Theoretical origin of life; a book with a new view (Introduction)

by David Turell , Friday, November 23, 2018, 23:09 (2192 days ago) @ David Turell

It is written into the laws of the universe:

https://newrepublic.com/article/151988/life-emerge

"In his new book Universe in Creation: A New Understanding of the Big Bang and the Emergence of Life, Roy Gould, an education researcher at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, argues that life is neither a miracle nor an aberration, but an inevitability whose emergence is dictated by the laws of nature. He frames his book around a question posed by the physicist John Archibald Wheeler in 1983. “Is the machinery of the universe so set up, and from the very beginning,” Wheeler asked, “that it is guaranteed to produce intelligent life at some long-distant point in its history-to-be?”

Gould answers Wheeler’s hypothetical in the affirmative.

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"...in the final third of the book, Gould returns to answer Wheeler’s question more directly and persuasively, offering “the chief lines of evidence that life really is written into the universe’s building plan.” He notes, for instance that life appeared very soon after the planet’s birth: there are fossils that are almost 4 billion years old, while the earth has only been around for 4.5 billion years. This rapidity suggests a certain inclination towards life, as does the fact that you can find creatures everywhere on the planet, even in its most inhospitable corners, from the bottom of the oceans to, say, a boiling hot geothermal spring.

"Life’s machinery is remarkably stable: The same basic genetic code exists in all living things and has survived for billions of years. Other evidence for his thesis includes convergent evolution, which happens when two species independently evolve some similar function or organ. For instance, fish have developed electrical organs—which allow them to do fun things, ranging from shocking their prey to navigating their environment—on six or more distinct occasions in evolutionary history, as Gould notes, which suggests a certain predictability; creatures tend to evolve the same kinds of adaptations when they are presented with particular environmental challenges.

"When Gould turns to the origin of life itself, his book leaves somethings to be desired. He largely neglects to discuss competing theories of the origin of life. He favors the predominant theory, RNA World—even though one could argue that theory contradicts his central thesis.

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"Gould embraces this theory, writing that “an ancient RNA world would make sense … it might have served to jumpstart life.” Yet, as others have argued, the spontaneous emergence of such a highly complex RNA molecule would also have been profoundly improbable. The late Robert Shapiro, professor of chemistry at New York University and author of Origins: A Skeptic’s Guide to the Creation of Life on Earth, has put this eloquently: “The chances for the spontaneous assembly of a[n RNA] replicator,” he wrote in a 2007 article in Scientific American, “can be compared to those of the gorilla composing, in English, a coherent recipe for the preparation of chili con carne.” The unlikeliness of spontaneous RNA replication, then, seems to contradict Gould’s idea that the universe was programmed to produce life. It brings us back to the possibility that yes, life on earth was simply a bizarre, freak occurrence.

"And yet—and here’s where things get interesting—Shapiro actually agreed with Gould’s fundamental thesis. He adhered, however, to an alternative to RNA-world referred to as “metabolism first,” which he thought consistent with this thesis. In this framework, molecules—perhaps fats—aggregated and “self-organized,” as they are apt to do under the laws of nature, forming compartments within which metabolic circuits began to run, well before complex genetic molecules come into being. These early forms of life may not have resembled life at all, but perhaps something intermediate between the living and the non-living. “There’s nothing freaky about life,” Shapiro said in a 2008 talk. “It’s a normal consequence of the laws of the universe.” Gould says nearly the same thing—“life really is written into the behavior of molecules.”

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"The fascinating thing, however, is that Gould’s thesis may very well prove true. If it turns out that life—even the most rudimentary microbial life—is common to the universe, the case, as Gould suggests, is settled. Given the distances humans would have to travel to verify this, it is not something that can easily be proved. But even if there is or ever has been any sort of simple life on Mars—and this is something that could be ascertained in our lifetime—then Shapiro and Gould, although they embrace different theories of the origins of life, are essentially correct.

"After all, if life emerged independently on two planets in a single solar system, it is nothing unusual. Indeed, that finding alone would be powerful evidence that life has a tendency to emerge, and is presumably widespread throughout the universe. The origins of life would indeed be found in the laws of nature. "

Comment: Comment: It is obvious Gould has not paid close attention to the vast debate on how life originated, and he is a convinced Darwinist. His point that life is built in to the laws of the universe also supports the view that God wrote the laws that way.