... on Abiogenesis and Evolutionist Ideology

1) Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : ... on Abiogenesis and Evolutionist Ideology, 2) Creation vs. Evolution : The Abiogenesis Problem, 3) Provisional Caveat to Previous

Video commented on:

AronRa : The Evolution of Morality (1-5)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQUxmJR9a5Y

Hans-Georg Lundahl

8:14 positive claims require positive evidence.

Our eyes and inner ears (forgot what you call those curved tubes in three dimensions of curving) give us positive evidence, as far as not proven wrong, that earth is still and sun, moon, stars go around us each day, east to west, and that sun lags behind the stars a little each day, adding up to full circle west to east once a year, moon gets full circle west to east compared to stars once a month (lunar month and solar year, obviously).

Lucretius, who was an atheist did not deny this. But he was very inattentive as to mechanism behind these phenomena. When Ptolemy inquired further into the regularities, it was very obvious to everyone that although Aristotle was wrong on particulars, his proof there was a God pushing the univere around us east to west (or commanding stars to go east to west in a very perfect formation, if you go by Abraham's observation as given in Josephus) was right and Lucretius wrong.

Have you since then any positive evidence for positive claims like:

• Heliocentrism
• Big Bang
• getting from just after BB to formation of galaxies and solar system and planets around stars, especially around Sun
• abiogenesis
• microbes to man (or to dog or to cat) evolution?

Niels Steigenga

Heliocentrism, (meaning the earth goes around the sun), of course.

Big bang, yes.

getting galaxies, stars and planets, Yes.

abiogenesis, it has been proven to be possible.

microbes to man evolution, Yes.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Since you are called Niels, I suppose you are Scandinavian or of Scandinavian origin. In Scandinavia these days, Evolutionist ideology is taught in all schools and very exclusively so where I was.

I was not asking whether Evolutionists believe that this has been proven, but what their proof is if they care to share it. I would be delighted to tear it to pieces.

You stated one thing to the point, you claimed abiogenesis had been proven possible.

What has been proven in laboratories is not a full possibility of abiogenesis, but a possibility of an initial part - which in itself is insufficient. It has also been proven the result of this does not last for billions of years while nature experiments on how to continue to the next step, on the contrary the substances produced dissolve very quickly.



Niels Steigenga

+Hans-Georg Lundahl I'm from the Netherlands (I don't take offense to that) and evolution is not an ideology. It's a study of the biodiversity of life. Cosmology and abiogenesis are separate from evolution, though evolution and abiogenesis are loosely linked by the fact that they tackle the issue of life. About abiogenesis BTW...

ABIOTIC SYNTHESIS OF ORGANIC COMPOUNDS

The Miller-Urey-tye experiments demonstrate that the abiotic synthesis of organic molecules (like amino acids) is possible under various assumptions about the composition of the early atmosphere. There are also various other ways to get the basic organic compounds with different atmospheres , which also has been demonstrated in laboratory conditions mimicking those atmospheres. In addition to that, simulated volcanic eruptions experiments also show results of abiotic synthesis of simple organic molecules, even more molecules were produced in the volcanic than the simulated atmosphere experiments.

ABIOTIC SYNTHESIS OF MACROMOLECULES

The presence of small organic molecules, such as amino acids and nitrogenous bases, is not sufficient for the emergence of life as we know it (,to be fair). Every cell has a vast assortment of macromolecules, including enzymes and other proteins and the nucleic acids that are essential for self-replication. Could such macromolecules have formed on early Earth? A 2009 study demonstrated that on key step, the abiotic synthesis of RNA monomers, can occur spontaneously (I hate to use that word and quote mining alert!) from simple precursor molecules. In addition, by dripping solution of amino acids or RNA nucleotides onto hot sand, clay, or rock, researchers have produced polymers of these molecules. The polymers formed spontaneously (damn, that word again), without the help of enzymes or ribosomes. Unlike proteins, the amino acid polymers are a complex mix of linked and cross-linked amino acids. Nevertheless, it is possible that such polymers may have acted as weak catalysts for a variety of chemical reaction on early Earth.

