Re: The story of the golfers without clubs and the toy knive that need to be sharpened..

On May 30, 4:55 pm, j...@xxxxxx wrote:
Hi, here it follows an article of R. Shapiro on "Scientific American"
that finally has the honesty
to admit that the "high mountain of irreducible complexity" is
definitively declared unclimbable.

Better chose a simpler molecules explanation that, by the way, doesn't
seem so simple to me..

Let's have a look..

"The rna-first hypothesis faces
a tremendously challenging question:
How did that fi rst self-replicating RNA
arise? Enormous obstacles block Gilbert's
picture of RNA forming in a nonliving
nucleotide soup.."

Yeah, is tremendously hard remove those obstacles...

"..RNA's building blocks, nucleotides,
are complex substances as organic molecules
go. Each contains a sugar, a phosphate
and one of four nitrogen-containing
bases as sub-subunits. Thus, each
RNA nucleotide contains nine or 10 carbon
atoms, numerous nitrogen and oxygen
atoms and the phosphate group, all
connected in a precise three-dimensional
pattern. Many alternative ways exist
for making those connections, yielding
thousands of plausible nucleotides that
could readily join in place of the standard
ones but that are not represented in
RNA. That number is itself dwarfed by
the hundreds of thousands to millions of
stable organic molecules of similar size
that are not nucleotides.."

Yeah, too bad that we need exacly those nucleotides..

"..The idea that suitable nucleotides
might nonetheless form draws inspiration
from a well-known experiment published
in 1953 by Stanley L. Miller.."

Finally someone reconsider those experiments under the right
perspective..

".. He applied a spark discharge to a mixture of
simple gases that were then thought to
represent the atmosphere of the early
earth and saw that amino acids formed.."

Oh yes, they thought it, poor guys..

"..Amino acids have also been identified in
the Murchison meteorite, which fell in
Australia in 1969.."

Ok, well, we need FIRST to know how life started on earth: next
impossible point to explain is how life started on meteorites, and
then how life started on another planet..Step by step, please..

"..Nature has apparently
been generous in providing a supply of
these particular building blocks. By extrapolation
of these results, some writers
have presumed that all life's building
blocks could be formed with ease in
Miller-type experiments and were present
in meteorites. This is not the case.."

Yeah, this is REALLY NOT the case!!!

"Amino acids, such as those produced
in experiments like Miller's, are far less
complex than nucleotides..."

And all levogire, right?

"In contrast, no nucleotides of any kind
have been reported as products of sparkdischarge
experiments or in studies of
meteorites.."

Right, no one..

Apparently inanimate nature
has a bias toward the formation of molecules
made of fewer rather than greater
numbers of carbon atoms and thus shows
no partiality in favor of creating the nucleotides
required by our kind of life.."

Yeah, apparently..

"..To rescue the RNA-first concept
from this otherwise lethal defect, its advocates
have created a discipline called
prebiotic synthesis.."

The old good trick: when you can't explain things, you must CREATE
some new way to interpret data (that there aren't), so that's it, a
new discipline for undertsand the big nothing..

"..They have attempted
to show that RNA and its components
can be prepared in their laboratories in
a sequence of carefully controlled reactions,
using what they consider to be relevant
conditions and starting materials.
The Web version of this article, available
atwww.sciam.com/ontheweb, goes
into more detail about the shortcomings
of prebiotic synthesis research. The problems
bring the following analogy to
mind: Consider a golfer who, having
played a ball through an 18-hole course,
then assumes that the ball could also play
itself around the course in his absence.
He had demonstrated the possibility of
the event; it was only necessary to presume
that some combination of natural
forces (earthquakes, winds, tornadoes
and fl oods, for example) could produce
the same result, given enough time. No
physical law need be broken for spontaneous
RNA formation to happen, but
the chances against it are immense.."

This one is really wonderful: my true congratulation for this
fantastic metaphor that will be quoted for decades against ET fancy
attempts to explain things!

The golfers without clubs! Ah, ah, ah!!!

"..Some chemists have suggested that a
simpler replicator molecule similar to
RNA arose fi rst and governed life in a
"pre-RNA world." Presumably this fi rst
replicator would also have the catalytic
capabilities of RNA. Because no trace of
this hypothetical primal replicator and
catalyst has been recognized so far in
modern biology, RNA must have completely
taken over all its functions at
some point after its emergence.."

Yes, outside a top hat, with a white bunny!

"..Yet even if nature could have provided
a primordial soup of suitable building
blocks, whether nucleotides or a simpler
substitute, their spontaneous assembly
into a replicator involves implausibilities
that dwarf those required for the preparation
of the soup.."

No need to comment on this..

"..They would be accompanied by hordes of defective
units, the inclusion of which in a
nascent chain would ruin its ability to act
as a replicator. The simplest kind of
fl awed unit would have only one "arm"
available for connection to a building
block, rather than the two needed to support
further growth of the chain.
An indifferent nature would theoretically
combine units at random, producing
an immense variety of short, terminated
chains, rather than the much longer
one of uniform backbone geometry needed
to support replicator and catalytic
functions. The probability of this latter
process succeeding is so vanishingly small
that its happening even once anywhere in
the visible universe would count as a piece
of exceptional good luck.."

No need to comment on this..

"DNA, RNA, proteins and other
elaborate large molecules must then
be set aside as participants in the origin
of life."

Like Google.."I'm feeling lucky"..

Ok, now we can definitively drop in the trash can those theories!

So let's try to try the simpler way..But it's really simple?

1. A boundary is needed to separate
life from nonlife.

2. An energy source is needed to
drive the organization process.

3. A coupling mechanism must link
the release of energy to the organization
process that produces and sustains life.

4. A chemical network must be
formed to permit adaptation and evolution.

5. The network must grow and reproduce.

Ladies and Gentlemen FIVE point! All TOGETHER, obviously!

I read this just like another admission of the impossibility of the
"ET-prebiotic-soup-God" creation!

"The researchers have not yet
demonstrated the operation of a complete
cycle or its ability to sustain itself
and undergo further evolution. A "smoking
gun" experiment displaying those
three features is needed to establish the
validity of the small-molecule approach.."

We're waiting for it..Meanwhile, instead of a smoking gun, we have a
"toy knive" that need to be sharpened..

What we need is to replace all all these manufactured answer is one
BIG manufactured answer, say, how about a spirit in the sky, that's
the ticket

.

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