Abiogenesis

[NavajoEverclear]

How does Abiogenesis work. I've had this explained to me before in a way that made more sense than it used to, but largely my ununderstandings are unresolved. They told me that i'd have to have hugely extensive knowlege into chemistry to understand, but I refuse to accept that because I don't want any of that extensive crap, I just want someone to make it simple.

 

I still do not see how chemical reactions (however they become anyway) evolve to create organisms that have their own choices however restricted their intelligence to do so be. Could this proccess be explained step by step please?

 

I guess the possibility of God is even more perplexing, but theres NO way accept making up crap to tell how he made things work-- or where he came from. Actually I personally believe in God, I been brought up so and it is my choice to remain in such beliefs, so i'm not sure if we as mortals are capable of understanding how God works and does things.

 

I simply want to know how scientists say non-life becomes life---- there is a difference, life has choice, non-life doesn't. How is choice evolved from non-choice? Or maybe you don't believe we really do have choices so just forget that and explain how I came to be from ancestry of primordial soup.

[Radical Edward]

it is just a matter of self replicating chemicals that copy themselves from some standard stock, like amino acids or DNA bases. these can be found all over the univserse and are nothing so special really. eventually they got more and more complex, as little errors and changes lengthened the strings, and eventually you get "life", which at the end of the day is just a set of self replicating chemicals, albeit vastly more organised. once you have multicellular life, and sexual reproduction, then things change a bit, because there can be much more in the way of behaviour because of nervous transmission and so on and from behavious you get choice. this is a grossly simplified account, but the whole life from non life, or choice from non choice thing is a bit redundant in my opinion.

[Sayonara]

Everything I know about abiogenesis came from Dana Scully.

 

[NavajoEverclear]

Thanks for the input, but i still don't understand. Am i correct that it starts as a chemical reaction? So I guess I should have said-- i understand evolution from simpler organisms to more complicate ones. I don't understand how exactly does chemical reaction create something that can replicate itself?

[Skye]

That's what that 'DNA' stuff is all about. DNA is made of two strings of chemicals called nucleotides. There are four different nucleotides in DNA: Adenine, Thymine, Cytosine and Guanine, shortened to A, T, C and G. The two strnds have the same sequnce of nucleotides but the sequences are in oppsite directions. Eg. if one stand had the sequence ACGTACG it would be bonded to another with the opposite sequence TGCATGC.

 

If you pull the two strings apart, in a solution with nucleotides dissolved in it, then the dissolved nucleotides bond with the two single strings and form a complementary string for each. Then you'd have two double stranded DNA molecules.

 

Pretty simply, DNA automatically replicates itself if it is pulled apart and has nucleotides available to it.

[NapoleonGH]

ambiogenesis began with self replicating RNA though, but yea it follows the basic idea of dna

[rdjon]

Some latest theories put in a clay mineral (smectite, kaolinite), which can be self-replicating. The RNA "piggy-backed" onto the clay mineral and replicated itself. Not entirly sure on this, asI 'm a geophysics man myself, not a biologist.

[Biochemistry]

Dear ALL,

 

Proteins are essential compounds in all organisms’ cells; consist essentially of H, C, O, N, etc…

A protein molecule can has, for example, about 40.000 atoms.

According to mathematicians to create such a molecule accidentally (By chance), the percentage is 1 to 10 exponent 160, that means the time required for such a reaction (to happen by chance) is 10 exponent 243.

In addition, the materials required for the reaction must be greater with millions times.

And if one sequence is mistaken, then we will end up with a toxic molecule.

 

Therefore, all earth’s age does not allow the creation of one protein molecule accidentally .

 

Also please refere to my

What the life emanated from?

 

with LOVE!

[fafalone]

That's the chances of a whole protein molecule formaing; the building blocks are amino acids, which apparently have a much better chance of forming, since not only did it happen here on Earth, but there's compelling evidence amino acids are found in space.

[NapoleonGH]

biochemistry: you are rather wrong because your thoughts make assumptions. First off we have recorded observations showing that it HAS happened, so clearly it isnt impossible. Secondly, you are assuming that modern protiens form a. by complete random mechanisms and b. that life required the very specific protiens currently used. Niether of these are the case, life could have evolved using any of several other basic protein types it is only accident that the current choice on earth was selected. also certain amino acids (which we have proved experimentally could very easily come into existance based on what chemicals and conditions existed on earth back in the 3-4 million year mark about 50 years ago and ever since) combine naturally in certain ways, same way that chemical bondings dont happen randomly but certain atoms bond naturally to other atoms. The same is the case here.

[Biochemistry]

Dear All,

 

Thanks for the input.

 

The correct sequence of proper amino acids is simply not enough for the formation of one of the protein molecules present in living things.

 

Besides this, each of the twenty different types of amino acid present in the composition of proteins must be left-handed. Chemically, there are two different types of amino acids called "left-handed" and "right-handed".

The difference between them is the mirror-symmetry between their three dimensional structures, which is similar to that of a person's right and left hands. Amino acids of either of these two types are found in equal numbers in nature and they can bond perfectly well with one another.

 

Yet, research uncovers an astonishing fact: all proteins present in the structure of living things are made up of left-handed amino acids. Even a single righthanded amino acid attached to the structure of a protein renders it useless.

 

Let us for an instant suppose that life came into existence by chance as evolutionists claim. In this case, the right and left-handed amino acids that were generated by chance should be present in nature in roughly

equal amounts. The question of how proteins can pick out only left-handed amino acids, and how not even a single right-handed amino acid becomes involved in the life process is something that still confounds evolutionists.

