Fossil and Evolution

[Dr Adequate]

But there was a big coverup in the early 1900s when the Burgess shale fossils were discovered.

Huh?

You guys just make stuff up as you go along, don't you?

 

[Dr Adequate]

"That guy" would be whom?

Francis Crick?

No.

 

[Dr Adequate]

I think that I would easily succumb to the conclusion that random mutation and natural selection is a sufficient mechanism that creates new stuff if some genetic algorithm was somehow demonstrated that created new stuff.

Good. Succumb.

So far genetic algorithms are goal oriented so the deus ex machina is there in the artificial selection criterion.

Huh?

This is like saying: I'd succumb to the theory of gravity if someone would make a computer simulation of it. But so far all such simulations contain an artificial inverse square law, that's a deus ex machina.

That is not a "deus ex machina", that's what we're trying to model.

Of course all genetic algorithms have an explicit or implicit selection criterion, because that's exactly what we're trying to model. And of course it's artificial, because all computer models are.

 

[Dr Adequate]

Also, Urey Miller did not produce all the amino acids needed. This article did not say which ones were produced in this recent experiment. It also did not say anything about the chirality of the molecules. That will be interesting to know.

[swiki]Chirality[/swiki]

It turns out that there are lots of chemical reactions which produce chirality without any imaginary invisible men doing magic in any way.

Here's a question for you. If you thought that would be so "interesting to know", why didn't you try to find out? Oh, yeah, because your "interest" wasn't sincere, it was just another freakin' Argument From Personal Ignorance.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

Since most of this has already been covered, a few comments only..........

The time loop paradox -- in the realm of anything possible, sure it's interesting to speculate. But all such paradoxes suffer from the same problem -- they depend on always having existed. So, this "solution" essentially says that complex life has always been, existing within an endless time loop. Possible? I suppose, since I don't know enough math to disprove the possibility, but unlikely given the arrow of time we see in this universe.

As to the probabilities, I think that has already been covered excellently. I think you must agree, Von, that the probability argument rests on a level of ignorance -- ignorance that we all share (and which you have admitted already). You chide us for believing in abiogenesis, but I have never met anyone who believes in any set theory of abiogenesis. What most believe is that we have seen natural processes create an amazing array of organisms through the mechanism of natural selection. We have a theory that accounts for the evidence we see, we have never seen anything counter the theory, so we continue to use it. That theory rests on a natural mechanism. So we have confidence that a natural mechanism will probably explain the origin of living matter from non-living precursors. We don't believe that it has been proved, so I'm not sure what your exact point is. Saying that it is impossible depends critically on knowledge that you do not have, so you are being presumptuous. Us saying that we think it might be possible is presumptuous how? We are not claiming an answer. We are only claiming a framework that might provide an answer and acting humbly within that framework. We are at the mercy of the evidence and the theories that we can generate to explain that evidence. I don't see anything presumptuous in that maneuver, but perhaps you could explain to me the error of my way of thinking about it? Your "solution" is to view the world from a teleological perspective. Teleology itself is unfalsifiable. However, philosophically, it depends critically on mind and an argument from analogy and the only experience we have with mind is our own (and the minds of other animals). There is no compelling reason to suppose another type of mind that would create a teleological purpose for reality (and arguments from analogy suffer critically when we stray from directly analogous situations). While this is not out of the realm of possibility, it is simply not necessary for an explanation of information creation, as has been already shown. The simplest explanation is still natural forces did it.

Yes, it would be wrong to claim that the creation of life from non-living material has been proved. I have never met anyone who claims that, though. Most simply say "I don't know for sure, but I think it is possible and even likely." As to how it came to be, well we can all speculate. My guess is that we should look at our existing processes for translation, transcription, and replication in reverse order for the sequence of what was likely in the past. My guess is that first were peptides, arising through a mechanism that we still do not completely understand from the amino acids we know are easily made; then comes RNA to form on top of the peptides simply because it can and it can create new copies of itself; then comes DNA and the whole process takes off to become what we think of as life. But that is all pure speculation. It makes sense of why we have the DNA --> RNA --> protein process now, but it doesn't explain much. It is merely speculative framework.

