Actually, I have come up with a proposition: Life on earth did not begin in one single place and by a single chemical path.
This strengthens the argument for the great diversity in life forms on earth, some of which seem to have evolved in different environments and function at a completely different level than other species. IOW, I submit that origins of life on earth was not only inevitable, but occurred in several different areas on earth, producing different species.
What say you?
How would you explain the fact that all life uses the same four nucleobases: adenine (A), thymine (T), guanine (G) and cytosine (C)
although at RNA level there's also uracil (U) which is very similar to thymine. But that's it. Is that all?
In addition to DNA and RNA we have now been able to add a third duplicating machine in a lab (XNA). If we can make it in a lab, it's already been done naturally somewhere in the universe.Fascinating. I'm embarrassed to admit that I wasn't familiar with XNA
But, that's lab made and I don't think there are any creatures featuring XNA.
http://www.sciencealert.com/world-first-artificial-enzymes-suggest-life-doesn-t-need-dna-or-rna
World-first artificial enzymes suggest life doesn't need DNA or RNA
For the first time, scientists have built artificial enzymes using lab-grown genetic material called XNA. The experiment bolsters the idea that life could evolve without what we thought to be the fundamental building blocks of life - DNA and RNA.
SCIENCEALERT STAFF 2 DEC 2014
Also I'm thinking you are responding to someone else's assertions.
I didn't say life could not have formed more than once on infant Earth - I said I believed all of today's living creatures are descendent from one original organism. Alternate arrangements didn't make it into the evolutionary race.
I understand your skeptical analysis However, given the space and chemical richness and the enormous time span of the universe, it seems likely that other life exists elsewhere. But your point of Darwinian evolution is well taken. From all the proto bio molecules it is quite possible that DNA offers the greatest flexibility. I read once that early DNA had mostly fractal instructions, which can still be seen in ferns, a very old species. But even as simple iteration is able to create complexity, it obviously does not allow for great variety and was dropped (natural selection) as a competing function to DNA.
Also I didn't say Earth has the only life in the universe. It would be amazing if there weren't any others considering how easily building blocks form.
Though when it comes to advanced creatures such as human's that's a whole other story. Sure it's possible, but it might also not have happened. I say this because there are so many freak events that happened to Earth during it's evolution, all of which were required for advanced life to evolve (such as our weirdly huge, but wonderfully stabilizing moon), that the odds get vanishingly small. Add to that the huge expanses of the universe we have been able to explore in one way or another, yet nothing.
As for our Earth, it's teaming life, thanks to it's atmosphere, would be detectable from amazing distances with the proper instruments.
Call me agnostic to slightly skeptical, but than science is full of amazing surprising revelations, so who knows. Not me.
Yes, my post was for general consumption and discussion (in furtherance of Lois' observation that our posts are read by others than adonai). And I qualify it as speculative, however the more I learn of the mathematical nature of the universe, the more possibilities seem to present themselves.
As an ex-bookkeeper I remember working with both single column and dual column entry accounting. If done correctly a single column will give a correct balance, but a double entry system will yield much more detail and if done correctly will not only yield a correct balance, but also consists of compartmental sections, which can be analyzed separately from the bottom line.
I see the various chemical (mathematical) interactions present throughout the universe in a similar way. Some are limited to specific formations, such as crystals which are inanimate, yet they do grow. OTOH, RNA and DNA (and possibly XNA) offer a more flexible structure, open to a variety of chemical growth opportunities, and it seems that on earth DNA is the prefect vehicle for creating the variety as we know it. But apparently RNA is still an important information carrier and is present everywhere.
Fact Sheet: DNA-RNA-Protein. Summary/Key Points:
•DNA is the genetic material of all cellular organisms.
•RNA functions as an information carrier or “messenger".
•RNA has multiple roles.
•Ribosomal RNA (rRNA) is involved in protein synthesis.
Question: does every living thing on earth possess both DNA and RNA? This may be of interest. http://www.geogene.com/biology-basics.html
Question: does every living thing on earth possess both DNA and RNA? This may be of interest. http://www.geogene.com/biology-basics.html
So far as I know - yes.
My reading is limited, heck I didn't know about XNA till you inspired me to do a little research and I stumbled on it.
