I happened across a blog post he wrote which includes some of his thoughts on evolution. I have to say that I am not very impressed with his scientific reasoning. The article can be found here:
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What is the general consensus among scientists about whether or not there is any known natural process that can sufficiently account for OOL?
Scientists are pretty much universally in agreement that we don’t know how life originated. But there is actually some evidence that is more consistent with the it having been a “natural process” as opposed to some sort of intelligent design.
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Oh, can you tell me off hand what that evidence is? And if you know, how does it compare both quantitatively and qualitatively with evidence that would indicate that it is unlikely to have been presently known natural processes?
Sure. Inferences of ancestral nodes in the phylogenetic trees of the oldest (most widely conserved) protein sequences increasingly mirror the abiotic distribution of amino acids produced by nonbiological chemical reactions, as we go further and further back in time. That’s evidence right there that the earliest proteins were synthesized from amino acids that existed in the environment, and that the biosynthetic pathways for their synthesis subsequently evolved. The “modern” distribution of amino acids we see in extant proteins drops off the further back we go, and larger and more complex amino acids like Tryptophan become less frequent, while the simpler amino acids like glycine, alanine, valine and so on become more and more frequent. This trend converges on the same distribution expected from chemical thermodynamic calculations of the ease of their nonbiological synthesis, the distribution observed in various carbonaceous chondrites, and mirrors the distribution also seen in various experiments in abiotic organic chemistry, such as simulated hydrothermal conditions, spark-discharge experiments and so on.
See:
Higgs PG, Pudritz RE. A thermodynamic basis for prebiotic amino acid synthesis
and the nature of the first genetic code. Astrobiology. 2009 Jun;9(5):483-90.
DOI: 10.1089/ast.2008.0280
Brooks DJ, Fresco JR, Lesk AM, Singh M. Evolution of amino acid frequencies in
proteins over deep time: inferred order of introduction of amino acids into the
genetic code. Mol Biol Evol. 2002 Oct;19(10):1645-55. DOI: 10.1093/oxfordjournals.molbev.a003988
Jordan IK, Kondrashov FA, Adzhubei IA, Wolf YI, Koonin EV, Kondrashov AS,
Sunyaev S. A universal trend of amino acid gain and loss in protein evolution.
Nature. 2005 Feb 10;433(7026):633-8. Epub 2005 Jan 19. Erratum in: Nature. 2005
May 26;435(7041):528. DOI: 10.1038/nature03306
Ask yourself, why should this trend be observed in amino acid gain and loss? Why would the frequency of nonbiologically produced amino acids increase the further we go back in time? If life originated by some sort of intelligent design, the designer could have made the first life to exist with basically any distribution of amino acids that the designer wanted. For example, the designer could have made the first life to exist with the exact same distribution of amino acids that we see in life that exists today on Earth in 2019. Why use fewer , and why use fewer by excluding the ones we see used more today? Why decide to mirror the abiotic distribution? A deceptive designer?
This is real data, and it’s evidence. It doesn’t allow us conclude much by way of inference about the earliest stages of life, except to say that the first proteins were apparently synthesized from nonbiologically produced amino acids. We don’t know the environmental, or even “cellular” context in which this evolution took place, we don’t know the genetic or membrane compositions of this stage of life (if any). There are countless things we don’t yet know. That doesn’t mean, just because we don’t know these things, that life couldn’t arise.
And if you know, how does it compare both quantitatively and qualitatively with evidence that would indicate that it is unlikely to have been presently known natural processes?
Well since such evidence doesn’t exist that’s impossible to give an a priori answer to. You’d have to first finds such evidence before we could compare it.
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Im not sure this logic holds together. A designer has restrictions based on the components available to him and the system he intends to design.
You would have to show there is no reason for the particular amino acids in the organism.
Human beings can synthesize any amino acid they want. Are you saying the kind of designer you think of can’t? Presumably the designer that designed the first life is, if it is a natural one, at least as intelligent and technologically advanced as we are. After all they came to our planet from somewhere else, and then created and planted life here?
You would have to show there is no reason for the particular amino acids in the organism.
No I don’t need to do that. All I need to do is point out that the more ancient distribution becomes increasingly like the abiotic distribution, and that this is immediately expected from the hypothesis that life came from abiotic chemistry, but not expected by design. You can of course invent some ad-hoc reason for why that makes sense now after the fact, but the truth is you wouldn’t expect that. And in any case, life today doesn’t have that distribution, and is doing fine. There is good evidence that the modern distribution is superior in terms of facilitating adaptation and protein folding.
Seriously? This is really lengths you’ll go instead of just admitting that there is evidence for a natural origin of life?
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I’ve seen you share it before. The paper that shows the further you go back the simpler metabolism becomes?
maybe its just because they are more simple, and therefore more creatures have them in common for basic functions?
You appear to not have understood the argument.
so what is the argument basically?
You’re saying that there is no way to differentiate between a designer, and no designer then. That’s why ID proponents still don’t have a model per se. It’s just not good thinking. One has to come up with ways that Help us to differentiate between a designer, and no designer.
4 posts were split to a new topic: Tour Apologizes to Sostack
My comment is more directed toward what amino acids would work best in the specific application or group of applications.
Can you describe how you get from environmental amino acids vs synthesized amino acids. How would you sustain life without the ability to synthesize amino acids rapidly enough to allow self replication?
How about homo chiral amino acids?
only a designer can explain the complexity of nature. a non designer cant.
If you under the hypothesis that everything is designed then when you continue to ask the how questions you will end up at design eventually. If you see a rock you might not say it was designed until you ask the how questions and eventually have to explain the origin of sub atomic particles.
The key issue is design detection. I think one piece of strong evidence is the sequential nature of DNA and Proteins. As human designers we use sequences to get vary large combinations with limited characters and character types. Language is an example, also passwords, also telephone numbers.
Because it’s their primary source of food?
That doesn’t make sense. The designer could simply have designed the first organisms to be like extant (chemo)autotrophs, that biosynthesize all their constituents and get all their energy from H2, N2, and CO2, and have them with the complete anabolic pathways for making all their own amino acids from these basic compounds, like extant bacteria can.
Actually the designer could have just made the entire biosphere like the extant one already from the beginning. Why start with simple, single-celled life? Why not start outright with plants and animals?