PROTOCELLS

All organisms must be able to carry out reproduction and energy processing (metabolism). Life cannot persist without both of these functions (again, to be fair). DNA molecules carry genetic information, including the instructions needed to replicate themselves accurately during reproduction. But the replication of DNA requires elaborate enzymatic machinery, along with a copious supply of nucleotide building blocks that are provided by the cell's metabolism. This suggest (if abiogenesis is possible) that self replicating molecules and metabolism-like source of the building blocks may have appeared together in early protocells. How did that happen? (You may ask why I'm giving my self such strong demands about this subject).

The necessary conditions may have been met in vesicles, fluid-filled compartments bounded by a membrane-like structure. Recent experiments show that abiotically produced vesicles can exhibit certain properties of life, including simple reproduction and metabolism, as well as the maintenance of an internal chemical environment different from that of their surroundings. For example, vesicles can form spontaneously when simple lipids or other organic molecules are added to water. When this occurs, the hydrophobic molecules in the mixture organize into a bilayer similar to the lipid bilayer of a plasma membrane. Adding substances such as montmorillonite, a soft mineral clay produced by the weathering of volcanic ash, greatly increases the rate of vesicle self-assembly. This clay, which is thought to have been common on early, provides surfaces on which organic molecules become concentrated, increasing the likelihood that the molecules will react withe each other and form vesicles. Abiotically produced vesicles can "reproduce" on their own, and they can increase in size ("grow") without dilution of their contents. Vesicles also can absorb montmorillonite particles, including those on which RNA and other organic molecules have become attached. Finally, experiments have shown that some vesicles have a selectively permeable bilayer and can perform metabolic reactions using an external source of reagents (another important prerequisite for life).

SELF REPLICATING RNA AND THE DAWN OF NATURAL SELECTION

The first genetic material was most likely RNA, not DNA. Thomas Cech, of the University of Colorado, and Sidney, of Yale University, found that RNA, which plays a central role in protein synthesis, can also carry out a number of enzyme-like catalytic functions. Cech called these RNA catalysts ribozymes. Some ribozymes can make complementary copies of short pieces of RNA, provided that they are supplied with nucleotide building blocks.

Natural selection on the molecular level (not yet evolution) has produced ribozymes capable of self-replication in the laboratory. How does this occur? Unlike double-stranded DNA, which takes the form of a uniform helix, single-stranded RNA molecules assume a variety of specific three-dimensional shapes mandated by their nucleotide sequences. In a particular environment, RNA molecules with certain base sequences are more stable and replicate faster and with fewer errors than other sequences. The RNA molecule whose sequence is best suited to the surrounding environment and has the greatest ability to replicate itself will leave the most descendant molecules (this is the dawn of evolution). Occasionally, a copying error (mutation) will result in a molecule that folds into a shape that is even more stable or more adept at self replication than the ancestral sequence (a type of evolution has occurred). Similar selection events may have occurred on early Earth. Thus, the molecular biology of today may have been preceded by an "RNA world," (some viruses still carry RNA instead of DNA as genetic information) in which small RNA molecules that carried genetic information were able to replicate and to store information about the vesicles that carried them.

A vesicle with self-replicating, catalytic RNA would differ from its many neighbors that did not carry RNA or that carried RNA without such capabilities.If that vesicle could grow, split, and pass its RNA molecules to its daughters, the daughters would be protocells that had some of the properties of their parent. Although the first such protocells must have carried only limited amounts of genetic information, specifying only a few properties, their inherited characteristics could have been acted on by natural selection. (from this point on evolution by natural selection took over). The most successful of the early protocells would have increased in number because they could exploit their resources effectively and pass their abilities on to subsequent generations.

