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Creating life from matter

Zeuzzz

Banned
Zeuzzz
Joined
Dec 26, 2007
Messages
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Not entirely sure how this is done but I seem to remember some sort of experiment where someone created very basic forms of life in a test tube from just a mixture of matter.

How true is this statement I found?

Did you know thers an experiment where they put the basic amino acids etc required for carbon based life in a test tube. A few months later they examined the contents and the building blocks had arranged themselves into helixes (as in DNA / RNA )
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I think the statement may be referring to the Miller-Urey experiment, but the statement doesn't quite get it right.

In the Miller-Urey experiment, what was believed to be the primitive conditions on Earth was replicated in the lab to test the theory that organic compounds would naturally form from inorganic precursors. More than 20 amino acids formed.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller–Urey_experiment
 
LarianLeQuella said:
There have ben many, many experiments on abiogenesis. On this web page, I have listed 88 published papers on the subject, many dealing with the way self organizing molecules can be presursors to RNA.

By the way, I intend to add a few additional details to that page in the near future (near being relative).
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The list is useful, though I would say that most or all of those papers do not work scientifically.

However, my biggest problem is at the top of your list. Why, exactly, do you assert that abiogenesis has nothing to do with evolution?
 
Zeuzzz said:
Not entirely sure how this is done but I seem to remember some sort of experiment where someone created very basic forms of life in a test tube from just a mixture of matter.

How true is this statement I found?
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I think that Venter synthesized a bacterial genome in the test tube and then transferred that DNA to cell from which the original chromosome had been removed. The transfection took and the new cell grew and replicated along with its new phenotype.

Note that this is a designed process and is not abiogenesis; it could not have been the first origin of life on earth.
 
John Hewitt said:
However, my biggest problem is at the top of your list. Why, exactly, do you assert that abiogenesis has nothing to do with evolution?
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I would say that this is obvious. You need abiogenesis to create organisms to which evolution applies.
For a given selection of the first biological organism (e.g. single celled prokaryotes) everything leading up to the genesis of it is abiogenesis and everything afterward is evolution.
 
John Hewitt said:
The list is useful, though I would say that most or all of those papers do not work scientifically.
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I would be interested in hearing about some examples.

John Hewitt said:
However, my biggest problem is at the top of your list. Why, exactly, do you assert that abiogenesis has nothing to do with evolution?
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You know, in Acadamia Land, they really do like to keep them separate. And, I've learned to just let them keep it that way. As long as there is no contradiction between findings in the two realms, and they agree where they do overlap, there is still good science to be done, even with the split imposed.

When debating creationists, however, I NEVER use that argument. And, I hate it when other people do. It sounds like a cop-out. If a Creationist wants to bring an Evolution debate into the realms of abiogenesis, I say: Fine! Let's just bring it there!!
 
John Hewitt said:
I think that Venter synthesized a bacterial genome in the test tube and then transferred that DNA to cell from which the original chromosome had been removed. The transfection took and the new cell grew and replicated along with its new phenotype.
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Just an FYI: Venter's group synthesized small fragments of DNA in test tubes, these were then ligated into larger fragments in test tubes using enzymes, and then further stitched together to the final product inside of living yeast cells. Then they took it out of the yeast and transplanted it.
 
Wowbagger said:
You know, in Acadamia Land, they really do like to keep them separate. And, I've learned to just let them keep it that way. As long as there is no contradiction between findings in the two realms, and they agree where they do overlap, there is still good science to be done, even with the split imposed.
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The way evolution works now is through genomes. Whatever precursor life that came before genomes existed must have "evolved" by different principles.
 
ThunderChunky said:
The way evolution works now is through genomes. Whatever precursor life that came before genomes existed must have "evolved" by different principles.
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Yes, but I would say by a different mechanism rather than by a different principle.

I would also say that the fact that the evolutionary mechanism of abiogenesis must have been different from that of today's biological evolution indicates that principles of evolution derived solely from treating today's mechanism of evolution as prototypical of all evolution will be, at best, incomplete.

Therefore, I would say that one should seek the most general principles of evolution and apply them to abiogenesis. In that way, one can hope to derive a chemically reasonable mechanism of abiogenesis.
 
kk
John Hewitt said:
Yes, but I would say by a different mechanism rather than by a different principle.

I would also say that the fact that the evolutionary mechanism of abiogenesis must have been different from that of today's biological evolution indicates that principles of evolution derived solely from treating today's mechanism of evolution as prototypical of all evolution will be, at best, incomplete.

Therefore, I would say that one should seek the most general principles of evolution and apply them to abiogenesis. In that way, one can hope to derive a chemically reasonable mechanism of abiogenesis.
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We have been through this before. When the term evolution is used in biology, it is generally assumed we are speaking of evolution through natural selection, which clearly has nothing to do with abiogenesis.
If you prefer to use the word evolution in a more general sense to include processes like the evolution of a star, the evolution of a culture or the evolution of a chemical process then say so and spare us another meaningless debate. Using the word evolution in this more general sense could certainly include whatever chemical processes produced life. That is clearly generally recognized and clearly quite trivial.
 
Wowbagger said:
...

You know, in Acadamia Land, they really do like to keep them separate.
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It may be a convenient conversation stopper used to dismiss a Creationist who claims that gaps mean evolution theory is a fail, but claiming abiogenesis and evolution are two different things is akin to confirming intelligent design. Is one suggesting evolution started with a formed cell or some version of it?

I realize it is a common copout among some in the scientific community to claim the two are different things, but I call 'copout' when I see it.

Wowbagger said:
...
When debating creationists, however, I NEVER use that argument. And, I hate it when other people do. It sounds like a cop-out. If a Creationist wants to bring an Evolution debate into the realms of abiogenesis, I say: Fine! Let's just bring it there!!
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And I see that you agree. :D
 
Perpetual Student said:
kk

We have been through this before. When the term evolution is used in biology, it is generally assumed we are speaking of evolution through natural selection, which clearly has nothing to do with abiogenesis. ....
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So you are claiming that some kind of whole organism existed before selection occurred. I suggest you need a paradigm shift. Selection does not require anything more than reproduction. Perhaps it is your definition of reproduction that needs to be broader rather than diluting the definition of evolution theory.

There's been a lot of progress in the science of abiogenesis. I think if you looked into it you might find the selection mechanisms are not that difficult to imagine.
 
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Perhaps the difference between abiogenesis and evolution is somewhat (though not perfectly) similar to the difference between physics and chemistry. One melds into the other, at some point. But, they are treated separately by the academics, because the differences between them are sufficient to warrent separate study.
 
one is a theory of an observed fact the other is a hypothesis of something never observed.
 
Life evolves regardless of how it came to be. That's why they are distinct questions. Evolution is like asking how rocky planets form and abiogeneis is asking how rocks get here in the first place (ie nucleosynthesis).
 
Perpetual Student said:
We have been through this before. When the term evolution is used in biology, it is generally assumed we are speaking of evolution through natural selection, which clearly has nothing to do with abiogenesis.
...
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I agree with SkepticGinger's comments in reply to you.

I would add that, when the term evolution is used in biology it normally refers to the progressive changes that arise as a consequence of reproduction and selection. That may be a reference to natural selection as Darwin described it but that is not necessarily so - not even for Darwin himself, who recognized other selective mechanisms as also important.

The point is that this assertion of abiogenesis and evolution being fundamentally different and separate from one another is a widespread piece of dogmatism. There is not the slightest supportive evidence for it and plenty of reason to think otherwise.

My suggestion is simple enough - stop saying things that ain't so.
 
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