Melchizedek = Michael
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Off topic!
The evolution of complex life
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Melchizedek = Michael
Verified User
Off topic
I am somewhere in between you and PMP.
I doubt a guy in a white robe waved a magic wand and created cells.
On the other hand, I don't believe in minimizing and downplaying how much knowledge we lack about abiogenesis. The fact that lipids and sugar molecules exist in the environment tells us almost nothing useful about how self organizing complex cells capable of storing, replicating, and transmitting information came into being . The origin of life is one of the great unresolved scientific mysteries.
Calling life an emergent property is just a fancy way of saying we don't know how it happened.
80 years of laboratory experiment have not yet shown how nucleotides can link together into a stable genetic polymer under realistic environmental conditions.
If we ever get nucleotides to link together into some kind of stable RNA structure, most researchers will probably agree we are on the right track to discovering the origin life
Saint Guinefort
Verified User
Actually it kinda does. The spontaneous formation of micelles when you put soap in water is a great example. Lipid bilayers are effectively double-walled micelles. And as I noted earlier studies show that maybe even our chirality is a function of how these organic compounds adsorb preferentially on mineral surfaces. And DNA/RNA is a great, but relatively simple coding system. The chemicals in proteins form the complex structure through simple chemical interactions like hydrogen bonding etc.
Not really. There are plenty of emergent properties of complex systems. Life is just another one. There's nothing special about life physically speaking.
That's a ridiculously small amount of time to be trying and it isn't like it is a HUGE area of investigation. No one is denying that life is complex and that adds to the complexity, but SURELY you don't think there's some ineffible "other" thing that is beyond the realm of science, correct? I mean it's just a matter of time before we create in the lab the analogues of the first life. There's nothing additional needed other than perhaps figuring out the proper stoichiometry and/or conditions of the reaction.
Saying emergent property is just a fancy way of saying we don't know how it happened.
Every research scientist involved in origin of life research I have heard speak on the topic say it is one of science's great unresolved questions, and the origin of life is not simple and easy to unpack.
I agree that 80 years of research is no reason to stop investigating this.
Saint Guinefort
Verified User
No, that's a different topic. Your consciousness is an "emergent property", it arises out of a complex interaction in your brain.
Life began through an "as yet not fully understood" process, but it was purely chemical. There was nothing additional. We can tell that because all of life and all of what we are is a direct function of chemicals. Just, plain ol' chemicals following plain ol' chemical rules.
What do you believe is missing in our search for origins?
ThatOwlWoman
Leftist Vermin
This thread should be subtitled "When Nerds Collide." 
J/K, guys. I'm enjoying the debate. The very CIVIL debate. Good job.
J/K, guys. I'm enjoying the debate. The very CIVIL debate. Good job.
Saying something is emergent is not scientific.
It's an observation. There is no hypothesis, mechanisms, or process implied.
I can observe that conciousness emerges from neurons, or that an apple falls from a tree. But those observations tell me nothing scientifically useful about the process behind the observation; it doesn't even point to any good testable hypotheses.
The biggest mysteries in the origin of life based on what I have heard from researchers is how information is self organized, stored, replicated and transmitted from a starting point of prebiotic chemicals, and secondly whether life was catalyzed first by metabolism or by replication of genetic information.
This thread should be subtitled "When Nerds Collide."
J/K, guys. I'm enjoying the debate. The very CIVIL debate. Good job.
With your nursing background, your academic coursework in biology and anatomy, your background in the biological sciences surely blows my doors off!
ThatOwlWoman
Leftist Vermin
Maybe, but we did not get down into the chemical/molecular properties of life, either. Perry's the king here when it comes to that realm.
Saint Guinefort
Verified User
Incorrect. It is rather scientific.
https://www.britannica.com/science/systems-biology#ref1218077
I believe that is incorrect.
How is that a "mystery"? We understand how the genome encodes data, it's truly quite simple matters of chemical bonding and arrangement. The bases in RNA coordinate chemically with specific functional groups on amino acids to act as the template for protein production. The RNA bases are, themselves, just chemically coordinating bases that function with the right degree of hydrogen bonding etc with those of DNA.