Let's be honest for a minute. We are fairly ignorant of our environment. There is much that we know but much more that we do not. The origins issue is a big lacuna in our knowledge, but it exists in large part because we have only recently begun to question origins within a biological framework. It is a very interesting question, but we had much more pressing issues in the recent past -- such as how to kill microbes that were trying to kill us and how to understand genetic disease. There are enough people now investigating issues that a few folks have actually begun to try and answer these questions. Give it time and we will probably have a very good answer -- possibly even within the decade or certainly the next century.

ETA

Let me re-state the time-loop issue -- this differing view of time, as circular rather than having an arrow, does not admit questions such as "what is the origin of x" because the loop must always exist. It simply eliminates an entire class of phenomena -- ultimate origins. Now, it is possible for time to appear to have an arrow within an endless loop, so that one may ask about the origin of a particular phenomena, but once you put the ultimate origin of something within such a time loop, then it makes no sense to ask about its origin. In other words, the question of origins is no longer scientific, no longer falsifiable, and really no longer sensible. The time loop idea itself is non-scientific -- not falsifiable. Whether or not it is correct is a whole other issue, but it could never be anything but speculation because there is no logical reason why it must be the case. Without logical force or falsifiability, we must label it "interesting" at best.

 

[Dancing David]

I think the statistical argument proceeds from a false premise -- one which especially appeals to the "design" mindset.

If you go to the casino to play roulette and you put your money on 22, you know there's a definite and certain negative expectation over the long run. But the presumption that you and the casino make is that there will absolutely be a roulette table and wheel to accommodate the precise odds so that anyone may calculate them in advance.

However, when you ask what the odds of humanity rising from base chemicals as the result of the chaotic actions of the universe, you are making the same presumption as with the roulette game: base chemicals will form into complex molecules which will become self replicating DNA, which will evolve organisms and eventually produce homo sapiens.

The problem with the presumption is that it's not the only possible outcome. Without presuming a creator who intends humanity from this chain of events, there is no reason to expect that any particular self-replicating molecule will necessarily arise.

How do we know that some other configuration could not have occurred? Just because DNA is what we're made of doesn't mean that DNA is the only possible self-replicating molecule. There could be a limitless number of possible ways that a self-replicating and evolving organism could occur, and without knowing all of the possibilities, it is impossible to calculate the odds of our existence.

This is the point where the design advocate jumps in and asserts that anthropic principle suggests that our universe is fine tuned to produce "us." But, once again, that's imputing a designer into the mix.

Assuming, arguendo, that our universe is the only universe, the fact is that the probability of our existence remains incalculable, because we can't spin the universal roulette wheel,and see what would happen were we to restart the universe a few thousand times, thereby invoking the law of large numbers.

And, even if we were able to do this, would the fact that humanity appeared in only one independent trial of universal roulette be more likely to suggest a designer than were humanity to appear every time?

After all, if humanity only appeared once, then that would seemingly make us a rather amazing coincidence, but no less amazing than were we to appear every time.

At bottom, humanity is here, and that is the only known fact. How we got here, ultimately is not susceptible to absolute proof, unless the designer is a natural actor in our universe. And, if it is, then we should be able to locate it.

In the absence of finding that designer, the default position is that we are here as the result of random chance, no matter how unlikely that may appear, because the alternative possibility: that we are here as the result of magic, is infinitely less likely.

I completely agree, it is a strong arument in terms of it's statement but i would like to see why it is some improbable in terms of the math. So it seems to be a strong argument in emotion.

 

[Dancing David]

Sure - no prob. But how many times do those here cry "give me the evidence...".

Who's being presumptuous? Obviously those who presume, without evidence, that there is a gradualistic path from abiotic molecules up through to RNA/DNA.

Quite true, but abiogenesis is a plausible theory, hopefully not dogma.

