Case for ABIOGENESIS growing

[Raulgr]

The following is an abstract of a 40-page article in the Journal of Molecular Evolution that details the evolution of specific molecular pathways. Nothing defintive, but at least a good stab at what is perhaps the grandest question of them all. The case for ABIOGENESIS is growing!

"Obcells as Proto-Organisms: Membrane Heredity, Lithophosphorylation, and the Origins of the Genetic Code, the First Cells, and Photosynthesis
Thomas Cavalier-Smith

Abstract
I attempt to sketch a unified picture of the origin of living organisms in their genetic, bioenergetic, and structural aspects. Only selection at a higher level than for individual selfish genes could power the cooperative macromolecular coevolution required for evolving the genetic code. The protein synthesis machinery is too complex to have evolved before membranes. Therefore a symbiosis of membranes, replicators, and catalysts probably mediated the origin of the code and the transition from a nucleic acid world of independent molecular replicators to a nucleic acid/protein/lipid world of reproducing organisms. Membranes initially functioned as supramolecular structures to which different replicators attached and were selected as a higher-level reproductive unit: the proto-organism. I discuss the roles of stereochemistry, gene divergence, codon capture, and selection in the code's origin. I argue that proteins were primarily structural not enzymatic and that the first biological membranes consisted of amphipathic peptidyl-tRNAs and prebiotic mixed lipids. The peptidyl-tRNAs functioned as genetically-specified lipid analogues with hydrophobic tails (ancestral signal peptides) and hydrophilic polynucleotide heads. Protoribosomes arose from two cooperating RNAs: peptidyl transferase (large subunit) and mRNA-binder (small subunit). Early proteins had a second key role: coupling energy flow to the phosphorylation of gene and peptide precursors, probably by lithophosphorylation by membrane-anchored kinases scavenging geothermal polyphosphate stocks. These key evolutionary steps probably occurred on the outer surface of an `inside out-cell' or obcell, which evolved an unambiguous hydrophobic code with four prebiotic amino acids and proline, and initiation by isoleucine anticodon CAU; early proteins and nucleozymes were all membrane-attached. To improve replication, translation, and lithophosphorylation, hydrophilic substrate-binding and catalytic domains were later added to signal peptides, yielding a ten-acid doublet code. A primitive proto-ecology of molecular scavenging, parasitism, and predation evolved among obcells. I propose a new theory for the origin of the first cell: fusion of two cup-shaped obcells, or hemicells, to make a protocell with double envelope, internal genome and ribosomes, protocytosol, and periplasm. Only then did water-soluble enzymes, amino acid biosynthesis, and intermediary metabolism evolve in a concentrated autocatalytic internal cytosolic soup, causing 12 new amino acid assignments, termination, and rapid freezing of the 22-acid code. Anticodons were recruited sequentially: GNN, CNN, INN, and *UNN. CO2 fixation, photoreduction, and lipid synthesis probably evolved in the protocell before photophosphorylation. Signal recognition particles, chaperones, compartmented proteases, and peptidoglycan arose prior to the last common ancestor of life, a complex autotrophic, anaerobic green bacterium.

[El_Jibaro]

[i]Simple:

Take a CLEAN ROOM.

Put there a bucket of minerals equivalent to CLAY.

Irradiate them and MAKE TOTALLY SURE THAT NOTHING IS ALIVE in the bucket.

Make sure the bucket is TOTALLY SEALED from contamination.

Then place this bucket in what most scientists assume to be PRIMORDIAL environmental conditions:

with an atmosphere of methane, ammonia, hydrogen and water vapor

Remember, KEEP IT SEALED.

Now keep it sealed for 15 Billion Years.

Now, make a TRILLION copies of the bucket.

But remember: KEEP IT SEALED!

Don't let the buckets ever to come in contact with living organisms here on earth.

PROBABLE RESULTS:

ZILCH, NOTHING, NADA...

For you see, the TRILLION CLAY buckets will produce the same amounts of LEFT-HANDED and RIGHT-HANDED Amino Acids. Everyone with basic college level scientific training knows that ALL LIVING BEINGS have LEFT-HANDED Proteins.

You could have saved yourself the 15 Billion Years and the TRILLION CLAY buckets by realizing that LIVING BEINGS are intrinsically INFORMATION SYSTEMS.

As anyone who has ever written a good computer program can tell you, they can never create themselves. It takes DELIBERATE USE OF INTELLIGENCE to create a simple well-written computer program.

Now, what Herr Raul here is trying to PEDDLE is the notion that somehow INFORMATION SYSTEMS can increase in complexity SPONTANEOUSLY.

Yep, Herr Raul peddles SPONTANEOUS GENERATION .

Greek philosophers in antiquity used to be ABSOLUTELY CONVINCED of SPONTANEOUS GENERATION (just like they used to be convinced that women had a lower number of teeth than men...)[b]. Ever since the invention of the microscope SPONTANEOUS GENERATION has been ruled out.

So, you along with Herr Raul, can choose to ascribe to SPONTANEOUS GENERATION as the source of life.

I on the other hand KNOW BETTER THAN THAT .

Anyone here interested in more FACTS should visit this site:

http://www.pages.org/bcs/bcs067.html

[Raulgr]

Originally posted by El_Jibaro
As anyone who has ever written a good computer program can tell you, they can never create themselves. It takes DELIBERATE USE OF INTELLIGENCE to create a simple well-written computer program.

Now, what Herr Raul here is trying to PEDDLE is the notion that somehow INFORMATION SYSTEMS can increase in complexity SPONTANEOUSLY.

Manuel,

Even your Discovery Institute poster boy, Michael Behe, agrees that man and apes evolved from a COMMON ANCESTOR.

Is it your theory that the common ancester had the intellectual capacity of a human? If not, how do you account fot the INCREASE in COMPLEXITY? goddidit? Or was it the natural process of evolution that even Behe understands and accepts?

Looks like my merchandise is a whole lot more in demand than the snake oil that you're peddling!

Regards, Raul

[El_Jibaro]

[i]but you, since you have no scientific training, have to rely on what others say.

Raulito, you have nothing to say but to parrot what others say.

That is just cheap.

Next time, bring only yourself and leave your hired guns out, or are you scared to have a debate? Maybe reading what pot-smoking kids write in the Skeptics Room is all you can do as far as science is concerned...

As far as Behe, I don't care for his opinions, nor do I care for Billy Grahams opinions, I only care for FACTS.

Too bad, you don't care about FACTS...

PS: Before you go off in tangents, why don't you address what I just wrote? You can't !!!

Enough said.[b]