Saint Guinefort
Verified User
You are too kind, but indeed, I only took one biochem class in undergrad. My area was organic geochemistry which mostly just deals with the gunk life forms after it's formed.
I did not say we don't understand the structure and arrangement of RNA. But you just skipped right past about a billion physio-chemical steps to get from an inert prebiotic soup to a complex genetic polymer like RNA; most of those steps which we don't understand. That is where the mystery is.
I have never been impressed with invoking emergence. Emergence is really almost a type of philosophical position to explain complexity. Just waving our arms and saying that life is just an emergent property of chemistry tells us nothing useful about the actual process or mechanism driving the emergence, nor point us towards any genuine hypothesis that is falsifiable.
Invoking emergence is really only a few steps beyond claiming a guy with a magic wand created cells. It is more like metaphysics or philosophy, than any rigourous scientific induction. If life is the result of a vast series of an improbable succession of chemical events, the search for an origin of life in the lab is probably doomed. On the other hand, if we adopt the philosophical position that life is a natural condition in the universe and life inevitably emerges from chemistry, then we can be reasonably assured that the avenues of fruitful scientific research will make good progress in studying life's origins.
Saint Guinefort
Verified User
I disagree with the scale of "billions" of steps. Indeed most of the chemistry that makes up life is pretty straightforward at its core. In fact a lot of these chemicals can do little BUT react and combine in the ways they combine. There's a reason DNA has base "pairs".
Don't get me wrong: I'm not saying life isn't complex or the overall chemistry isn't complex, but again, that isn't an indicator of some deeper mystery. There is literally nothing "mysterious" about the chemistry of life.
RNA isn't really that complex, though, is it? It's just 4 bases and a phosphate sugar backbone. As for "complexity" I'd go with proteins which can be EXCEEDINGLY complex but pretty much only because of the secondary structures. And even those are easily explained by hydrogen bonding and other bond angles.
Unfortunately it appears to be a pretty standard concept, certainly in biology but also in many other systems. It isn't a mystery, it is what happens when a thing with lots of moving interacting parts combine.
I run statistical models on my data and there are "second order effects" which are interactions between the factors I set for the experiment. I have 4 chemicals but I can wind up with up to 8 or so possible interactions which can end up being rather complex to explain. The interactions have created an "emergent property" of the system by their interaction. The system overall is more complex than simply understanding the level of any individual component. For instance if I increase one component it may cause the effect from A DIFFERENT COMPONENT to suddenly flip directions.
Granted this is probably a gross oversimplification of the concept but it is a simple example of how a chemical system can become more complex despite just 4 knobs.
Imagine if you have a knob on your TV with volume and a knob with channel. Now imagine that there's an interaction between the two knobs such that when you increase the volume knob the volume goes up. And when you then turn the channel knob to the right it increases the channel number. But when you turn the volume down the channel knob now decreases the channel number when you turn it to the right. That's an example of an interaction term. A complexity that is not accounted for by the channel knob alone.
I hope I have explained how that is most assuredly not the case.
Wait, did you just use the word "emerge"?
We are not too far apart in our philosophy here, but I am saying that that "inevitability" is nothing more mysterious than just plain ol' chemistry. Literally nothing more. How else could it be "inevitable" unless it were a function of set physical rules? That's chemistry.
Just like really beautiful complex crystals can form following only a small set of chemical rules (Pauling's Rules).
Education doesn't stop when one graduates college, eh? I imagine you've learned more about human knowledge outside of school than you ever learned in school.
I myself never took genetics or biochem in college. I've just read a lot in the intervening years!
Mason Michaels
Verified User
School is just a helping hand out in the world.
In the end 90% of what you learn you learn living life,education enhances that!.
I disagree with the scale of "billions" of steps. Indeed most of the chemistry that makes up life is pretty straightforward at its core. In fact a lot of these chemicals can do little BUT react and combine in the ways they combine. There's a reason DNA has base "pairs".
Don't get me wrong: I'm not saying life isn't complex or the overall chemistry isn't complex, but again, that isn't an indicator of some deeper mystery. There is literally nothing "mysterious" about the chemistry of life.
