Prebiotic Soup--Revisiting the Miller Experiment [biogenesis]

"Isn't life wonderful?" sang Alma Cogan and Les Howard in their almost forgotten 1953 hit. That same year, Stanley L. Miller raised the hopes of understanding the origin of life when on 15 May, Science published his paper on the synthesis of amino acids under conditions that simulated primitive Earth's atmosphere (1). Miller had applied an electric discharge to a mixture of CH4, NH3, H2O, and H2--believed at the time to be the atmospheric composition of early Earth. Surprisingly, the products were not a random mixture of organic molecules, but rather a relatively small number of biochemically significant compounds such as amino acids, hydroxy acids, and urea. With the publication of these dramatic results, the modern era in the study of the origin of life began.

Since the late 19th century, the belief in a natural origin of life had become widespread. It was generally accepted that life's defining properties could be understood through physico-chemical characterization of "protoplasm," a term used to describe the viscous translucent colloid found in all living cells (2). Expressions like "primordial protoplasmic globules" were used not only by scientists but also in fiction, from Gilbert and Sullivan's Pooh-Bah in The Mikado (1885) to Thomas Mann's somber imaginary character Adrian Leverkühn in Doktor Faustus (1947). But few dared to be explicit, even in novels. Questioned about the origin of life, a chemist in Dorothy L. Sayers' novel The Documents in the Case (1930) states that "it appears possible that there was an evolution from inorganic or organic through the colloids. We can't say much more, and we haven't--so far--succeeded in producing it in the laboratory."

Some were willing to fill in the details. At the turn of the 20th century, many scientists favored the idea of primordial beings endowed with a plant-like (autotrophic) metabolism that would allow them to use CO2 as their source of cellular carbon. However, some scientists--including A. I. Oparin, J. B. S. Haldane, C. B. Lipman, and R. B. Harvey--had different ideas (3). The most successful and best-known proposal was that by Oparin, who, from a Darwinian analysis, proposed a series of events from the synthesis and accumulation of organic compounds to primordial life forms whose maintenance and reproduction depended on external sources of reduced carbon.

The assumption of an abiotic origin of organic compounds rested on firm grounds. In 1828, F. Wöhler had reported the first chemical synthesis of a simple organic molecule (urea) from inorganic starting materials (silver cyanate and ammonium chloride).

After a large body of research on the synthesis of simple organic compounds accumulated in the 19th century (see figure above), W. Löb achieved the chemical syntheses of simple amino acids such as glycine by exposing wet formamide to a silent electrical discharge and to ultraviolet light (4).

These efforts to produce simple organic compounds from simple reagents heralded the dawn of prebiotic organic chemistry. However, there is no indication that the scientists who carried out these studies were interested in how life began on Earth, or in the synthesis of organic compounds under possible prebiotic conditions. This is not surprising, because the abiotic synthesis of organic compounds was not considered to be a necessary prerequisite for the emergence of life.

From the 1950s, chemists were drawn toward the origin of life. Driven by his interest in evolutionary biology, Melvin Calvin tried to simulate the synthesis of organic compounds under primitive Earth conditions with high-energy radiation sources. He and his group had limited success: the irradiation of CO2 solutions with the Crocker Laboratory's 60-inch cyclotron led only to formic acid, albeit in fairly high yields (5). Miller's publication 2 years later showed how compounds of biochemical importance could be produced in high yields from a mixture of reduced gases.

The origin of Miller's experiment can be traced to 1950, when Nobel laureate Harold C. Urey, who had studied the origin of the solar system and the chemical events associated with this process, began to consider the emergence of life in the context of his proposal of a highly reducing terrestrial atmosphere. Urey presented his ideas in a lecture at the University of Chicago in 1951, followed by the publication of a paper on Earth's primitive atmosphere in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences(6).

