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limpingcrab
Trad climber
the middle of CA
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Feb 10, 2016 - 09:39am PT
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"For the most basic cell you need 60,000 proteins with 100 different configurations. The probability of this happening, even with all the right conditions with all the right ingredients, has been calculated to be 1 in 10^4,478,296." -LimpingChristian
Notice this isn't taking into account cumulative effects of ns over evolutionary time. This is the single step, monkey typing at a keyboard to produce Hamlet nonsense creationists trot out.
Suggests "Climbing Mt Improbable, by Dawkins. He covers this over and over in baby steps for the evolutionarily challenged.
First, not sure why people keep bringing up religion or associating me with it?
Second, natural selection required reproduction and the origin if this is what I'm most interested in as it pertains to the likelihood of finding extraterrestrial life.
Third, that book details how natural selection can lead to complex structures. No argument there, but it doesn't detail the origin of life. Again, people seem to brush over that first step and in getting my MS and BS in Ecology & Evolution I'm still fascinated by finding an answer.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Feb 10, 2016 - 09:47am PT
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"...the origin if this is what I'm most interested in... that book details how natural selection can lead to complex structures. No argument there, but it doesn't detail the origin of life..."
You seem confused. If the subject is biogenesis, then why are you referencing a probability associated with thousands of proteins let alone 60K of different configs? If the subject is biogenesis then you should be thinking in terms of a crude molecular replicator (or crude molecular replication) which might not be assoc with protein at all and how that might materialize. Maybe a 3-d printer?
Are you an apostate now? Several times in the past at this site you mentioned youre a Christian of the evangelical and /or fundamentalist stripe. No? That's the reason for the allusion to religion.
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limpingcrab
Trad climber
the middle of CA
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Feb 10, 2016 - 09:50am PT
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Ed, the reference comes from a combination of:
Dembski, William A. (1998) The Design Inference: Eliminating Chance Through Small Probabilities, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 5,209,210.
and
Yockey, Hubert P. (1992) Information Theory and Molecular Biology, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 255, 257.
and
Morowitz, H. J. (1966) "The Minimum Size of Cells" in Principles of Biomolecular Organization, eds. G.E.W. Wostenholme and M. O'Connor, London: J.A. Churchill, pp. 446-459.
Chemosynthesis, or more specifically, the Silica Crystal Theory, seems to be the top candidate, as it can sort of self replicate. That's the part that will open up more accurate calculations and tests, how did abiotic components first self replicate? Could that happen elsewhere? Everything beyond that is relatively easy to answer if people brush of the original question.
Edit: This^^^^^ HFCS
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Feb 10, 2016 - 09:54am PT
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cmon you gotta do better than this ONE guy...
"Professor Hubert P. Yockey (b. April 15, 1916), PhD is a physicist and information theorist. He worked under Robert Oppenheimer on the Manhattan Project, and at the University of California, Berkeley.
He has studied the application of information theory to problems in biology and published his conclusions in the Journal of Theoretical Biology from 1974 onwards. He is very critical of the primordial soup theory of the origin of life, and believes that "the origin of life is unsolvable as a scientific problem."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubert_Yockey
(I looked him up the last time you referenced him, too.)
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Feb 10, 2016 - 09:58am PT
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HFCS-
In the early days of computers, when asked to do simple area integrations, they used the Monte Carlo type integration method. I.e., hit-or miss, inside the area or outside the area.
I have problems given that type of approach, as you described "the monkey typing Hamlet." Possibly the simplest thing that could be called a "life form is a virus," which is far simpler than the single cell organism. Maybe we all need to agree on just what DOES constitute life, by listing what a living organism must do to be considered "living?"
(1) Capable of replicating itself.
(2) Draw energy/nutrients from it's environment.
(3) Metabolize and produce waste products differing from nutrients.
Anything else?
OK, we then look at elemental abundances in the universe. Mostly Hydrogen; the higher atomic weight elements are generated from Hydrogen fusion in the stars. Carbon is right after Helium in natural abundance, followed by Oxygen, and then Nitrogen.
The famous Urey-Miller experiments demonstrated the process of creating amino acids (building blocks of proteins) from the elements, C,O,H, and N. No miracles required. Just UV light, and electrical discharges. There have been a few experiments since the time of Urey-Miller looking for nucleic acids, but I haven't been keeping up with research since retirement 6 years ago. If we get nucleic acids, amino acids, we can then think about peptide formation, and we're on the way to protein synthesis.
What I'm getting at, is a lack of randomness; statistics are not strictly applicable to origins of life. Intelligent design? Impossible to say either yea or nay.
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limpingcrab
Trad climber
the middle of CA
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Feb 10, 2016 - 10:00am PT
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Are you an apostate now? Several times in the past at this site you mentioned youre a Christian of the evangelical and /or fundamentalist stripe. No? That's the reason for the allusion to religion. I just don't see how it's relevant here. I have no problem with discovering the means to abiogenesis and someone believing in God.
Anyway, I wish I could remember the most recent book I read about silica crystals as the origin of self replication. It was a good one but still didn't answer the question. Pretty much concluded with, "crystals could self replicate and eventually somehow made RNA."
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limpingcrab
Trad climber
the middle of CA
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Feb 10, 2016 - 10:09am PT
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(1) Capable of replicating itself.
(2) Draw energy/nutrients from it's environment.
(3) Metabolize and produce waste products differing from nutrients.
Anything else?
