To: FreedomProtector
The rest of the quote was irrelevant nonsense, as I've pointed out that the premise is wrong.
While we observe process happening on earth that result in a local lowering of entropy, we never observe any of those process put things together in an orderly way as a result of random changes, whether they be the building blocks to life---amino acids do not combine in moving water to form proteins--- or metal parts do not combine in tornados to form bicycles.
Yes we do observe such changes, ignoring the fallacious idea that the first proteins were made from amino acids combining all on their lonesome. I too used to think that entropy forbade processes leading to the origin of life, but I've come to realize that reality disagrees. In actuality in chemistry and biochemistry many organizing processes are entropy driven. These processes include some coupling reactions, cyclizations, and folding of macromolecules. And indeed they are the result of randomness. In a chemical reaction or conformational change the randomness comes from random molecular movement, from intramolecular changes by atoms turning, twisting, or stretching, or from intermolecular interactions from molecules bashing into each other as they move about randomly. These movements are often reversible--two molecules may collide and merge, spitting out a water molecule, and then a moment later be struck by another water molecule and split apart, with the water molecule merging with one of the resultant molecules. A peptide may sample multiple conformations before finding the lowest energy one, again driven by entropy as the folding excludes water molecules that raise local entropy. The result is a statistical sampling where a large percentage of the population is in a thermodynamic energy well, with the option of reversing if enough energy is attained and the right partners are present.
552 posted on
09/25/2006 12:00:45 PM PDT by
ahayes
(My strength is as the strength of ten because my heart is pure.)
Newton's Second Law of Thermal Documents placemarker.
553 posted on
09/25/2006 12:03:59 PM PDT by
js1138
(The absolute seriousness of someone who is terminally deluded.)
To: ahayes
"ignoring the fallacious idea that the first proteins were made from amino acids combining all on their lonesome."
Oh, so there had to have been something else present for life to form....good point....the genetic machinery that tells the cell how to produce protein...the DNA. The problem is that both both DNA and protein depend on each other for existence, and you are assuming that "The genetic machinery that tells the cell how to produce protein and the protein required to build that genetic machinery both originated gradually" So not only do proteins need to be generated by the clever and smart (don't say intelligence that is a bad word) chance machine, DNA needs to be generated at the same time by the same clever and smart chance machine at the same time.
Even if polypeptides had formed in the primordial soup, hydrolysis would have broken them up and destroyed most amino acids. Organic compounds such as amino acids, tend to break down when dissolved in water. The higher the temperature, the faster this breakdown occurs.
joining many amino acids together to form a protein with a useful biological activity is a much more difficult problem than forming amino acids in the first place. The major problem in hooking amino acids together is that, chemically, it involves the removal of a molecule of water for each amino acid joined to the growing protein chain. Conversely, the presence of water strongly inhibits amino acids from forming proteins
..
This and other problems w/ spontaneous generation posted here:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1689062/posts?page=185#185
There could be a interesting section or two added on the probability of designed enzymes as part of a discussion of some of the types of reactions you mentioned (enzymes are often required).... typical bacterium, which is the simplest of cells, is made up of 2000 enzymes...And of course, the formation of enzymes is but one improbable step in the formation of life....I will try to add that if I can find time.....
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