Re: Ways to prove or disprove
- From: "Tom Hendricks" <tomhendricks474@xxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 13:41:54 -0500 (EST)
Perplexed in Peoria wrote:
<TomHendricks474@xxxxxx> wrote in message news:dukdja$2b4b$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
If my scenario for the origin is on the right path,
then it suggests both ways to prove or disprove it.
And if correct it suggets clues to build further research on.
If life is the chemical reaction to forced energy from the sun/heat cycle,
under specific conditions. And these 'life' chemical reactions
better adapt it to a sun/heat cycle; then the following list should
also be true.
And if any parts of the list are not true, then it should help
disprove the scenario.
Tom,
Thanks for this list. It definitely demonstrates that your viewpoint
has real content - that there are some conceivable scenarios for the
origin that don't fit into your framework.
However, as a list of Popperian 'points of refutation', it leaves
something to be desired. Basically, it just says that your view
on the origin is disproved if another competing viewpoint should
be proved. But there is no simple experiment that we could perform
today that would refute you.
Well there are certainly many experiments that would put it way out of
favor.
Let's assume someone proves that no dry phase is needed, or
that the environment during the origin was cloudy, or any of
a 100 other contradictory information - it surely would test the
theory seriously.
(snipped)
I have a few comments on some of the items in your list that I
place inline below.
PiP
1. Sun/heat cycle/UV power was the first energy source for life,
and directly or indirectly led to the first metabolism. There should
not be any other source for energy before the sun.
Well, as long as you are not going to suggest that you can't have planets
without a sun, then I think that there are other possible 'planetary'
sources of energy. They aren't as 'global' as sunlight, but they can
be powerful enough in special local environments.
If CO2 is the source of carbon, then you need a strong source of
reducing power. Wachtershauser has suggested pyrite production, and
if you can somehow find a way of harnessing the reducing power of
molecular hydrogen, then that provides another conceivable source.
Or, if CO or HCN is available as a carbon source, then there are many
conceivable sources of reducing power, including sulfide oxidation to
sulfate and aquaeous ferrous ion oxidation to ferric precipitates.
It is not yet proved that these sources did the job, but it is at
least thermodynamically possible that they did so. And then there
are also exotic ideas like Anthonie Muller's.
2. Sun/heat cycle/UV must have forced monomers into existence
3. Sun/heat cycle/UV must have forced RNA into existence.
And forced the first replication - not self replication but
sun forced replication.
4. Sun/heat cycle/UV must have forced cell membrane into
existence.
5. The origin must have happened when the sun was shining
through the atmosphere and there was no oppressive layer of clouds
to block it.
Well, 'soup-based' theories could conceivably work with the
Miller-Urey atmospheric processes taking place at the tops of the
clouds, with some further processing (making nucleotides, etc.)
taking place on a dark and murky surface after the primary UV
products have rained out. Of course, that doesn't give you the
cycle that you want for the later steps, at least not until the
clouds clear.
IF true, I would think I would have to go back to the drawing board.
Even I would have serious reservations then.
6. The origin must have been where the sun was shining - either
on shorlines, tide pools etc.
7. There should be a UV effect on the genetic code
It is not clear to me what this entails, but then it is probably
not totally clear to you either.
I would think that anytime two pyrimidines would be adjacent -
there would be high danger of UV caused dimers - such that
the code would have to either work without adjacent pyrimidines OR
they would only have them in situatious (like aqueous phase)
where there was no likely danger from UV. I also contend that
if you look at a typical tRNA today you can see remnants of the -
no pyrimidines adjacent rule in the stems and loops.
8. All information carried in genes would code for
stability in that environment.
You use an eccentric definition of 'stability' so that it includes
reproductive ability, if I recall correctly.
Well it is different from the usual understood notion. I would suggest
a different word for my stability, but I think the present definition
fits my
idea of stability better than the one its covering now.
But it seems to me
that you are saying something here that differs from my position.
You are saying that the genes code for stability of the gene, not
for stability of the 'organism' (assuming there is an organism).
And that this 'selfishness' of the genes, being interested primarily
in their own 'stability' persisted for a long time before they
finally 'learned' to work together for some kind of 'collective
stability'. Am I reading you right?
I don't think things had progressed enough to have selfish genes.
I think that was an evolved trait that came much later.
I would say that EVERY aspect of the code was for stability (my def.) -
that is what EVERY aspect of life is - there is no aspect of any life
of any living thing that codes for less stability in its environment
that
I can think of, (perhaps some novel positive short term responses that
don't
work long term) - and I would think it was even more true at this
start up phase.
What any chemical or chemical system did that
made it more stable - made it more stable
What any chemical or chemical system did that made it less
stable - made it less stable.
.
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- Ways to prove or disprove
- From: TomHendricks474
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