Origin of Life: LUCA (Introduction)

by David Turell , Thursday, March 13, 2014, 14:24 (3690 days ago) @ dhw
edited by unknown, Thursday, March 13, 2014, 14:49


> dhw: The jump from bacteria to us is itself so enormous that it looks miraculous. My point, however, is that if these bacteria-like creatures were descended from earlier forms of life, it is the earlier forms of life that constitute the Last Universal Common Ancestor. It is quite illogical to say that the forms of life that led to the bacteria were somehow dislocated from the chain. Darwin's unknown "primordial form" therefore has to be LUCA.-True enough. I suspect that the current concept of LUCA is about as far as we can go working backward. The rest is a huge fuzzy gap in history and our knowledge, which is why there are a dozen theories and attempts with simpler molecules, and a reamergence of panspermia: -http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-23872765-"The molecules that combined to form genetic material are far more complex than the primordial "pre-biotic" soup of organic (carbon-based) chemicals thought to have existed on the Earth more than three billion years ago, and RNA (ribonucleic acid) is thought to have been the first of them to appear.-"Simply adding energy such as heat or light to the more basic organic molecules in the "soup" does not generate RNA. Instead, it generates tar."(my bold) -> dhw: And secondly, I remain baffled by the claim that "continuing advances in evolutionary biology, bioinformatics, and computational biology will give us the tools to describe LUCA and the evolutionary transitions preceding it with unprecedented accuracy and detail. " (My bold) How can there be accuracy in tracing evolution from the origin of life to bacteria if no-one knows the origin of life?-Perfectly put. Faith in the probability of abiogenesis is the cornerstone of the atheist's faith:-This study looks at inorganic materials producing electricity on early Earth and the science writer tells us that this is a start to understanding the black box of the integrated dance of organic molecules to create life. Poppycock, again:-http://phys.org/news/2014-03-simulating-earth-kick-started-metabolism.html-Is this how grant money is justified?