As long as there exists no theory, I'm the one who is NOT being presumptuous, when I say that we need some mechanism other than chance and bootstrapping to get from A to B. Hey, try this for elegant: quantum physics does not rule out wormholes in time, right? It is not wholey outlandish to posit that new information is catalyzed by time loops. That could explain abiogenesis and it could explain sudden appearance of phyla in the Cambrian.

The sudden appearance is a matter of preservation, there are species (or whatever you want to label them) prior to the cambrian, the preservation of the sft bodied creatures of the cambrian is why they are 'suddenly there', if we find more examples of pre-Cambrian material then it is not as likely to see so sudden.

See? Billions of years of evolution produce some simple little Cambrian like organism in OUR FUTURE, then a time worm hole seeds the past with these structures that took Billions of years to evolve. You could get trillions of years (or more) of evolution if time could recirculate like this. Maybe creativity itself relies on some kind of transcending past the time limitations - maybe our brains have tiny little time-paradox loops in it. Okay, I'll come back to reality now...

I've never read anyone else propose this, but I'm sure it's just because I've never stumbled across it.

Cool idea, huh?

As an idea but if the time loop occured why wouldn't we have the sudden appearance of very complex creatures? Unless this planet was the original starting point?

 

[Dancing David]

I am not alone, of course. Stuart Kauffman in "Origins of Order" states Random mutation and natural selection are doubtfully helpful in explaining abiogenesis - my weak paraphrase. I'll have to look it up - I think it is in the Forward.

And... To go from a bacterium to people is less of a step than to go from a mixture of amino acids to a bacterium. — Lynn Margulis

In the early 80s it was popular to presume RNA as precursor. I think that's been debunked. Most might say now that proteins are the precursors. Some assume a parallel development of peptides and neucleic acids. Even if you have a system of enzymes that have some semblence of reproduction and metabolism, how did the emergence of encoding their structure into neucleic acid code evolve? We don't have any theories with any sort of detail, so we can only calculate the probability of a very complex thing spontaneously appearing. Even if a strand of DNA popped into existence, it would need a host of proteins surrounding it, in order to translate the code into living machinery.

The reason I have trouble with billions of years and billions of molecules is that you can fantasize about having a supply of molecules greater than the number of atoms in the universe and add to that a universe that is much more complex than primordial soup. And still the numbers are against you.

Let's say there are 10^70 atoms in the universe. Okay, poof... for every atom let's fantasize there is a magic machine - 10^70 machines. Each machine assembles a DNA sequence each and every second. The machines are interconnected by some network of communications so that machines do not duplicate the work, they each work on a different part of the problem. The problem is to assemble every possible DNA sequence of a certain length. The supply of C A T G (call them "letters")is infinite and comes from another dimension - infinite primordial soup - see?

Now the question is what do we allow as the minimum sequence for a minimum protolife. If I say 1000 letters, someone will say it may take less than that. We say 900 letters, someone will say that there may be a huge amount of ways to code 900 letters that will still produce a machine that satisfies minimum conditions for being defined as proto-life. Okay, but I can keep making it smaller and smaller until it is too minimal to be proto-life. Somewhere between too minimal, and just minimal, is the threshold. We can pick a number. I'll say 400 letters even though I can't imagine how that could really be sufficient. I think that is generous - at least to me. And you asked me how can I believe a billion years and billion molecules doesn't work - I am using numbers that are generous in my opinion.

Let's go on. So we have 10^70 machines, each takes one second to assemble a 400 letter string, pocketa-pocketa all the machines produce a new sequence each second: 10^70 each second in the whole universe. No duplication or redundancy - no waste of time - no machine overlaps the work of another machine. There are 10^8 seconds per year. But given 400 letters, there are 4^400 combinations the machines have to go through to make all possible ones. That's 10^240 combinations. How long will it take 10^70 machines to go through 10^240 combinations?

How many times will 10^70 * 10^8 go into 10^240. That's easy.
10^240/10^78= 10^162 years!!!!

