Origin of Life (Introduction)

by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Friday, December 25, 2009, 04:53 (5447 days ago) @ David Turell


> > Even if we take organic reactions by themselves, enzymes simply lower the energy barrier for otherwise nonreactive components. How much background energy was really present? The only way to answer that is to find a "proto-earth" nearby and explore its chemistry. 
> 
> Fair enough, considering the first simple reactions in early origin of life, but only simple organic reactions need enough heat, and can do without enzymes. I can look up all sorts of references for you, but the millions of years comment without enzymes is a common point made by various authors. Please take my word for this.
> -It's those early, semi-inorganic reactions that should be of most interest. I know that biochemical enzymes do more "tricky" stuff such as altering shapes of other molecules and whatnot... but that's getting ahead of where I want to focus. -> > 
> > I also forgot to mention another factor in my description: Entropy. As the universe ages, information is permanently lost. This directly affects the total number of particles available for its computation. In other words, as time goes forward the number of possible combinations decreases. > 
> > 
> > > > However, what are the chances for life to appear? You can't answer this question until you find a mechanism for life coming from non life. This is because the only thing we can study--biochemistry--is POST-LIFE. It's a circular study. Everything we can study is the result of 4.5Billion years of evolution; there's no way to tell for sure that the life we have now is the same as it was when it started. We can't make that claim.
> 
> This is a great point.
> 
> 
> > 
> > But as I've already stated--the models discussed by Dembski at the least still only assume 1 attempt per second in a given time in a given place. Even in organic chemistry, this won't be the case.
> 
> Dembski's discussion of the formation of the E. coli flagellum does not use time, only selection of the appropriate amino acids and sequestration in the proper location to make the biomotor. Starts on page 292 of No Free Lunch. I don't know that I have ever seen him use time. Shapiro does in one of his examples, one second, cubic cms. of the earth's oceans, etc. if my memory is correct. Not worth reviewing, as I thought it was a silly example.-Here's the problem: A probability model in this kind of problem that *doesn't* include time can only be assuming a one-shot dice roll for whatever event its trying to study. And a one-shot die roll is inaccurate for this system--but exactly the kind of odds you'd want to represent to a naive public as it would be an astronomically small percent.

--
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\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"