Once RNA sequences that carried genetic information appeared in protocells, many further changes would have been possible. For example, RNA could have provided the template on which DNA nucleotides were assembled. Double-stranded DNA is a more stable repository for genetic information than the more fragile single-stranded RNA. DNA also can be replicated more accurately. Accurate replication was advantageous as genomes grew larger through gene duplication and other processes and as more properties of the protocells became coded in genetic information. After DNA appeared, perhaps RNA molecules began to take on their present-day roles as regulators and intermediates in the translation of genes. The stage was now set for a blossoming of diverse life-forms as we see today.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
source: (global edition) Campell Biology ninth edition.

Autors: (All pesky evolutionist? No, serious scientists.)
Jane B. Reece (of Berkeley, California)
Lisa A Urry (Mills College, Oakland, California)
Michael L. Cain (Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine)
Steven A. Wasserman (University of California, San Diego)
Peter V. Minorsky (Mercy College, Dobbs Ferry, New York)
Robert B. Jackson (Duke University, Durham, North Carolina)

(Argument from authority or appeal to authority is not a fallacy if the authorities are reliable. Yes, Authorities are not enough and that's is why they present evidence along with their claims.)

Have I delighted you?

Of course, you don't have to except abiogenesis, evolution or anything that I believe to be true.

"You are entitled to your own opinion, not your own facts"

Unlike you, I'm fine with the fact that we have a disagreement on what we believe and probably will continue to have through our lives.

[Since you are called Niels, I suppose you are Scandinavian or of Scandinavian origin. In Scandinavia these days, Evolutionist ideology is taught in all schools and very exclusively so where I was. I was not asking whether evolutionists believe that this has been proven, but what their proof is if they care to share it. I would be delighted to tear it to pieces. You stated one thing to the point, you claimed abiogenesis had been proven possible. What has been proven in laboratories is not a full possibility of abiogenesis, but a possibility of an initial part - which in itself is insufficient. It has also been proven the result of this does not last for billions of years while nature experiments on how to continue to the next step, on the contrary the substances produced dissolve very quickly.]

Hans-Georg Lundahl

"Cosmology and abiogenesis are separate from evolution."

All parts of evolutionist ideology.

"The Miller-Urey-tye experiments demonstrate that the abiotic synthesis of organic molecules (like amino acids) is possible under various assumptions about the composition of the early atmosphere."

Sure. Amino acids in a very basic form. Not with any selfreplication. Not with any cell wall building. Not with any proteine building. And so on.

What you forget to mention is that the conditions under which they form are such that they very soon disintegrate if the conditions continue.

Not any time to develop anything like the things that differentiate real biochemistry from abiotically formed amino acids.

"The presence of small organic molecules, such as amino acids and nitrogenous bases, is not sufficient for the emergence of life as we know it (,to be fair)."

Thanks for that fairness.

"For example, vesicles can form spontaneously when simple lipids or other organic molecules are added to water."

In other words when fats are added to water. Or proteines.

Now, fats and proteines, as we know them are produced biologically. In other words these organic molecules would not have existed.

Besides, seeking origin of life, to be fair, in fat vesicles, I am sorry, but I really do not think so.

[Wrong step of me, the vesicles that are our cell walls are of fat.]

"Some ribozymes can make complementary copies of short pieces of RNA, provided that they are supplied with nucleotide building blocks. Natural selection on the molecular level (not yet evolution) has produced ribozymes capable of self-replication in the laboratory."

But in the lab you have glass around them, and in the correspondence you would, as I just explained, not have vesicles to protect them.



Niels Steigenga

+Hans-Georg Lundahl Cosmology and abiogenesis are separate from evolution."

All parts of evolutionist ideology.

No, Cosmology is a study of the universe, abiogenesis is about the origin of life, evolution is about the diversity of life. These are all different aspects of science. And you still haven't justified the assertion that evolution is an ideology.

"The Miller-Urey-tye experiments demonstrate that the abiotic synthesis of organic molecules (like amino acids) is possible under various assumptions about the composition of the early atmosphere."

