Complexity of life

[luke-10]

Thanks for breaking it down, but neither side is jumping for joy because the article is not saying anything important, nothing is really substantiated. This article is just added fluff in a large heap of over-hyped 'intelligence' in support of evolution.

The intentions of the study were to find a better explanation for more complex life, and the study was unable to (unbeknownst to the person writing the article, see title). Then the scientists concluded their study with the cop-out line you highlighted for us.

[Murray]

for 150 years they have searched for the missing gene that connects us to apes.

For 150 years they have not found the missing gene

For the rest of eternty the will search for the gene and not find it

[DannyM]

Not sure if DNA here is being 'explained' by evolutionary processes, but if it is then this would be circular reasoning since, as I understand it, evolution requires DNA as a point of heredity in order to occur.

Yeah. That's my point. The article never addresses DNA. As you put it, "evolution requires DNA as a point source for evolution to occur." But where did the first DNA chain come from? That's the real question. Did these sticky dehydrons help produce it? I've been thinking about this article for a while and it bothers me that the title doesn't seem to be substantiated in the least.

Naturalism simply cannot account for information. And it's not as if it might be able to in the future, either. Information theorist Werner Gitt says, "There is no known natural law through which matter can give rise to information, neither is there any physical process or material phenomenon known that can do this." Werner Gitt, In the Beginning Was Information, p79

Thus we can reasonably infer, based on everything we know about how informatiom arises, that the information found in the cell comes from an intelligent mind. This is perfectly logical.

[Leprechaun]

Not sure if DNA here is being 'explained' by evolutionary processes, but if it is then this would be circular reasoning since, as I understand it, evolution requires DNA as a point of heredity in order to occur.

There are several theories, the most simple one (in my mind) is the RNA based theory. RNA is both good at forming various shapes (not as good as proteins) and good at duplication (although not as good as DNA) so RNA could be the initial life-form (it is what viruses consist of) and later DNA and proteins were coopted. It has been shown in the lab that RNA can be made to be autocatalystic (self-reproducing for the sake of this argument) and that it evolves. It has yet to be shown that it can do so in the absence of proteins but that is but a matter of time. There are also other theories about abiogenisis involved 'hypercycles' where DNA, RNA and proteins develop simultaneously.

[Leprechaun]

for 150 years they have searched for the missing gene that connects us to apes.

For 150 years they have not found the missing gene

For the rest of eternty the will search for the gene and not find it

What do you mean? We have mapped the human genome and it differs from the chimpanzee genome by 1%, it is not so much the differences in genes it is in what order they 'turn on' or which genes turn on at all.

[DannyM]

There are several theories, the most simple one (in my mind) is the RNA based theory. RNA is both good at forming various shapes (not as good as proteins) and good at duplication (although not as good as DNA) so RNA could be the initial life-form (it is what viruses consist of) and later DNA and proteins were coopted. It has been shown in the lab that RNA can be made to be autocatalystic (self-reproducing for the sake of this argument) and that it evolves. It has yet to be shown that it can do so in the absence of proteins but that is but a matter of time. There are also other theories about abiogenisis involved 'hypercycles' where DNA, RNA and proteins develop simultaneously.

This theory provides no explanation for the origin of the genetic information contained in RNA. It does not bring you any closer to the origin-of-life problem.

[Leprechaun]

This theory provides no explanation for the origin of the genetic information contained in RNA. It does not bring you any closer to the origin-of-life problem.

What do you mean by 'information'. The RNA doesn't require 'information' it merely requires self-replication with error.

[DannyM]

What do you mean by 'information'. The RNA doesn't require 'information' it merely requires self-replication with error.

What do I mean? In order to function, the RNA molecule would need information, just as with DNA. So the 'RNA first' hypothesis merely begs the question.

[Leprechaun]

What do you mean by 'information'. The RNA doesn't require 'information' it merely requires self-replication with error.

What do I mean? In order to function, the RNA molecule would need information, just as with DNA. So the 'RNA first' hypothesis merely begs the question.

What sort of 'information'. All that is required is the generation of a self-replicating molecule. This does not require 'information'. Define your terms.

[DannyM]

What sort of 'information'. All that is required is the generation of a self-replicating molecule. This does not require 'information'. Define your terms.

You've already assumed information with your self-replicating molecule! Can you demonstrate how RNA could have formed before living cells were around to make it? You're starting with RNA; you're assuming a self-replicating molecule. This simply won't do.

[Leprechaun]

What sort of 'information'. All that is required is the generation of a self-replicating molecule. This does not require 'information'. Define your terms.

You've already assumed information with your self-replicating molecule! Can you demonstrate how RNA could have formed before living cells were around to make it? You're starting with RNA; you're assuming a self-replicating molecule. This simply won't do.

I am assuming that self-replicating RNA may have arisen spontaneously. That is all. What is this 'information' you are talking about?

[DannyM]

I am assuming that self-replicating RNA may have arisen spontaneously. That is all. What is this 'information' you are talking about?

In order for RNA to 'replicate,' it would require information, or a 'code', something to warrant replicating. Where's the difficulty here? So again, can you show me how RNA could have 'spontaneously' formed before living cells were around to make it?