Almost a year and a half after Urey's lecture, Miller, a graduate student in the Chemistry Department who had been in the audience, approached Urey about the possibility of doing a prebiotic synthesis experiment using a reducing gas mixture. After overcoming Urey's initial resistance, they designed three apparatuses meant to simulate the ocean-atmosphere system on primitive Earth (3). The first experiment used water vapor produced by heating to simulate evaporation from the oceans; as it mixed with methane, ammonia, and hydrogen, it mimicked a water vapor-saturated primitive atmosphere, which was then subjected to an electric discharge (see the figure below). The second experiment used a higher pressure, which generated a hot water mist similar to that of a water vapor-rich volcanic eruption into the atmosphere, whereas the third used a so-called silent discharge instead of a spark.

Miller began the experiments in the fall of 1952. By comparison with contemporary analytical tools, the paper chromatography method available at the time was crude. Still, after only 2 days of sparking the gaseous mixture, Miller detected glycine in the flask containing water. When he repeated the experiment, this time sparking the mixture for a week, the inside of the sparking flask soon became coated with an oily material and the water turned a yellow-brown color. Chromatographic analysis of the water flask yielded an intense glycine spot; several other amino acids were also detected. Experiments with the second apparatus produced a similar distribution and quantities of amino acids and other organic compounds, whereas the third apparatus with silent discharge showed lower overall yields and much fewer amino acids (primarily sarcosine and glycine).

After Miller showed the impressive results to Urey, they decided to submit them to Science. Urey declined Miller's offer to coauthor the report because otherwise Miller would receive little or no credit. Knowing that a graduate student could have a difficult time getting a paper like this published, Urey contacted the Science editorial office to explain the importance of the work and ask that the paper be published as soon as possible. Urey kept mentioning the results in his lectures, drawing considerable attention from the news media.

The manuscript was sent to Science in early February of 1953. Several weeks went by with no news. Growing impatient, Urey wrote to Howard Meyerhoff, chairman of AAAS's Editorial Board, on 27 February to complain about the lack of progress (7). Then, on 8 March 1953, the New York Times reported in a short article entitled, "Looking Back Two Billion Years" that W. M. MacNevin and his associates at Ohio State University had performed several experiments simulating the primitive Earth--including a discharge experiment with methane wherein "resinous solids too complex for analysis" were produced. The next day, Miller sent Urey a copy of the clipping with a note saying "I am not sure what should be done now, since their work is, in essence, my thesis. As of today, I have not received the proof from Science, and in the letter that was sent to you, Meyerhoff said that he had sent my note for review."

Infuriated by this news, Urey had Miller withdraw the paper and submit it to the Journal of the American Chemical Society. Ironically, at the same time (11 March), Meyerhoff, evidently frustrated by Urey's actions, wrote to Miller that he wanted to publish the manuscript as a lead article and that he wanted Miller--not Urey--to make the final decision about the manuscript. Miller immediately accepted Meyerhoff's offer, the paper was withdrawn from the Journal of the American Chemical Society and returned to Science, and was published on 15 May 1953.

On 15 December 1952, well before the Miller paper was sent to Science, K. Wilde and co-workers had submitted a paper on the attempted electric arc synthesis of organic compounds using CO2 and water to the same journal. They reported that no interesting reduction products, such as formaldehyde, were synthesized above the part-per-million level. This result supported the surmise of Miller and Urey that reducing conditions were needed for effective organic syntheses to take place. Surprisingly, when the paper by Wilde et al. was published in Science on 10 July 1953, it did not mention Miller's paper, although the authors did note that their results had "implications with respect to the origin of living matter on earth."

Miller's paper was published only a few weeks after Watson and Crick reported their DNA double-helix model in Nature. The link between the two nascent fields began to develop a few years later, when Juan Oró demonstrated the remarkable ease by which adenine, one of the nucleobases in DNA and RNA, could be produced through the oligomerization of hydrogen cyanide (8). It would eventually culminate in the independent suggestions of an "RNA world" by Carl Woese, Leslie Orgel, and Francis Crick in the late 1960s and by Walter Gilbert in 1986.