"Sure. Amino acids in a very basic form. Not with any selfreplication. Not with any cell wall building. Not with any proteine building. And so on."

I Stated that later in my argument.

"What you forget to mention is that the conditions under which they form are such that they very soon disintegrate if the conditions continue."

You asked for possibility, so you now you say "if the conditions continue, it's not possible" which implies that if the conditions does not continue, it is possible. Besides, the experiments of one atmosphere simulation goes like this: In the atmosphere there are ammonia, methane and numerous other gasses, apply electricity to simulate lightning, you get amino acids. Lightning is one of the conditions for the formation of amino acids. Does lightning last forever or not? If not, than the conditions does not continue and the amino acids do not disintegrate.

Not any time to develop anything like the things that differentiate real biochemistry from abiotically formed amino acids.

Again, I stated that later in my respond. Damn, do you even read the whole argument before you respond?

"The presence of small organic molecules, such as amino acids and nitrogenous bases, is not sufficient for the emergence of life as we know it (,to be fair)."

"Thanks for that fairness."

Thanks, but no thanks.

This piece of my argument includes your previous comments about "not any time to develop real biochemistry, so why didn't you remove those?

"For example, vesicles can form spontaneously when simple lipids or other organic molecules are added to water."

"In other words when fats are added to water. Or proteines."

"Now, fats and proteines, as we know them are produced biologically. In other words these organic molecules would not have existed.

Besides, seeking origin of life, to be fair, in fat vesicles, I am sorry, but I really do not think so."

fats and proteines, as we know them are produced biologically, sounds like the argument from ignorance fallacy. "As far as we know, these compounds don't form without life, therefor it's impossible for them to form without life.

You do relise that proteins are made of amino acids and amino acids do polymerize under heat and on montmorillonite. Also lab experiments have shown that lipids and fatty acids form on mineral rock surfaces as catalyzer.

One of your points "Besides, seeking origin of life, to be fair, in fat vesicles, I am sorry, but I really do not think so." Is like saying "I don't like the answer, therefor it's not true. When you want to respond again, don't give me such childish fallacies, use better arguments than that.

[Was actually wrong on this one.]

"Some ribozymes can make complementary copies of short pieces of RNA, provided that they are supplied with nucleotide building blocks. Natural selection on the molecular level (not yet evolution) has produced ribozymes capable of self-replication in the laboratory."

"But in the lab you have glass around them, and in the correspondence you would, as I just explained, not have vesicles to protect them."

Fatty acids do form a vesicle abiotically, I know you don't like fat vesicles, but the membranes of our cells are in fact made of fat and acts as a vesicle. In the lab when we put RNA, Ribozymes, Proteins (it has been demonstrated that these polymers can form abiologically) next to one of these disliked fat vesicles, they can automatically enter the vesicle and are protected by the vesicle.

I also edited a new section in my previous reply after you replied before I could read this.

please, don't use " I don't like the answer, therefor it's not true"

C'mon. If you want to respond, give me something better.

and read the whole response before you respond. It's quite annoying.

[As admitted, I was wrong on fat vesicles as far as when it comes to denying these are involved in our biology.]

Hans-Georg Lundahl

I might be out of my depth, but I do not have confidence in your answer, for reasons stated.

[Except of course the part about "fat vesicles, don't think so"]

For right now, I am not looking it up, in greater detail, but it seems to me you want very many conditions to form in very short time.

Are the conditions in which amino acids polymerise such as can be expected just after amino acids forming by the conditions mentioned?

"You asked for possibility, so you now you say "if the conditions continue, it's not possible" which implies that if the conditions does not continue, it is possible. Besides, the experiments of one atmosphere simulation goes like this: In the atmosphere there are ammonia, methane and numerous other gasses, apply electricity to simulate lightning, you get amino acids. Lightning is one of the conditions for the formation of amino acids. Does lightning last forever or not? If not, than the conditions does not continue and the amino acids do not disintegrate."

