And I am Ming the Merciless.
Posted on 11/02/2003 10:30:46 AM PST by PatrickHenry
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.
We've reached the same diagnosis, Doctor! Arm-waving chemo-babble. ("... IE and prevent valence shell collapse through non self-replicating bonding.")
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Placemarker |
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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:
If this guy is right, a lot of people are wrong.
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 preventThe 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.valence shell collapsesome kind of chemical reaction, any kind through non self-replicating bonding)."
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.
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.
And I am Ming the Merciless.
My God! Who will be next? Batman?
That would depend on whether we lived in a universe where mathematical symbols behaved like atomic particles.
The language metaphor cannot be applied here because language doesn't follow the laws of physics and chemistry. In fact no metaphor is applicable. If you want to prove that ceratin chemical reactions can't happen, then you have to use the language and operations of quantum chemistry. But of course you can't because it is easy to demonstrate that complex molecules self organize in the presence of an energy gradient. We may be decades, even centuries from demonstrating a likely abiogenesis scenerio, but you cannot prove that all possible scenerios are impossible.
By George, you're right!
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