Possible key human evolution genes identified

[RandomGuy]

I would further point out that simpler prions from unicellular organisms like, say yeast, are almost entirely composed of just TWO of the four components of DNA, further bolstering the inference that the first self-replicating molecules were simpler than you want to admit AND this simpler form INCREASES the odds MASSIVELY that they would randomly form.

This by your own admission.

If you will recall you said "bla bla it's too complex because if you muliply 4 times the number of sequences needed for prions to replicate you get this really small number".

Reduce the base from 4 to 2 and keep the same number of sequences. Then does that really improbable number get more or less improbable?

[Phenomanul]

I will outline it since you are naturally reluctant to admit you just logically contradicted yourself.

You said that

Meaning that infinite time and chances does not make for "statistical certainty".

You have also admitted that the odds are greater than zero.

Then when pressed, you admit that the odds of "winning the lottery" are greater than the odds of NEVER winning.

Is this not a statistical certainty?

Semantics...

Reminds me of a joke...

Someone tells a mathmatician and an engineer that they are allowed to walk up to a completely naked woman on the opposite side of the room but that they can only do so by taking steps that are half the size of the previous one.
The mathmatician indignantly replies, "But I'll never get there!!! "
The engineer then says, "It doesn't matter... I'll get close enough ."

But OK by your own admission the exact same principle applies to the notion that there is a 'statistical certainty' that GOD created the universe and everything therein.

Except that the 'odds' of this notion being true are much much higher than the chance that a 200 part DNA could be built by random chance. How so? Do a number crunching of how many people have physically seen GOD and then divide that by earth's all-time population... and for the sake of generosity throw in a 10^-100 factor that maybe those people were lying... The 'odds' are still greater.

[Phenomanul]

I would further point out that simpler prions from unicellular organisms like, say yeast, are almost entirely composed of just TWO of the four components of DNA, further bolstering the inference that the first self-replicating molecules were simpler than you want to admit AND this simpler form INCREASES the odds MASSIVELY that they would randomly form.

This by your own admission.

If you will recall you said "bla bla it's too complex because if you muliply 4 times the number of sequences needed for prions to replicate you get this really small number".

Reduce the base from 4 to 2 and keep the same number of sequences. Then does that really improbable number get more or less improbable?

And yet those smaller proteins still use the DNA/RNA pathway to replicate.... how come? Because they still need an assortment of highly complex enzymes to do this for them.... they can't do it on their own.. Let's not forget that.

[RandomGuy]

Semantics...

Reminds me of a joke...

Someone tells a mathmatician and an engineer that they are allowed to walk up to a completely naked woman on the opposite side of the room but that they can only do so by taking steps that are half the size of the previous one.
The mathmatician indignantly replies, "But I'll never get there!!! "
The engineer then says, "It doesn't matter... I'll get close enough ."

But OK by your own admission the exact same principle applies to the notion that there is a 'statistical certainty' that GOD created the universe and everything therein.

Except that the 'odds' of this notion being true are much much higher than the chance that a 200 part DNA could be built by random chance. How so? Do a number crunching of how many people have physically seen GOD and then divide that by earth's all-time population... and for the sake of generosity throw in a 10^-100 factor that maybe those people were lying... The 'odds' are still greater.

I think god may have gotten the ball rolling, but had nothing to do with anything since that time.

As I have said, all he has to do is set up a certain set of rules, and let time do the rest.

You want "intelligent" design, look to the beginning rules, not human evolution.

I would go a step further.

Go back to the "multiverse" and God doesn't even have to do that. Somewhere within an infinite number of universes life WILL emerge.

[Phenomanul]

All it really takes is a self-replicating amino acid.

You say prions are TOO complex, I will say that what is needed is simpler than even a prion.

We can't even create a successful batch of amino acids that will stay in solution? These molecules are created and within millionths of a second want to revert to smaller cons uent molecules. We have to physically alter the environment immediately after creating them just to keep them around. That sounds alot like guided creation processes if you ask me. Furthermore, the other basic cons uent molecules like simple sugars and inorganic phosphate substrates don't form under the same conditions that form amino acids. Yet they are also needed....

[Phenomanul]

I think god may have gotten the ball rolling, but had nothing to do with anything since that time.

As I have said, all he has to do is set up a certain set of rules, and let time do the rest.

You want "intelligent" design, look to the beginning rules, not human evolution.

I would go a step further.

Go back to the "multiverse" and God doesn't even have to do that. Somewhere within an infinite number of universes life WILL emerge.

Yes because all cadavers can instantly come back to life... they already have all the organic and biological elements necessary to subsist and live.... but they don't.

LIFE is more than just what we see in the physical realm.

[Phenomanul]

I have to go... I'll be back tomorrow.

