Chemical evolution:

[Traverse]

Not relevant, as you should well know - evolution is defined as the change, over time, in allele frequency in a population. Darwin suggested a driver for this change - natural selection - but there are most certainly others

Whatever abiogenic theory one postulates, it sure as hell has nothing to do with populations of genetically similar organisms

Nobody's said that the postulated populations of RNA-type oligomers in the RNA World would've had to have been similar in sequence; so Darwinism could have pertained in such a population, yes or no?

 

[Write4U]

You are still talking about "self-replication", which is almost certainly not involved in abiogenesis (or biogenesis, for that matter) and nucleic acids, which were almost certainly not involved in abiogenesis.

I believe that the ability for duplication is a fundamental requirement for living organisms.
But cell duplication can occur via self-replication in almost all life.

via Mitosis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitosis

A protein that self-replicates
Not just an RNA world

Until now, however, the most widespread idea for the molecular beginnings of life has been the RNA hypothesis, which sees ribonucleic acid (RNA) as the only key player in the prebiotic primordial soup. This is because, like the genetic material DNA, RNA molecules can code information, and are also able to self-replicate.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/02/180227111646.htm#

Self-replicating nanostructures made from DNA
by Heather Zeiger , Phys.org

However, Junghoon Kim, Junwye Lee, Shogo Hamada, Satoshi Murata, and Sung Ha Park of Sungkyunkwan University and Tohoku University have designed a controllable self-replicating system that does not require proteins. Their work appears in Nature Nanotechnology.

https://phys.org/news/2015-05-self-replicating-nanostructures-dna.html

or binary fission in RNA based life.

Difference Between Binary Fission and Mitosis
Reviewed by: BD Editors , Last Updated: April 24, 2019

Binary fission is a method of asexual reproduction which single-celled organisms, usually prokaryotes, use to create a copy of themselves. Another term for the process is cellular cloning. Mitosis is cell division that results in two identical daughter cells and is primarily used for growth of an organism.

Binary fission is different from mitosis because prokaryotic cells do not have a true nucleus like eukaryotes. Also, there is no mitotic spindle formation in the nucleus during binary fission. However, the processes are similar in that the organism or cell first duplicates its DNA and then divides into two parts in a process known as cytokinesis.

Binary fission is the process by which a single-celled organism creates an exact copy of itself. It doesn’t require finding a mate like in sexual reproduction and it is a faster way to reproduce than sexual reproduction. At around 98.6°F, E. coli cells can divide about every 20 minutes. There are four main types of binary fission based on where the organism divides itself.

https://biologydictionary.net/difference-binary-fission-mitosis/#

Binary Fission

Binary fission is the process of asexual reproduction (cell division) which takes place in prokaryotic cells, like bacteria.

https://sites.google.com/site/sacebiologystage1/home/reproduction/binary-fission[/quote]

 

[Write4U]

Is it possible that several of these separate paths may have led to life forms?

Is that perhaps why the Octopodia family is so different from all other life?
Is this why Flora is so different from Fauna?

Is it possible that abiogenesis is not a rare event at all but that there have been several paths that led to different forms of life? Each path following it's own evolutionary development via natural selection, depending on it's own unique bio-chemical environment?

 

[Write4U]

Darwin suggested a driver for this change - natural selection - but there are most certainly others

Darwinian evolution via natural selection focused primarily on biology of survivorship to procreate, whereas generic evolution and natural selection covers the entire physical spectrum of functional refinement and durability.

 

[Q-reeus]

You have seen that debunked at least four times now. Slow learner?

No, you keep asserting things as though proven fact when they are not.

A standard springsnap mousetrap, for example, is easily reduced to some wire and a small piece of wood.

The mousetrap argument is a limited analogy that breaks down if pushed too far reductio ad absurdum. Even so, Behe covers your example given by someone else and explains it's shortcomings as already linked to back in #888. The link again: https://idthefuture.com/1391/
Relevant section is from ~ 11 minutes to 18 minutes mark. The real world prebiotic situation has to posit enormously more complex molecular arrangements as minimum viable living entity.
And as per last part of #888, there can imo be no Darwinian path to a fully functioning cell that without that integral membrane is hopelessly fragile against environmental poisoning.

 

[Write4U]

there can imo be no Darwinian path to a fully functioning cell that without that integral membrane is hopelessly fragile against environmental poisoning

What poisoning? Where does the poison come from? Why do you assume a self-assembly must be fragile?

How can the membrane even form unless allowed to do so by its environment in the first place? Once the membrane is formed it becomes very resistant to external pressure.

