That’s all you guys know how to do. Remove components from an existing system, pretend it would work and then say “This is what our current system arose from”. Lather rinse and repeat and eventually you have nothing left to remove. It’s the same way you people ruined cosmology. Why not just say now that all you need for life is a hydrogen atom? Or nothing? It’s the same dumb thing.
Not quite. If it can be demonstrated that it can work, as is the case here, then that is very good scientific support for the hypothesis that the current system arose from it.
It also completely falsifies the creationist “hypothesis” that the system required proteins at every stage.
1 Like
Nope for two reasons.
- Nature removes things. You’re afraid to look at any depth.
- My own publication record shows otherwise.
You really need to start with a high-school understanding of catalysis so that you can think about this more clearly.
Or, as someone who believes in a creator God might put it: wherever we look with the methods and tools of science, we discover that God used consistent and comprehensible mechanisms that we can study in detail. And what a privilege that is, to see not only that God creates, but how God creates.
3 Likes
Good add - I did not mean to rule out that interpretation.
1 Like
Yes, that is one way to coherently reconcile the belief in God with the observations of science.
However, many theists are not satisfied with mere coherence. Instead, they demand a physical world that can only be fully understood if God is actively intervening with his supernatural powers. But that is not the world that exists.
4 Likes
I don’t get what you find objectionable about what I wrote.
If the hypothesis is that RNA did everyting before protein and DNA came along, how is that really different from saying the hypothesis predicts that it should be possible for RNA to do those functions?
Yep, I knew you didn’t. I just thought some might find it helpful to have that interpretation explicitly stated.
2 Likes
This is a curious statement given the fact that the scientific revolution historically occurred within a a culture (Christianity) asserting that a transcendant being created the heavens, the earth and the biosphere.
Yes, but that blatantly contradicts their obvious fear/refusal to even attempt to try to understand the physical world in any depth. To me, that suggests extraordinarily weak faith.
It’s not using “prediction” scientifically.
“Should be possible” is the unscientific qualifier. That’s a page from the ID playbook in that it makes the hypothesis unfalsifiable.
I’d be OK with “may,” which still wouldn’t be a scientific prediction, but “should” isn’t warranted at all. If you wrote that some other hypothesis predicts that something “should be possible” in the initial specific aims page of an NIH grant application, I’d triage it, as would most other reviewers.
If modern rRNA doesn’t do those functions in isolation, it does nothing whatsoever to disprove the hypothesis, because there are a host of reasons why it might not do it. That it does is fantastic gravy, not a fulfilled prediction.
I think that Harry Noller’s earlier demonstration that PT activity is extraordinarily resistant to proteases is grossly underrated. That IMO qualifies as testing a true empirical prediction: that RNA in the active site will be more resistant to proteases than to RNases.
LOL… LMAO
Yes. I’ve been saying this for years but not nearly as eloquently.
I am indeed one of those someones “who believes in a creator God” and to me it is obvious that the methods and tools of science are pretty darn useful for figuring out how things work and—more and more over time—even how they came to be.
Yes, it sure seems like the universe is filled with “consistent and comprehensible mechanisms” that humans can figure out. And that is why scientists—whether be atheist, theist, agnostic, or whatever—can utilize the tools of science and be fascinated and excited all the way to discovering the next bumper crop of explanations and answers.
Even though I come from a Young Earth Creationist “culture” of the 1960’s (which I abandoned long ago), I am baffled as to why so many Christians still think that supernatural “poofing” is a more satisfactory answer than powerful processes like evolution and the laws of chemistry and physics in general. They never seem to grasp the difference between proximate causation (matter-energy processes) and ultimate causation (God.) The two are not opposites. They aren’t in competition. Is it really a problem to think that God chose proximate causes, such as the evaporation-condensation cycle, to produce rain? Is it any less impressive to identify the proximate cause of rain? Or is the idea that God “supernaturally” brings rain more satisfying? And why is it not easy to see that evolutionary processes are a very effective way for a creator to diversify life on earth?