 

In the Britannica Science Encyclopaedia, an ardent defender of evolution, the authors indicate that the amino acids of all living organisms on earth and the building blocks of complex polymers such as proteins have the same left-handed asymmetry. They add that this is tantamount to tossing a coin a million times and always getting heads.

 

In the same encyclopaedia, they state that it is not possible to understand why molecules become left-handed or right-handed and that this choice is fascinatingly related to the source of life on earth.

It is not enough for amino acids to be arranged in the correct numbers,sequences, and in the required three-dimensional structures.

 

The formation of a protein also requires that amino acid molecules with more than one arm be linked to each other only through certain arms. Such a bond is called a "peptide bond". Amino acids can make different bonds with each other; but proteins comprise those and only those amino acids that join together by "peptide" bonds.

 

Research has shown that only 50 % of amino acids, combining at random, combine with a peptide bond and that the rest combine with different bonds that are not present in proteins.

 

To function properly, each amino acid making up a protein must join with other amino acids with a peptide bond, as it has only to be chosen from among the left-handed ones. Unquestionably, there is no control mechanism to select and leave out the right-handed amino acids and personally make sure that each

amino acid makes a peptide bond with the other.

 

Under these circumstances, the probabilities of an average protein molecule comprising five hundred amino acids arranging itself in the correct quantities and in sequence, in addition to the probabilities of all of the

amino acids it contains being only left-handed and combining using only peptide bonds are as follows:

 

– The probability of being in the right sequence

= 1/20 exponent 500 =1/10 exponent 650

– The probability of being left-handed

= 1/2 exponent 500 =1/10 exponent 150

– The probability of combining using a "peptide bond"

= 1/2 exponent 499 =1/10 exponent 150

 

TOTAL PROBABILITY

= 1/10950 that is, "1" probability in 10950

 

As you can see above, the probability of the formation of a protein molecule comprising five hundred amino acids is "1" divided by a number formed by placing 950 zeros after a 1, a number incomprehensible to

the human mind. This is only a probability on paper. Practically, such a possibility has "0" chance of realisation. In mathematics, a probability smaller than 1 over 1050 is statistically considered to have a "0" probability of realisation.

 

While the improbability of the formation of a protein molecule made up of five hundred amino acids reaches such an extent, we can further proceed to push the limits of the mind to higher levels of improbability.

 

In the "haemoglobin" molecule, a vital protein, there are five hundred and seventy-four amino acids, which is a much larger number than that of the amino acids making up the protein mentioned above.

 

Now consider this: in only one out of the billions of red blood cells in your body, there are "280,000,000" (280 million) haemoglobin molecules. The supposed age of the earth is not sufficient to afford the formation of even a single protein, let alone a red blood cell, by the method of "trial and error".

 

The conclusion from all this is that evolution falls into a terrible abyss of improbability right at the stage of the formation of a single protein.

 

with LOVE!

[Biochemistry]

Dear ALL,

 

The DNA data pertaining to a particular organ or protein is included in special components called "genes". For instance, information about the eye exists in a series of special genes, whereas information about the

heart exists in quite another series of genes. The cell produces proteins by using the information in all of these genes. Amino acids that constitute the structure of the protein are defined by the sequential angement of three nucleotides in the DNA.

 

At this point, an important detail deserves attention. An error in the sequence of nucleotides making up a gene renders the gene completely useless.

 

When we consider that there are 200 thousand genes in the human body, it becomes more evident how impossible it is for the millions of nucleotides making up these genes to form by accident in the right sequence.

An evolutionist biologist, Frank Salisbury, comments on this impossibility by saying:

 

A medium protein might include about 300 amino acids. The DNA gene controlling this would have about 1,000 nucleotides in its chain.

Since there are four kinds of nucleotides in a DNA chain, one consisting of 1,000 links could exist in 41000 forms.

Using a little algebra (logarithms), we can see that 41000=10 exponent 600.

Ten multiplied by itself 600 times gives the figure 1 followed by 600 zeros!

This number is completely beyond our comprehension.

The number 41000 is equivalent to 10600.

We obtain this number by adding 600 zeros to 1. As 10 with 11 zeros indicates a trillion, a figure with 600 zeros is indeed a number that is difficult to grasp.

 

Moreover, while DNA can replicate only with the help of some enzymes that are actually proteins, the synthesis of these enzymes can be realised only by the information coded in DNA.

As they both depend on each other, either they have to exist at the same time for replication, or one of them has had to be "created" before the other.

 

American microbiologist Jacobson comments on the subject:

The complete directions for the reproduction of plans, for energy and the extraction of parts from the current environment, for the growth sequence, and for the effector mechanism translating instructions into growth – all had to be simultaneously present at that moment (when lifebegan). This combination of events has seemed an incredibly unlikely happenstance, and has often been ascribed to divine intervention.

 

 

Conclusion:

Even if we suppose for a moment that proteins somehow did form accidentally, that would still have no meaning, for proteins are nothing at all on their own: they cannot themselves reproduce. Protein synthesis is

only possible with the information coded in DNA and RNA molecules.

Without DNA and RNA, it is impossible for a protein to reproduce.

The specific sequence of the twenty different amino acids encoded in DNA determines the structure of each protein in the body. However, as has been made abundantly clear by all those who have studied these molecules, it is impossible for DNA and RNA to form by chance.

 

With LOVE!

[fafalone]

Biochemistry said in post #12 :

As they both depend on each other, either they have to exist at the same time for replication, or one of them has had to be "created" before the other.

 

 

Or not.

 

The prevailing evidence suggests that parts of an RNA strand itself acted (and continues to act) as an enzyme, catalyzing translation along other parts. Furthermore, biological energy molecules are structurally very similar to RNA bases (ATP, GTP, CTP, UTP), indicating that further back these may have also played a role in RNA being a truly self-replicating molecule.