The impact of the Miller paper was not limited to academic circles. The results captured the imagination of the public, who were intrigued by the use of electric discharges to form the prebiotic soup. Fascination with the effects of electricity and spark discharges on biological systems started with the work of L. Galvani in 1780 with frog legs and the discovery of "animal electricity." And an everlasting impression was left in the public's imagination by Mary W. Shelley's Frankenstein (1818), in which Eramus Darwin gained a place for his advocacy of therapies based on electric discharges.

Although in 1953, few envisioned the possibility of Frankenstein monsters crawling out of Miller's laboratory vessels, the public's imagination was captivated by the outcome of the experiment. By the time that the results were corroborated by an independent group 3 years later (9), the metaphor of the "prebiotic soup" had found its way into comic strips, cartoons, movies, and novels, and continues to do so. In Harry Mulisch's novel The Procedure (1998), one of the central characters encounters disaster while paving his way to the glittering halls of Stockholm for achieving the artificial synthesis of life from a primitive soup.

But is the "prebiotic soup" theory a reasonable explanation for the emergence of life? Contemporary geoscientists tend to doubt that the primitive atmosphere had the highly reducing composition used by Miller in 1953. Many have suggested that the organic compounds needed for the origin of life may have originated from extraterrestrial sources such as meteorites. However, there is evidence that amino acids and other biochemical monomers found in meteorites were synthesized in parent bodies by reactions similar to those in the Miller experiment. Localized reducing environments may have existed on primitive Earth, especially near volcanic plumes, where electric discharges (10) may have driven prebiotic synthesis.

In the early 1950s, several groups were attempting organic synthesis under primitive conditions. But it was the Miller experiment, placed in the Darwinian perspective provided by Oparin's ideas and deeply rooted in the 19th-century tradition of synthetic organic chemistry, that almost overnight transformed the study of the origin of life into a respectable field of inquiry.

I am not. I am accounting for non-life form polymerization when I reminded you (in an earlier post) that dehydration polymerization would be impossible in a aqeuous environment (Ie the smokestacks).

This is just silly. Of course you can make polymers in "a(n) aqueous environment". Almost all polymerization is achieved by stripping hydrogen in some manner, whether in an aqueous environment or not.

I also mentioned but a few prospects that have been, so far, dead-end points for abiogenesis. They are in my previous posts to you.

What appears to me to be the case, is that you have learned a few chemical-sounding words that are making your brain rattle. It remains the case, despite your polysyllabic shenanigans, that there is no credible state-space any serious biologist supports, including Miller's pre-biotic soup, to which you have apparently attributed scientifi-magical powers, in which we suspect that amino acids turned into DNA-based cellular life forms, zip, zam, zoom. No such state-space credibly exists, no such selection criteria credibly exists, and so, as night follows day, no such fantastic calculation of the odds against spontaneous biogensis exists which holds any water, except in the overheated imaginations of the Discovery Institute & it's fellow-travelers.

Of course I don't have the exact variable quantities, all of the damaging and supportive variables for abiogenesis, and a perfect model of the primeval (sp?) Earth.

Indeed.

If I did have such proof against abiogenesis, I would be in the top ten for scientists and would also erase the religious tenant of faith in this universe--because who would deny absolute proof of a Creator and therefore follow His Truth?

There is no such thing as a proof in natural sciences, and there is no such thing as an "absolute proof" anywhere.

A proof OF random, spontaneous, instantaneous abiogenesis of DNA-based cellular life against extraordinary odds would not deny God's hand in creation--it would affirm it. No scientific demonstration of anything's proximate cause, in any manner closes out the possible existence of other causes. For aught anyone knows, before or after a proof of abiogensis, God's Hand directs every sperm to it's chosen egg.