Surface tension of a compound chemical bubble can be extremely resistant to invasion and also offer great protection for anything fragile located inside.

https://www.sunnysports.com/blog/walk-water-humble-water-strider/

Laplace's Law
The larger the vessel radius, the larger the wall tension required to withstand a given internal fluid pressure.

For a given vessel radius and internal pressure, a spherical vessel will have half the wall tension of a cylindrical vessel.

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/ptens.html#bal

Self-assembly

Self-assembly is a process in which a disordered system of pre-existing components forms an organized structure or pattern as a consequence of specific, local interactions among the components themselves, without external direction. When the constitutive components are molecules, the process is termed molecular self-assembly.

Self-assembly of lipids (a), proteins (b), and (c) SDS-cyclodextrin complexes. SDS is a surfactant with a hydrocarbon tail (yellow) and a SO4 head (blue and red), while cyclodextrin is a saccharide ring (green C and red O atoms).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-assembly

 

[Q-reeus]

What poisoning? Where does the poison come from? Why do you assume a self-assembly must be fragile?

How can the membrane even form unless allowed to do so by its environment in the first place? Once the membrane is formed it becomes very resistant to external pressure.

Surface tension of a compound chemical bubble can be extremely resistant to invasion and also offer great protection for anything fragile located inside.
.................
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-assembly

You have no understanding of the real issues involved. It's been explained before - no use repeating it here only to have to do it again and again.

 

[iceaura]

(1.) On what rational grounds do you say that the NAs were "almost certainly not involved in abiogenesis"?

1) Too complicated, too dependent on biological context, and currently operating at a second or derivative level in biological organisms without otherwise existing or being closely related to otherwise existing chemical complexes. They appear to be later developments, in other words, closely fitted to a context of living beings as we know them.

2) As far as we know they are unnecessary in abiogenesis.

As they are both complex/complicated and probably unnecessary, assuming them seems far too likely to mislead.

(2.) As one with an apparently deep appreciation of the minutiae of Darwinism, at which point in the abiogenic story would you envisage Darwinism beginning?

I claim basic comprehension, not familiarity with minutiae, of Darwinian theory (not sure about "Darwinism").
Darwinian evolution is an inherent pattern of the changing material universe - a similar question might be at what point one imagined Copernicanism beginning.

evolution is defined as the change, over time, in allele frequency in a population

Biological evolution of currently living beings, things with populations of alleles, can be defined that way if one is very careful.
Evolution of other kinds of things would be defined differently.

Darwin suggested a driver for this change - natural selection - but there are most certainly others

Natural selection is a category - a very large and diverse category - of "drivers". It includes, for example, chance events and stochastic influences.

 

[iceaura]

The mousetrap argument is a limited analogy that breaks down if pushed too far reductio ad absurdum.

It is a crass error that reveals a basic misunderstanding of Darwinian theory.

And as per last part of #888, there can imo be no Darwinian path to a fully functioning cell that without that integral membrane is hopelessly fragile against environmental poisoning.

You have nowhere near enough information to make such an extraordinary claim, even as a guess.
On top of that vast ignorance, which you share with everyone, your continual reposting of Behe's elementary irreducibility mistake demonstrates that you do not know what a Darwinian path is.

 

[Q-reeus]

The infamous tactic 'you are stupid' doesn't work on me.
I say you have no clue as to how an integral cell membrane (with all that implies a la #888) could ever form. The DETAILS! It all HAS to happen in one cell lifetime, or never. And it's never.

 

[iceaura]

The infamous tactic 'you are stupid' doesn't work on me.

Of course not. That's why Schmelzer assigned it to me - it's in his comfort zone, and yours, that's why you borrowed it.

Schmelzer finds it easier to handle than the contents of my posts - for example, it's much easier to handle being called stupid than facing the observation that you don't know anything first hand or authoritatively sourced about Darwinian evolutionary theory - like Schmelzer parroting the wingnut feed on some scientific matter, you've never studied it, and you know that you have never studied it. Everything you post about it you got from websites like the ones you've linked here - the wingnut feed on Darwinian evolutionary theory. (How do I know? Common error and common vocabulary).

Since that is the case, you will readily comprehend - as has been explained to Schmelzer and the rest of the Republican media feed victims here enough times that further incomprehension is demonstrably willful - that none of my posts are intended to "work" on you, but rather (note that my post was a summary repetition)

1) repeated correction of error for the benefit of the driveby reader and possible victim of uncountered repetition (a lesson learned finally and for all from the national US elections of 2004)
2) mockery. It's the approach that seems in my life to have best hampered the authoritarian, and especially the rightwing authoritarian. ("Boiling over the fire, rising out of belief, and falling, like a tyrant, out of derision alone" Hoover: 'Dry Bones' ).