The universe is only 10^10 years old. The time 10^162 years is tantamount to infinite time. Oh, it doesn't have to go through ALL combinations - true. Then use the mean time. Half of it. In orders of magnitude base 10, one-half doesn't help you much does it? An engineer would say 10^162 years divided by two is 10^162 years .

I must have seen calculations like this over and over and for some reason never really paid attention to it. I rolled my eyes. One day, I tried to calculate such things myself and saw how unlikely gaps can be jumped by chance. The word "unlikely" takes on new meaning when you see numbers like 10^162 years for a mere 400 amino acids.

That is a basically deterministic argument, you have chosen the end point of the process of natural selection and so that is using the deterministic mind set. Also you have set the parameters in an interesting fashion in presupposing that DNA is needed for life to occur.

As for the "RNA leading to DNA has been debunked" just stating that does not make it true, there was much discussion on a prior thread about the theory on abiogenesis. I believe that you can state it has been debunked, I am not sure it has been.

So lets us start with something a little more like the theory of natural selection as opposed to your 10^70 machines (monkeys) typing to make Shakespeare.

Let us say we have a set of molecules in a puddle and for the sake of simplicity we say that there are a hundred members of ten different molecules. What is the chance that over a given period of time they will create an amino acid? That has pretty much been shown to have the potential to occur in a very short period of time.

So it is possible within a short period of time to reach complex molecules like amino acids.

Then we take a different set, say two amino acids in another puddle and for some unfortunate reason there are only two of these molecules but we can hypothesize that there are chemical precursors of the aminos in the puddle and that they will regenerate if degraded over time.

What then is the chance that a post amino complex (PAC) will arise that is a combination of the two that does not degrade as rapidly?

If we say that the aminos will bump into each other every day in this puddle and that there is a one in a thousand chance they could potentially make a PAC then after ten years it is likely that a PAC will have occurred 3.65 times in that puddle.

We can then alter the puddle and say that there are a hundred of each of the aminos that exist before they degrade but that then means there is 10,000 times higher chance of a PAC arising because the aminos still bump all the other aminos once a day. That means that over a ten year period there will be 36,500 occurrences of the PAC over ten years. And even if the chance of making a PAC is one in a million there will be the occurrence of the PAC 36.5 times in the puddle.

Now what then is there the chance that a PAC be created in a form that helps to catalyze the formation of one of the amino acids? Lets us say that with daily bumping again, and the one in a thousand chance of creating a PAC that there is a one in a thousand chance of a ScPAC arising. That then depends on the degradation of the PAC and the time span for it to co-exist with another PAC in the puddle and then the chance that they will create a SPAC so let us set them each at one in a thousand: PAC and PAC, PAC bumping (just to make it easier) and PAC creating ScPAC. That means that there would be a one in a billion chance of a ScPAC being created in the puddle on a daily basis. And if that seems to be too high an odds than we could potentially raise the number of aminos is the imaginary puddle.

So then over a billion years with the one in a billion chance we would have the 365 occurrences of the creation of a ScPAC.

So again I would argue that it is the numbers game again but slanted in my favor. I still hold that abiogenesis is a theory and that it should never be a dogma.

I agree that there should always be room for doubt but I can begin to stack the numbers to have an abiogenetic event. I can increase the numbers of aminos, I can increase the number of interactions and so I could potentially have a sequence that goes like this aminos>PACs>ScPAC>aggregates of self catalyzing PACs> AgScPACs>lipids created by AgScPACs>lipids enveloping LcAgScPACs>LeLcAgScPACs>protocell

So just sheer numbers could potentially lead to abiogenesis. Again millions of molecules interacting over billions of years seems to be a likely possibility that it will lead to abiogenesis.

Now I agree that the odds of the DNA/RNA complex arising are extremely low but once we get to proto cells the mathematics begin to stack in the favor of self organizing systems and those that through constrained change and natural selection will become self organizing. Because the sheer power of huge numbers of molecules and huge amounts of time we now can add the power of CC/NS to say that the odds get processionaly smaller of leading to a self organizing event.