Like many creationists, you are engaged in "play my game or I take my ball and go home". The best guess is that there was NO spontaneous abiogensis, at God's hand or otherwise, even if you strangle on words too long to pronounce properly in your desire to make this the battlefield. In all likely probability, before there was cellular DNA-based life, evolution was just as slow-moving as it is now, if not emensely slower. No big leaps through unlikely state-spaces, just the same little leaps through innumerable difficult state-spaces that selected out most of the candidates which we now observe.

don h writes: This is just silly. Of course you can make polymers in "a(n) aqueous environment". Almost all polymerization is achieved by stripping hydrogen in some manner, whether in an aqueous environment or not.

I do not believe dehydration polymerization--the type that I specifically stated--is possible in an aqeuous environment. It is certainly possible in ribosomes and nuclei, but not in an actual aqueous environment. If you can find proof that dehydration synth is possible in an aqeuous environment I will be more than happy to believe it. Though as far as I have learned, addition polymerization is the name of the game in aqeous solution; addition polymerization doesn't produce proteins or enzymes that cells use for general function.

don h writes: What appears to me to be the case, is that you have learned a few chemical-sounding words that are making your brain rattle. It remains the case, despite your polysyllabic shenanigans, that there is no credible state-space any serious biologist supports, including Miller's pre-biotic soup, to which you have apparently attributed scientifi-magical powers, in which we suspect that amino acids turned into DNA-based cellular life forms, zip, zam, zoom. No such state-space credibly exists, no such selection criteria credibly exists, and so, as night follows day, no such fantastic calculation of the odds against spontaneous biogensis exists which holds any water, except in the overheated imaginations of the Discovery Institute & it's fellow-travelers.

It is becoming apparent that none of you guys--VadeRetro, yourself, or PH--are employed in anything near a scientific field. I foolishly assigned a basic understand of science and its terminology (which doesn't include my diction like "relatively infinite" and such).

You keep mistakenly believing I am anectdotely assigning improbability compared to a fully functional cell arising--I am not. I was addressing the improbability of L optical isomers becoming predominant. As you know, L optical isomers are not a fully funtioning cell, DNA, what have you. You are generalizing all of my questions to the probability of spontaneous DNA/cell formation. If that helps you ignore my isomer problems then you may retain that psychological blanket.

don h writes: There is no such thing as a proof in natural sciences, and there is no such thing as an "absolute proof" anywhere.

A proof OF random, spontaneous, instantaneous abiogenesis of DNA-based cellular life against extraordinary odds would not deny God's hand in creation--it would affirm it. No scientific demonstration of anything's proximate cause, in any manner closes out the possible existence of other causes. For aught anyone knows, before or after a proof of abiogensis, God's Hand directs every sperm to it's chosen egg.

Again, I was never placing criteria on a spontaneous creation of a DNA-based lifeform; I was talking about chirality. I know we can never fully disprove the need for God's hand--I am just stating that our increasing knowledge actually requires more and more magic in certain areas ('singularity' physics, abiogenesis, evolution of human intel/consciousness, etc).

don h writes: Like many creationists, you are engaged in "play my game or I take my ball and go home". The best guess is that there was NO spontaneous abiogensis, at God's hand or otherwise, even if you strangle on words too long to pronounce properly in your desire to make this the battlefield. In all likely probability, before there was cellular DNA-based life, evolution was just as slow-moving as it is now, if not emensely slower. No big leaps through unlikely state-spaces, just the same little leaps through innumerable difficult state-spaces that selected out most of the candidates which we now observe.

My arguments have been precisely addressing pre-cellular, pre-DNA life precursors and why a slow process given the mechanisms and variables we now know preclude self-replicating molecules existence. My specific area of contention was achirality.

And by calling me a Creationist you are engaging in the cognitive dissonance Patrick Henry and Vade Retro immerse themselves in. You are in a conservative forum, yet you employ the liberal tactic of stereotyping based on single characteristics. IE 1 racist conservative = all conservatives are racists. Would you consider any opposition to today's model of abiogenesis to be creationism? That is all I am doing here: pointing out where the model doesn't make any sense. Is Miller later declaring his experimental design (the reactants and energies used) to be unlike the probable settings of early earth also creationist? Is any deviation of today's dogma creationist to you?

