chemicals react. Chemicals reacting with chemicals is a chemical reaction, and chemical reactions do not produce life. Life must create life. In the chemical literature, there is not a single example of life resulting from a chemical reaction. If life from chemicals were possible, it would be called spontaneous generation, an idea that scientists once thought happened in nature. Centuries ago, scientists used to believe that bread crumbs turned into mice because if you left bread crumbs on a table and returned later, the crumbs were gone and only mice were present. When true science got involved, they learned the truth that bread crumbs only attracted the mice that ate the crumbs. These scientists were quick to propose a theory that sounded reasonable until, that is, they studied the process and learned otherwise.

Proteins and DNA are complicated chemical molecules that are present within our body. Cells which make up the living body contain DNA, the blueprint for all life, and proteins regulating biochemical processes, leading scientists to conclude these components are the cause of life. While it is true that all living bodies have proteins and DNA, so do dead bodies. These chemicals are necessary for life to exist, but they do not "create" life by their presence; they only "maintain" the life that is already present. However, this is not the only problem with the "life from chemicals" theory.

Why do evolutionists vehemently proclaim the "life from chemicals" theory? Because if proteins and DNA only maintain life without creating it, then something else must have accomplished its origins. Evidence such as this points to an Omnipotent Creator, but they are not willing to make that concession.

Scientists can only look at life as it exists today, and try to determine how life originated in the past. They look at the end result and try to determine the process by which it was formed. Imagine looking at a photograph and trying to determine the brand of camera that was used to take the picture. Could you do it? Evolutionists have the same problem when they claim that life comes from chemicals. They look at the end result and propose a theory without ever observing the process. Scientists cannot study the past. Scientists can only look at the present and make theories about what happened in the past that would make the present the way it is today. When evolutionary scientists study the origins of life, they propose that all life resulted from chemical reactions by natural processes, overlooking the fact that chemical processes do not "naturally" behave in this manner. If you accepted chemical reactions as they occur, you would not believe that life came solely from chemicals. Is it legitimate to propose that evolution started in some primordial soup, when the long chain polymers that are present in proteins and DNA are so complicated that the level of chemical control needed during the chain building process is beyond the realm of natural chemistry?

Let's take a closer look at proteins and DNA, and the problems of their synthesis by evolutionary processes. Proteins are long polymers of amino acids linked in a chain. There are thousands of proteins within the human body, and they all differ by the sequence of the amino acids on the polymer chain. DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid,) is a polymer of nucleotides. Nucleotides themselves are complicated chemical molecules consisting of a deoxyribose molecule and a phosphate chemically bonded to one of the following heterocycles: guanine, cytosine, thymine, and adenine. Although there are only four different heterocycles, the DNA chain contains billions of nucleotides connected together in a long precisely ordered chain. The sequence of the human DNA chain is so complicated, that even with the sophisticated scientific equipment available today, we still do not know the complete sequence. Proteins and DNA contain a unique order of the individual components. The order of the individual components is not a repeating pattern such as ABABAB or AABBAABB, but it is not a random order either. The order in these natural polymers is very precise, and it is this highly ordered sequence that allows these polymers to perform their intended purpose in the human body. If the sequence is changed even slightly, the altered polymer is no longer capable of performing the same function as the natural protein or DNA. If these polymers were formed by evolution in some primordial soup, then we should be able to explain how natural chemical processes were responsible for forming the sequence of amino acids. Evolutionists would say that amino acids eventually combined to form proteins and the nucleotide molecules combined to form DNA, and from them, life. To someone not trained in chemistry, this might sound like a reasonable process, but this is not how chemical reactions work.

Chemists are trained to understand the mechanisms of how molecules react and how to activate molecules so they will react predictably and in a controlled fashion. If a chemist wanted to synthesize the polymer chain of proteins or DNA in the laboratory, the starting compounds must be first activated so that they will begin to react. The chemist must then control the reactivity and the selectivity of the reactants so that the desired product is formed.