So yes if we ask what are the chances that 10^70 monkeys typing randomly over 15 billion years will produce a 1000 letter sequence of Shakespeare then the odds are very low. But if we ask if 10^70 monkeys are playing with Lego’s and the chances arise that the Lego’s will start to self organize then I think I can slant the odds in the favor of self organization in slightly less than a billion years.


Now I am not saying that abiogenesis should be dogma, I am after all the one who says things like:

All human thoughts are equally false and equally true, some just have a higher observational validity.

So I completely agree that abiogenesis and CC/NS are theories the question is what is the data and what theory matches the data best?

And I agree if we ask what are the odds that 10^70 critters acting over 15*10^12 years will create a DNA/RNA complex specifically is a very low probability, but if we ask what are the odds that something like a self organizing set like DNA/RNA will arise in that time period the odds are significantly higher.

 

[UnrepentantSinner]

Oh, you guys are taking the crazy abiogenesis/mud to man "probability calculations" seriously? Sorry, but I don't so I'm going to have to stick with the substance instead of the philosphy, theology and rhetoric masqurading as science.

Just a note to VN, the probability of something after it has already happened is 1:1. How about addressing the concrete evidence rather than the philisophical/rhetorical tangents that so many Creationists proffer as their M.O.?

 

[fishbob]

Ah, you say. But how many different stories can be written in English? Huge amounts of 100 word stories can be written in English! How do you calculate that? Let's say there are 10^5 English words. Now all the combinations of English 100 word stories is only 10^5^100, as a limit. Just because it is a concatenation of English words makes it a "story" not. But let's use this number 10^5^100 = 10^500 different stories. Hell, that's a lot of stories!

But while 10^500 stories is HUGE, it is a tiny fraction of all possible 600 letter combinations. 10^500 / 10^859 is tantamount to ZERO! That is, 10^-359 is such a vanishingly small value it IS zero for all practical purposes in our physical universe.

This is an example of the typically dishonest casting of evolution as completely random. No need to even bother checking the math - natural selection has been completely ignored.

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

Hoyle was one on that list in my last post but he wasn't the 'guy' someone else cited that I am referring to. It's one of those memories where I know what transpired but can't remember the name. Someone posted something to the effect "some guy" had done "the calculations". I checked and the guy was as wrong as the rest of them for the usual reasons.

It was however a calculation supposedly looking at first life to modern life. It wasn't the claims like Hoyles about the probability of the molecules forming before the first life.

I'll have to find the thread. Apparently I was wrong anyway so it matters not.

Hubert Yockey?

 

[Dr Adequate]

Yes, it would be wrong to claim that the creation of life from non-living material has been proved.

No, it would be correct.

We just broke the "law of abiogenesis", oopsie.

It would be wrong to claim that we know how it actually happened in nature; but we can watch "the creation of life from non-living material" happen in the lab.

 

[John Hewitt]

No, it would be correct.

We just broke the "law of abiogenesis", oopsie.

It would be wrong to claim that we know how it actually happened in nature; but we can watch "the creation of life from non-living material" happen in the lab.

No, it would be wrong. That paper did not show the creation of life.

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

It would be wrong to claim that we know how it actually happened in nature; but we can watch "the creation of life from non-living material" happen in the lab.

Some people also consider Fox's Protocells to be simple living creatures.

Somebody has probably already made this point but it's worth noting occasionally that a lot of bacteria know how to take fairly simple non living material and turn it in to living material. So we know it doesn't take omniscience to do this trick, it takes however many bits of information are present in the DNA of those various autotrophic bacteria.

 

[delphi_ote]

No, it would be correct.

We just broke the "law of abiogenesis", oopsie.

It would be wrong to claim that we know how it actually happened in nature; but we can watch "the creation of life from non-living material" happen in the lab.