Yes, I do believe there was intelligent influence on the universe. I don't see the necessity for God to directly carry the moon across the sky, but He is necessary is key areas.

So??? What you are saying is that ribosomes can build things that can't be built in water by some other means? And this means life can't exist without God's help because of what? That would be an interesting proof to see.

What? What? I was under the impression that ribosomes existed in aqueous environments in Protkariotes. I was also under the impression that nuclei do not engage in polymerization, unless you're counting miosis and mitosis, which seems like a bit of a cheat to me.

If you can find proof that dehydration synth is possible in an aqeuous environment I will be more than happy to believe it. Though as far as I have learned, addition polymerization is the name of the game in aqeous solution; addition polymerization doesn't produce proteins or enzymes that cells use for general function.

What is this? Kindly explain these terms in words of small syllables. What is "addition polymerization" what is "dehydration polyermization", use concrete examples, hand puppets, or visual aids.

I'll reserve judgement until I understand this better, but I tentatively think that all you are doing here is batting the same zip, zam, zoom argument into a new court. It is still the case that nobody serious thinks DNA-based cellular life sprung into existence instantaneously--therefore, that means the long chain polymers to which I think you are referring which are the basic repair&maintenance&procreation toolkit of DNA-based Cellular life--like ribosomes, for example, are ALSO not too likely to have sprung into existence from mudpuddle junk. They also evolved slowly, from something far down the line from the amino acids & such that the Miller experiment managed to produce. Contrary to your apparently heartfelt contention, you have not thrown fresh meat onto this grill.

L optical isomers becoming predominant.

Perhaps I'm slow, but I do not detect the link between this argument and the previous one. I also do not understand why chirality is a problem It had to be left-handed or right-handed, I don't see why "luck of the draw" isn't a satisfactory answer.

What is achirality and why does it preclude the existence of self-replicating molecules, and what evidence do you offer that self-replicating molecules are the only possible road to DNA-based cellular life?

And by calling me a Creationist you are engaging in the cognitive dissonance...

Or, alternatively, taking you at your word when you say: "I don't see the necessity for God to directly carry the moon across the sky, but He is necessary is key areas."

Would you consider any opposition to today's model of abiogenesis to be creationism?

It a good bet. There being no such distinct scientific model of any great note--I usually expect any argument I hear about it to be a strawman of some form of creationism, until proven otherwise.

I can't speak for others, but you've certainly got me pegged right. Unless you carefully explain concepts like "addition polymerization" very concretely, I won't be following your argument.

I am just stating that our increasing knowledge actually requires more and more magic in certain areas

Mebbe so, but that doesn't change the basic rules, tools or limitations of science. Science is about stuff we can know something about. About that which we know nothing about, science has nothing to say. Goddidit is not a satisfactory answer to any question scientists, mired in the finicky details of the world as they are, would like to ask, whether Goddidit or not.

So the ironic thing is, even if you're right, which I doubt that you are, about chirality or non-aqueous defenstration of polymers, or whatever, being some sort of magic barrier to life, that doesn't really help much. If Goddidit, a scientist will want to know the precise steps God used, what material, chronological, or spacial limitations God was working under. What other options God might have had, given those limitations. What created God? What caused God to start whacking out lifeforms at the lifeform factory. "Shut up and sit back down in your pew" is not going to be a satisfactory answer to those pesky scientists.

I really promised myself I was going to walk away here, but as long as you're giving donh a tutorial on dehydration and addition polymerizations, by all means give us mere mortals a few paragraphs on "valence shell collapse." Whatever the hell that is, you cite it as a barrier to the formation of large molecules. That was back here. "This system is must be constantly supplied with energies way out of porportion to the energies require by the self-replicator's in order to facilitate the self-replication (IE and prevent valence shell collapse through non self-replicating bonding)."

Valuing clarity over obscurity, I'll help you out by pinpointing my difficulties. I know what a valence shell is. I know those outer electrons can be loaned out, borrowed in, shared, or simply lost (ionization), but I know of no instance of a valence shell "collapsing." Of course, the net is full of web pages on chemistry so it should be no problem to search up a few dozen references to the process ... Except that as you see there is a problem there.

