Abiogenesis, odds and Morowitz

I became very ill during the time we were looking deeply at the odds concerning abiogenesis. Remember this? Click and read if you didn't read it and want to catch up.

" The odds against life forming from non-life: Abiogenesis

Pasteur disproved it, but....naturalistic, materialistic scientists keep asserting that it happened - life forming from non-life."


I have found the post from which one particular part of the above post was culled. This is the portion from a Dr. James Coppedge book with excerpted findings from Dr. Harold Morowitz. Here is an excerpt, below:

"by

JAMES F. COPPEDGE, Ph.D.

Probability Research in Molecular Biology

"The Simplest Possible Living Thing

Dr. Harold J. Morowitz of Yale University has done extensive research for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to discover the theoretical limits for the simplest free-living thing which could duplicate itself, or, technically, the minimal biological entity capable of autonomous self-replication. He took into consideration the minimum operating equipment needed and the space it would require. Also, attention was given to electrical properties and to the hazards of thermal motion. From these important studies, the conclusion is that the smallest such theoretical entity would require 239 or more individual protein molecules.

This is not very much simpler than the smallest actually known autonomous living organism, which is the minuscule, bacteria-like Mycoplasma hominis H39. It has around 600 different kinds of proteins. From present scientific knowledge, there is no reason to believe that anything smaller ever existed. We will, however, use the lesser total of 239 protein molecules from Morowitz' theoretical minimal cell, which comprise 124 different kinds."


I found the orginal post here. I find in re-reading it that much of this is a compilation of Morowitz and Coppedge with attributions to both published works and personal communications. You can peruse it for yourself to see what is said there and, sure, if Dr. Morowitz wishes to dispute any of the figures or reasoning I would be more than happy to post it.

The problem with abiogenesis discussions is, as Morowitz said under oath in McLean versus Arkansas, right now any attempt to consider the odds results in a, well, I will let him tell you:

"(Morowitz): Well, I find the use of probabilistic arguments to be somewhat deceptive.

Q: Would you explain what you mean?

(Morowitz): In general in the creation science literature, they start out by assuming, by making statements about the complexity of living systems. These will generally be fairly accurate statements about the complexity of living systems.

They then proceed on the basis of probabilistic calculations to ask, what is the probability that such a complex system will come about by random. When you do that, you get a vanishingly small probability, and they then assert that therefore life by natural processes is impossible."


Even Morowitz, a devoted opponent of Creationism, admits under oath that a probabilistic study of abiogenesis will yield an impossibility as a result. So if you do the math, it could not have happened! Why does he consider it deceptive? My take on it is that he doesn't like the results. He will say it is impossible to duplicate the conditions or know them that surrounded the advent of life. Yet he is willing to say, "(Morowitz) : We do not know in any precise way how life was formed. However, it is a very active field of research. There are a number of studies going on, and we are developing and continuing to develop within science a body of knowledge that is beginning to provide some enlightenment on this issue."



On the other hand, a dedicated naturalist will submit that perhaps there have been an infinite number of universes with infinite possibilities, thus making the impossible inevitable! I decided that I would focus more on evidence you can hold in your hand and walk away from the math aspects after running into that line of thought.

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If you still find yourself fascinated by the subject, there are a number of sites that go into great detail on abiogenesis. Click on the titles to read the entire articles. I only include a portion for the sake of space:

"Why the Miller–Urey research argues against abiogenesis

by Jerry Bergman
Summary

Abiogenesis is the theory that under the proper conditions life can arise spontaneously from non-living molecules. One of the most widely cited studies used to support this conclusion is the famous Miller–Urey experiment. Surveys of textbooks find that the Miller–Urey study is the major (or only) research cited to prove abiogenesis. Although widely heralded for decades by the popular press as ‘proving’ that life originated on the early earth entirely under natural conditions, we now realize the experiment actually provided compelling evidence for the opposite conclusion. It is now recognized that this set of experiments has done more to show that abiogenesis on Earth is not possible than to indicate how it could be possible. This paper reviews some of the many problems with this research, which attempted to demonstrate a feasible method of abiogenesis on the early earth.

Contemporary research has failed to provide a viable explanation as to how abiogenesis could have occurred on Earth. The abiogenesis problem is now so serious that most evolutionists today tend to shun the entire field because they are ‘uneasy about stating in public that the origin of life is a mystery, even though behind closed doors they freely admit that they are baffled’ because ‘it opens the door to religious fundamentalists and their god-of-the-gaps pseudo-explanations’ and they worry that a ‘frank admission of ignorance will undermine funding’.1

Abiogenesis was once commonly called ‘chemical evolution’,2 but evolutionists today try to distance evolutionary theory from the origin of life. This is one reason that most evolutionary propagandists now call it ‘abiogenesis’. Chemical evolution is actually part of the ‘General Theory of Evolution’, defined by the evolutionist Kerkut as ‘the theory that all the living forms in the world have arisen from a single source which itself came from an inorganic form’.3