[RandomGuy]

Reduce the base from 4 to 2 and keep the same number of sequences. Then does that really improbable number get more or less improbable?--RG

Another non-answer.

The answer that you purposefully avoided was the number gets bigger.

So we have evidence that the probablilty is much greater than you would care to admit.

You would not care to admit it because all of what I have mentioned reinforces the hypothesis that life, as improbable as it is, happened randomly.

Is that a fair assessment?

[Phenomanul]

Reduce the base from 4 to 2 and keep the same number of sequences. Then does that really improbable number get more or less improbable?--RG



The answer that you purposefully avoided was the number gets bigger.

So we have evidence that the probablilty is much greater than you would care to admit.

You would not care to admit it because all of what I have mentioned reinforces the hypothesis that life, as improbable as it is, happened randomly.

Is that a fair assessment?

You are rather aggressively confrontational for someone that dodges a fair share of questions. You will and have only seen this as a game of numbers. But chemistry is not governed by odds. You still have failed to find a suitable explanation as to why you keep harping on your statistical background to try and answer questions that are related to a field in which you have only limited grasp of?

Under your odds (and with infinite universes) the probality would always be 99.9999999999%. In fact, the probability that anything could happen would always be 99.999999999999%. But that's not how the universe works. So no, it is not a fair assessment.

OK I really have to go... I'm late.

[Yonivore]

I don't even need to see RandomGuy's side of the argument (excepting where he is quoted) to enjoy watching him have his ass handed to him.

[Extra Stout]

Again, all you need is a few simple, self-replicating organisms, and liquid water.

Funny, how you throw that out as if it were an axiom. I think you lost this argument a while back, and simply have retreated into repeating yourself.

[smeagol]

I think god may have gotten the ball rolling, but had nothing to do with anything since that time.

As I have said, all he has to do is set up a certain set of rules, and let time do the rest.

You think but you don't really know it. And most important of all, you can't prove it. Your explanation, a la boutons, cannot be explained.

It cannot explain the origin of life and it certainly cannot explain how men came to be, how a microorganism was transformed by chance into a human being.

[Extra Stout]

Since RandomGuy has been so thoroughly routed, I am going to switch sides and debate hegamboa.

Why do certain non-living thermal proteins organize themselves into self-replicating protocells? Could these not have been a primitive form of life?

[Guru of Nothing]

Since RandomGuy has been so thoroughly routed, I am going to switch sides and debate hegamboa.

Why do certain non-living thermal proteins organize themselves into self-replicating protocells? Could these not have been a primitive form of life?

Cliff Notes please - Is Jesus the son of God?

That's all I want to know.

[smeagol]

Cliff Notes please - Is Jesus the son of God?

That's all I want to know.

In my book he is.

But I'm just a stupid 'ol Christian . . .

[RandomGuy]

You are rather aggressively confrontational for someone that dodges a fair share of questions.

You have not asked me a question yet.

[RandomGuy]

Again, what environment drove the need to create a molecule that would 'want' to just keep getting more and more and more and more ordered.

By your own admission, once again the earth is not a closed system. New energy is constantly put into the system from our star, making local entropy kind of meaningless.

The thing about evolutionary processes is that the best adaptation wins. If that adaptation allows for more successful compe ion for resources it will win out, even if that adaptation is more complex.

[sabar]

Evolution is a consequence of natural selection and adaptation, nothing more. Such a clever system too.

Let's get away from prions and look at something more plausible. Lets start with some facts.

1. Amino acids can be randomly produced in the old Earth;s atmosphere, as proved by Stanley Miller in the 50's.
2. The created amino acids cannot survive in the primordial soup of the ocean; they are immediately broken down.
3. The amino acids have to be created in the atmosphere and fall as acid rain, creating the "catching" system that Miller used. We now have the building blocks of life, not destroyed.

Anyways, we have a missing link here, how these things, even if formed into simple proteins replicated. We will look at some important lab observations and how they might have created life.

First, It has been shown that phospholipid bilayers spontaneously form. This is a consequence of how the phospholipids themselves get arranged, and is very plausible. This would create the membrance of a cell, but how this is combined with some kind of "replicator" is unknown.

Next, nucleotides can randomly form into simple RNA. An interesting thing here is the Ribozyme, which in labs have been shown that they can catalyze their own creation. Ribozymes are quite rare today, but in the early earth there would have been a huge consequence as a result of natural selection. Ribozymes that catalyze the fastest and most efficient are replicated by themselves. Mistakes will occur that allow the catalyzation of peptides: the first proteins are cretaed and the first Ribosome. Proteins are more efficient at catalyzing, making them the building blocks of life. Ribosomes will exist to take RNA information to create more proteins, and RNA exists only for the genome, as simple as this first one will be.