You know, I never understood why this was such a huge problem for the creationist. Why do people imagine some stark boundary between living and nonliving? Our bodies turn nonliving matter into living matter every day. There isn't some magical divide here. There's a lot of biological stuff out there in nature that we can't really classify as "living" or "not living". It's not like you can go into a lab and look at living molecules under a microscope and see tiny signatures of Jesus on them. It's just one configuration or another of molecules and shades of grey between "alive" and "just a bunch of goop."

 

[Dave1001]

I haven't read this thread carefully, but the common abiogenesis narrative has never made much intuitive sense to me, which is why I've ben intrigued by the idea microbesmay have ridden space debris or whatnot to planet earth. Why wouldn't the oceans be a sea of dna/rna fragments? It seems to me that would be likely if multicellular organisms were naturally selected from that.

Of course, humans may be in the process of functionally wiping out most non-human life. Does the abiogenesis theory posit that cellular life consumed most dna/rna fragments that were otherwise replicating and prevalent pre-cellular life?

 

[Dave1001]

You know, I never understood why this was such a huge problem for the creationist. Why do people imagine some stark boundary between living and nonliving? Our bodies turn nonliving matter into living matter every day. There isn't some magical divide here. There's a lot of biological stuff out there in nature that we can't really classify as "living" or "not living". It's not like you can go into a lab and look at living molecules under a microscope and see tiny signatures of Jesus on them. It's just one configuration or another of molecules and shades of grey between "alive" and "just a bunch of goop."

I think it's very unhelpful to use creationists as a crutch/foil in discussing abiogenesis. This is where the human tendency to replace empiricism with medieval morality play (jesus vs. satan -to convince the audience to choose jesus) come in, in my opinion.

 

[articulett]

Since most of this has already been covered, a few comments only..........

The time loop paradox -- in the realm of anything possible, sure it's interesting to speculate. But all such paradoxes suffer from the same problem -- they depend on always having existed. So, this "solution" essentially says that complex life has always been, existing within an endless time loop. Possible? I suppose, since I don't know enough math to disprove the possibility, but unlikely given the arrow of time we see in this universe.

As to the probabilities, I think that has already been covered excellently. I think you must agree, Von, that the probability argument rests on a level of ignorance -- ignorance that we all share (and which you have admitted already). You chide us for believing in abiogenesis, but I have never met anyone who believes in any set theory of abiogenesis. What most believe is that we have seen natural processes create an amazing array of organisms through the mechanism of natural selection. We have a theory that accounts for the evidence we see, we have never seen anything counter the theory, so we continue to use it. That theory rests on a natural mechanism. So we have confidence that a natural mechanism will probably explain the origin of living matter from non-living precursors. We don't believe that it has been proved, so I'm not sure what your exact point is. Saying that it is impossible depends critically on knowledge that you do not have, so you are being presumptuous. Us saying that we think it might be possible is presumptuous how? We are not claiming an answer. We are only claiming a framework that might provide an answer and acting humbly within that framework. We are at the mercy of the evidence and the theories that we can generate to explain that evidence. I don't see anything presumptuous in that maneuver, but perhaps you could explain to me the error of my way of thinking about it? Your "solution" is to view the world from a teleological perspective. Teleology itself is unfalsifiable. However, philosophically, it depends critically on mind and an argument from analogy and the only experience we have with mind is our own (and the minds of other animals). There is no compelling reason to suppose another type of mind that would create a teleological purpose for reality (and arguments from analogy suffer critically when we stray from directly analogous situations). While this is not out of the realm of possibility, it is simply not necessary for an explanation of information creation, as has been already shown. The simplest explanation is still natural forces did it.

Yes, it would be wrong to claim that the creation of life from non-living material has been proved. I have never met anyone who claims that, though. Most simply say "I don't know for sure, but I think it is possible and even likely." As to how it came to be, well we can all speculate. My guess is that we should look at our existing processes for translation, transcription, and replication in reverse order for the sequence of what was likely in the past. My guess is that first were peptides, arising through a mechanism that we still do not completely understand from the amino acids we know are easily made; then comes RNA to form on top of the peptides simply because it can and it can create new copies of itself; then comes DNA and the whole process takes off to become what we think of as life. But that is all pure speculation. It makes sense of why we have the DNA --> RNA --> protein process now, but it doesn't explain much. It is merely speculative framework.