The problem with life arising from chemicals is a three-fold problem: chemical stability, chemical reactivity, and chemical selectivity during the chain building process. But evolutionists propose that these complex polymer chains built themselves in a precise, unlikely pattern, without an intelligent chemist controlling the reactions.

Chemical Stability
Chemical stability is a question of whether the components can even react at all. By definition, all components in a hypothetical primordial soup would be stable, because if they were not, they would have already reacted. Amino acids are relatively stable in water and do not react to form proteins in water, and nucleotides do not react to form DNA. In order to make amino acids and nucleotides react to form a polymer, they must be chemically activated to react with other chemicals. But this chemical activation must be done in the absence of water because the activated compounds will react with water and break down. How could proteins and DNA be formed in a hypothetical primordial watery soup if the activated compounds required to form them cannot exist in water? This is the problem of Chemical Stability.

Chemical Reactivity
Chemical reactivity deals with how fast the components react in a given reaction. If life began in a primordial soup by natural chemical reactions, then the laws of chemistry should be able to predict the sequence of these chains. But when amino acids react chemically, they react according to their reactivity, and not in some specified order necessary for life. As the protein or DNA chain is increasing in size through chemical reaction, we should see the most reactive amino acid adding to the chain first, followed by the next most reactive amino acid, and so on.

Let's assume that we begin with the sequence R-T-X, and will add two amino acids "B" and "A" to it. If amino acid "B" is the most reactive amino acid, the sequence would be R-T-X-B-A. However, if "A" is the most reactive amino acid, then the sequence would be R-T-X-A-B. In a random chemical reaction, the sequence of amino acids would be determined by the relative reactivity of the different amino acids. The polymer chain found in natural proteins and DNA has a very precise sequence that does not correlate with the individual components' reaction rates. Since all of the amino acids have relatively similar structures, they all have similar reaction rates; they will all react at about the same rate making the precise sequence by random chemical reactions unthinkably unlikely. This is the problem of Chemical Reactivity.

Chemical Selectivity
Chemical selectivity is a problem of where the components react. Since the chain has two ends, the amino acids can add to either end of the chain. Even if by some magical process, a single amino acid "B" would react first as desired for the pre-determined life supporting sequence followed by a single amino acid "A," the product would be a mixture of at least four isomers because there are two ends to the chain. If there is an equal chance of amino acid "B" reacting in two different locations, then half will react at one end, half at the other end. The result of adding "B" will form two different products. When the addition of amino acid "A" occurs, it will react at both ends of the chain of both the products already present. As in the previous example, the major products would be R-T-X-B-A and A-R-T-X-B as well as A-B-R-T-X and B-R-T-X-A and others. The result is a mixture of several isomers of which the desired sequence seldom results, and this is the problem with only two amino acids reacting. As the third amino acid is added, it can react at both ends of four products, and so on, insuring randomness, not a precise sequence.

Since proteins may contain hundreds or thousands of amino acids in a sequence, imagine the huge number of undesired isomers that would be present if these large proteins were formed in a random process. Evolutionists might argue that all proteins were formed in this manner, and nature simply selected the ones that worked. However, this is only an ad hoc assumption and it ignores the fact that we do not have billions of "extra" proteins in our body. Furthermore, nature is not intelligent. There is nothing in nature to do the selecting all-the-while splicing together non-functioning (therefore non-selectable) amino acids toward a working whole. Evolutionists say that nature is blind, has no goal, and no purpose, and yet precise selection at each step is necessary. This is the problem of Chemical Selectivity.

The chemical control needed for the formation of a specific sequence in a polymer chain is just not possible in a random process. The synthesis of proteins and DNA in the laboratory requires the chemist to control the reaction conditions, to thoroughly understand the reactivity and selectivity of each component, and to carefully control the order of addition of the components as the chain is building in size. The successful formation of proteins and DNA in some primordial soup would require the same control of the reactivity and selectivity, and that would require the existence of a chemical controller. But chemicals cannot think, plan, or organize themselves to do anything. How can chemicals know what it is they're making? How can a chemical reaction make a protein or DNA, put it in an eye, heart, or brain, and do it without a controlling mechanism that knows what the end product is supposed to look like? This sounds much more like the work of an Omniscient Creator. Evolutionists have always been quick to claim that life came from chemicals, but their theory does not hold up to scientific scrutiny. Evolution claims that random chance natural processes formed life as we know it, but they fail to mention that their theory is anything but random or natural! This is the false logic of evolution. Evolutionists just hope you don't know chemistry!

