Life Originally Arose via. Abiogenesis

Origin of life (OOL) science is an historical science which seeks to determine the cause of an event that happened in the past; an event which, at least to this point, has not been duplicated. In order to determine the most reasonable cause of the origin of life at this time, we must examine the clues that are available to us and allow them to lead us where they will. Archaeology and forensic science are examples of other historical sciences and they provide an excellent template for OOL science. In both archaeology and forensics, there is one primary question of interest: was the effect in question the result of natural or deliberate causation? In order to determine the cause, it is crucial that we allow the evidence to lead us where it leads us. No historical science can provide a reliable inference to the best explanation unless we follow this dictum. In this debate, pro has assumed the burden of persuading us that the evidence establishes natural causation; to wit, "abiogenesis happened." It is up to me to establish that his conclusion is not warranted, given the evidence. Indeed, I will show that the evidence decisively renders natural causation as an unreasonable conclusion, and, though it is not strictly necessary according to the terms of this debate, that the evidence does establish deliberate action (intelligent agency) as the only reasonable cause. My case will focus on, but not be limited to, two primary lines of evidence: 1). The semiotic information systems that undergird all life 2). The mathematical realities against natural causation Each of these lines of evidence is, by itself, powerful testimony in favor of intelligent causation and against natural causation. Taken together, they constitute a case that is as strong as any historical conclusion can possibly be. In this opening statement, I provide a brief overview of the evidence: 1). THE SEMIOTIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS THAT UNDERGIRD ALL LIFE Francis Crick, who with James Watson first elucidated the DNA double helix structure, recognized that the three dimensional proteins which do the jobs of keeping all living systems alive, are prescribed by a semiotic information system - the DNA/RNA protein synthesis system. Crick's insight became know as the "Sequence Hypothesis," [1]. As Crick puts it, his hypothesis, "in its simplest form assumes that the specificity of a nucleic acid is expressed solely by the sequence of its bases, and that this sequence is a code for the amino acid sequence of a particular protein." [1] The explanatory power of the sequence hypothesis has played a major role in unlocking our understanding of the genome (to the extent that we understand it) and of the pivotal role of information in all living systems. DNA employs four specific chemical bases, abbreviated A,C,G,T (When translated to RNA, T is swapped out for U). These bases comprise the code of biological information. It is the specificity of the sequence of the bases, as Crick noted, which prescribes specific AA sequences. Just as specific sequences of English letters prescribe specific words, constituting the semantics of our language, so too, the specificity of base sequences prescribing specific AA sequences constitutes the semantics of biological information. These sequences must be read as a contiguous string of "codons," or "triplets" (groups of three bases); the rules of biological grammar - the syntax. The nucleotide and codon syntax of DNA language has no physical explanation. All nucleotides are bound with the same 3'5' phosphodiester bonds. The codon table is arbitrary and formal, not determined by physics and chemistry. As I noted in round 1, every aspect of semiotic language is abstract and immaterial. So it is with biological information. Material symbols are employed, whether they are nucleotide bases, alphabetical characters, 0's and 1's (as in machine code), or semaphore flags, but they are employed to convey abstract messages. Abstract realities are only produced by minds with the express intention of producing those abstract realities. Natural processes have never been observed to deal in symbolic meaning. Natural processes are governed by deterministic laws, not arbitrary rules. Pro has the unenviable task of demonstrating that the rule based abstract semiotic information which makes all life possible has arisen via strictly natural processes. I wish him luck! 2.) THE MATHEMATICAL REALITIES AGAINST NATURAL CAUSATION Clearly, any coherent causal account for the origin of life must explain the origin of the semiotic information systems that make life possible. Most, if not all proposed abiogenesis scenarios provide no such explanation. Rather, these scenarios seek purely physical pathways to the highly specified chemical arrangements of life. Setting