Let's be honest for a minute. We are fairly ignorant of our environment. There is much that we know but much more that we do not. The origins issue is a big lacuna in our knowledge, but it exists in large part because we have only recently begun to question origins within a biological framework. It is a very interesting question, but we had much more pressing issues in the recent past -- such as how to kill microbes that were trying to kill us and how to understand genetic disease. There are enough people now investigating issues that a few folks have actually begun to try and answer these questions. Give it time and we will probably have a very good answer -- possibly even within the decade or certainly the next century.

ETA

Let me re-state the time-loop issue -- this differing view of time, as circular rather than having an arrow, does not admit questions such as "what is the origin of x" because the loop must always exist. It simply eliminates an entire class of phenomena -- ultimate origins. Now, it is possible for time to appear to have an arrow within an endless loop, so that one may ask about the origin of a particular phenomena, but once you put the ultimate origin of something within such a time loop, then it makes no sense to ask about its origin. In other words, the question of origins is no longer scientific, no longer falsifiable, and really no longer sensible. The time loop idea itself is non-scientific -- not falsifiable. Whether or not it is correct is a whole other issue, but it could never be anything but speculation because there is no logical reason why it must be the case. Without logical force or falsifiability, we must label it "interesting" at best.

Beautifully written.

What he said.

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

I haven't read this thread carefully, but the common abiogenesis narrative has never made much intuitive sense to me, which is why I've ben intrigued by the idea microbesmay have ridden space debris or whatnot to planet earth. Why wouldn't the oceans be a sea of dna/rna fragments?

The oceans are a sea of dna/rna fragments. That's what viruses are.

It doesn't necessarilly follow that multi cell life was selected from that though.

 

[articulett]

[swiki]Chirality[/swiki]

It turns out that there are lots of chemical reactions which produce chirality without any imaginary invisible men doing magic in any way.

Here's a question for you. If you thought that would be so "interesting to know", why didn't you try to find out? Oh, yeah, because your "interest" wasn't sincere, it was just another freakin' Argument From Personal Ignorance.

Yep--and we've even got some pretty good idea about how left chirality sticks better when primordial soup washes over mineral surfaces:

http://www.astrobio.net/news/article2144.html

Like amino acids, some minerals have pairs of crystal surfaces that have a mirror relationship to each other, called left and right faces. Calcite, one such mineral, is common today and was prevalent during the Archean Era when life first emerged. In 2001 Hazen and colleagues performed the first experiments showing that the left-handed amino acid, aspartic acid, preferentially adhere to left-faced calcite. That study confirmed previous theoretical suggestions of a plausible process by which the mixed right- and left-handed -amino acids in the primordial soup could be concentrated and selected on a readily available mineral surface. The challenge since has been to determine which of the countless biomolecules/surface interactions are the most likely candidates to the first steps to life.


But creationists can't compute that which threatens their "intelligent designer" notion.

Like Behe at the Dover trial refusing to compute refutation after refutation of IC.

If they aren't actually curious regarding the answer to the evolution conundrum that raises their hackles the most, it's safe to presume they're a creationist. If they can't seem to "get" the answer no matter how many examples are given or how carefully worded--they're a creationist.

Somewhere in their brain, the creationist as come to believe that his world will fall apart if his personal evolution conundrum is ever solved--and they may even risk their "happily ever after". What is a brain to do? Simply fail to compute. Don't open Pandoras box. Refrain from biting from the tree of knowledge. Call the information "dogma" and "propaganda" and refuse to let the info. penetrate. Fling an ad hom, some pedantry, and a tangential argument if you must. And repeat over and over "it hasn't been proven...it hasn't been proven...it hasn't been proven...(therefore my intelligent designer is real.)"