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PostPosted: Tue Nov 02, 2004 8:07 pm 
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Nice response, its good to know they were both suprised by the results. However its a little like being suprised by the formation of a cake when you made it from scratch, put it in the oven, and turned the oven on.

I don't "appreciate" the lightning theory because I think it is bunk. UV or geothermal heat seem to be more sane explanations as they are widespread and more consistent. I think people like to imagine a real beginning with a single bolt of lightning making the first link, and so they accept that notion. The "event" was probably not local and not very spectacular.

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I've read the thingyou copy-pasted Talon. I have some real issues with what that guy wrote and am wondering who ever gave him a PhD. The guy can't even get his thermodynamics and kinetics straight.


However, I have seen tat my initial decision to not debate this was correct. It's to easy to copy-paste something and expect other to spend an enormous amount of time replying.

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I've spent quite a bit of time researching this stuff since we began talking about it Matija. I apologize for the fact that I do not understand these things myself, as chemistry and biology are not my fields of profession as they are yours.

I've done my part in laying out what I know, and what my opinions are. From there, I must rely on others who ARE in the field who support my viewpoint and have drawn the same conclusions.

Kyp, in fact, copy and pasted his stuff about the miller experiment, and I found it quite fascinating. I see no reason why I should not be given the same leeway.

I copy and pasted it because it was the easiest way to accurately convey my questions of its legitimacy. I was honestly seeking feedback on your opinions of this man's work. You say you have issues with it, I'd like to know what the issues are.

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Talon1977 wrote:
I've spent quite a bit of time researching this stuff since we began talking about it Matija. I apologize for the fact that I do not understand these things myself, as chemistry and biology are not my fields of profession as they are yours.


I appreciate your effort. However, seeing how you probably had years of bible study compared to very a rudimentary introduction to chemistry and biology it will be hard for me to make up all that.

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I've done my part in laying out what I know, and what my opinions are. From there, I must rely on others who ARE in the field who support my viewpoint and have drawn the same conclusions.


Well, my goal is not to convince you any way. I myself do leave aslight chance opean that creationism might be on tosomething, but trust evolution far more. All I am trying to say here is that you should keep an open mind and realize, that evolution has not been disproven by the creationists.

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Kyp, in fact, copy and pasted his stuff about the miller experiment, and I found it quite fascinating. I see no reason why I should not be given the same leeway.


Yeah, but he also summarized it in a much shorter post than yours, used his own words and provided his own insights.

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I copy and pasted it because it was the easiest way to accurately convey my questions of its legitimacy. I was honestly seeking feedback on your opinions of this man's work. You say you have issues with it, I'd like to know what the issues are.


The material you pasted covers far more than the basic chemistry we started discussing here and is quite a jump in terms of evolution timeline.

As to my opinion of the man's work - the material posted here does not mention any work of his own. All he does is sit in an armchair and bashes other people's work. I see no data of his own. I am currently sifting through his stufff and writing a bit of a lenghty response.

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PostPosted: Tue Nov 23, 2004 4:01 pm 
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First off, a link that might explain some things about the nomenclature in science:

http://www.wilstar.com/theories.htm

I will just address some points in this guy's essay.

Talon1977 wrote:
EVOLUTION HOPES YOU DON'T KNOW CHEMISTRY: THE PROBLEM OF CONTROL
by Dr. Charles McCombs*

In the chemical literature, there is not a single example of life resulting from a chemical reaction.


This is the key mistake in this guy's thinking and in creationist thinking in general. Just because something has not been shown yet, does not mean that it does not exist. The absence of evidence does not equal counter- evidence. Maybe in court, but not in science.

