Life Originally Arose via. Abiogenesis

I begin my analysis of Pro's opening arguments with two general observations: *Pro offers us several possible abiogenesis scenarios. It cannot be stressed enough that as origin of life proposals, these scenarios are hypothetical. They are not emperical. In other words, these scenarios are speculation. Pure speculation. *Furthermore, pro's scenarios all rely on the primary assumption that life can emerge from simpler precursors. To be sure, pro does bring an element of scientific fact into his various scenarios. Nonetheless, his speculations go well beyond the facts and his primary assumption has no basis beyond a desire that it be so. Indeed, that life has arisen from simpler precursors is the very thing that pro needs to convince us of. To simply assume it, reduces his argument to pure tautology: Life has arisen from simpler precursors because life has arisen from simpler precursors! Mixing some scientific fact with a heavy dose of speculation and wishful assumptions can be the stuff of good science fiction. It can even suggest fruitful avenues of research. But pro must separate speculation from evidence. The place to look for evidence concerning the origin of life is life itself. Pro postulates that life used to be something other than life and immediately sets out to discover what that "something" might be. He does not consider the evidence from life. Pro claims that life is thermodynamically inevitable, stating that the prebiotic earth, " was under significant thermodynamic stress and this is where life comes in. Life is very good at relieving this thermodynamic stress." But it does not ipso facto follow that therefore life "inevitably" arose. I have a relative who is under constant economic stress and money is very good at relieving economic stress. It does not follow that therefore money will inevitably arise in my relative's life to relieve that stress. And money is already in existence! Living systems are themselves highly organized and therefore represent low entropy states, so why is life so good at relieving thermodynamic stress? Because of the work that living systems accomplish. And how is this work accomplished? It is accomplished by a myriad of molecular machines which in turn are made up of proteins and protein complexes, which are prescribed by biological information! Without machines to do the work, living systems do not relieve thermodynamic stress, and unless information to build those machines is already present, no machines emerge. The fundamental question remains: where did the information come from? Pro suggests that so-called self organization (autocatalysis) provides a natural pathway to life. But biological information is possible specifically because the sequences of bases - the very sequences which prescribe the proteins - are not affected by (indeed, are free from) so-called self organization [7]. Pro declares that natural autocatalytic processes are rather life like, but as he himself notes, " Life takes in raw materials in the form of food, which the cell uses to create additional imperfect copies of itself." Indeed life takes in raw materials and processes those materials for a myriad of functions which include reproduction. But again, this processing requires a vast ensemble of molecular machines; molecular machines which, incidentally, work with each other in a coordinated fashion. No molecular machinery exists in any non-biological autocatalytic process. The cell is the indivisible unit of life. Theoretical and experimental work on the minimal complexity required to sustain the simplest possible living organism suggests a lower bound of 250-400 genes with their associated proteins [8,9]. Sophisticated machines, such as are found in all living systems do not arise spontaneously in nature, nor do the proteins which comprise these machines. Needless to say, complex networks of machines integrated into sophisticated holistic networks responding to and coordinated with one another by extensive communication systems do not arise spontaneously in nature either[10]. Yet such networks characterize every single living cell. Nothing simpler than a single cell has ever been demonstrated to be alive. In his opening statement, pro claims that, "the elements of a genome which I will argue to be accessible via. abiogenesis will be one that possesses memory capability, template, and imperfect replication ability." Well yes, but there is also the fundamental matter of the cybernetic reality of life's organization and information properties. How are these realities accessible via abiogenesis? On this crucial question, pro is absolutely silent. Pro goes on to concede: "Note, this system is unlike even the simplest of cell systems that are extant today, and abiogenesis in this debate will not address their formation. However, such a system must necessarily be capable of producing life we have today." Pro is correct to point out that his hypothetical system is nothing like life today, or for that matter, any life we know of. As I have pointed out, the simplest known life manifests advanced cybernetic properties; indeed, even single cell life represents the most advanced cybernetic system we have ever encountered [11]. To understand just how far removed pro's hypothetical system is from what a living system is, watch these fascinating animated videos: In a perfect world I would have have been able to present a video on a single cell organism, and perhaps such a video exists, but I was unable to find one. Nonetheless, each of the above three videos serve to bring home the high levels of purpose, function, bona fide organization and cybernetic properties that characterize every living cell. Yockey's observation hits the nail on the head: "More than any other characteristic, computational linear digital algorithms distinguish life from non-life"[12]. Even the simplest known life will: *delineate itself from its environment; realize the production and maintenance of membrane equivalent for selective absorption of nutrients, excretion of wastes, and overcoming osmotic and toxic gradients. *store and pass along to its progeny Prescriptive Information needed for organization; provide steering, control, regulation and management for usable energy derivation and for needed metabolite production and function; operate a semiotic material symbol system using messenger molecules. *capture, transduce, store, call up when needed, and carefully utilize energy for formal, useful work. *actively self-replicate and eventually reproduce, not just passively polymerize or crystallize; pass along the know-how for homeostatic metabolism and reproduction into progeny. *self monitor and self repair its constantly deteriorating matrix of bioinstruction, retention/transmission, and its architecture. *productively react to environmental stimuli in an efficacious manner that is supportive of survival, development, growth, and reproduction. *possess relative phenotypic stability, yet sufficient genetic variability to allow for adaptation. *be capable of dying. [13] Even if we generously grant pro his prebiotic "system," there is a huge gulf between it and anything that can be classified as life. If pro want to convince us that life has arisen by abiogenesis, he is going to have bridge that gulf for us. ABIOTIC SYNTHESIS OF RNA here pro glowing cites work by Sutherland et al. Let's take a peek behind the curtain: To achieve their results, the team used pH manipulation, phosphate buffers and irradiation all at the correct times and amounts; they exercised careful selection of the precursors, control of competing reactions by pH selection, and a phenomenally high phosphate concentration. What is on display here but massive infusions of intelligent design?! The same is true when it comes to rybozyme engineering and many other origin of life efforts: it is often the case that the extent to which positive results can be claimed is very close to the extent of deliberate experimenter manipulation (in other words, intelligent design) required to achieve those results. Origin of Life research never delivers any purely naturalistic pathway to life. To the contrary, these efforts constantly reaffirm the necessity for the deliberate, active hand of intelligence. POLYNUCLEOTIDE FORMATION Pro is content to seek natural processes which might produce randomly ordered amino acid chains. But proteins are formed by specifically ordered, not randomly ordered chains. In my opening round, I pointed to several studies which estimate the ratio of functional AA sequences to non-functional sequences (I note that Pro has challenged this and will respond to his challenges in my next round). The dominance of non functional sequences in sequence space clearly points to the inadequacy of random sequences and the absolute necessity of specific sequences. Throughout his presentation, pro fails to address the origin of the information of life, but this is exactly what needs to be addressed. [7] "Calculation of the Probability of Spontaneous Biogenesis by Information Theory," Yockey, Journal of Theoretical Biology, 1977 [8] "Seeking Life's Bare Genetic Necessities," E. Pennisi, Science, 1996 [9] "Gene Set for Cellular Life Derived by Comparison of Complete Bacterial Genomes," A. Mushegian and E. Koonin, Proceedings of the National Academy of the Sciences, 1996 [10] Note that a single emperical example of molecular machines or even a single protein arising by purely natural processes would defeat my case. [11] "What is ProtoBioCybernetics?," Abel, 2011 [12] "Origin of Life on Earth and Shannon's Theory of Communication," Yockey, 2000 [13] "The Birth of Protocells," Abel 2011