aside the information requirements for the moment, let us closely examine just what the champions of abiogenesis are up against: *Sir Fred Hoyle calculated the chance chemical formation of a single cell bacterium to be 1 in 10^40,000. *a single protein of average length (300 AAs) represents one sequence among 10^390. *there are only 10^65 atoms in our galaxy and only 10^80 elementary particles in the known universe. Given only the above information, the mathematical odds against a specific linear chain of AAs capable of folding into a functional three dimensional protein forming purely by chance is many orders of magnitude smaller than the odds of randomly selecting a specific atom from our galaxy. In other words, the chance occurrence of such an event is so wildly improbable that it cannot be seriously entertained as a scientific possibility. Of course, this is not the entire story. There are other factors. For example, it is crucial to get a handle on the ratio of functional sequences to non functional sequences. If every chain of 300 AAs will yield a functional protein, the problem of finding a functional chain at random completely disappears. A few decades ago, Robert Sauer conducted experiments which led to the estimate that for a short protein of 92 AAs, the ratio of functional sequences to non-functional sequences was 1 in 10^63 [2]. This estimate was roughly in agreement with the work of information scientist Hubert Yockey's estimates of 1 in 10^90 for a protein 100 AAs long. Later work by Douglas Axe (1 in 10^77 for a protein 150 AA long)[4] reveals similar improbabilities. All of these estimates fall orders of magnitude below any reasonable level this side of "essentially impossible." Thus, it appears that the chance formation of a string of AAs that could produce a chain capable of folding into even a single modest protein has such a vanishingly small probability of occurring that it is far more reasonable to assume that it never happened. Life - even the simplest single cell organism - requires many proteins. But there is more: While there are only 20 biologically relevant AAs, there are many more non-biologically relevant AAs. AAs in protein chains must be bound by peptide bonds, but other bonds are every bit as likely. Moreover, every amino acid can assume one of two forms. In nature, both forms are roughly equally represented. This is know as a "racemic," or, right-handed and left-handed mixture, but biologically relevant AAs must be completely homochiral (the left-handed form). A single non biologically relevant AA (or any other chemical for that matter), or a single right-handed AA, or a single bond other than a peptide bond, renders a chain of any length biologically worthless. The realities of interfering cross reactions, correct bonding, and the homochiral requirement, pile orders of magnitudes upon orders of magnitudes against the already infinitesimal chance formation of any biologically relevant chain. Without even considering the informational requirements of life, the math alone provides decisive testimony against abiogenesis. It is incumbent upon pro to give us good evidential reason to believe that the probability of abiogenesis rises far, far above the level of operationally impossible. WHERE WE STAND TODAY The reality is that we have no idea how life first arose from aimless, inanimate matter. We can only infer what happened from the clues available to us. Before the Sequence Hypothesis, all of the available relevant clues seemed to be of a physical nature. But from the SH forward, we have come to realize that not only is DNA biological information, it is the most efficient[5 ] and advanced[6 ] information storage and processing system we have ever encountered. This constitutes evidence. Hard evidence which must be dealt with. Pro is committed to insisting that natural processes are responsible for the origin of life. This is fine, but pro must deal with the hard evidence of the information of life as well as the mathematical evidence against abiogenesis. Pro's opening argument presents scenarios which attempt to mitigate the mathematical problem. In my rebuttal round, when I examine his arguments in detail, I will reveal why theses attempts fail. Finally, I will note that pro's opening argument completely ignores biological information. [1] "On Protein Synthesis," Crick, 1958 [2] "Functionally accepted substitutions in Two Alpha Helical Regions of Lambda Repressor," Reidaar-Olson and Sauer [3] "On the Information Content of Cytochrome C," Yockey [4] "Estimating the Prevalence of Protein Sequences Adapting Functional Enzyme Folds," Axe [5] http://www.extremetech.com... [6] a single line of genetic text can contain multiple independent messages. Bill Gates has noted that DNA is like computer software, but far more advanced than anything we have created