Another reason exists to exaggerate abiogenesis claims—it is an area that is critical to proving evolutionary naturalism.4 If abiogenesis is impossible, or extremely unlikely, then so is naturalism.5–8

Darwin recognized how critical the abiogenesis problem was for his theory. He even conceded that all existing terrestrial life must have descended from some primitive life-form that was originally called into life ‘by the Creator’.9 But to admit, as Darwin did, the possibility of one or a few creations is to open the door to the possibility of many others! If God made one type of life, He also could have made many thousands of different types. Darwin evidently regretted this concession later and also speculated that life could have originated in some ‘warm little pond’ on the ancient earth."


"The Improbability of Abiogenesis:
Spontaneous Generation Redux



by R. Totten © 2003

A basic definition of Abiogenesis is: the chance origination of life from lifeless matter, totally through natural, unguided processes...
--and this is the same thing as "Spontaneous Generation."

When abiogenesis comes up in the course of creation/evolution debates, darwinists sometimes object that "abiogenesis is a non-issue, and has nothing to do with evolution, because evolution only occurs with already living things."

Not true. --There is a scientific term --"pre-biotic evolution"-- which concerns evolution of non-living biochemicals leading up to the development of the first life-form.

And if abiogenesis is such a "non-issue," then why do Dawkins, Gould and many other major darwinists trouble themselves to explain how it must have happened?
Why such excited headlines over the possible evidence of life on a Mars rock?
Why all the money and effort spent by SETI, NASA (recently on the Mars Rover probes), a probe to Saturn's moon, and many others to find life (and/or conditions for its abiogenesis) in space? (...or to find water, which --to some-- makes abiogenesis an easily assumed result). This is admittedly NASA's main reason for the effort.
And why does every newly discovered planet (or moon) that might have (or does have) water on it cause such a hopeful stir (such as the March 2006 discovery of water geysers on Saturn's moon "Enceladus" ...called "the greatest space discovery in 25 years")?

For sure, abiogenesis is a big issue, alright, because materialists (who believe that matter alone is real --and not any intelligent Creator) need a materialist explanation for the origin of life, which supposedly then evolves to higher forms. The late Carl Sagan once said that if only one planet has life on it, that could be a miracle; but if there is life on two, it proves life to be a natural evolutionary process, and atheists can "sleep soundly."

Sagan and others have advanced the above point of view --even though it is not a valid conclusion to say that abiogenesis is "proven" by the mere presence of life in space ...or on earth for that matter. What terrible science that is, because the mere presence of life on earth does not demonstrate that it got here by spontaneous generation, just because someone emotionally wants it to have occurred.
--The actual issue is how (and whether) that life did or could have originated via abiogenesis (spontaneous generation)."


You may wish to check out another Totten entry as well: A Mathematical Proof
of Intelligent Design In Nature


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I found this blog entry to be right on the subject: A chicken-and-egg problem ... how the relationship between RNA and proteins originated

"Here is a nice quote on another major "chicken-and-egg" problem of the naturalistic origin of life, that I found this morning in a secondhand book, "The Structure of Living Organisms" (1989), which I had bought some time ago. The chapter on the origin of life was written by Dr Gail Vines, who at the time was Biology Editor of New Scientist:

"A chicken-and-egg problem ... There is a further problem (although this affects all the theories, not just the `genes-first' hypothesis) in explaining how the relationship between RNA and proteins originated. In the process of translation whereby proteins are produced ... it is the order of bases on the messenger RNA that determines the order of amino acids in the protein. But there is no inherent attraction between the codons on the mRNA and the amino acids- translation occurs via a code, and in order to interpret that code, both a transfer molecule and a synthetase enzyme (a protein) are needed. Since the synthetase enzyme itself is a product of translation, it is very difficult to imagine how the system could have originated. ... How did the relationship between DNA (or RNA) and proteins begin? The basis of all life today is the ability of DNA and RNA to produce specific proteins. But they do this via a code, and the translation of that code requires two principal factors, a synthetase enzyme and a transfer RNA, as well as the help of the ribosomes. It is very difficult to imagine a simple version of the system from which the translation mechanism seen today could have evolved." (Gamlin L. & Vines G., eds, "The Structure of Living Organisms," Guild Publishing: London, 1989, p.23. My emphasis)"



Could monkeys type the 23rd Psalm?


Evolution Encyclopedia Vol. 2

Chapter 11 CELLULAR EVOLUTION



To summarize, abiogenesis remains a big problem for those who take a naturalistic-only view of science but I don't see the discussion to be particularly useful as we go along. Dr. Morowitz' personal viewpoint is an evolutionary one, so he will disagree with me. If he cares to refute what has been published that has been attributed to him that is his right.