Theoretical origin of life: abiotic is impossible (Introduction)

by David Turell , Monday, May 30, 2022, 15:48 (908 days ago) @ David Turell

The objections:

https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2887-chemical-evolution-of-amino-acids-and-prot...

Chemical evolution of amino acids and proteins? Impossible!!

The amino acids would be concentrated all together at one assembly site.
There would be selected twenty, and not more or less amino acids to make proteins.
Only the best suited would have been selected to enable the formation of soluble structures with close-packed cores, allowing the presence of ordered binding pockets inside proteins
The amino acids were only in homochiral, that is the left-handed configuration. They would be pure, and without contaminating reactants, somehow avoiding the concomitant synthesis of undesired or irrelevant by-products. They would be able to bond and polymerize by non-enzymatic means, without the ribosome. In each trial, the average protein would be 400 amino acid units in length. 1/3 of all proteins once folded require chaperones, other proteins, that help the protein to fold into its proper, functional shape. They were not required for the first protein folds. Somehow, nature knew how to transition from prebiotic synthesis to cell synthesis of amino acids. A minimum of 112 enzymes is required to synthesize the 20 (+2) amino acids used in proteins. (my bold)

Other problems:

How could ammonia (NH3), the precursor for amino acid synthesis, have accumulated on prebiotic earth, if the lifetime of ammonia would be short because of its photochemical dissociation?
How could prebiotic events have delivered organosulfur compounds required in a few amino acids used in life, if in nature sulfur exists only in its most oxidized form (sulfate or SO4), and only some unique groups of procaryotes mediate the reduction of SO4 to its most reduced state (sulfide or H2S)?
How did unguided stochastic coincidence select the right amongst over 500 that occur naturally on earth? All life on Earth uses the same 20 (genetically encoded) amino acids to construct its proteins even though this represents a small subset of the amino acids available in nature.
How did prebiotic events produce the twenty amino acids used in life? Eight proteinogenic amino acids were never abiotically synthesized under prebiotic conditions.
How did a prebiotic synthesis of biological amino acids avoid the concomitant synthesis of undesired or irrelevant by-products?
How did nature "know how could ammonia (NH3), the precursor for amino acid synthesis, have accumulated on prebiotic earth, if the lifetime of ammonia would be short because of its photochemical dissociation?
How could prebiotic events have delivered organosulfur compounds required in a few amino acids used in life, if in nature sulfur exists only in its most oxidized form (sulfate or SO4), and only some unique groups of procaryotes mediate the reduction of SO4 to its most reduced state (sulfide or H2S)?
chlorophyll requires the complex biosynthesis process of 17 enzymes, lined up in the right order, each producing the substrate used by the next enzyme. But chlorophyll has no function unless inserted in the light-harvesting antenna complex used in photosynthesis to capture light and funnel it to the reaction center. (my bold)
But even if that complex, chlorophyll and the LHC would be fully set up, they have no function without all over 30 protein complexes forming photosynthesis, used to make hydrocarbons, essential for all advanced life forms.
Now, let's suppose all this would assemble by a freaky random accident on early earth, there would still be no mechanisms of transition from a prebiotic assembly, to Cell factory synthesis.

**

Truth said: The information barrier is a problem that CANNOT be solved, and puts all abiogenesis explanations into the realm of SCIENCE FICTION. The ONLY reasonable, logical, and sound inference is that an immensly intelligent, powerful, eternal creator, created a universe, suited to host life, and created life in accordance to his eternal purposes. The fact that we do not know how the interface mind/matter works, says nothing about the possibility/impossibility.

Eliminative inductions argue for the truth of a proposition by arguing that competitors to that proposition are false. Provided the proposition, together with its competitors, form a mutually exclusive and exhaustive class, eliminating all the competitors entails that the proposition is true. Since either there is a God, or not, either one or the other is true. As Sherlock Holmes famous dictum says: when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however not fully comprehensible, but logically possible, must be the truth. Eliminative inductions, in fact, become deductions. (my bold)

Comment: presented to show that a very intimate knowledge of biochemistry is required to demonstrate the real degree of complexity involved in origin of life. Note the last bold. Doyle and I, as fellow physicians, fully recognize how important this principle is.