Technically, the definition of life doesn't include your #3 but also includes,
3) Maintain organization
4) Respond to stimuli
5) Adapt as a population over time
But you're right, simple stats aren't the best way to figure out the likelihood, but a decent little example.
Viruses can't self replicate so they're borderline and wouldn't be a good model from which to develop a mechanism for abiogensis.
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limpingcrab
Trad climber
the middle of CA
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Feb 10, 2016 - 10:11am PT
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Not to get too far off on this tangent, I'm just trying to point out that a lot of people want to spend a lot of time and money looking for signs of extraterrestrial life. Since we haven't come close to figuring out a mechanism for life starting in nice earth-like conditions, how can we expect that it happened multiple times across the universe?
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WBraun
climber
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Feb 10, 2016 - 10:38am PT
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quest for life is in part a quest for 'god'
You people are stupid, and you continuously prove it.
There's no quest for life.
It's already there perfectly.
All you have to do is study yourself.
Instead you fools study the machine and never study yourself.
Because the illusion is so strong you think you are the machine.
You're like the fool who studies the automobile and never studies the driver ......
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rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
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Feb 10, 2016 - 10:44am PT
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The calculations have already been made Ed. The probability is 100%.
A major announcement coming tomorrow about black holes and observations of and characteristics of gravitational waves.
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Feb 10, 2016 - 10:57am PT
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The Urey-Miller experiment attempted to simulate early conditions on Earth, and used spark discharge, Ultraviolet irradiation in a quartz vessel over a period of time. Analysis of the residues detected Glycine, Alanine, and if my memory doesn't fail me, Serine and Leucine. The concept of optical isomers was never addressed, but all life forms on Earth exhibit an L-isomeric configuration (possibly formed on a crystal surface, since there are right-handed and Left handed crystals).
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limpingcrab
Trad climber
the middle of CA
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Feb 10, 2016 - 12:05pm PT
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The Miller-Urey experiment took place in a medium that is no longer believed to me similar to early earth atmosphere. Even if it was accurate, the amount of oxygen used in their experiment, when combined with the heat energy, would have destroyed any amino acids created without a "trap" to protect them. Thankfully it has been taken out of some of the newer college textbooks but for whatever reason it's still in high school textbooks.
One of many dead-ends. It's crazy that life even got a foothold here and it's poor evidence for life being "common" in the universe.
I do think a lot of good comes from space exploration, and probably more if we divert funds away from the hunt for life.
I mean, after all, NASA did develop technology used in:
Artificial limbs
Baby formula
Cell-phone cameras
Computer mouse
Cordless tools
Ear thermometer
Firefighter gear
Freeze-dried food
Golf clubs
Long-distance communication
Invisible braces
MRI and CAT scans
Memory foam
Safer highways
Solar panels
Shoe insoles
Ski boots
Adjustable smoke detector
Water filters
UV-blocking sunglasses
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Feb 10, 2016 - 12:25pm PT
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Your comments re: Urey-Miller are probably valid about the assumed composition of the atmosphere. That being granted, it DID demonstrate the feasibility of ab initio synthesis of a biologically important set of compounds, complete with the absence of any miracles. I've been a fan of the Urey-Miller ever since I had the opportunity of meeting Harold Urey back in 1969 as a grad student.
My immediate reaction to that situation would be "give me back a laboratory, and I'll do it the 'right way'!" It was a time of relatively simple and crude experiments, but definitely exciting. Has their Nobel award been since rescinded?
P.S. Re: comment that U-M was a "dead end." Not so; it would seem to me the underlying concept is worth pursuing, with several parallel reaction systems containing powdered quartz dust, one each with the opposite handedness crystals, and a third control with a non optically active form of some crystalline powder. Just the observation that conditions did NOT truly mimic the presumed environment does not invalidate the concept.
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zBrown
Ice climber
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 11, 2016 - 07:57am PT
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Gravitational waves: discovery hailed as breakthrough of the century
Apparently someone was scanning through the photographic archives (whose I'm not at liberty to say and discovered this)
Using the world’s most sophisticated detector, the project scientists listened for just 20 thousandths of a second as two giant black holes, one 35 times times the mass of the sun, the other slightly smaller, circled around each other.
This device is not available on Ebay.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/feb/11/gravitational-waves-discovery-hailed-as-breakthrough-of-the-century
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Feb 11, 2016 - 08:03am PT
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Here's an excellent write-up by none other than Martin Rees...
Gravitational waves: Einstein was right - and this announcement is the scientific highlight of the decade
http://tinyurl.com/jmc9a85
Maybe Ed can weigh in regarding the validity and value of this.
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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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Feb 11, 2016 - 08:22am PT
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The BICEPS telescope at the south pole thought that they had found evidence for gravity waves. Big announcement, all that.
Then the Planck Satellite (ESA) showed that their assumption about the impact of cosmic dust was way off. It nullified the BICEP results.
Kip Thorne, who wrote a great book on the topic of relativity was behind the two LIGO interferometers. You can read about it on wiki.
They didn't find gravity waves, however they recently upped the sensitivity of the two observatories significantly. So there is still hope.
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skcreidc
Social climber
SD, CA
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Feb 11, 2016 - 09:33am PT
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So the bottom like is the Earth is like a big mac? Over a billion made...
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Feb 11, 2016 - 09:52am PT
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Ed, maybe you could comment on how last year's BICEPS dustup relates to today's announcement.
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rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
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Feb 11, 2016 - 10:09am PT
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Yes Ed. Please dicipher this announcement and let us know it's implications.
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