Theoretical origin of life; requires intellect (Introduction)

by David Turell , Thursday, June 22, 2017, 01:59 (2711 days ago) @ David Turell

Another article pointing out that a cell is irreducibly complex and life must have started with cells designed completely:

https://evolutionnews.org/2017/06/the-origin-of-life-self-organization-and-information/

" the simplest cell required machinery, such as some ancient equivalent to ATP synthase or chloroplasts, to process basic chemicals or sunlight. It also needed proteins with the proper information contained in their amino acid sequences to fold into other essential cellular structures, such as portals in the cell membrane. And, it needed proteins with the proper sequences to fold into enzymes to drive the metabolism. A key role of the enzymes is to link reactions moving toward lower free energy (e.g. ATP → ADP + P) to reactions, such as combining amino acids into long chains, which go uphill. The energy from the former can then be used to drive the latter, since the net change in free energy is negative. The free-energy barrier is thus overcome.

"However, the energy-processing machinery and information-rich proteins were still not enough. Proteins eventually break down, and they cannot self-replicate. Additional machinery was also needed to constantly produce new protein replacements. Also, the proteins’ sequence information had to have been stored in DNA using some genetic code, where each amino acid was represented by a series of three nucleotides know as a codon in the same way English letters are represented in Morse Code by dots and dashes. However, no identifiable physical connection exists between individual amino acids and their respective codons. In particular, no amino acid (e.g., valine) is much more strongly attracted to any particular codon (e.g., GTT) than to any other.  Without such a physical connection, no purely materialistic process could plausibly explain how amino acid sequences were encoded into DNA. Therefore, the same information in proteins and in DNA must have been encoded separately.

"In addition, the information in DNA is decoded back into proteins through the use of ribosomes, tRNAs, and special enzymes called aminoacyl tRNA sythetases (aaRS). The aaRSs bind the correct amino acids to the correct tRNAs associated with the correct codons, so these enzymes contain the decoding key in their 3D structures. All life uses this same process, so the first cell almost certainly functioned similarly. However, no possible connection could exist between the encoding and the decoding processes, since the aaRSs’ structures are a result of their amino acid sequences, which happen to be part of the information encoded in the DNA. Therefore, the decoding had to have developed independently of the encoding, but they had to use the same code. And, they had to originate at the same time, since each is useless without the other. (my bold)

"All of these facts indicate that the code and the sequence information in proteins/DNA preexisted the original cell. And, the only place that they could exist outside of a physical medium is in a mind, which points to design."

Comment: DNA is a code that contains information to create and run the process of life. My bolded section creates a question of what came first, chicken or egg. Obviously both all at once. Not by chance.