 

[Q-reeus]

Of course not. That's why Schmelzer assigned it to me - it's in his comfort zone, and yours, that's why you borrowed it.

Schmelzer finds it easier to handle than the contents of my posts - for example, it's much easier to handle being called stupid than facing the observation that you don't know anything first hand or authoritatively sourced about Darwinian evolutionary theory - like Schmelzer parroting the wingnut feed on some scientific matter, you've never studied it, and you know that you have never studied it. Everything you post about it you got from websites like the ones you've linked here - the wingnut feed on Darwinian evolutionary theory. (How do I know? Common error and common vocabulary).

Since that is the case, you will readily comprehend - as has been explained to Schmelzer and the rest of the Republican media feed victims here enough times that further incomprehension is demonstrably willful - that none of my posts are intended to "work" on you, but rather (note that my post was a summary repetition)

1) repeated correction of error for the benefit of the driveby reader and possible victim of uncountered repetition (a lesson learned finally and for all from the national US elections of 2004)
2) mockery. It's the approach that seems in my life to have best hampered the authoritarian, and especially the rightwing authoritarian. ("Boiling over the fire, rising out of belief, and falling, like a tyrant, out of derision alone" Hoover: 'Dry Bones' ).

Oh wow finishing off with dramatic prose quote from Hoover. Stunning. But I noticed not a word dealing with my late edit. You know, actually offering a plausible Darwinian step-by-step path to a fully functional integral cell membrane. Necessarily happening within a single cell lifetime. So you have a good grasp of the power of Darwinian evolution? Enlighten my unbelief then in the Power of Darwinian evolution to accomplish that essential task! Actual details - not vague hand-waving hype.

 

[Write4U]

You have no understanding of the real issues involved. It's been explained before - no use repeating it here only to have to do it again and again.

your explanation is naive and misguided. I do have an understanding of the issues involved and I am telling you you are wrong. In the absence of a definitive theory, my interpretation is much closer to reality than yours. You should avail yourself of some of the links I provide, instead of ignorantly dismissing my research in the subject.

 

[Q-reeus]

your explanation is naive and misguided. I do have an understanding of the issues involved and I am telling you you are wrong. In the absence of a definitive theory, my interpretation is much closer to reality than yours. You should avail yourself of some of the links I provide, instead of ignorantly dismissing my research in the subject.

Your interpretation is out in imagination land. See my previous post. That invite is open to anyone here, even chronic posters of eye candy You Tube vids having marginal relevance at best.

 

[Write4U]

You are so hung up on "irreducible complexity" you just cannot compartmentalize the abiogenetic processes.

What you do not understand is that the left-handed amino acids are used in the development of metabolics, and the right-handed sugars are used in the development of RNA and DNA genetics. These are separate processes and need not have occurred at the exact same time.

To use Behe's mousetrap, each part of the mousetrap must be manufactured separately before it can be assembled into a functional whole, a detail that is so conveniently overlooked.

My interpretation is from reliable sources. You may want to read some of it.

Genesis: Rocks, Minerals, and the Geochemical Origin of Life,
Robert M. Hazen, Guest Editor 1

Life arose on the young Earth as a natural chemical process. More than half a century of experimental research has underscored the dynamic interactions of atmosphere, oceans, and rocks that fostered this ancient transition from geochemistry to biochemistry. Researchers on the origin of life now conclude that rocks and minerals must have played key roles in virtually every phase of life’s emergence—they catalyzed the synthesis of key biomolecules; they selected, protected, and concentrated those molecules; they jump-started metabolism; and they may even have acted as life’s first genetic system.

METABOLISM AND GENETICS

Among the many lively ongoing debates in origin-of-life research is the conundrum of which came first, metabolism or genetics? Metabolism is the ability to manufacture biomolecules from a source of energy (such as sunlight) and matter scavenged from the surroundings (usually in the form of small molecules). An organism cannot survive and grow without an adequate supply of energy and matter.

Genetics, by contrast, is the process by which biological information is transferred from one generation to the next—a blueprint for life via the mechanisms of DNA and RNA. An organism cannot reproduce without a reliable means to pass on this genetic information.

The problem for understanding life’s origins is that metabolism and genetics constitute two separate, chemically distinct systems in cells, yet they are inextricably linked in modern life. DNA holds genetic instructions to make hundreds of molecules essential to metabolism, while metabolism provides both the energy and the basic building blocks to make DNA and other genetic materials.