Again, donh seems to for now be entertaining the theory that you're a super-chemist who by rotten luck not only can't talk very well but can't even talk about chemistry. This difficulty includes misusing or not knowing most of the common terms while knowing a few terms nobody else seems to know. Thus, if this theory holds, you have unfortunately mimicked a high-school age prankster when in fact you might be a future Nobelist if you can ever conquer your disability.

A further test might help. You have complained bitterly that I've ignored what you call your "catch-22" scenario. You could explain how that can be true, given that what you label by that name is the following argument:

And on the selective pressurs--this is a catch-22 for early replicators. If they (both species or a single, it doesn't matter), had huge amounts of energy and building blocks available, then there would never be any selective pressure. And if the species(es) had suddenly an environment deprived of energy/building block, then they would all decompose due to the inability to bond with the other different (imperfect) self-replicators that had simultaneously utilized the remaining energy/building blocks.

What you need to explain is how I didn't answer you on selective pressures in 209 "Selective pressures only start after you get imperfect self-replicators making various strains of some original", on any tendency for the L-world and D-world organics to stay forever in lockstep in 203 and 204, and on the necessary ambient energy levels to form larger molecules in 219. Let's look at that last answer again.

To the extent I understand this [your incoherent babble in 217], the Miller experiment itself already refutes it. Synthesis of more complex molecules continues happens in chaotic, mostly unpredictable ways. There is no complexity barrier. The ambient energy levels are fine for the continuous recombination, billions of parallel experiments every second for millenium after millenium.

IOW, in a chaotically reacting CHON (carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen) soup over time, big molecules are as likely as little ones. If anything, heating the soup up too high will selectively break up the larger compounds, leaving only highly stable simple molecules. By comparision, cooling the mix actually furthers bond formation--during the cooling process itself--although it will result in slower recombination thereafter. After all, cooling slows the molecules down, making it easier for them to grab at each other.

You seem to have this backwards, repeatedly insisting that since individual bond formations are endothermic, big molecules require huge energy. If you're right, the sun should be full of complex hydrocarbons but I doubt it. Whether or not you understand this when I explain it, I also told you that the Miller experiment physically demonstrated the formation of complex organics from hydrogen, ammonia, methane, and water. That ought to mean something. I don't see how it's not an answer.

Anyway, your only reply to my 219 was the now infamous babble on "polymerized precursors," which would indeed have refuted my answer had it been true as written. However, you had to back away from that as written since it was utterly false. Worse, your revised version--something like meaning to say that aminos are precursors to protein polymers--makes no sense as a reply to what I wrote. It is no justification for you continuing to claim that 1) large energies are needed to make large molecules, and 2) your objections have not been answered.

So, your plate should look to you like this:

Dehydration polymerization (donh asked first, after all),
Addition polymerization,
Valence shell collapse,
How your "catch-22" isn't answered.

Thrill me.

I'm thrilled that you guys are still willing to discuss this matter! I will provide detailed explanations minus the chem-diction to answer your questions. I will do this tomorrow (since it is late and I still have work to do).

One quick distinction that I can answer right now. An aqueous molecule/atom/whatever, is actually touching water in some manner. Technically I shouldn't use the word "aqueous" due to its precision, but I thought the basic idea would be conveyed. Still, I should use precise language and therefore am talking about a hydrophobic environment (no water present aside from what is being ejected and evacuated due to hydrophyllic channels in the membranes of ribosomes/nuclear membranes)

My contention is that dehydr polymerization is not possible in water, essentially. That is, dehydration polymerization or synth must take place in a hydrophobic environment (IE interior of the ribosome, nuclei membrane (either in bacteria or eukaryotes). Simply, a water molecule cannot be ejected from a bond when the bond site is surrounded by water to fill the "gap" (where the connecting sites are now demanding that something fills there extra valence shells).