[Leprechaun]

I am assuming that self-replicating RNA may have arisen spontaneously. That is all. What is this 'information' you are talking about?

In order for RNA to 'replicate,' it would require information, or a 'code', something to warrant replicating. Where's the difficulty here? So again, can you show me how RNA could have 'spontaneously' formed before living cells were around to make it?

You still haven't defined this 'information'. The RNA is replicating itself. It is possible that RNA spontaneously formed in the young earth conditions, or failing that a similar molecule like PNA. From wiki:

"Nucleotides are the fundamental molecules that combine in series to form RNA. They consist of a nitrogenous base attached to a sugar-phosphate backbone. RNA is made of long stretches of specific nucleotides arranged so that their sequence of bases carries information. The RNA world hypothesis holds that in the primordial soup (or sandwich), there existed free-floating nucleotides. These nucleotides regularly formed bonds with one another, which often broke because the change in energy was so low. However, certain sequences of base pairs have catalytic properties that lower the energy of their chain being created, causing them to stay together for longer periods of time. As each chain grew longer, it attracted more matching nucleotides faster, causing chains to now form faster than they were breaking down.

These chains are proposed as the first, primitive forms of life. In an RNA world, different forms of RNA compete with each other for free nucleotides and are subject to natural selection. The most efficient molecules of RNA, the ones able to efficiently catalyze their own reproduction, survived and evolved, forming modern RNA. Such an RNA enzyme, capable of self replication in about an hour has been identified. It was produced by molecular competition (in vitro evolution) of candidate enzyme mixtures.[31]"

[DannyM]

Leprechaun, I'm not pushing an RNA first hypothesis, so I'll take any definition of information you care to give on this. But information here requires variability, irregularity and unpredictability - which, incidentally, is what your link's flamboyant speculations would require! Information theorists call this 'complexity'. Your link is all over the place. The one place where there are NO chemical bonds is 'between the nucleotide bases', which are the chemical letters in the DNA's 'assembly instructions'! Truth is that your musings here are just speculations built on straw-men.

[DannyM]

From wiki:

"Nucleotides are the fundamental molecules that combine in series to form RNA. They consist of a nitrogenous base attached to a sugar-phosphate backbone. RNA is made of long stretches of specific nucleotides arranged so that their sequence of bases carries information. The RNA world hypothesis holds that in the primordial soup (or sandwich), there existed free-floating nucleotides. These nucleotides regularly formed bonds with one another, which often broke because the change in energy was so low. However, certain sequences of base pairs have catalytic properties that lower the energy of their chain being created, causing them to stay together for longer periods of time. As each chain grew longer, it attracted more matching nucleotides faster, causing chains to now form faster than they were breaking down.

These chains are proposed as the first, primitive forms of life. In an RNA world, different forms of RNA compete with each other for free nucleotides and are subject to natural selection. The most efficient molecules of RNA, the ones able to efficiently catalyze their own reproduction, survived and evolved, forming modern RNA. Such an RNA enzyme, capable of self replication in about an hour has been identified. It was produced by molecular competition (in vitro evolution) of candidate enzyme mixtures.[31]"

Here we have a prime example from this field that, if you say something often enough, and convince yourself of its worth, then the blatantly implausible becomes plausible. Not only plausible but accepted as theory. Take the above: prebiotic "natural selection"; RNA molecules "efficiently" affecting their own "reproduction" and "survival".

Stephen Meyer addresses similar pronouncements of this 'theory' elsewhere:

"..., in the era of modern molecular genetics, explaining the origin of life requires – first and foremost – explaining the origin of the information or digital code present in DNA and RNA..."

"...(“natural selection [as] a chemical as well as a biological process”). Fletcher further asserts that this process accounts for the origin of DNA and the genetic information it contains. Not only does my book address this very proposal at length, but it also demonstrates why theories of prebiotic natural selection involving self-replicating RNA catalysts – the version of the idea that Fletcher affirms – fail to account for the origin of the genetic information necessary to produce the first selfreplicating organism.

"“Ribozyme engineering” experiments have failed to produce RNA replicators capable of copying more than about 10 per cent of their nucleotide base sequences...Yet, for natural selection to operate in an RNA World (in the strictly chemical rather than biological environment that Fletcher envisions), RNA molecules capable of fully replicating themselves must exist. Everything we know about RNA catalysts, including those with partial selfcopying capacity, shows that the function of these molecules depends on the precise arrangement of their information-carrying constituents (ie, their nucleotide bases). Functional RNA catalysts arise only once RNA bases are specifically arranged into information-rich sequences – that is, function arises after, not before, the information problem has been solved. For this reason, invoking prebiotic natural selection in an RNA World does not solve the problem of the origin of genetic information; it merely presupposes a solution in the form of a hypothetical, information-rich RNA molecule capable of copying itself. As the Nobel laureate Christian de Duve has noted, postulations of prebiotic natural selection typically fail because they “need information which implies they have to presuppose what is to be explained in the first place”. "

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/ ... 986702.ece