The only problem with the whole model?
We have a missing link. It would have taken some serious mutations for a simple randomly produced RNA to be able to catalyze itself and replicate, mutations not possible with current theories on what substances were in the atmosphere. This problem is being worked on as we speak. The theories on the origin of life are not old, this is all modern stuff. Miller only solved one problem 50 years ago, there are many more holes to iron out.

And for some interesting reading and further analysis, check out this linky.

[Yonivore]

In my book he is.

But I'm just a stupid 'ol Christian . . .

Don't misunderstimate your position; there are smart Christians who believe the same thing.

[Phenomanul]

Evolution is a consequence of natural selection and adaptation, nothing more. Such a clever system too.

Let's get away from prions and look at something more plausible. Lets start with some facts.

1. Amino acids can be randomly produced in the old Earth;s atmosphere, as proved by Stanley Miller in the 50's.
2. The created amino acids cannot survive in the primordial soup of the ocean; they are immediately broken down.
3. The amino acids have to be created in the atmosphere and fall as acid rain, creating the "catching" system that Miller used. We now have the building blocks of life, not destroyed.

Anyways, we have a missing link here, how these things, even if formed into simple proteins replicated. We will look at some important lab observations and how they might have created life.

First, It has been shown that phospholipid bilayers spontaneously form. This is a consequence of how the phospholipids themselves get arranged, and is very plausible. This would create the membrance of a cell, but how this is combined with some kind of "replicator" is unknown.

Next, nucleotides can randomly form into simple RNA. An interesting thing here is the Ribozyme, which in labs have been shown that they can catalyze their own creation. Ribozymes are quite rare today, but in the early earth there would have been a huge consequence as a result of natural selection. Ribozymes that catalyze the fastest and most efficient are replicated by themselves. Mistakes will occur that allow the catalyzation of peptides: the first proteins are cretaed and the first Ribosome. Proteins are more efficient at catalyzing, making them the building blocks of life. Ribosomes will exist to take RNA information to create more proteins, and RNA exists only for the genome, as simple as this first one will be.

The only problem with the whole model?
We have a missing link. It would have taken some serious mutations for a simple randomly produced RNA to be able to catalyze itself and replicate, mutations not possible with current theories on what substances were in the atmosphere. This problem is being worked on as we speak. The theories on the origin of life are not old, this is all modern stuff. Miller only solved one problem 50 years ago, there are many more holes to iron out.

And for some interesting reading and further analysis, check out this linky.

Only when one assumes that about 1.9 billion years ago the earth's atmosphere was a reducing mixture of nitrogen (N2), methane (CH4), water vapor (H2O), and possibly ammonia (NH3)...

This has since been demonstrated to be a false assumption based on geology...

[Phenomanul]

Since RandomGuy has been so thoroughly routed, I am going to switch sides and debate hegamboa.

Why do certain non-living thermal proteins organize themselves into self-replicating protocells? Could these not have been a primitive form of life?

It's possible. One cannot dismiss that conclusion outright. The odds against the formation of thermal proteins (non-polypetide polymers of pure amino acids) are still insanely small. NOT because their formation is not possible, simply because the requisite factors needed for their creation are an unlikely mix, and because the the starting recipe (a mixture of dry, pure amino acids) has no natural explanation.

I remembered reading awhile back an article that expained the incongruencies of Sydney Fox's thermal proteins (many of them pointed out by Miller; the one who formed amino-acids in a famous 1953 experiment with Urey):


http://www.icr.org/article/79/

[sabar]

Only when one assumes that about 1.9 billion years ago the earth's atmosphere was a reducing mixture of nitrogen (N2), methane (CH4), water vapor (H2O), and possibly ammonia (NH3)...

This has since been demonstrated to be a false assumption based on geology...

Good point, but the atmosphere of CO/CO2/N2, which is what is thought it was now is just as suitable as CH4 and NH3. [1] . The key is the lack of O2, which should not have come up until photosynthetic organisms did.

Also check out the Murchison meteorite. Assuming these were common in the early solar system, amino acids could have very well have come from space. Theoretically a molecular cloud could create the building blocks of life, but these theories are all as recent as 2004.

Also, this is not to say Mr. Miller was a genius and solved everything in a simple experiment. His experiments have been redone countless times with different atmospheres. Also, there are indications that there may have been a significantly higher amount of H in the atmosphere, which would have seriously hindered any natural creation.

[RandomGuy]

You are rather aggressively confrontational for someone that dodges a fair share of questions. You will and have only seen this as a game of numbers. But chemistry is not governed by odds. You still have failed to find a suitable explanation as to why you keep harping on your statistical background to try and answer questions that are related to a field in which you have only limited grasp of?

