Re: Charles Carreon, The Arizona Kid
Posted: Fri Oct 18, 2013 1:08 am
A SLIGHTLY DEEPER LOOK AT EXOBIOLOGY, THE STUDY OF THE ORIGIN OF LIVING FORMS, by Charles Carreon
01/16/10
Full Disclosure of the Writer's Agenda
I will preface by saying that I endorse "origin-of-living-forms" research, and am in no sense on a Creationist agenda. Perhaps that will result in a lowering of the spear-points that seem to be ever at the ready here, in search of heretical mumbo-jumbo dealers. I will also reveal that I have my own, completely unverifiable theories that I believe would be consistent with any scientific evidence regarding the origins of living forms that is likely to be uncovered during my lifetime. Finally, while I espouse a spiritual view of life, I am not a deist, theist, atheist, or nihilist. I am a classic "not this, not that, not both, and not neither" kind of guy. But enough about me, what about this video?
The Video Makes Some Big Claims for the Work of Dr. Szostak
The video argues that Dr. Szostak has managed to create self-replicating structures that would break up easily when buffeted about by rocks and waves, and then, by circulating back and forth between the hot and cold areas around suboceanic heat vents, would gradually acquire more complex materials inside their proto-cell membrane, inside which further replication of complex structures occurs, resulting in some of these little buggers getting bigger and some getting "competed" out of existence. This, says the video, explains the whole origin of life.
Not So Quick - What Does Dr. Orgel Say About Dr. Szostak's Work?
Dr. Leslie E. Orgel was an origin of life heavyweight:
And Dr. Orgel, before he died a couple of years ago, said some interesting things about the origin of life problem:
Dr. Orgel wrote: [T]he central problem of origin-of-life research can be refined to ask, By what series of chemical reactions did this interdependent system of nucleic acids and proteins come into being?
Thus, it is clear that the protein / nucleic acid paradox presents a chicken/egg problem that isn't easily overcome. Question is -- did Dr. Szostak's experiments solve it? Orgel's commentary suggests not:
Volcanic Vents Might Be A Problem, Not The Answer
And Dr. Stanley Miller, who was the first to try cooking up life in a flask, has suggested that submarine vents might not be the deus-ex-machina that this video presumes, providing the sort of perpetual motion machine that will keep the proto-cells pumped up, competing, and "evolving," because the damn things are sort of destructive. Here's from an interview:
in an interview Dr. Miller said wrote:
Conclusion: The Video Substantially Overstates The Conclusiveness of Dr. Szostak's Research
So, after subjecting the ideas in this video to a little inquiry, I conclude that Dr. Szostak's work is apparently some of the most promising work for answering this question -- how did living forms arise? The answer in a general sense is probably correct -- start with a "reducing atmosphere," one that unlike ours, isn't full of the elements and chemicals produced by billions of years of life, bombard with energy, overcome the chicken/egg problem so that either nucleic acids or proteins, probably nucleic acids, probably RNA, in fact, appears first. Allow the RNA to carry on the process of transmitting information from one "generation" to the next, until at last, De-oxyRNA, that is, DNA, arises, and then we can really start coding and storing to create the complex cellular forms existing today. Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. However, using this video as what Humpty-Dumpty would call a "nice knock-down argument" will only work if they don't know how to work a browser and a search engine. In my opinion, somebody put this together to poke a sharp stick in the eye of the Creationists, and therefore it substantially overstates the conclusiveness of the Abiogenesis argument.
Is It Possible Life Forms Evolve to Accommodate Life, But Do Not Give Rise To Life Itself?
The question I have is, after all of this explaining the origin of living forms, have we entirely banished the possibility that intelligence is a vibrational, or otherwise physically imperceptible, aspect of the universe that is able to operate through physical forms as they become sufficiently complex? As I have often said, while you need a radio to pick up a radio program, and it emits human voices, there are no people in the radio. People are far too complex a phenomenon to fit in a radio. And it may be that a human is also too complex a phenomenon to shove into a bag of skin. Certainly cybernetics lends some support for my suggestion. Because no one could even attempt to simulate human decision-making processes until computers were developed, and the process gets easier and easier with every increase in computing power. In other words, hardware must be sufficiently complex to accommodate software. And software can be resident in any magnetic medium of sufficient capacity. Similarly, software has a potential state and a run-state, just as life forms have a seed state and an operational state.
Citations:
Excerpt of Dr. Orgel's book, "The Origin of Life On Earth" http://eddieting.com/eng/originoflife/orgel.html
Dr. Miller Interview http://www.accessexcellence.org/WN/NM/miller.php
01/16/10
Full Disclosure of the Writer's Agenda
I will preface by saying that I endorse "origin-of-living-forms" research, and am in no sense on a Creationist agenda. Perhaps that will result in a lowering of the spear-points that seem to be ever at the ready here, in search of heretical mumbo-jumbo dealers. I will also reveal that I have my own, completely unverifiable theories that I believe would be consistent with any scientific evidence regarding the origins of living forms that is likely to be uncovered during my lifetime. Finally, while I espouse a spiritual view of life, I am not a deist, theist, atheist, or nihilist. I am a classic "not this, not that, not both, and not neither" kind of guy. But enough about me, what about this video?
The Video Makes Some Big Claims for the Work of Dr. Szostak
The video argues that Dr. Szostak has managed to create self-replicating structures that would break up easily when buffeted about by rocks and waves, and then, by circulating back and forth between the hot and cold areas around suboceanic heat vents, would gradually acquire more complex materials inside their proto-cell membrane, inside which further replication of complex structures occurs, resulting in some of these little buggers getting bigger and some getting "competed" out of existence. This, says the video, explains the whole origin of life.
Not So Quick - What Does Dr. Orgel Say About Dr. Szostak's Work?
