Abiogenesis

[InTheDark]

- Note - InTheDark is not now and has never been a biologist or even very good at biology.

I'm currently reading 'Life' by Richard Fortey and he states with little equivocation that life on earth began only once. I can see why this might be assumed and how it might be close to proven thanks to modern gene research. We lack any second, dissimilar life model that may have started at some other time and followed some different chemical organizational structure. If I've got this wrong please jump right in, but I assume that abiogenesis occured once and all earth life is some descendent of this prime event. I'd prefer to exclude the panspermia theory from consideration at this time.

If the prime event is a one time only affair then it makes perfect sense the we have been unable to duplicate such a thing in the lab. The odds against abiogenesis must be huge indeed but there was quite a long stretch of time for random events pull together the first self-replicating, endothermic organism. Still, I wonder.

Is there some level of human technology that you would assume the following: We have failed to create life in the lab and we should have, given the power of our technology. And if you assume such, where does that lead you?

I think we're damn close to that point. All our technological prowess is unable to replicate what most assume to be a random hook up of random amino acids with no outside guidance. Sadly, I doubt I'll ever get any answer to this question. This from the man that insisted on attempting to duplicate the Miller-Urey experiment in high school.

[luckyme]

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All our technological prowess is unable to replicate what most assume to be a random hook up of random amino acids with no outside guidance.

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If it's random and extremely rare, a lab experiment trying to duplicate the conditions has essentially no chance.
A lab experiment won't duplicate the pattern of frost on my pint, does that imply my glass didn't frost up with that pattern?

I could use some clarification of the question.

luckyme

[InTheDark]

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All our technological prowess is unable to replicate what most assume to be a random hook up of random amino acids with no outside guidance.

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If it's random and extremely rare, a lab experiment trying to duplicate the conditions has essentially no chance.
A lab experiment won't duplicate the pattern of frost on my pint, does that imply my glass didn't frost up with that pattern?

I could use some clarification of the question.

luckyme

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It's easy to identify events that have a probability that is less than 10^-81, the inverse of the sum of all assumed baryons in the universe. Shuffle two decks of cards and you're there. Pint glass frost as well.

This prime event occured. We have some general idea how it may have happened yet there's no hint that we can duplicate it with an effort that is so much more focused than a puddle of thin amino acid soup. At some point on the technology curve I think we can say that since we've failed to replicate the prime event we can assume random chance 4 billion years ago also failed to generate the prime event.

[bunny]

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This prime event occured. We have some general idea how it may have happened yet there's no hint that we can duplicate it with an effort that is so much more focused than a puddle of thin amino acid soup. At some point on the technology curve I think we can say that since we've failed to replicate the prime event we can assume random chance 4 billion years ago also failed to generate the prime event.

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I think you're exaggerating what we know of the conditions on early Earth. The Urey-Miller "early earth conditions" was mostly speculation - without knowing the composition early on, we can't really rule much out.

[InTheDark]

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This prime event occured. We have some general idea how it may have happened yet there's no hint that we can duplicate it with an effort that is so much more focused than a puddle of thin amino acid soup. At some point on the technology curve I think we can say that since we've failed to replicate the prime event we can assume random chance 4 billion years ago also failed to generate the prime event.

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I think you're exaggerating what we know of the conditions on early Earth. The Urey-Miller "early earth conditions" was mostly speculation - without knowing the composition early on, we can't really rule much out.

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Obviously, if early Earth conditions were known we could duplicate them and if after two or three billion years of observation we'd have some basis to reject the abiogenesis hypothesis if no life resulted.

It's reverse engineering, not duplicating unknown conditions. There must be some level of technology where our failure to create life allows us to also reject the abiogenesis hypothesis. Again, I think we're close to this level of technology.

[bunny]

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There must be some level of technology where our failure to create life allows us to also reject the abiogenesis hypothesis. Again, I think we're close to this level of technology.

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Our failure could just be that we're not trying very hard. I dont know much about it, but my understanding was that it wasnt a very active field since no-one really knows what earth was like so nobody knows what experiments to run.

[vhawk01]

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This prime event occured. We have some general idea how it may have happened yet there's no hint that we can duplicate it with an effort that is so much more focused than a puddle of thin amino acid soup. At some point on the technology curve I think we can say that since we've failed to replicate the prime event we can assume random chance 4 billion years ago also failed to generate the prime event.

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I think you're exaggerating what we know of the conditions on early Earth. The Urey-Miller "early earth conditions" was mostly speculation - without knowing the composition early on, we can't really rule much out.

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Obviously, if early Earth conditions were known we could duplicate them and if after two or three billion years of observation we'd have some basis to reject the abiogenesis hypothesis if no life resulted.

It's reverse engineering, not duplicating unknown conditions. There must be some level of technology where our failure to create life allows us to also reject the abiogenesis hypothesis. Again, I think we're close to this level of technology.

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What exactly do you mean by close?

[qwnu]

I think this is misguided in a number of ways:

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There must be some level of technology where our failure to create life allows us to also reject the abiogenesis hypothesis.

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You're already allowed to reject the hypothesis. I think what you're suggesting is that there is some level of technology (call it T) at which point we will be forced to reject the abiogenesis hypothesis and replace it with something else.

However, this is not the way it works. We provisionally accept a hypothesis because it fits the evidence. We have plenty of evidence that supports the hypothesis. No amount of technological progress will make that evidence cease to exist. No amount of negative circumstantial evidence ("we should have been able to duplicate this by now") is going to knock down a theory without an alternative.

The other problem is that even if T exists, you would have to know what T is in order for it to do you any good. Until you can argue persuasively for an objective value of T, you can't make a case that we've reached it.

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Again, I think we're close to this level of technology.

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Even if we stipulate that T is a real and objective quantity of technology, why on earth would you think we're close? I would put us no closer than 1% of the way to T.

Finally, as somebody mentioned, I don't think there is much effort being put into this problem. Even a positive outcome wouldn't "prove" that the "prime event" happened this way. It's far easier to exploit existing organisms than to create them from scratch.

[CORed]

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There must be some level of technology where our failure to create life allows us to also reject the abiogenesis hypothesis. Again, I think we're close to this level of technology.

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No, there really isn't. It is arrogant and logically unsupportable to say, we can't duplicate it, so it couldn't possibly have happened. for one thing, abiogenesis could have taken hundreds of thousands or even millions of years. To assume that we can duplicate every possible scenario that could have led to abiogenesis is silly. We really can't be absolutely certain that it happened on earth. It is entirely possible, though fairly unlikely, that life originated elsewhere. We can't rule out panspermia, or the Lost Lunch Hypothesis (Intelligent extraterrestrials landed on earth 4 billion years ago. One of them lust his lunch, and the bacterial in it evolved into present day life on earth.)

[luckyme]

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This prime event occured.

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ok, I'll skip the probability question for now.

What was the prime event you are referring to. Specifically WHAT occurred?

luckyme