RNA isn't really that complex, though, is it? It's just 4 bases and a phosphate sugar backbone. As for "complexity" I'd go with proteins which can be EXCEEDINGLY complex but pretty much only because of the secondary structures. And even those are easily explained by hydrogen bonding and other bond angles.
Unfortunately it appears to be a pretty standard concept, certainly in biology but also in many other systems. It isn't a mystery, it is what happens when a thing with lots of moving interacting parts combine.
I run statistical models on my data and there are "second order effects" which are interactions between the factors I set for the experiment. I have 4 chemicals but I can wind up with up to 8 or so possible interactions which can end up being rather complex to explain. The interactions have created an "emergent property" of the system by their interaction. The system overall is more complex than simply understanding the level of any individual component. For instance if I increase one component it may cause the effect from A DIFFERENT COMPONENT to suddenly flip directions.
Granted this is probably a gross oversimplification of the concept but it is a simple example of how a chemical system can become more complex despite just 4 knobs.
Imagine if you have a knob on your TV with volume and a knob with channel. Now imagine that there's an interaction between the two knobs such that when you increase the volume knob the volume goes up. And when you then turn the channel knob to the right it increases the channel number. But when you turn the volume down the channel knob now decreases the channel number when you turn it to the right. That's an example of an interaction term. A complexity that is not accounted for by the channel knob alone.
I hope I have explained how that is most assuredly not the case.
Wait, did you just use the word "emerge"?
We are not too far apart in our philosophy here, but I am saying that that "inevitability" is nothing more mysterious than just plain ol' chemistry. Literally nothing more. How else could it be "inevitable" unless it were a function of set physical rules? That's chemistry.
Just like really beautiful complex crystals can form following only a small set of chemical rules (Pauling's Rules).
I don't think some of the world's top biochemists would be actively working on origin of life research if the answers were so easy and practically staring us in the face, as you have seemingly been implying.
Claiming that life is a natural consequence of the universe, and that life inevitably emerges from chemistry is a metaphysical claim. Not a scientific one.
There's nothing wrong with metaphysics in science. Einstein was naturally predisposed to thinking the universe was static and infinitely old, because that was more philosophically satisfying to him -- even though it turned out ultimately to be wrong
I try to be much more cautious in leaping to conclusions and making unsubstantiated claims about the origin of life
What seems patently obvious is there are two basic possibilities.
Life on earth resulted from a complex series of improbable chemical steps; a perfect storm of events if you will. In which case we likely never be able to replicate or stumble across those conditions in a lab.
Of, we can assume that life inevitably emerges from chemistry and the universe is chock full of cellular life. There's no evidence for that, it is a metaphysical position. But if true (and I'm hopeful it is) there should be much promising research in the decades ahead.
Saint Guinefort
Verified User
Well, so long as you studiously avoid ANY of the chemistry I've mentioned so far you might have a point.
Here we differ. You say "improbable" but of course that is not technically accurate. As I've now stated on a NUMBER of occasions these chemical reactions are pretty standard and not in any way mysterious.
I will agree that the conditions which generated the first "living cell" (such as it was) was possibly rare, but hardly incomprehensibly so. Again, all I can rely on is the chemistry which is pretty jive-old standard chemistry.
That doesn't necessarily follow. Just because we have not yet found those conditions does not make it unlikely in any sense. It is like saying that no one can win the lottery just because the odds of finding the exact combination are low.
It is in no way a "Metaphysical" position. It is an hypothesis predicated on only available concepts all of which are well established.
It is akin to finding a book in a field. You don't know how it got there but you are pretty sure you know how it did based on what you know about where books come from, how they are made, and how they can be carried around etc. It is not a "metaphysical" position to suggest that the book was made by people using standard book-making techniques and was carried to the site.
Of course there will be promising research as their should. It's more akin to the efforts to get fusion going than anything else. We know the pieces parts, we just need to figure out how they go together to get the expected results.
We'll have to agree to disagree
You think the origin of life is super easy to understand and figure out.
I think it is an active area of research by the world's top biochemists and it's one of the great unresolved scientific questions.
Saint Guinefort
Verified User
Agreed. Let me know if you want to talk about the chemistry since that's essentially the topic at hand.