Under your odds (and with infinite universes) the probality would always be 99.9999999999%. In fact, the probability that anything could happen would always be 99.999999999999%. But that's not how the universe works. So no, it is not a fair assessment.

OK I really have to go... I'm late.

Logic.
a=somthing happens on 1 in 100,000,000,000 planets.
b=there are 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 planets

If something only happens on 1 in 100,000,000,000 planets, then there are 100,000,000,000 planets that thing has happened on.

Is this argument logically consistant?

[RandomGuy]

Since RandomGuy has been so thoroughly routed, I am going to switch sides and debate hegamboa.

Why do certain non-living thermal proteins organize themselves into self-replicating protocells? Could these not have been a primitive form of life?

If by "thoroughly routed", you mean "took his 3 year old to the park, spent the weekend doing housework, homework, and having a beer with friends" I guess you are right about that.

I think have actually made my point rather well, and extracted, albeit reluctantly, an admission about the nature of the universe.

Going on to chemistry and randomness.

In a hypothically pure glass of water, are all the molecules identical?

[Phenomanul]

Logic.
a=somthing happens on 1 in 100,000,000,000 planets.
b=there are 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 planets

If something only happens on 1 in 100,000,000,000 planets, then there are 100,000,000,000 planets that thing has happened on.

Is this argument logically consistant?

The problem being that there is no reciprocal amount of life bearing planets totaling 10^-121.

Before you go on reposting your question (thus having ignored my responses to your posts).

Logically consistent -- yes.
Statistically relevant -- no.

BTW do you realize how unique the physical constants in this universe are?

Here is an excerpt from the Francis Collins' book I linked earlier:

In the early moments of the universe following the Big Bang, matter and antimatter were created in almost equivalent amounts. At one millisecond of time, the universe cooled enough for quarks and anti-quarks to "condense out." Any quark encountering an antiquark, which would happen quickly at this high density, resulted in the complete annihilation of both and the release of a photon of energy. But the symmetry between matter and antimatter was not quite precise; for about every billion pair of quarks and antiquarks, there was one extra quark. It is that tiny fraction of the initial potentiality of the entire universe that makes up the mass of the universe as we now know it.

Why did this asymmetry exist? It would seem more "natural" for there to be no asymmetry. But if there had been complete symmetry between matter and antimatter, the universe would quickly have devolved into pure radiation, and people, planets, stars, and galaxies would never have come into existence.

The way in which the universe expanded after the Big Bang depended critically on how much total mass and energy the universe had (and the precise asymmetry between matter and antimatter pointed out above), and also on the strength of the gravitational constant. The incredible degree of fine-tuning of these physical constants has been a subject of wonder for many experts.

Steven Hawking writes: "Why did the universe start out with so nearly the critical rate of expansion that separates modes that recollapse from those that go on expanding forever, that even now, 10 thousand million years later, it is still expanding at nearly the critical rate? If the rate of expansion one second after the Big Bang had been smaller by even one part in 100 thousand million million, the universe would have recollapsed before it ever reached its present size."

If on the other hand, the rate of expansion had been greater by even one part in a million, stars and planets could not have been able to form. Recent theories involving an incredibly rapid expansion (inflation) of the universe at very early times appear to offer a partial explanation for why the present expansion is so close to the critical value. However, many cosmologists would say that this simply pushes the question back to why the universe had just the right properties to undergo such an inflationary expansion. the existence of a universe as we know it rests upon a knife edge of improbability.

The same remarkable cir stance applies to the formation of heavier elements. If the strong nuclear force that holds together protons and neutrons had been even slightly weaker, then only hydrogen could have formed in the universe. If, on the other hand, the strong nuclear force had been slightly stronger, all the hydrogen would have been converted to helium, instead of the 25% that occured early in the Big Bang, and thus the fusion furnaces of stars and their ability to generate heavier elements would never have been born.

Adding to this remarkable observation, the nuclear force appears to be tuned just sufficiently for carbon to form, which is critical for all life forms on Earth. Had the force been just slightly more attractive, all the carbon would have been converted to oxygen.

Altogether, there are fifteen physical constants whose values current theory is unable to completely predict. They are givens: they simply have the value that they have. This list includes the speed of light, the strength of the weak and strong nuclear forces, various parameters associated with electromagnetism (such as Coulomb's constant), the gravitational constant etc... The chance that all of these constants would have taken on the values necessary to result in a stable universe capable of sustaining complex life forms is almost infintesimal. And yet those are exactly the parameters that we observe.

In sum, our universe is wildly improbable, and not as probable as you make it out to be... and also a reason why the multiverse model has encountered so much resistance of late.