Dr. Leslie E. Orgel was an origin of life heavyweight:
Wikipedia on Orgel wrote: Together with Stanley Miller, Orgel also suggested that peptide nucleic acids - rather than ribonucleic acids - constituted the first pre-biotic systems capable of self-replication on early Earth. His name is popularly known because of Orgel's rules, credited to him, particularly Orgel's Second Rule: "Evolution is cleverer than you are". In his book The Origins of Life, Orgel coined the concept of specified complexity, to describe the criterion by which living orga,nisms are distinguished from non-living matter. He has published over three hundred articles in his research areas.
And Dr. Orgel, before he died a couple of years ago, said some interesting things about the origin of life problem:
Dr. Orgel wrote: [T]he central problem of origin-of-life research can be refined to ask, By what series of chemical reactions did this interdependent system of nucleic acids and proteins come into being?
Anyone trying to solve this puzzle immediately encounters a paradox. Nowadays nucleic acids are synthesized only with the help of proteins, and proteins are synthesized only if their corresponding nucleotide sequence is present. It is extremely improbable that proteins and nucleic acids, both of which are structurally complex, arose spontaneously in the same place at the same time. Yet it also seems impossible to have one without the other. And so, at first glance, one might have to conclude that life could never, in fact, have originated by chemical means.
Thus, it is clear that the protein / nucleic acid paradox presents a chicken/egg problem that isn't easily overcome. Question is -- did Dr. Szostak's experiments solve it? Orgel's commentary suggests not:
Dr. Orgel wrote: Ingenious techniques devised by Cech and Jack W. Szostak of the Massachusetts General Hospital have modified naturally occurring ribozymes so that they can carry out some of the most important subreactions of RNA replication, such as stringing together nucleotides or oligonucleotides (short sequences of nucleotides). Quite recently Szostak found even stronger evidence that an RNA molecule produced by prebiotic chemistry could have carried out RNA replication on the early earth. He started by creating a pool of random oligonucleotides, to approximate the random production presumed to have occurred some four billion years ago. From that pool he was able to isolate a catalyst that could join together oligonucleotides. Equally important, the catalyst could draw energy for the reaction from a triphosphate group (three joined phosphates), the very same group that now fuels most biochemical reactions in living systems, including nucleic acid replication. Such a resemblance supports the idea that an RNA molecule could have behaved like, and preceded, the protein catalysts that today carry out the replication of genetic material in living organisms. Much remains to be done, but it now seems likely that some kind of RNA-catalyzed reproduction of RNA will be demonstrated in the not too distant future.
Volcanic Vents Might Be A Problem, Not The Answer
And Dr. Stanley Miller, who was the first to try cooking up life in a flask, has suggested that submarine vents might not be the deus-ex-machina that this video presumes, providing the sort of perpetual motion machine that will keep the proto-cells pumped up, competing, and "evolving," because the damn things are sort of destructive. Here's from an interview:
in an interview Dr. Miller said wrote:
Q: What about submarine vents as a source of prebiotic compounds?
A: I have a very simple response to that . Submarine vents don't make organic compounds, they decompose them. Indeed, these vents are one of the limiting factors on what organic compounds you are going to have in the primitive oceans. At the present time, the entire ocean goes through those vents in 10 million years. So all of the organic compounds get zapped every ten million years. That places a constraint on how much organic material you can get. Furthermore, it gives you a time scale for the origin of life. If all the polymers and other goodies that you make get destroyed, it means life has to start early and rapidly. If you look at the process in detail, it seems that long periods of time are detrimental, rather than helpful.
Conclusion: The Video Substantially Overstates The Conclusiveness of Dr. Szostak's Research
So, after subjecting the ideas in this video to a little inquiry, I conclude that Dr. Szostak's work is apparently some of the most promising work for answering this question -- how did living forms arise? The answer in a general sense is probably correct -- start with a "reducing atmosphere," one that unlike ours, isn't full of the elements and chemicals produced by billions of years of life, bombard with energy, overcome the chicken/egg problem so that either nucleic acids or proteins, probably nucleic acids, probably RNA, in fact, appears first. Allow the RNA to carry on the process of transmitting information from one "generation" to the next, until at last, De-oxyRNA, that is, DNA, arises, and then we can really start coding and storing to create the complex cellular forms existing today. Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. However, using this video as what Humpty-Dumpty would call a "nice knock-down argument" will only work if they don't know how to work a browser and a search engine. In my opinion, somebody put this together to poke a sharp stick in the eye of the Creationists, and therefore it substantially overstates the conclusiveness of the Abiogenesis argument.
Is It Possible Life Forms Evolve to Accommodate Life, But Do Not Give Rise To Life Itself?
The question I have is, after all of this explaining the origin of living forms, have we entirely banished the possibility that intelligence is a vibrational, or otherwise physically imperceptible, aspect of the universe that is able to operate through physical forms as they become sufficiently complex? As I have often said, while you need a radio to pick up a radio program, and it emits human voices, there are no people in the radio. People are far too complex a phenomenon to fit in a radio. And it may be that a human is also too complex a phenomenon to shove into a bag of skin. Certainly cybernetics lends some support for my suggestion. Because no one could even attempt to simulate human decision-making processes until computers were developed, and the process gets easier and easier with every increase in computing power. In other words, hardware must be sufficiently complex to accommodate software. And software can be resident in any magnetic medium of sufficient capacity. Similarly, software has a potential state and a run-state, just as life forms have a seed state and an operational state.
Citations:
Excerpt of Dr. Orgel's book, "The Origin of Life On Earth" http://eddieting.com/eng/originoflife/orgel.html
Dr. Miller Interview http://www.accessexcellence.org/WN/NM/miller.php