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These chemicals are necessary for life to exist, but they do not "create" life by their presence; they only "maintain" the life that is already present.


A very misleading statement. An organism that can be called a body is far far more complex than what primordial life started out as. The cells are specialized and can survive only through cooperation. After the key organs die, the rest of the cells cannot survive - not because of lack of life or chemicals, but because of lack of cooperation. In fact, the DNA is rigged so that it only allows a predetermined number of cell splitting and therefore a finite lifetime. The chemical itself thus controls when life is taken away. Many single celled organisms however do not have a limit to their lifetime. Ugh, I digress.

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Scientists can only look at life as it exists today, and try to determine how life originated in the past. They look at the end result and try to determine the process by which it was formed. Imagine looking at a photograph and trying to determine the brand of camera that was used to take the picture. Could you do it?


Nobody said it was an easy job. That's why it's so easy for armchair scientists to find points of contention.


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The sequence of the human DNA chain is so complicated, that even with the sophisticated scientific equipment available today, we still do not know the complete sequence.


This must have been written before the genome project. What a putz. Besides, it would be pretty logical that the first DNA was much less complicated, as the DNA of single celled organisms is much shorter than DNA of a human. I think the DNA molecule of a single celled is happy with having around 2000 base pairs, while human DNA has more than a billion, if I am not mistaken. Therefore comparing anything related to the origins of life to human DNA is all smoke and mirrors.

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Proteins and DNA contain a unique order of the individual components. The order of the individual components is not a repeating pattern such as ABABAB or AABBAABB, but it is not a random order either. The order in these natural polymers is very precise, and it is this highly ordered sequence that allows these polymers to perform their intended purpose in the human body. If the sequence is changed even slightly, the altered polymer is no longer capable of performing the same function as the natural protein or DNA.


More smoke and mirrors. Some sites can be changed while others can't. Depends on where in the sequence.


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Chemical Stability
Chemical stability is a question of whether the components can even react at all. By definition, all components in a hypothetical primordial soup would be stable, because if they were not, they would have already reacted. Amino acids are relatively stable in water and do not react to form proteins in water, and nucleotides do not react to form DNA.


He fails to mention, that thermodynamically the formation of a peptide bond is favorable. All compounds are thermodynamically in a local minimum, the absolute minimum seems to be water and carbon dioxide - products of combustion. This statement is akin to saying that everything on Earth should spontaneously combust.

He also fails to mention that only thermodynamics tells us whether a process is feasible or not, while kinetics olny tells us how fast a certain process is. It seems like he is discussing kinetic stability here. Well, amino acids do not react in water if you just put them there and look at them. But under some conditions, beleived to exist on the primordial Eart and given enough time, these processes are possible.



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In order to make amino acids and nucleotides react to form a polymer, they must be chemically activated to react with other chemicals.


Simply wrong, that is just an organic chemist's view, because that is what an organic chemist does - purposefully modifies molecules by activating, deactivating, protecting and deportecting the functional groups. Welll, time to think outside the box, mister. Time to bring oout the knowledge on heterogeneous catalysis, zeolites, photochemistry, microwave activation and other "non-standard" ways of activating molecules. A lot of these ways are perfectly feasible under the harsh conditions on primordial Earth.

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But this chemical activation must be done in the absence of water because the activated compounds will react with water and break down. How could proteins and DNA be formed in a hypothetical primordial watery soup if the activated compounds required to form them cannot exist in water? This is the problem of Chemical Stability.


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Chemical Reactivity
Chemical reactivity deals with how fast the components react in a given reaction. If life began in a primordial soup by natural chemical reactions, then the laws of chemistry should be able to predict the sequence of these chains. But when amino acids react chemically, they react according to their reactivity, and not in some specified order necessary for life. As the protein or DNA chain is increasing in size through chemical reaction, we should see the most reactive amino acid adding to the chain first, followed by the next most reactive amino acid, and so on.