They disintegrate at next lightning, if it is anything near as often as would be required to have a lot of amino acids forming in the first place. If lightnings were as rare as now, amino acids must have formed rarely and so much space between them that they would hardly add up to a cumulative condition for abiogenesis. Besides, lightning is not the only disintegrating factor, ammoniak is another one, and so are a few more of the substances you mentioned as building blocks.

Are these the conditions in which amino acids polymerise also? I should think not.

In other words, for amino acids to survive conditions, they would need vesicles, for vesicles to form from proteine, they would need to have polymerised. And therefore to have survived.

What exactly did you say about lipids and rocks? Any link?

[He gave no link about that, I have not been able to check whether one of the resources he gave earlier contains information thereon.]

Stieg

- Cosmology and abiogenesis are separate from evolution.

Me, HGL

- All parts of evolutionist ideology.

Stieg

- No, Cosmology is a study of the universe, abiogenesis is about the origin of life, evolution is about the diversity of life. These are all different aspects of science. And you still haven't justified the assertion that evolution is an ideology.

Me, HGL

- I am in the process of doing so when it comes to abiogenesis. I cannot prove it on every level at once and in one breath.

Now, this idea is not just three separate ideas, but three moments in a whole set of them, involving other ideas about what kinds of explanations are acceptable and perhaps more importantly inacceptable.

This is in contrast with Christian ideas about origin of universe, of biological life as such, of diversity between its observed forms.

Niels Steigenga

+Hans-Georg Lundahl
(Now, this idea is not just three separate ideas, but three moments in a whole set of them, involving other ideas about what kinds of explanaions are acceptable and perhaps more importantly inacceptable.)

Yes, they are three moments in a whole set, but these moments are being investigated by studies independent from each other. Just as Quantum mechanics and Cosmology. They are more or less about the same subject, which is the nature of the universe, but they are studied separate from each other. Just like:

Cosmology: Universe and the origin of it.

Two aspects of biology:
Abiogenesis: The origin of life
Evolution: The process of all the biodiversity we have today.

(This is in contrast with Christian ideas about origin of universe, of biological life as such, of diversity between its observed forms.)

The questions are origin related and christianity has some ideas about them, but that doesn't mean that they are one and the same in science.

I also want to ask a question, if I may: (a clear this or that question)

Can you be convinced of something, that goes against the word of God or the bible, to be true by the evidence?

Or, do you believe that evidence for something, that goes against the word of God or the bible, is by default not evidence and cannot be evidence?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

I have in decades of apologetics never been confronted with any case where the evidence after investigation has gone straight against either what the Catechism or what the Bible or what Thomistic Philosophy teaches me about God. Ever. And I have been doing it since my teens, my Catholic conversion is a byproduct after learning from atheist adversaries that it is illogical to distrust Catholicism while trusting the Bible. At the very least, the consensus of Catholics, Orthodox, Copts and Nestorians against Protestantism in matters like number of Sacraments or value of Monasticism must be as important as the one Protestants accept, i e the Bible as God's word. And the canon Protestants reject (an Old Testament with more canonical books than Masoretic Tenakh) is as much covered by that consensus as the canon they accept (no difference about number of New Testament books).

Can you be convinced by any evidence for God?

Niels, once again, protein vesicles can be ruled out as initial component of abiogenesis, since presupposing life to produce the proteins. Now as to lipid vesicles, which in the following list of lipids (wiki) could have been around before the primitive amino acids synthesised from methane, ammoniak etc, with lightnings? And which of them would have kept for long in an environment full of ammoniak? Here is the list:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lipids

Niels Steigenga

+Hans-Georg Lundahl

Can you be convinced by any evidence FOR God?

By the evidence, yes!

But I haven't got a clear yes or no answer from you.

Can you be convinced of something to be true that goes against the word of God or the bible, by evidence?

Yes or No?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

It is as far as I can see a question without content.