Whenever someone asks me, “What do you think is the most impressive feature of God’s creation?”, without hesitation I reply, “Evolutionary processes! Hands down! What could be more amazing—and so successful at filling nearly every imaginable ecological niche?”
7 Likes
I didn’t state that very well. Trying again …
If life is designed, then were should recognize a point at which were are no more transitional states between life as we understand it and pre-biotic chemistry. I don’t mean a lack of understanding, or seemingly unlikely events being required, I mean a total lack of any further progress to identify new transitional states. Scientific discovery on the topic would grind to a halt because there is nothing new to find.
I don’t think this has anything to do with a historical scientific revolution, Christian or otherwise. If it does you will have to spell it out for me. 
2 Likes
If life began through natural processes, those natural processes should still be ongoing. We should see the building blocks forming nucleotides, nucleotides forming polymers, and so on.
Even if the polymers were consumed as food, what organism devours it’s food source so immediately that the food source is undetectable?
We have found amino-acids, bases, sugars and other bio-molecule components in meteorites and deep-sea vents.
How long do you think it would take for those components to combine into nucleotides and then into polymers, in the absence of any biomolecules that act as catalysts?
How long do you think those components would remain untouched by existing life, if they reach a place where we can detect them?
4 Likes
Doesn’t that depend on whether the conditions under which it arose are still present?
Your inference just seems obviously false to me. So obvious I am literally astonished you would write it.
6 Likes
You couldn’t be more wrong. I’m absolutely confident that what we learn in the future will continue to support my belief.
I really don’t what goalpost you think I’ve moved.
If the prediction of RNA World was only that modern ribozymes have catalytic function (I don’t dispute the fact of catalytic function at all), even if the ribozymes are post-transcriptionally modified by proteins, then I think the prediction is meaningless.
That’s not quite what I said. I said that all parts of the system were created at the same time, and not adding parts as they evolved. I didn’t say that the system can’t function if you remove a part (depending on the part). It depends on if the system has some sort of redundancy built in or not.
I didn’t say it was a scientific prediction and I didn’t mean that OOL research can’t be fruitful in gaining knowledge. I mean that OOL research will never find a naturalistic origin of life.
“We” is being used collectively, as in “humanity”.
I’m not sure how you think that “using information” has nothing to do with my hypothesis. My “hypothesis” is that life is using the digital information encoded in the sequences of DNA nuclotide bases to produce the proteins and RNA necessary for life to operate.
No, that’s another false prediction of your hypothesis.
What’s one of the most stable enzymes you secrete into your environment and what labile nucleotide polymer does it hydrolyze?
I didn’t say anything about consumption as food. Try answering my question above.
Yet nothing does today, and you’re steadfastly refusing to learn what we know TODAY. Your absence of faith is painfully obvious.
How does moving protons across barriers (something we’ve known for decades) support your belief?
What can’t catalysts do, and how does that support your belief?
And there you go again. You’ve now misrepresented the prediction again while refusing the paper that would explain it to you. You don’t have faith to go to any depth.
I know! You are avoiding stating it clearly because you reject the scientific method. That’s why I wrote the part that I have now bolded above. Was it not clear?
The inability to function without a part would necessarily be a premise of hypothesizing that “all parts of the system were created at the same time.”
BTW, at what time was it created?
Good, as my question for you and Vlad has nothing to do with redundancy. Why not demonstrate the absolute strength of your faith by having a go at it?
1 Like
So what? If it is indeed the case that the origin of life was supernatural, at the very least, recognition of this fact would have the immense advantage of saving some researchers from a Sisyphean fate.
Have you tried googling this topic in the last decade … or two? What leads you to believe the basic processes forming nucleotides and polymers are NOT ongoing? It’s not like chemistry can just stop.
From what I read (and I’m not a biochemist) it appears these processes make (among other things) Iron-Sulphur compounds which are “yummy food” for living cells.
3 Likes