VadeRetro, valence shell collapse (meaning total energy level collapse, partial fill of energy level, anything to make the valence energy level stable) is the basis of chemistry. Essentially, bonds are most stable when the least amount of potential energy exists between two atoms. Atoms really "like" to fill their valence shells, as it usually will collapse (eliminate the electrons of) an entire level electrons.

As for honey polymerization, I would need to know the specifics on it. I sincerely doubt it occurs in the presence of water for the reasons I stated.

One last point for tonight. Don't think I want to stop scientific research or that I don't believe in the scientific method--I am training to be a biochemist/geneticist. I am merely stating that the higher and higher improbability that life "arose" by itself and without intelligent influence seems HIGHLY improbable.

I'll use this example. If we went to the moon and found a perfect cube of highly enriched composition and mathematical writing/symbols--would it not be highly probable that was not a product of natural influence? The same thing with life's origins. I by no means want to stifle research; that would be against what I believe God's Will to be.

I'll continue tomorrow.

VadeRetro, valence shell collapse (meaning total energy level collapse, partial fill of energy level, anything to make the valence energy level stable) is the basis of chemistry.

You'd think chemistry would have heard of "valence shell collapse" then. It has not. If all you are saying is that chemical attractions and reactions depend upon outer electron shells, you once again can't talk. Anyway, you are thus saying that every chemical reaction, e.g. hydrogen burning in oxygen to form water, is "valence shell collapse." But each hydrogen gave up its last/only electron. Did its valence shell "collapse" or is it just gone? The oxygen gained two new electrons to fill its valence shell. Is the shell collapsed or just full?

Using your approved expansion for "valence" shell collapse", your objection to a self-replicator self-replicating in a tepid-to-warm soup either doesn't make any sense or is wrong.

"This system is must be constantly supplied with energies way out of porportion to the energies require by the self-replicator's in order to facilitate the self-replication (IE and prevent ~~valence shell collapse~~ some kind of chemical reaction, any kind through non self-replicating bonding)."

The self-replicator is auto-catalytic. (There's a new big word you can throw around to snow the dummies.) A catalyst, as you'll learn someday, facilitates specific reactions. It prevents the any-old-random reaction from messing things up, basically because at any given stage the most probable next reaction is the one that favors the process being catalyzed. Sometimes the "wrong" reaction does happen, but it's a big soup and there's lots of time. After the self-replicator exists, "wrong" reactions can be referred to as "mutations." Some will be bad, some neutral, some better than the original.

And at any rate, your objection about energies ("This system is must be constantly supplied with energies way out of porportion to the energies require by the self-replicator's ...") remains wrong and had in fact been answered all the time that you were screaming and pouting that it had not.

Maybe you'd better just finish your chem homework for your High School class and forget the imposture you're attempting on this thread, kid. You're just babbling here. Babbling.

My contention is that dehydr polymerization is not possible in water, essentially. That is, dehydration polymerization or synth must take place in a hydrophobic environment (IE interior of the ribosome, nuclei membrane (either in bacteria or eukaryotes). Simply, a water molecule cannot be ejected from a bond when the bond site is surrounded by water to fill the "gap" (where the connecting sites are now demanding that something fills there extra valence shells).

You were supposed to explain what dehydration polymerization is. You seem to be implying that all polymerization is dehydration polymerization. I predict a tough sell, especially if the reason this is true is that otherwise the water molecules would keep getting in the way. Reactions happen in water based upon the relative attraction of molecules. When the water molecules aren't the most attracted (and water is a pretty stable, low-energy compound for most purposes), the water molecules will get out of the way. It's a fluid environment. Things drawn together eventually come together.

So you're going to do addition polymerization tomorrow, right? Is that a subset of dehydration polymerization?

I am training to be a biochemist/geneticist.

I am Queen Victoria. I'm studying up to reclaim my throne. You can't see it, but when I say "throne" or even "most," my lips go way out, pursed as if to kiss. I trill my "r"s. It's all most lovely.

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