I used to think it preposterous imagining Neanderthals and hominids making babies with each other.
But, when the evidence swaps our previous secure understanding, we must give way to the facts and rearrange our understanding.
Like in Hominid evolutionary terms: the "Tree of Life", has given way to the "Bush of Life", has given way to "The Braided Streams of Life".
Thanks for that link, skimmed through it and it looks excellent, this evening I'll have to give it a complete read.
Question: does every living thing on earth possess both DNA and RNA? This may be of interest. http://www.geogene.com/biology-basics.html
So far as I know - yes.
My reading is limited, heck I didn't know about XNA till you inspired me to do a little research and I stumbled on it.
I used to think it preposterous imagining Neanderthals and hominids making babies with each other.
But, when the evidence swaps our previous secure understanding, we must give way to the facts and rearrange our understanding.
Like in Hominid evolutionary terms: the "Tree of Life", has given way to the "Bush of Life", has given way to "The Braided Streams of Life".
Thanks for that link, skimmed through it and it looks excellent, this evening I'll have to give it a complete read.
Hazen touched on this in his lecture.at Carnegie. He showed that in the polymerization of chemical strings, foreign (but compatible) chemicals may enter the sequence (XNA?). Most often these are dropped later as not functional or even detrimental, but occasionally a single event of such *mutation* may be beneficial for a specific environment and gives an advantage over previously existing strings. That's where Darwinian competition already comes into play.
Question: does every living thing on earth possess both DNA and RNA? This may be of interest. http://www.geogene.com/biology-basics.html
So far as I know - yes.
My reading is limited, heck I didn't know about XNA till you inspired me to do a little research and I stumbled on it.
I used to think it preposterous imagining Neanderthals and hominids making babies with each other.
But, when the evidence swaps our previous secure understanding, we must give way to the facts and rearrange our understanding.
Like in Hominid evolutionary terms: the "Tree of Life", has given way to the "Bush of Life", has given way to "The Braided Streams of Life".
Thanks for that link, skimmed through it and it looks excellent, this evening I'll have to give it a complete read.
Hazen touched on this in his lecture.at Carnegie. He showed that in the polymerization of chemical strings, foreign (but compatible) chemicals may enter the sequence (XNA?). Most often these are dropped later as not functional or even detrimental, but occasionally a single event of such *mutation* may be beneficial for a specific environment and gives an advantage over previously existing strings. That's where Darwinian competition already comes into play.Yipes, so much to absorb and so much too miss, or forget. Now I'm going to have to listen to that talk again. Can you remember roughly where that was? I've listened to a couple of his books and don't recall XNA coming up either, although that lecture is quite recent.
CC said,
Yipes, so much to absorb and so much too miss, or forget. Now I’m going to have to listen to that talk again. Can you remember roughly where that was? I’ve listened to a couple of his books and don’t recall XNA coming up either, although that lecture is quite recent.
In this lecture Hazen gives examples of known possible information carriers and how polymers assemble or disassemble. But he qualifies that there may be many more ways to "skin a cat", but that the process has to be fundamentally similar to the processes we know, which sounds entirely reasonable to me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlAQLgTwJ_A
You must really hear Hazen's entire lecture, which starts @ 25:30 . His qualification of possible interactions is a little afterthought which is easy to miss. His lecture contains a wealth of secondary information, if you give close attention to every word.
I have watched it 6 times and find so many hidden pointers, each worthy of consideration and deeper research. And yes the discovery of XNA came just recently, which confirms his proposition that there may be several unknown information carriers throughout the universe. He touches on that @ 40:40. Note his qualification that suggests many different ways of creating bio molecules or polymers. And as to cell formation, he demonstrates a remarkable tendency of a given substance to self-organize in water.
This is one of my favorite lectures on origins as a general overview of how it all works, without complicated equations and maths.
On the whole, I find this a remarkably profound and persuasive argument of the origins and evolution of bio molecules and how they interact in a mathematical way.
p.s. This link provides RW research into origins. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyhZcEY5PCQ
Yeah, thanks for info. I’ve listened to that lecture already.
