Re: First life form on earth

<< But that is a different question. And I disagree with your 
characterization of something "forcing" chemicals to create life. What 
happens instead is that those chemical combinations that do "feed and 
breed" increase in number, while those that don't but are otherwise 
stable (e.g. gold) in fact do not change.

TH
Think on this some more. It doesn't make sense. Just about every aspect of
evolution is selection of that that best fits the environment.  What
environmental advantage do aa's have in peptide bonds over aa's that are single
for that moment in time. If there was no advantage then  there was no selection
- except neutral selection. Now we move to the next step - why nucleic acids
bond together over being separate? If no environmental advantage then again we
have a neutral selection. And on and on it goes and when you come to having all
these various elements work together and have to suggest neutral selection then
it just gets weird because the odds of any of this happening are nil. Under
this scenario we are not here cause it didn't happen.

You are suggesting that some chemical combinations are feeding and breeding
outside this selection process and don't have to adapt to it Then you have to
have about a billion years of continual chance going on with no selection. And
the odds of aa's, nucleic acds, lipids, all popping up in the same exact inch
of space  at the same exact second in time, and then all magically becoming
symbiotic is beyond comprehension.

No aspect of these steps of the origin, happens so that the future can have
life.
Never in the history of life has this happened where events happen now to
fulfill the future (This is as silly as the idea that there are only 20 AA's
cause that's all we needed as humans!)
No aspect of this is outside selection from the environment. No aspect of
'breeding or feeding' is outside the pressure to adapt to the environment.
Your idea is the classic one of biology. It suggests that magical chemical
events happened (for no reason but chance) they all decided to come together
for no reason but chance) they all worked together without a single break in
this miraculous billion year process (for no reason but chance). It's a house
of cards that doesn't wash.

Life is just chemicals that surivived high heat - and then perfected that
ability.




 If your question is what 
conditions are necessary in order for life to arise, the answer is that 
there must be an energy gradient,  and an energy source which can impart 
sufficient energy to the molecules present to overcome the activation 
energies required to create more complex molecular assemblages.

TH
But think it through. Why would something requireing activation energy be
selected over something that doesn't? Why would being more complex better adapt
you to the environment then? Why would chemicals at 4 billion years ago want
energy. If you have two aa's - why would one want to be in a peptide bond? I'm
not being facetious.
If there is no reason that each and every single step better adapts to the
environment then it is highly likely it won't happen. And stretching all this
out over billions of years and stretching this from simple monomers to life is
beyond comprehension.

BUT if you add a heat cycle, then every step is a better adaptation to
surviving high heat and using that energy to keep enzymes at their optimum
temperature - energy moderation. Then you have selection and adaptation on
every generation and you have a force that is driving evolution. And all the
steps that lead to life are seen for what they are - ways to adapt to the
environment - mostly a heat cycle.
 The way most biologists suggest - feed and breed is like suggesting life began
with an eye fully formed. Feeding and breeding are much more sophisticated
steps in life IMO than an eye. They didn't pop up fully formed.



 Note that 
the activation energy can be lowered by catalysts, which is why Tim Tyler 
among others believes that clays may be significant in the origin of 
life. Also note that simple thermal cycling, while it provides an energy 
gradient, may not be able to overcome activation energies, which is why 
lightning, UV, or high temperature thermal vents are generally thought 
necessary to start life.

TH
But keep thinking here. Sun heat was by far the strongest  energy source. It
was the only cyclic source and the energy has to be cyclic.
It makes no sense that any with high activation energy would be selected o
Z**
chemical activity will be with those chemicals with low activation energy. That
is one reason I suggest that the h-bond world preceded the RNA world. H-bond
variants could easily happen in a heat cycle.

Now why the cyclic heat cycle
1. If all the energy/heat was constant and increasing the chemicals would burn
up. If all constant and decreasing then chemicals would shut down.
2. if all the energy/heat is random, there is nothing substantial to adapt to.
Life cannot FIRST adapt to random changes.
3. The only logical option is that chemicals adapted to the constant and
predictable and massive energy cycle of the sun.  That is the only something
chemicals can adapt to.

Tom Hendricks


Yours,

Bill Morse

 >>



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