Could I be convinced about a point by the presence of pink unicorns all through reality?

There is no point to the question, because reality is not strewn with pink unicorns all over the place, neither with evidence against God or the Bible.

As I am not now in a position to access the book you gave as reference, can you give any link about rocks acting as catalysts so that lipids form?

Niels Steigenga

+Hans-Georg Lundahl
Please, It is important for me that you give an Honest answer, not "Oh, I know already there is no evidence for God, therefore God exist" Which is an argument from ignorance.

Are you able to be convinced of something to be true, that goes against what you believe to be the word of the God or the word of the bible, by evidence?

I really want to get a Yes or No answer from you, (like I have given you with your "Can you be convinced that God exist by the evidence" question) Before we move on.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

I have already stated the question is superfluous.

I might add an admission (already there in the blogged republishing of our debate) that I was wrong on fats. They are cell walls.

Besides you have misstated my case. It is not and has never been "Oh, I know already there is no evidence for God, therefore God exist". But rather the following:

I have ten thousand items of evidence (often identical repeated many times over) since I started apologetics in my teens (I am fortyfive), and not one against. Very few against the Bible and none held water. It was the Bible that did it.

You can get on if you like or you can withdraw, you have a reason for it since you have a sequence problem in your scenario.

Simple amino acids formed in an atmosphere of ammoniak, sulphuric acid, carbon dioxide and all that, during lightnings. Before next lightning (or simply the unfriendly environment) could dissolve these unprotected simple amino acids they escaped into vesicles ... of what?

Fats are synthesised by living creatures, and in the hypothesis we are talking of a time before these were around and able to synthesise fats. So, where did the fat come from? You mentioned rocks acting as catalysts and fats forming on them (or something), have you a link to a credible ONLINE source for that? Would that have been in the same atmosphere as described as origin of the first simple amino acids or an earlier one? Would the fats have survived the exposure to the new atmosphere with sulphuric acid and all that?

Or do you propose another sequence of events, that I forgot to reckon with?

The immense catch 22 problem with abiogenesis means life is clearly not reducible to being a product of matter and it is one pretty good (though perhaps not unequivocal as against animism) reason to believe there is a God who created life. Note: one among many others.

You said you could be convinced by evidence for God, can you be convinced by this one?

Niels Steigenga

+Hans-Georg Lundahl
You asked me also a superfluous question "can you be convinced of God" to which I said yes.

Can you please, give me an yes or no to my question.

I'm not asking you what the evidence, you have already seen, points too.

I'm asking if you are able to be convinced, through evidence, of something to be true, that goes against what you believe to be the word of God or the Bible?

It's either yes or no.

If your not going to answer it honestly, I'm not going to answer any more questions from you.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

It would have been a superfluous question if you could honestly have said you have found ten thousand items of evidence against God or of God not existing. I do not think you have.

The short answer is no, I cannot.

The somewhat longer answer is, no, I cannot, because in fact there is no such evidence.

Oh, if you reformulate it as "that goes against what you believe to be the word of God or the Bible?" - then the answer is yes.

I have been conviced for and against and again possibly for Papacy being Biblical. By precisely argument. Evidence.

Niels Steigenga

+Hans-Georg Lundahl
I would like to admit that there are still unresolved questions about abiogenesis in science.

I woud also like to state that even if abiogenesis is absolutely wrong, that doesn't mean God wins by default.

This is a website were you can find more information about abiogenesis and the claims by creationists about it.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/ 

Hans-Georg Lundahl

+Niels Steigenga , het is met plezier dat ik dit hoor!

You admit there are still unresolved question!

Good. I will take a look at talkorigins, but I am not holding my breath either for them to have solved my specific one or even to be totally fair to the creationists. They did take that trouble to find out the claims, that is something.

In return I will give you another one from talkorigins, a specific post:

http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/postmonth/jan99.html

[You may after clicking have to remove a few extra-letters that appeared through a bug.]