But you know, sometimes the guy says something that gets the mind’s attention for a while and by the time you remember the guys talking
a few sentences have snuck past. Most the good lectures I’ve listened to I’ve tried hearing multiple times, always seem hear something new, or things connect differently. in my defense, like you say, this entire XNA is fairly new, and from what I’ve gathered it’s totally synthetic and not that it’s been found in any biology.
I will listen to that again for sure, thanks for spotting the time.
You guys seem to be entertained at sticking to pseudo scientific nonsense ? My op is a KNOCK OUT argument against naturalistic fantasy explanations. There is no way to setup the information system in the cell without intelligence. Wake up.
You guys seem to be entertained at sticking to pseudo scientific nonsense ? My op is a KNOCK OUT argument against naturalistic fantasy explanations. There is no way to setup the information system in the cell without intelligence. Wake up.
Perhaps you misunderstand the full scope of the term "information".
There are cave dwelling fish which once had eyes, but lost that eyesight from lack of visual *information* and are now blind. Was intelligence required to devolve eyesight to blindness?
You guys seem to be entertained at sticking to pseudo scientific nonsense ? My op is a KNOCK OUT argument against naturalistic fantasy explanations. There is no way to setup the information system in the cell without intelligence. Wake up.
Perhaps you misunderstand the full scope of the term "information".
There are cave dwelling fish which once had eyes, but lost that eyesight from lack of visual *information* and are now blind. Was intelligence required to devolve eyesight to blindness?
what does that have to do with my op ? YOu have to explain in the first place how CS Information can be generated without intelligence. and so a informational Code system, and a translation system as used in the ribosome.
You guys seem to be entertained at sticking to pseudo scientific nonsense ? My op is a KNOCK OUT argument against naturalistic fantasy explanations. There is no way to setup the information system in the cell without intelligence. Wake up.
Thanks for really raising the bar on conversation here. I find that telling people to wake up is one of the best ways get people to recognize the quality and cogency of an argument. And, I love the way you have denied all possible counter arguments with your "no way". I really would have appreciated a few exclamation points though. I mean, if you have a KNOCK OUT, why not?
You guys seem to be entertained at sticking to pseudo scientific nonsense ? My op is a KNOCK OUT argument against naturalistic fantasy explanations. There is no way to setup the information system in the cell without intelligence. Wake up.
Perhaps you misunderstand the full scope of the term "information".
There are cave dwelling fish which once had eyes, but lost that eyesight from lack of visual *information* and are now blind. Was intelligence required to devolve eyesight to blindness?
what does that have to do with my op ? YOu have to explain in the first place how CS Information can be generated without intelligence. and so a informational Code system, and a translation system as used in the ribosome.
So your OP is all about computers? The last I heard is that CS information often is reducible if written in another CS language by another *programmer*.
I used to work with a computer that took up an 30'x30' space. Today I can perform the same function on a laptop. Irreducible complexity does not exist, except perhaps at quantum level, but then quantum function is so fundamental, it cannot be reduced. If it was reduced, you and I would not exist at all.
BTW, "cells" are chemical compounds and self assemble given the right environment. Some cells are called *organic* because they are used in the formation of biological organisms. But there are many more naturally occurring chemical compounds which are not used in the formation of biochemical molecules.
Check the table of elements and how they are *assembled* and how they function.
Well, if this was not timely.
Just watched a presentation by Dr Anthony Fauci about the latest information on theproperties, functions, and spread of the Zika virus, which is a mutated RNA polymer, IOW an XNA! In the case of Zika it is a detrimental XNA.
Moreover, the virus can also be transmitted sexually and even if the mother may not show any worrisome symptoms, the virus can invade the fetus and cause all kinds of problems in normal development of the baby. - YouTube
take a piston out of a motor block, and then tell me, IC does not exist. sic..... It'll still run, albeit irregularly. Now taking 1 piston from a single piston engine, then we have reduced the engine's specifications, which was 1 piston. But we have 2,3,4,6,8,12,16,24 piston engines, so the number of pistons is irrelevant in a combustion engine. It just makes it more complex, but offers some advantages for specific purposes.
There is only irreducible simplicity.
take a piston out of a motor block, and then tell me, IC does not exist. sic..... It'll still run, albeit irregularly. Now taking 1 piston from a single piston engine, then we have reduced the engine's specifications, which was 1 piston. But we have 2,3,4,6,8,12,16,24 piston engines, so the number of pistons is irrelevant in a combustion engine. It just makes it more complex, but offers some advantages for specific purposes.