Like the dilemma of the chicken and the egg, it is difficult to imagine back to a time when metabolism and genetics were not intertwined. Consequently, origin-of-life researchers engage in an intense, ongoing debate about whether these two aspects of life arose simultaneously or independently and, if the latter, which one came first (Orgel 1986; Morowitz 1992).

https://hazen.carnegiescience.edu/sites/hazen.gl.ciw.edu/files/ElementsIntro.pdf

and

The Informational Substrate of Chemical Evolution: Implications for Abiogenesis
Andrés de la Escosura1,2

Abstract

A key aspect of biological evolution is the capacity of living systems to process information, coded in deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), and used to direct how the cell works. The overall picture that emerges today from fields such as developmental, synthetic, and systems biology indicates that information processing in cells occurs through a hierarchy of genes regulating the activity of other genes through complex metabolic networks. There is an implicit semiotic character in this way of dealing with information, based on functional molecules that act as signs to achieve self-regulation of the whole network.

In contrast to cells, chemical systems are not thought of being able to process information, yet they must have preceded biological organisms, and evolved into them.

Hence, there must have been prebiotic molecular assemblies that could somehow process information, in order to regulate their own constituent reactions and supramolecular organization processes. The purpose of this essay is then to reflect about the distinctive features of information in living and non-living matter, and on how the capacity of biological organisms for information processing was possibly rooted in a particular type of chemical systems (here referred to as autonomous chemical systems), which could self-sustain and reproduce through organizational closure of their molecular building blocks.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6789672/[/quote]

 

[Traverse]

1) Too complicated, too dependent on biological context, and currently operating at a second or derivative level in biological organisms without otherwise existing or being closely related to otherwise existing chemical complexes. They appear to be later developments, in other words, closely fitted to a context of living beings as we know them.

Poppycock, Monsieur. They merely appear to be "too complicated" and frustrating for you to be able to readily conceive of a mechanism for their primary CE origination.

And they're both primary & central to all of Biology, as you ought well know; there's nothing secondary or derivative about them, at all.

You're just frustrated with them because at the moment they merely seem to be abiogenically inconceivable & incomprehensible to your clearly quite limited grasp of Chemistry.

Your wholesale lumping of NAs as 'downstream' in the entire CE story merely relieves you of having to concern yourself with something which your mind doesn't have either the requisite knowledge, background, or the steeled patience, perseverance, & persistence to face up to.

 

[Traverse]

2) As far as we know they are unnecessary in abiogenesis.

As they are both complex/complicated and probably unnecessary, assuming them seems far too likely to mislead.

As you seem to be afraid to admit, the RNA World model actually solves both the genetic & the catalytic root problems of all of CE in one go. It'd found all of Biology on the Earth in a unified way. Just because the NAs appear to you to be too complex for your own mind to be able to conceive of any possibility of a plausible origination for them on the early Earth, don't presume to mislead others by so dismissively discounting the NAs out of hand.

 

[Traverse]

I claim basic comprehension, not familiarity with minutiae, of Darwinian theory (not sure about "Darwinism").
Darwinian evolution is an inherent pattern of the changing material universe - a similar question might be at what point one imagined Copernicanism beginning.

As you must well know, but have tried to adroitly avoid admitting, Darwinism essentially requires genetics, and therefore it requires some kind of a genetic oligomer. So if you're dead-set against letting NAs into the CE story until later on, are you positing that proteins/carbohydrates/lipids fulfilled that role early on?

As a purportedly bio-educated person, you'll simply have to admit that having NAs in the beginning would make comprehending Biology ever so much easier.

Copernicus is a red-herring here, so you'll have to do better than that in order to obfuscate the discussion from the reality that Darwin's genius could easily have 'kicked-off' in the RNA World conception.

 

[Traverse]

And as for above insistence on some kind of supposed fundamental CE problem with prebiotic membrane formation, I'd recommend that those arguing for any such difficulty in the prebiotic context go to their local library to borrow a book on Surface Chemistry, in order to have the scales promptly drop from their eyes. An enormous amount of work has been done in that area, which clearly makes prebiotic membranes a given at this point. So prebiotic cellularisation isn't a difficult issue, at all.

 

[QuarkHead]

Darwinism essentially requires genetics, and therefore it requires some kind of a genetic oligomer.

I'm afraid this is a non sequitur. Genetics works, in fact did work, just fine without any knowledge of the molecular structure of genes.