aa118816 wrote:Also, if you [Bgood] question whether or not he [Dr. Rana] understands what he is talking about, Dr. Richard Smalley, a Nobel Prize winner for Chemistry in 1997 (or 1996) called all of his research spot on. ... It does not matter what one might believe, there has been not pathway or probability experiment which would show that life could emerge in such a short period of time.
No pathway has been demonstrated by which life could emerge in such a relatively short period of time. Does this observation imply that it is reasonable to assume no such pathway will ever be found? Consideration of the events and research involved with Dr. Smalley's Nobel Prize suggest that it would not be surprising for such a pathway to exist. In Smalley's case, something which was thought to be time-consuming and difficult turned out to be quick and easy.
In 1982, Paquette reported the synthesis of 20-hydrofullerene-20, a feat described as a "tour de force". This arduous process required 23 separate steps to produce a minuscule amount of material. It undoubtedly took months/years to complete and was based on decades/centuries of prior knowledge and expertise.
In 1985, Kroto, Curl, and Smalley discovered that fullerenes (particularly C60) occurred naturally on earth and in outer space (the basis of their Nobel Prize award). Physicists and chemists had not believed such molecules could form spontaneously. The initial announcement was met with surprise and some scepticism.
In 1990, Krätschmer and Huffman developed a simple method for generating C60 and C70 fullerenes.
So in the span of 8 years, fullerenes went conceptually from unknown, presumably extremely difficult-to-make compounds to materials a student could readily generate.
This unexpected occurrence happened in the field of chemistry, a mature science which has existed for hundreds of years. Origins of life science, on the other hand, is in its infancy. Harvard, one of the most prestigious research universities in the world, recently announced that it is beginning to undertake the start of looking for funding and facilities for such research. Sasselov, one of the scientists involved, stated that this kind of research could not have been conducted even five years ago.
And yet despite this dearth of knowledge, there are those who confidently claim that abiogenesis could never have occurred. That may be a true statement, but it is most decidedly not a scientific statement.
St Augustine, quoted by H Thorp, author of NYT commentary cited by EE Krynn, wrote:in matters that are obscure and far beyond our vision . . . we should not rush in headlong and so firmly take our stand on one side that, if further progress in the search of truth justly undermines this position, we too fall with it.
[1] L. A. Paquette, R. J. Ternansky, D. W. Balogh and G. Kentgen, Total Synthesis of Dodecahedrane, J. Am. Chem. Soc., 1982, 105, 5446.
The chemical transliteration of Plato's universe - the dodecahedrane- has been synthesized in 23 steps. The key stages of the sequence starting from dichloro diester 2 involve the following: (a) reduction-monoalkylation of 2 using chloromethyl phenyl ether to give 7; (b) photocyclization of aldehyde 12 without interference from the geminal side chain; (c) retro-aldol cleavage of keto aldehyde 15; and (d) catalytic dehydrogenation of 19.
[2] H. W. Kroto (one of two other co-recipients of Nobel Prize with Smalley) The Post-Buckminsterfullerene Horizon, J. Chem. Soc. Dalton Trans. 1992 p 2141-2143
"The discovery, in 1985, that C60 Buckminsterfullerene forms spontaneously was a surprise to most chemists and for a few a somewhat difficult proposal to accept..."
"It might have been thought that entropy factors should preclude the spontaneous formation of so symmetric a species, after all the creation of C20H20 (20-hydrofullerene-20) by Paquette's group had been a synthetic tour de force."
[3]
http://nobelprize.org/chemistry/laureat ... press.html
The discovery of carbon atoms bound in the form of a ball is rewarded
New forms of the element carbon - called fullerenes - in which the atoms are arranged in closed shells was discovered in 1985 by Robert F. Curl, Harold W. Kroto and Richard E. Smalley.
In 1990 physicists W. Krätschmer and D.R. Huffman for the first time produced isolable quantities of C60 by causing an arc between two graphite rods to burn in a helium atmosphere and extracting the carbon condensate so formed using an organic solvent. They obtained a mixture of C60 and C70, the structures of which could be determined.
The discovery of the unique structure of the C60 was published in the journal Nature and had a mixed reception - both criticism and enthusiastic acceptance. No physicist or chemist had expected that carbon would be found in such a symmetrical form other than those already known.
He [Kroto] got in touch with Richard E. Smalley, whose research was in cluster chemistry, an important part of chemical physics. A cluster is an aggregate of atoms or molecules, something in between microscopic particles and macroscopic particles.
The Platonic bodies have often served as patterns, and hydrocarbons had already been synthesised as tetrahedral, cubic or dodecahedral (12-sided) structures.
[4]
http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:bRi ... =clnk&cd=5
1665 Philosophical Transactions Royal Society London
1789 Annales de Chimie et de Physique
1879 Journal of the American Chemical Society
[5]
http://www.boston.com/news/science/arti ... ?page=full
Harvard University is launching a broad initiative to discover how life began, joining an ambitious scientific assault on age-old questions that are central to the debate over the theory of evolution.
Known as the ''Origins of Life in the Universe Initiative," the project is still in its early stages, and fund-raising has not begun, the scientists said.
Like intelligent design, the Harvard project begins with awe at the nature of life, and with an admission that, almost 150 years after Charles Darwin outlined his theory of evolution in the Origin of Species, scientists cannot explain how the process began.
Now, encouraged by a confluence of scientific advances -- such as the discovery of water on Mars and an increased understanding of the chemistry of early Earth -- the Harvard scientists hope to help change that.
''We start with a mutual acknowledgment of the profound complexity of living systems," said David R. Liu, a professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Harvard. But ''my expectation is that we will be able to reduce this to a very simple series of logical events that could have taken place with no divine intervention."
[6]
http://www.thecrimson.harvard.edu/print ... ref=508427
Sasselov said that, from both a scientific and educational perspective, now is an optimal time to confront the question of how life formed. New technology, especially in molecular biology, chemistry, and astronomy, has allowed researchers to study the topic in ways previously impossible.
“Why didn't people do it 10 years ago, five years ago? The reason why has to do with the ability technically to do thing that were not possible before,” Sasselov said. “They all involve new technology and state of the art methodology.”
[7]
http://www.chem.unc.edu/people/faculty/ ... feb05.html
that is very Interesting Sandy... Let me take a look into that
None the less funny 