There is only irreducible simplicity.
ok. take it off from a design which uses just one piston.... and see what happens.
take a piston out of a motor block, and then tell me, IC does not exist. sic..... It'll still run, albeit irregularly. Now taking 1 piston from a single piston engine, then we have reduced the engine's specifications, which was 1 piston. But we have 2,3,4,6,8,12,16,24 piston engines, so the number of pistons is irrelevant in a combustion engine. It just makes it more complex, but offers some advantages for specific purposes.
There is only irreducible simplicity.
ok. take it off from a design which uses just one piston.... and see what happens. Well, we could experiment with different shapes of pistons and install a new improved piston, which not only works better but yields more horsepower, IOW greater complexity Or we can use it as a flower pot, for the beehive in my back yard and harvest more honey, or melt the block down and use the metal for other purposes. This is how the universe works.
Viruses constantly adapt to anti-viral medicines. Apparently they are not irreducibly complex, they just change.
p.s. A virus is an RNA based organism and not even considered a living thing in the strictest sense. And even viruses are complex chemical polymers, but certainly not irreducibly complex because it has the ability to change and chemically adapt to just about every anti viral medicine that does not kill the host itself.
But what does a man-made object have to do with IC in nature? Obviously you have not bothered to check up on the scientific presentation in the Kitzmiller trial, which provided proof that the flagellum was an evolutionary modification of a previously evolved functional organ albeit not used for propulsion.
The ONE thing to remember is the fact that you cannot think in terms of *designed existence* or *non-existence*. Evolution and change fall in a range of probabilistic functions which lie between those two extremes and given the time and chemical richness of the universe, the probability factor for all possible mathematically allowed expressions is near infinite and ongoing, "till the end of time".
You guys seem to be entertained at sticking to pseudo scientific nonsense ? My op is a KNOCK OUT argument against naturalistic fantasy explanations. There is no way to setup the information system in the cell without intelligence. Wake up.
Thanks for really raising the bar on conversation here. I find that telling people to wake up is one of the best ways get people to recognize the quality and cogency of an argument. And, I love the way you have denied all possible counter arguments with your "no way". I really would have appreciated a few exclamation points though. I mean, if you have a KNOCK OUT, why not?
I find that telling people to "wake up" is a sure way to get them to stop listening to anything you have to say, and I wouldn't criticize them for it.
Lois
Well, if this was not timely.
Just watched a presentation by Dr Anthony Fauci about the latest information on theproperties, functions, and spread of the Zika virus, which is a mutated RNA polymer, IOW an XNA! In the case of Zika it is a detrimental XNA.
Moreover, the virus can also be transmitted sexually and even if the mother may not show any worrisome symptoms, the virus can invade the fetus and cause all kinds of problems in normal development of the baby.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dAT8O0OTGo
I recently heard a news report that the Zika virus can remain active in ejaculate for years. So babies will be vulnerable for years to come during every pregnancy.
Lois
You guys seem to be entertained at sticking to pseudo scientific nonsense ? My op is a KNOCK OUT argument against naturalistic fantasy explanations. There is no way to setup the information system in the cell without intelligence. Wake up.
Thanks for really raising the bar on conversation here. I find that telling people to wake up is one of the best ways get people to recognize the quality and cogency of an argument. And, I love the way you have denied all possible counter arguments with your "no way". I really would have appreciated a few exclamation points though. I mean, if you have a KNOCK OUT, why not?
I find that telling people to "wake up" is a sure way to get them to stop listening to anything you have to say, and I wouldn't criticize them for it.
Lois
Moreover, wake up from what to what?
Adonai, can you be more specific? What exactly do I need to wake up to?
ISO A PAL A Pseudomonas fluorescens bacterium (shown) and its colony get stranded when alone on dry surfaces, but mix in a different stationary species and evolution gets them moving.
mixing two kinds of soil bacteria that are stationary on dry surfaces allows the combo — by means not yet clear— to expand unusually quickly, multiplying and oozing as a colony across a firm laboratory agar surface.