Let's assume that we begin with the sequence R-T-X, and will add two amino acids "B" and "A" to it. If amino acid "B" is the most reactive amino acid, the sequence would be R-T-X-B-A. However, if "A" is the most reactive amino acid, then the sequence would be R-T-X-A-B. In a random chemical reaction, the sequence of amino acids would be determined by the relative reactivity of the different amino acids. The polymer chain found in natural proteins and DNA has a very precise sequence that does not correlate with the individual components' reaction rates. Since all of the amino acids have relatively similar structures, they all have similar reaction rates; they will all react at about the same rate making the precise sequence by random chemical reactions unthinkably unlikely. This is the problem of Chemical Reactivity.


I suppose this guy never heard of self-catalysed reactions?

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Chemical Selectivity
Chemical selectivity is a problem of where the components react. Since the chain has two ends, the amino acids can add to either end of the chain. Even if by some magical process, a single amino acid "B" would react first as desired for the pre-determined life supporting sequence followed by a single amino acid "A," the product would be a mixture of at least four isomers because there are two ends to the chain. If there is an equal chance of amino acid "B" reacting in two different locations, then half will react at one end, half at the other end. The result of adding "B" will form two different products. When the addition of amino acid "A" occurs, it will react at both ends of the chain of both the products already present. As in the previous example, the major products would be R-T-X-B-A and A-R-T-X-B as well as A-B-R-T-X and B-R-T-X-A and others. The result is a mixture of several isomers of which the desired sequence seldom results, and this is the problem with only two amino acids reacting. As the third amino acid is added, it can react at both ends of four products, and so on, insuring randomness, not a precise sequence.

Since proteins may contain hundreds or thousands of amino acids in a sequence, imagine the huge number of undesired isomers that would be present if these large proteins were formed in a random process. Evolutionists might argue that all proteins were formed in this manner, and nature simply selected the ones that worked. However, this is only an ad hoc assumption and it ignores the fact that we do not have billions of "extra" proteins in our body. Furthermore, nature is not intelligent. There is nothing in nature to do the selecting all-the-while splicing together non-functioning (therefore non-selectable) amino acids toward a working whole. Evolutionists say that nature is blind, has no goal, and no purpose, and yet precise selection at each step is necessary. This is the problem of Chemical Selectivity.


Wrong on too many levels to touch upon them all here. This guy does not understand the principle of evolution. Only the compunds that are active for self-replication would survive and all his random isomers would simply "die" out.

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The chemical control needed for the formation of a specific sequence in a polymer chain is just not possible in a random process. The synthesis of proteins and DNA in the laboratory requires the chemist to control the reaction conditions, to thoroughly understand the reactivity and selectivity of each component, and to carefully control the order of addition of the components as the chain is building in size. The successful formation of proteins and DNA in some primordial soup would require the same control of the reactivity and selectivity, and that would require the existence of a chemical controller. But chemicals cannot think, plan, or organize themselves to do anything. How can chemicals know what it is they're making?


See above. Again, example of thinking within the box of a synthetic organic chemist. Yeah, sure you need control to produce these chemicals syntheticallly. We have managed to synthesize a plethora of these molecules within 200 years of existance of true science of chemistry. 200 years! The molecules fof life had billions of years to evolve.

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How can a chemical reaction make a protein or DNA, put it in an eye, heart, or brain, and do it without a controlling mechanism that knows what the end product is supposed to look like? This sounds much more like the work of an Omniscient Creator. Evolutionists have always been quick to claim that life came from chemicals, but their theory does not hold up to scientific scrutiny. Evolution claims that random chance natural processes formed life as we know it, but they fail to mention that their theory is anything but random or natural! This is the false logic of evolution. Evolutionists just hope you don't know chemistry!


Bah. I am getting a bit too worked up over this. I apologize to everyone that finds it boring to revisit such ol threads. I had some of this response on the table so I figured I'd post it. But sorry, Talon, I won't be able to spend as much time on this anymore. All I can say is, good luck on learning about this.

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